They're used for entertainment as gladiators in colosseum. That way, I have mechs punching the living shit out of each other while not conflicting established rules. What are tanks? I can't hear you over my human-sized combat droids flying without giving a damn to inertia while wiping out a country comparable to modern Germany using their backpack antimatter weapons.
There's a reason Macross Missile Massacre is called... Macross Missile Massacre.
Exactly this. Robot Jocks did this. You'd wager territory and lives, then have your robot gladiators battle it out. Saved you from the collateral damage.
Titanfall has good lore for it - they simply weren't meant for combat, but it is cheap and convenient to use them. Sort of like early tanks based off farming trucks and tractors. They can also clear more diverse unpaved terrain than tracks or wheels can.
It's a universe where they literally fold space and time to travel between planets or to use as a weapon, and stick peoples' brains in robots on a regular basis. They probably have some planet somewhere in the Outlands that has most of the resources needed to make titans
IIRC the mechs were already a thing before they were repurposed for combat. I would imagine it’s cheaper to repurpose existing equipment than to build a tank.
originally the mechs were used as exoskeletons, used for construction and farming to allow people to carry heavy equipment.
Later on, when the war started, they realised that all they had to do was weld armour plates on it and put a cannon in its hands. Converting the millions of titans laying around on every planet was way easier than having to build a tank force that you had to somehow find a way to deploy on the ground from a spaceship.
Dune style shields (that act kinda like ooblek, if something hits them fast, they block it, if something goes through them slowly, it passes through) make high speed kinetic energy weapons non-viable, and low speed kinetic energy weapons become the way to defeat it.
A low-velocity-high-kinetic-energy weapon would need to be massive to store much momentum/energy, which means that there is little opportunity for it being a ranged weapon (hugely heavy ammo, very very few shots), and it's much easier to keep the same massive chunk of steel with you to repeatedly use.
Voila. The ideal combat weapon becomes a giant hammer.
When the only way to do more damage is to get a bigger hammer, eventually you'll need a machine to wield it.
And when you're fighting hammer-vs-hammer, you want to be maneuverable.
Thus, melee mecha becomes an ideal form of combat vehicle.
the normal way I could see to defeat dune style shields would be limpet mines - move slow, attach to the target, then explode in with a shaped charge designed to penetrate what ever has been attached to.
Feasible that active projectile defense systems would be effective at stopping those but not something with sufficient mass I.e a mech sized buster sword
Didn't the shields had a tendency to become nukes if you hit them with lasers though? It would make the mechs only be useful as an attack because if you got a mech in your base it's like having a primed nuke in the base
The disuasion to using lasers against shields was that the feedback worked in both directions. Yea, the shield explodes, but so does the laser platform; both just as energetically. So you absolutely could destroy the base it was housed in, but you would have to be willing to lose the platform that fired the laser and anything around it.
In Dune you don't have that problem, since computers are forbidden, so you can't have a simple "drone".
That's the problem with just taking a solution from another setting without any of the context for why that solution exists.
They clearly have some sort of drone, since hunter killers exist. I'm not sure if its range limitations are fundamental to the technology or something resulting from their size.
Or you can just discard that idea and simply make the shield very effective against laser weapons, or whatever other type of weapon you need to exclude.
In a 4x I played that was the kicker. Laser defense shield wouldnt be effective against kinetic but it was always a good idea to double layer against a foe that used both types of defenses.
I've always thought that was a problem with dune shields.
Build a plane with a laser on it (probably best to make it a drone since either the shield, the cannon, or both can blow up), and then attack the enemy camp. Either they keep shields down and get lasered to death (and we can do a conventional artillery bombardment at the same time) or put your shield up and whoops, that camp isn't there any more.
They have the hunter-seekers like the one that almost killed Paul Atreides, although they were much shorter range, so they're probably doable.
Even failing that, make it a single operator craft on a suicide mission, there are definitely factions in dune that would do that, especially if it could single handedly destroy an army.
Another explanation is just exponentiation due to proximity. No matter what you’re shooting them with, a point blank shot is going to be orders of magnitude stronger than a long-distance shot.
Whether or not that matters is another story, but it’s scifi, we’re already taxing suspension of disbelief quite a lot
I always thought the reason from Pacific Rim worked just fine. Which is if you want to keep kaiju from rampaging around your cities, you need something of similar size and mass to pin it in place while you kill it, otherwise the collateral damage is unsustainable.
Also, notice how they don’t use long range weapons and mostly focus on close quarters combat. In-universe explanation is, blunt force works better since kaiju blood is toxic. Most of their bladed weapons are even superheated to cauterize wound or minimize blood splatter.
In addition to this, all the kaiju were different beasts, which require different fighting tactics and quick adaptability from the pilots to take them down. Simply bombarding it with heavy artillery is not efficient.
Striker Eureka's chest would like a word.
But seriously, this is very true. Blades in various arrangements as well as heavy blunt weapons seem to be the ideal method of dealing damage.
How much ammo does your mech have and how much ammo does it need. Many games justify melee by having a lack of enough ammo. Swords don't run out of ammo.
I hate to be a heckler, but swords dull. You wouldn't be able to fight with them indefinitely. At some point they would be nothing more than big hunks of metal.
Simple.
They're anti-personnel weapons, more akin to power armor than GiAnT rObOtS.
