Mecha time!
Added 2019-09-28 13:13:54 +0000 UTCA bit of a science fiction twist in Fantasy Re-Armed this episode where I look for the best melee weapon for a mecha giant robots.
Comments
(I don't mean to be critical, by the way, I just love geeking out about these things as much as you do. Greath job with everything!)
Erik Eldritch
2019-09-30 04:18:55 +0000 UTCI think there are some possible reasons to use melee attacks with mecha that wouldn't work for humans with lazer swords. One possible reason for using melee weapons instead of projectiles is that they should be safer for the mecha itself than projectiles. If you read about real-life tank battles (and I super-recommend the documentary series Greatest Tank Battles) most tanks are almost indestructible, except for two main weak points, the fuel tanks and the ammunition storage, which destroy the tank completely if hit. (same with battleships, now that I think about it) This is actually one of the reasons why rail-guns are more attractive, because they work without the need for any explosives. Any explosives you have onboard your mech is potentially dangerous to yourself, so if you can get away with a non-explosive melee weapon instead, you're automatically better defended. Secondarily, ammo and missiles allegedly take up space and weight, so a melee-oriented battle mech should be smaller, lighter and faster. (smallness should be good so you are less of a target, take up less hangar space, cheaper to build, etc) Of course, futuristic sci-fi weapons like rail-guns and lasers solve some of these problems, but those two specifically have the real-life problem of drawing a lot of power, which means needing a bigger generator, which means more fuel and weight which might offset the advantage of not carrying explosives. (assuming fuel is explosive) There's also stealth to consider, which might sound stupid, but if jet planes and battleships use stealth, giant robots should consider it too. Stealth and surprise have been staples of warfare since the dawn of time. If you're a fan of Gundam Wing, the Gundam Boys are fighting a guerilla war against the forces of Earth, and if you study their tactics, one of the big advantages of their Gundams is that they can appear without warning and disappear without a trace. Allegedly, a melee weapon could be more stealthy than an explosive projectile, and you sometimes see the Gundam Boys start with melee attacks for the first few stealth kills and then switch to heavy firepower when the enemy is fully alert, and you see DeathScythe and SandRock rely more on stealth and also more on melee weapons. If you're interested, there was a fun real-world version of mecha-melee attacks in the late 1800s. When the first Iron-Clad ships were invented, their iron plating made them invulnerable to all the anti-ship weapons of the day. Famously, the USS Monitor and CSS Virginia dueled until they ran out of daylight. But at the time, ships could only be iron plated above the waterline, so naval strategists of the day imagined that ship-to-ship ramming would come back into fashion, as it would be the only or most effective means of sinking an Iron-Clad. However, this was only tried a few times in combat and in practice, the ramming ship tended to damage itself in the process of sinking the enemy.
Erik Eldritch
2019-09-30 04:17:56 +0000 UTC
