Chris Campbell wrote:
Not really. That single ship would presumably be harder to destroy
than the single units. Also, that single ship almost certainly has
better range and weapons capability than small craft ever would.
Consider a B-2 vs. an F-22. The small craft might be useful as a
low-cost, short range delivery system, but the larger craft could
strike with impugnity from half a system away (and in any event, any
small craft you might use would be weapons systems with propellant
tanks attached, not mechs).
You list a lot of assumptions in that paragraph. I'm thinking simply in
terms of those assumptions not being true. Yes, if you assume
everything you said (presumably the single ship is harder to destroy
than the single units, ship almost certainly has better range and
weapons capability, cost) then there's no argument. But from here,
modern day, to there? Who says any of that (especially cost) needs to
hold? You just need some scientific discovery (don't ask me what it is,
I'm not from the future) to upset the balance of all your assumptions.
Again, from many, many hundreds of kilometers distant.
Why? Assuming superior maneuverability of the smaller craft, that is.
The small craft might take longer to eliminate once they're targetted,
but since your range is better than theirs (since you have bigger and
better weapons, being a larger craft) you can pick them off before
they're close enough to do anything to you.
Is that how it worked for battleships? Fortresses?
If capture is the goal you stick a squadron of marines inside a
stealth ship and pull a lamprey job (attach to your target, cut a
hole, storm the ship). Fighter craft would be useless for that sort of
thing, and mechs would have a nasty target profile that would make
them sitting ducks long before they got a chance to hit their target.
How so? Again, you are assuming a lack of advancement that might make
mechs not sitting ducks. I'm not saying that it would happen, just that
I see nothing *now* that states that the future will turn out as you
assume, either in terms of engineering or cost.
In terms of ever. No matter the technological development of the time,
it will always be more efficient to make a simple design as opposed to
a complex design.
Explain, then, the difference in philosophy of NATO vs. Warsaw Pact
weapons design, specifically tanks and planes back when we made fewer,
more complex but better tanks and jets.
A fighter/bomber/whatever will always be better for ordinance
delivery, a stealth ship/inside job will always be better for capture,
etc. Mechs just aren't that useful unless you're working in an
environment where crawling around and manipulating your environment
are the order of the day. They're plausible in a setting like GitS
(kinda). They aren't at all plausible in a setting like Gundam
(barring MacGuffins).
I would say that random scientific discovery X would be the MacGuffin,
yes. Not necessarily what Gundam ended up with, but I don't see the
insistence of extrapolating *only* what exists now to that future.
The question remains: no matter you tech level, why would you ever use
a mech instead of something simpler? Again, talking about mecha here
as opposed to powered armor, which is another matter.
Beats me. The question remains: why would you assume that since there's
no good reason *at the moment*, that that situation will persist forever?
Yeah. a flying tank with an armored human piloting it. That just wins
compared to mecha in virtually every scenario imaginable.
Lack of imagination? What I'm saying is that there are too many
unknowns right now to be able to state that mechs would be useless in a
future where science advances enough to make space colonies, portable
fusion and the like commonplace.
If you're advanced enough to make a mecha work, you're advanced enough
to make a flying tank that will run circles around it. It really is
just that simple.
I don't see it that way. Yet. Not when history has shown how many
times we've gotten the "there's nowhere further to go, this is as
advanced as it gets" wrong. Wasn't there some statement by the patent
office long ago about how everything that could be invented had been
invented, waste of time to patent anything else? That's what I'm
hearing in this thread.
Now, if you're talking Starship Troopers style battle armor, that's
another story. But that isn't really mecha, either.
...
Hovertank. There you go. There was a game awhile back called Centurion
that made use of grav tanks. Unbelievably useful hardware. With them
on the ground and battleships in space there's nothing you can't
handle (and you use corvettes with armored marines for boarding
actions and such).
Hammer's Slammers is a great book series. One thing they couldn't
handle was infantry with anti-tank rockets, even their own hovertank
regiments employed infantry on tiny scooters to accompany them into
battle and deal with enemy infantry with rockets.
It has to be small enough and simple enough that it's a good idea vs.
a comparably sophisticated fighter or tank. Tachikomas are about the
limit there, and if it were me I'd probably stick with simple
exoskeletons with hard points on 'em and enough propellant for
power-assisted leaps. Anything larger is just too expensive to be
worthwhile; might as well invest in a fighter/tank/whatever at that
point.
Too expensive based on what? Now? We're not in orbit now. We're
making robotics and mechanical limbs commonplace now. Of course it's
prohibitively expensive *now*.
Alfred.
--
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"Success is not no violence."
- President Bush, on trying to find a way to be able to claim future
progress and success in Iraq without having to achieve the
complete victory he used to state as the only acceptable goal.
Alfred Urrutia - Digital Domain - 310.314.2800 x2267 - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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