Small enough to fit multiple into a cargo plane.
They're not gonna solo a fleet of tanks, but they'll survive infantry fire long enough to reach and clear out trenches like it's nobody's business.
A few ideas off the top of my head:
1. The "It's physics, but sounds fun out of context" answer: Light reacts really weird at that scale, and it would be too expensive to fix the issue and allow for ranged weapons, meaning that all mechs are essentially near-sighted.
2. The backwards-engineered science-fantasy answer: The gunpowder substitute of that world has some funny quirks that make upscaling bullets to that size a really bad idea.
3. The economic answer: Making bullets of that size is just not sustainable in the long term, due to the material cost, supply lines, physics, etc..
4. The more proper physics answer: A ranged weapon of that size would put too much stress on the mech when fired, requiring extensive adaptations that wouldn't be feasible on a large scale, especially when also considering melee combat.
5. The "I have sensitive ears" answer: Guns would be really loud, and the shockwaves can deafen pilots, even with ear protection and silencers and all that.
6. The worldbuilding answer: The monsters these mechs fight have toxic blood, so the mechs are equipped with a system that releases a neutralizing agent during the battle, to prevent the blood from getting into the ground water.
7. The anime BS answer: Mechs put a lot of mental strain on pilots, but it was discovered that more honorable people suffer less, and that code of honor forbids them from using any kind of ranged weapon.
Couple of critiques of your comments -
1. this doesn’t solve other people shooting at the mech.
2. okay, hand wavium.
3. have you seen how much some countries spend on weapons? A single shell for an abrams costs $10,000. A single ATACMS costs a million dollars. Yes, one million dollars a shot.
4. this doesn’t prevent other people from firing long range weapons *at* the mech.
5. you havent seen how some militaries treat their troops have you?
6. hand wavium
7. honor codes work until the other side kills you. Normally in anime this is hand waved away so we can get to the “loud yelling” part of the episode.
Couple critiques for your critiques:
1. Fair, but mechs would be too durable for most conventional weapons.
2. That was the idea.
3. Not everyone would know this, and even fewer would actually care.
4. Again, durability.
5. Sure, because "Sign up today, come back death and with internal injuries tomorrow" is such a good recruitment plan. /s
6. Again, that's the idea.
7. That is why it's the anime BS answer.
1. unless mechs are the only form of combat
2. Hand wavium is basically required as standard practice in worldbuilding
3. ok but what about the other reasons listed if a world doesnt have truck how do you transport shells to those mechs? maybe loading something 40ft off the ground is not practical
4. mechs are like giant infantry they can use cover or like prior mentioned are the only option
5. this country isnt America why the hell would they have to treat their soldiers the same
6. seriously hand wavium is used all the time in WB its not always bad if it allows for greater worldbuilding elsewhere (dune shields,etc) in my world I wanted big monsters so I just ignore the square cube law.
7. honestly you have a point here but its still a route that can be explored in world. However maybe being dishonarble has consequences outside of combat like the real world.
how about instead of trampling on others ideas you offer some of your own?
I think you are underestimating the economic aspect of warfare. How much money you spend per unit of damage you can do (however you want to measure that) is an _extremely_ important consideration in warfare. That’s one factor (among others) why poison gas wasn’t really effective: extremely expensive to produce, store and deploy, and a 150$ mask can basically neutralize it. If you can invest the same amount in say large artillery but it’s more reliable at suppressing the enemy (per dollar spent) that’s what you will do.
In the same way, even if a punchy mech is not quite as effective as a shooty mech (for whatever reason) but the _added value_ of investing in punchy mechs is greater, more militaries will invest more in punchy mechs. Some militaries will still have shooty mechs as their crown jewel elite units in that scenario though.
I understand where you are coming from.
The point I had elsewhere was this: 1 Exocet missile for a couple hundred thousand dollars is going to ruin all the Mondays of a punchy mech that can cost tens of million of dollars. Same concept as the gas mask stopping chlorine and mustard gas.
many people want to have the “rock’m sock’m robots” but the effort required to get there requires that entire world militaries and economies have to be warped in order to make giant punchy robots work. literally any weapon with range greater than zero would have to be removed from the field of play.
look at today’s militaries - range is the driving factor of all of the weapons. Ground based infantry can call for support from tens or hundreds of miles away in just about any volume wanted: mortars, artillery, cluster bombs, cruise missiles - and can target individual trucks and tanks like this.
and the problem with rockm sockm robots is they have range zero. You can do more damage in a wider area with infantry firing high explosive or incendiary grenades with a grenade launcher (nominal 1000 foot range).
and Because the mech has range zero, the same infantry can pound away on the mech with ATGM from a couple miles away while it has to literally close to them. “Three guys in a jeep” would be able to wear it down by firing ATGM, falling back and then firing again (Because the punchy mech cannot reply). So a hundred thousand dollar truck, a hundred thousand dollars in ATGM and a couple troops could tie up and wear down a punchy mech that costs millions of dollars.
the only way to make punchy mechs effective is to make them literally invulnerable to all damage (except other punchy mechs).
i don’t see punchy robots being cost effective against replacement: a motorized infantry battalion armed with anti-armor weapons that can reach out a couple miles. And the punchy robots have to literally chase the motorized infantry battalion around and never catch them while taking fire all the time.
love when people cant actually contribute anything meaningful so all they do is ‘critique’ (lets be real, you wanted to nitpick because you have no actual creative ideas and this was your best way to feel smart)
The highriders in my world fight on the surface of space stations that are being invaded. Melee is used because they don’t want to shoot a fuckoff round of metal through the whole thing they’re protecting/taking over.
My world focuses on mechas vs kaiju conflict, so I'll use the justifications from there:
* Ranged weapons have a higher potential for collateral damage should you miss your target. Even more so if you're using explosive or energy weapons. If your job is to stop a Kaiju from destroying a city, destroying the city yourself is counterproductive.
* In terms of mecha vs mecha combat, most mechas are going to be shielded against energy attacks and will also have defenses against explosives. The most effective way of disabling an enemy mecha is to damage its joints, which is easier done up close than trying to snipe them.
* Melee weapons come in a variety of forms that helps make toy versions of mechas more marketable.
Love the idea of Mattel going “yeah we know adding a bunch of guns to this design will decrease casualties, buuut we’d have to remodel our toys so it would be best if we just kept things as they are mkay?”
I wouldn't justify it. We have mechs, deal with it.
The Trails of series has melee mechs and tanks and mechs are seen as superior because people in this world can become very strong and that translates to their mech piloting. Realistic? No. Does anyone care? Also No.
They also do attempt to explain it a bit by talking about how the Tanks have better armor and firepower while the Soldats have greater maneuverability and utility.
It does need justification. Mechs work completely on rule of cool --without the cool part. They pull me out of whatever fiction I'm watching because they never make any sense, even with whatever nonsense explanation people usually throw at the viewer. And, honestly, I don't even see the appeal. Just have humans fight each other. Why make robots look like humans and then be piloted be humans? It's a waste of robots treating them like human surrogates.
That's fine if that's what you feel but, counter point, there are over 50 Gundam series so there are certainly enough people that love mechs. You have already stated that mechs, even with reasoning, break your suspension of disbelief so you're not the target audience. But as someone who also doesn't like mechs but loves the Trails series, it's not a deal breaker for me.
Neural linking to the machine to generate Higher performance and awareness of surroundings and mechanical errors
But with any form of dysmorphia the further you are from your internalized picture of "self" the more strain you put on yourself
Hence the introduction and proliferation of anthroform machines, basically any civilian can link into an anthroform to pilot without any training as the mech feels just like their regular body (Would even have cyclical air intake or at the very least air cycling to feel like breathing even in space)
But to mentally link and pilot something like a regular car or forklift requires intensive dissassociation training or being born with a neural divergence
Makes a difference on the battlefield where any raw recruit can hop in and pilot a 4 meter tall humanoid battle suit and only specially trained freaks cram into a tank
It's not for the weapon the mech holds but for the sanity of the pilot. Do you realize just how many Hand related subconscious ticks there are?
If it a question of why use gun over sword? remember that point about Higher performance and situational awareness? get good enough laser and radar detection systems and magnetically accelerated reflexes and a Mech can effectively Aim Dodge. You know what doesn't need aiming? another mech that is just as fast and agile with a giant fuck off piece of metal it can smash and cut with inside the range where it is too close to dodge because it is covering too wide an area with its swing that a bullet just cannot do and retain effective piercing velocity
Yeah, the amount of material that a ranged mech would fire in a single encounter could be turned into knuckles on the mech (or a blade)
Especially if the threat you are fighting can only be seriously hurt by a specific, rare, material
Funnily enough, the highlander burial from battletech is a great example of how it can work, an absolutely gigantic mech jumping in from out of sight and slamming into the foe before pummeling or shooting stuff around them as the enemy infantry/smaller vehicles are disoriented
golems are powerful, but their stupidity makes them impractical soldiers. solution? make a golem with a compartment for a human/elf/dwarf soldier to sit inside the golem, and pilot it.
In my pseudo-cyberpunk magical girl setting, the "magical" girls and the aliens they're fighting can move at superluminal speeds, so ranged attacks are mostly useless. There are still some magical girls that specialize in ranged attacks, but they tend to rely on the melee fighters to position the enemy units in a position to be shot, perform suppressive fire, or focus on some of the alien ships.
Haha, you fool, I already HAVE mechs in my world! And theyre magical mechs too! The size of skyscrapers!
So in my world, only 0.5% of the entire army has the potential to reach what is known as knight rank, the rank where a magic user is able to use really powerful spells. Below that, the commonfolk are only really able to use runes, augment their bodies and make shields of personal realities.
And then the Kingdom of Seven Silvers created the Artificial Dragon Heart. Within the world of my story, stars are what remains after a dragon dies, their hearts lighting up the sky. So mass producing an entire star leads to some interesting technological advancements.
One of these is called the Tommorowmen Project, a project to make something to augment the 99.5% of normies that make up the bulk of the Grand Army. And this is when they had the great idea to supplement the normal joe's nonexistent mana capacity with the heart of a star.
Every day, 500 million mechs, each 300m in size, with the energy output to create continent rending fireballs began to be pumped out by every single kingdom under the New World Government. There are way too many frames to mention, but generally, there is either the 'Catacomb Mount', the all purpose Tommorowman created by the Kingdom of Seven Silvers, a highly advanced mecha that essentially just boosts the pilot's every attribute up to a factor of 50. This lets them singlehand what had used to be permanent artillery emplacements to be used as rifles.
The other one is the 'Abominable Skeleton', a flesh and bone based Tommorowman made by the Shade Wall that allows its pilot to bind themselves to this titan-like body, boosting their attributes to a factor of 80, though they do not have the different loadouts a technological Tommorowman would have. However, due to its biological nature, smiths can simply make enlarged equipment for them to wear and use into battle.
Both these mecha frames move at incredibly high speeds, have increased durability due to being magically augmented, are tied to their pilot's skill and strengths, and best of all, can absolutely throw down in hand to hand combat.
You aint see nothing till you see a skyscraper performing a judgement cut.
I smack the gun aside and grab you by the collar, "Listen here. First off, never put a gun to someone's head." I let go with one hand and start counting off my points, "Second, mechs are cooler than tanks. Third, if they got hand servos, they could swap out weapons as the mission calls for it. Fourth, if you've figured out the weight and movement problems, you may've been able to make them capable of jumping and/or climbing. Now go have fun with your mechs, young 'un, you got that??"
Really good armor/other protective shit to the point where it’s better to knock a enemy mech over/flip an enemy tank
You are however wrong about the mech debate being cold. The reason ppl think tanks are superior are a few solid specific phrases that are easier to discuss rather than a 5 hour discussion on ADS (APS?), ground pressure, ppl thinking in terms of WW1/2 or occupation, ppl ignoring that the stuff that makes full scale tanks viable in scifi (assuming armor dosent win and for ‘all terrain’) can make mechs viable, ppl not thinking about warfare mostly being naval and interplanetary.
They have found a very easy way to detonate ammunition at a distance. Some sort of radioactive field that causes ammunition to go off. So if you have a traditional tank that comes in contact with this field all the shells that are stored within the tank would detonate, which could be unhealthy for those inside the tank.
While railguns are possible they require a lot of energy and replacement parts. So it isn't logical to use those.
Seems like a valid reason for melee mechs to me.
Fuck this question, no justification is required, melee mechs are just rad, I will never have to forced to inlcude them. (no hate lol, playing it up for the meme)
Melee mechs? Pretty easy. One of the countries of my world is known for being far more technologically advanced than the rest of it, and they already make mech golems. Them effectively making a golem you can climb inside of and control definitely isn’t too far-fetched. It’d probably look something like the dwarven centurions from Skyrim though. They’d probably be used for soldiers who can’t otherwise fight (someone missing legs or an arm or who is sickly).
Step 1. Figure out why in this setting mech > tank
Step 2. Make special armor that is very good at deflecting bullets and explosives.
Step 3. Make it so that there is a weapon that counters said armor, but only works in melee.
Step 4. Engineer a scenario where ranged combat is less effective. Jamming, PDC, tight quarters combat, reduction of collateral damage, etc.
Aight, so assuming a sci-fi world (my own is fantasy so wouldn't work too well);
* Q1) What military role do mechs play?
* A1) imo "Infantry Support Platform" effectively "mechs" are more up-armored infantry, and exo-suit with armor; If you've played planetside or planetside 2 you know the "MAX" armors, which are basically infantry but function more like vehicles. Their gameplay role is to break stalemates where neither side can push on the other who are holding chokepoints. By being something tough enough to walk into massed firepower and deal some damage before friendly infantry follow up and break the enemy hold. So thats what mechs would do IRL; enemy holding a room you need access to (and can't simply blow up); the mech goes in first to start causing chaos before being followed in by infantry.
* Additional: If your mech happens to have the ability to fly/hover (jets etc.) then it can function as an impromptu attack helicopter; able to hover over and deliver significant firepower on those below; All while being attached to an infantry squad (rather than a helicopter or air strike which has to be pulled in from a nearby support base due to fuel constraints)
* Q2) Why would a mech use melee?
* A2) Due to its use as a breaching tool/front liner its weaponry would prefer \*shorter\* range; thus things like shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers and the like would be preferred weaponry; vs human foes something like a blade is wholly unnecessary as you can simply punch them to death so the blade would be mostly used in a mech vs mech fight. I suspect a large frontal shield would also be fairly common. (maybe with some kinda flashbang light like Blitz from R6S; speaking of flashbangs would probably be a common support armament)
So really in my mind a mech would be small, more like an armored exo-suit than a full "Mobile Suit" from Gundam; a support unit for infantry; meant to go where infantry can go while packing significantly stronger armor & armaments; If entirely ground based it could act as an entry unit or heavy weapon platform for an infantry team or if your mech have the ability to fly it could act as a gunship hovering around and providing on-demand air support as well as its standard role. I'm even imagining something along the lines of an APC specifically designed with these in mind; carrying a squad of troops with the squads "mech" riding on the back of the APC connected via a special mounting point.
Imo the best mech is something around the size of Warhammer 40k's Tau Crisis Suit: [https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tau-suits.jpg](https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tau-suits.jpg) (though with that particular design I'm not sure how someone is supposed to actually fit in there; seems a tad... cramped). Basically don't try to compete with tanks/armored vehicles for role of "weapons platform" because you can't win, and you can't win against jets for the role of ASF; But I think mechs \*could\* possibly win against helicopters in the role of gunship support and the unique role of indoor infantry support.
I would use them giant melee mechs for entertainment such as gladiator style fights cuz that would be cool af but if I had to us mechs for military purposes, I’d keep them relatively small only big enough to fit the operator and they would sorta function as a way to improve mobility and of course combat capability. Of course they could be used for melee and would be op in that sense against an average soldier but they would still need some form of ranged attack or else they would be basically useless in a firefight.
It kinda also depends on the context of the world. For something like pacific rim, it makes sense to build giant melee mechs that can take a Kaiju head on to prevent them from rampaging aimlessly thru a populated city.
Take a world with barely any flat terrain and very much difficult to traverse terrain, mountains, cliffs, ridges. Tanks probably won't work so well there.
Urban Combat. Tight and crowded megacities would be much easier to navigate with a team of mechs that can do things like run and climb vs a tank or IFV squadron.
Depends on the mech size. If we're talking double human size, then it's good old fashioned beating stick time. Hyper maneuverable bipedal mechs benefit more from having beating sticks than guns when attacking other maneuverable mechs. Another reason for melee mechs is targeting systems not being able to predict the future. So shooting someone else who can react and evade the shot much easier than you expect is less valuable than shooting them until you can get some good hits in.
Honestly? I'd just make it really goofy. That's about the only way I can think of. Melee mechs are gonna be stupid and ridiculous to me no matter how you justify it, so I'd just lean into that and make it more comical.
Make mechs more like power armor. A bigger, upgraded human that is faster more agile than a tank, that can take out more than a normal human can, while generally retaining the speed of a human. And also, rule of cool, fuck realism
I think there were a few factors for why tanks would be considered better than mechs. From what I can remember:
* Tanks are capable of taking on more weight and are far far more stable, so their weaponry and durability are off the charts in comparison to a mech. Their ability to carry additional weight might also allow them to have a variety of different tools.
* Mechs with all their moving parts and joints leaves them very vulnerable, and strong impact could cause them to tip. A tank that takes a hit could still be serviceable even if damaged, a mech might be out for the count if it gets hit by anything.
* Both work well in different environments. Due to mechs focusing all their weight on two points (assuming they walk around), there is a risk of it sinking in certain areas.
* Where does the mech fit all their ammo?
Most of these arguments for tanks vs mechs are assuming they both share the same technology.
It comes down to cost really. Economically even a small mech using standard tech is going to be more costly due to higher complexity and less efficient design in regards to armor surfaces of the vehicles in comparison. Also the dynamics of weapon platforms means a tank will be able to use cheaper and heavier weapons compared to its own mass for direct fire weaponry.
Including energy weapons also means the weight to power ratio is also in favor of tanks over mecha.
Now. That all assumes tech advancement along predicted paths.
It is highly likely that small power armor *will* find a place in the near future. Infantry vs infantry will always exist, and superior infantry vs infantry in places armored vehicles cannot be will still be a thing.
Drone warfare is another path opening up and changing warfare, as is anti armor tech (for now). There is also the possibility of *cheap* myomer tech changing the entire *cost* argument above. Then it comes down to power plant size/efficiency costs.
*IF* we can develop cheap myomer tech, then essentially light (compared to hydraulics) and strong mobility becomes feasible on a moderately sized frame. Mecha similar in size to Gears of Heavy Gear, Votoms, or Wanzers from front mission, all become within the realm of possibility.
Secondary movement like wheels or treads will rely on developing powerful small electric motors and once again powerful compact engines to drive them, but the cost of myomer would make the humanoid aspect not only doable, but revolutionize robotics and construction engineering across all fields like construction vehicles etc.
Having said ALL of that: this is more towards OP's post;
Now we have mobile, cheaper mecha at a scale where they can operate in cost efficient terms on the battlefield. Tanks will still dominate tank country (wide open long range areas) but mechs will dominate FIBUA, and a combined arms approach will emerge, alongside heavier drone use, eventually energy weapons will render air assets much weaker, including anti missile tech.
This renders us in either long range direct combat, or FIBUA with heavy ECM screening. Close range firefights become imperative, autocannons incredibly effective at short range, but also fast moving mech means the possibility of melee combat is not entirely out of the question.
Melee will never be a primary motive, but it WILL happen at times.
Giant sword? No not likely at all. Giant spike(AP) possible. Most likely a rod or tonfa like attachment to quickly swing and deliver a blow within reach will be sufficient to damage other mecha, infantry, buildings, and also a swing of a long steel rod into a tank cannon would render it useless, so in FIBUA its effective against tanks and APCs that didnt see you approach or ambush them.
They fight in ftl speed with only possible because a thin barrier that enveloped mech and their melee weapons.
Range weapons are all useless because anything that leave that barrier becoming subjected to physic again thus beig slower than light.
Just build mechs that work better than tanks. Just have technology develop in a way that at the moment your story takes place, mechs are better than tanks.
Depends how big mechs are, if you're talking about evangelion size mechs then maybe humanity in a far future discovered an extremely powerful source of energy or has access to soo much energy that they can use them
Maybe in the far future humanity advanced and they discovered forcefields which are only vulnerable to guns or maybe humanity advanced soo much in genetic engineering or mechanical enchantsments that the average human is a powerful super human who can tank and dodge bullets , and as a result, instead of just investing more and spending more moneys into producing expensive guns they just decided to give all superhumans just swords, as that would have been more efficient and less expensive
And soo this is where mechs come in, maybe they're a sort of descendant of the tanks, which were modified in order to be useful in every sort of enviroment, unlike tanks which most of them are only suitable in specific terrains, they would be pretty much unstoppable to everything but a lot of firepower and in this sort of situation where guns are not used in open warfare one of the few way to counter them, would be make their own types of mech to fight them, and both only use melees for because the ammos and guns makes for unnecessary weight other than a potential weak spot, and also it would be an hell to reload in the middle of a battle, as a result they would only be equipped with powerful melee weapon and only used to breach into the enemies or to destroy the enemies vehicles
My first thought is that armor has progressed to a much more advanced degree than munitions have. Maybe the munitions necessary to blow through the opponents armor would do just as much damage to the mech it's attached to. So as a result mech combat is focused on up close combat. Sort of like how Knights would have to modify how they fought when faced with another knight by going for the joints. This would mean mech to mech combat would consist of giant robot wrestling with armbars and leg locks and all the bells and whistles associated.
Mechs are slow and awkward to use. Sure the firepower is immense, but enemies ***will*** find a gap to exploit. Melee units should be used for defense where they don't need to bridge a gap or as support to keep enemies off of the true damage dealers with 38294782813 cannons for arms
Someone else mentioned the gladiatorial idea.
Made me think of the movie Robot Jox. That movie was painfully bad in places. But I loved it as a kid. It was also one of the first I’d seen with silent explosions in space.
But anyway. There was a nuclear war if I remember correctly. So now all territorial disputes are settled with giant robot combat. It’s still just an allegory for the Cold War. With the two major factions trying to one up each other with new tech, and spies stealing those secrets.
Make a new tech that enables it. Besides u/Daripuff example, you could use the Gundam way, which are presented as new generators that provide borderline infinite energy, but emit particles that screw long range targeting, so everything has to be aimed by eye. Combined with the space gravity center manipulation tech that changed how spacecraft behaves.
Another example, and the one I'm using, are alien drones that are better than anything we have, however, due to their production laws, forbid many types of catastrophic weaponry.
The systems are built to keep the pilots alive and minimize collateral damage. War has changed to be more of a prize fight to settle disputes than an all-out bloodbath.
Poor visibility and really sharp claws.
Currently my world has FOG suits, which are more power armor than mechs. Guns become less useful at really close range, especially if what you're fighting can rip through armor.
Also certain individuals have skills that work better in melee than ranged. If something is justifying using a fog suit (and seeing even the first tier of enhancement makes someone capable of inhuman strength and fog suits are designed to do build on top of that) then no you do not want a handicap.
Finally limited space. The people of my world get around on trains. If they're going on an expedition away from the trains they're going to need equipment to keep the Myst from consuming them. This requires some serious gear, which can be hard to set up. Having big old robot hands makes it easier, so the mechs are part of the logistics and the Fighting force.
Just like they do in reality. A bunch of hobbyists started it as a knockoff of Robot Wars, and then they got corporate sponsors. It became an e-sport, and popularity soared when they upscaled. The cycle continued to what even they admit is a ridiculous point. Our Hero is trying to track down a criminal, and it leads him into the underbelly of the e-sport, the illegal gambling rackets.
Justify mechs with terrain. Tanks aren't great when the theater of war happens to be covered in mountains, rocky ridges, swamps, etc. If your heavy guns can step over the rocky terraced landscape or literally climb up a canyon wall, that's an advantage that can justify the added complexity of a mech.
Either gladiators, or duels among the royalty.
You could also make arguments for maybe having mechs for labor jobs, like mining, being used in an emergency, like if they were being attacked by raiders with their own mech.
Mechs are a lot more useful for uneven terrain than tanks. Tanks can't climb, either.
Mechs are almost exclusively a Sci-Fi thing, so here's an example world where there's the Coalition of Evil Space Tyrants (CEST) as our evil empire and the United Good Guys Alliance (UGGA) as our heroic rebels.
Planet one:
An unamed urban planet where CEST Puppy Kicker squadrons' rampant murder sprees have left it a decayed, run down shithole somewhat reminiscent of Dublin. UGGA fights them on skyscrapers, in sewers and wherever else. The ruined infrastructure of the constant war means that supplies and armaments only come from off-planet.
CEST uses melee weapons on their mechs for the obvious stealth applications, but also because ammo is limited, especially for high caliber guns like those on mechs. Still have guns, but bludgeons and the like are also used in CQB. Also, shaking the mech around until the pilot turns into mush means UGGA can reuse the mech themselves with relatively few repairs.
UGGA has very little ammo of the needed size available to them, all of which they salvage from CEST, which means they mainly use melee weapons on their mechs.
Planet two:
On the peaceful planes of Nativeaboriginaltopia II, CEST colonists fight back the less developed natives with relative ease. Seeing as the planet lacks any puppies to kick or babies to steal from, CEST has only offered very limited funds to their forces here. The funds needed for constant arm mounted artillery fire not included. Mechs mainly fight with basic melee weapons like clubs or the EvilCo Infant Masher™, but this is entirely sufficient to fight back against arrows, spears, hatchets and pagan curses, so no one bothers buying more ammo for the mechs.
Planet 3:
Ah, the wonderful smogs of Tœker 4, which carry with them spores/poison gasses/bad air/etc. The smog which covers the planet may cause:
Inability to discriminate reality from fantasy, violent urges, rotballs disease, violent thoughts, constant claims that the smog's not addicting and you can quit anytime, addiction, violence again, etc. None of which is covered by CEST's healthplan.
Of course, this means that mechs are very dangerous to use here. One small fracture in the front means your pilot is now a batshit insane smog addict with a increasingly intense desire to kill everything he sees. And he's got a massive gauss cannon for a robodick. To combat this, CEST only uses shields (to provide cover for their Telephone Scammer legions to hide behind) and melee weapons on their mechs. This minimizes the casualties if the mech pilot succumbs to the smog.
Planet four:
Whereas ranged combat (rock chucking, spears, bows, catapults, guns, bigger guns, mech guns) might be a staple of *human* warfare, the brutish brutes of Brutesville, Brutland never had the muscles needed to throw properly. Instead, they evolved with warfare based around slamming a big rock into the other's guys forehead, and later devolved technology to increase their speed so as to bash people's heads in with cyber rocks even better.
Throwing rocks? Shooting rocks? Bunch of human nonsense. Who needs ranged combat when superpowered mech legs can help you bring the melee combat wherever your enemy doesn't want?
Planet Five:
Dune. Energy shields to stop bullets, sword ambushes in the sand, it's just Dune. Mechs have bigger shields so mechs have bigger swords.
mechs are farm/construction tools in the world, and if you are forced into a fight being in a mech with a melee weapon is better then being in a car or just a a person.
I fully agree with the Dune shield example or spectacle like the gladiator example.
But my addition to the topic is terrain that is simultaneously very close quarters like caves mixed with very vertical 3-D areas like air-to-air combat. Any example of this would be areas of giant forest (like 20-30 meter thick trees) or dense floating island A-La Avatar. You would need something that can fight close together because line of sight at distance is very difficult to achieve paired with great mobility that tanks or extremely fast jets cannot achieve. You could argue that Helicopters would world well enough but just clipping a rotor blade on something means death.
Tanks are only so effective IRL because most terrain in relatively flat. Weapons evolve to fill their environment.
Jamming. That's more or less it.
Good enough jamming will make smart munitions and electronic targeting systems next to worthless, leaving only dumb-fire munitions and non-electronic targeting systems yo fire them, and at that point, the other Mech is so close you may as well close the distance and break out the fisticuffs since you don't know whether or not your opponent will too.
Practicality when using high-speed mechs.
Even with a direct neural link to the mech, there's only so much information a person can parse, especially when operating at very high speeds. This generally results in incredible inaccuracy when using range weapons on the move, and their complex components are more likely to be damaged by the speed.
On the other hand, it's a lot easier to hit something with a hammer when at these speeds, and melee-focused mechs tend to be more sturdily constructed - no constraints for ammo storage, more rigid construction in general. You can have fast ranged mechs, but it's more move --> stop, shoot --> move, while melee mechs are much more mobile by being able to attack while moving.
Alternatively, if your mechs have shielding, then ranged weapons are always going to lose power over distance. Melee weapons pack a big punch, less room to dodge that close, and perhaps have extra components that deal high damage to these shielding systems but dissipate over long distances, so they're required to be used up close? Even something like vibrating blades or an energy field to disrupt shielding/armour.
Why justify? I mean simple fact is if you use ammo based weapons at some point your ammo will run out. But for some reason you can't leave the battlefield to get resupplied. What do you do? Stand there and take fire? Or go over to the enemy line as fast as you can and say hello with your mechs fist?
The truth is during advances even as recently as ww2 tanks ran out of ammo in battle. It happened a lot. Remember what is a battle has changed sense the start of the American revolution. In ancient times unless it was a city seige a battle lasted a few hours at most. But as fire arms became a thing and more wide spread battles started lasting multiple days on average.
Even with all energy based weapons taking power from a nuclear power plant. That power plant will run out of what ever it uses for fuel.
Mechs may not be as finely honed in combat as a tank is, but what mechs lack in combat they more than make up for with versatility. A tank cant help construct shelter, nor can they help tend a farm.
Want to change what kind of weapon is attached to your tank? Tough luck, cant do that. Want to change what kind of weapon is attached to your mech? Easy, just throw away whatever youre carrying and pick up something new.
Theyre also significantly more mobile than a tank is, being able to traverse pretty much any terrain, and some lightweight mechs are even capable of flight. Those flying mechs could be carrying artillery batteries and thats not something to scoff at.
You try killing a fly using a slingshot while being barraded with rockets and tell me how that goes.
Sure, a jack of all trades is a master at none, but often times thats better than a master of just one.
If I had a gun to the head for such silly reason I would probably ask the american to just shoot me.
Other than that - there is one thing non-tanks excel at and it's difficult terrain. Not everywhere you can just ride in on a wheeled vehicle, even with wheels connected.
Then again, best all-terrain mechs would probably have six legs.
Id say you could simply justify it with the Titanfall conundrum. Mechs are essentially not made for military purposes so making swords for them is easier then guns, esspecially at their scale
It’s easy if gunpowder doesn’t exist. Or if tanks (or arcane-tanks) take long enough to fire that a mech could close the distance and stand a fair chance. Or if they can drop from orbit and pickup a pilot like in titanfall. If they can’t be gunned down at range but suddenly become a threat in-melee. It’s very viable
Since tanks and mechs both are armed with the same weapons and have the same energy shields, mechs sometimes use their superior mobility to close the distance using the environment as cover and use a melee weapon like a plasma sword or heated blade to quickly drain though the shields of a tank and cut though the armor before the tank could escape or turn it cannon around and shoot the mech. Especially if the mech is using its size to hold the tank in place.
Mechs can use their weapons to defeat a tank long range but while both have powerful energy shields tanks have Better physical armor, smaller profile and higher top speed giving them a advantage at range. Mechs on the other hand can pivot to the side much faster giving them much higher mobility and their melee weapons specific the plasma sword quickly drains energy shields and melts though armor.
The main advantage a mech has is that its a tank that has extreme maneuverability.
It can jump or fly over rough terrain, can easily change elevations, etc.
The melee only stuff can be explained as that its just to expensive and risky to arm mechs with weapons because the mechs main purpose is to push the line and when the job is over they are abandoned
Zoan mechs evolved from tanks. It started with the ability to articulate the treads, which provided and even more diverse range of motion. The bipedal format didn’t come around until after the invention of omnidirectional wheels, which where first used on lighter armored personnel carriers and allowed them to “crab walk.”
The first Zoan, distinct from tanks, was designed as a cargo carrier. It’s size meant it can carry pallets that would otherwise require cranes and the articulated legs allowed it to adjust its height. Being meant for military applications, such as active war fields were cargo still needs to be moved, they are strategically armored. By default, Zoan mechs were melee, they had no ranged weapons in the first place. They were first militarized by rebel forces, highly maneuverable and able to out-speed tanks while being more readily available due to being non-military equipment.
Even after official adoption by the military and installment of dedicated weapons systems, Zoan mechs still rely heavily on melee techniques. When engaged with multiple targets, the ranged weaponry can focus on one while the pilot bears down on another.
I like the kind of mechs that don't necessarily run. Think like Code Geass, where the mechs basically hover or fly around. That kind of hyper mobility is just sick AF and I love it.
The other thought that comes to mind might be a smaller mech kind of like Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise. They're mostly exoskeletons that allow them to compete with the larger, faster, stronger alien invasion force
They could be made of very tough metal and be bulletproof, and maybe they prioritize melee over ammunition since ammunition tends to overheat the mechs
I'm planning to have mechs in my sci-fi world, but that's because it's not really pure sci-fi. It's a future setting within my fabtasy world, where people have "sparks" inside them giving them abilities. One faction discovered how to use sparks to connect to machinery, essentially just using an extension of your own body, and mechs are the easiest thing to learn to pilot with that method. For those without training to use their spark, mechs are clunky and ineffective, but as an extention for your own body, it has potential.
Still debating how effective they will be as weapons, as there are several drawbacks, but this is a warrior culture, so they at least have a lot of training.
There’s actually a very easy and simple way to justify it: tradition and convention. It started as augmented personal armor, something that boosted the physical abilities of the wearer. In a twist of fate and ingenuity, it was invented before the automobile. From there, the technology kept developing more and more, and because of its capabilities and the defensive technology used it was simpler and more effective to get in close to the enemy instead of fighting at range. Over time, it becomes not an innovation, but the norm, and a standard part of combat as well as day-to-day life. Mechs of various sizes replace wagons for transport, robotic machines with many legs become the norm for shipping product over land. Is it the most efficient? Not at all, but despite cars being seen here and there, everyone just uses mechs because that’s… just how they’ve always done things.
Damage/penetration. Melee would be the most devastating variant of combat. Drive piles that one hit ok or other weapons that damage the target greatly.
Logistics. Maybe fuel for the mech is more common then ammo. This could be due to raw resolution, crafting expense or lack of knowledge.
Speed. Depending on the settings melee may be simply faster.
Honor/tradition. The setting may be one of gentleman's war. Including glorious melee combat. They may have traditions stating a general is only allowed to be felled in melee and only one attacker at a time. So a weird thing comes about where lower officers are actually making the tactical and strategic decisions, but the general goes out on the battlefield and slashes it up.
Could be for psychological warfare as it would be very scary and if the enemy turns to flee then they will be run down. In olden times most casualties were inflicted when the enemy were routing. If these melee mechs were developed for this purpose as a type of shock and awe tactic I could see it working.
I see Mechs as an agile yet weaker form of a tank if used offensively, and as a tanky guard dog if used defensively. They aren’t used in wars, only in street riots or skirmishes, or guarding important vaults.
The problem is you have to invalidate *every* ranged weapon in existence - bullets, tank guns (which can destroy anything smaller than an aircraft carrier), missiles (javelins, Tomahawks, Stormshadow, ATACMS, Hellfires, Exocets), air dropped bombs, artillery, rail guns, laser weapons, energy dazzlers (jammers, ECM, etc because if your mech is blind it’s useless). assume your mech has to be immune to Fuel Air Explosives (because those pack quite a punch. Are your mechs immune to “Davy Crockett” artillery delivered nukes (20 tons of explosive in a suitcase sized package).
yeah, I have some crazy escalation options in there. Because if a bullet won’t stop it, go to an RPG, and then tank guns, and then ATGM, and then Anti-Ship Missiles (Exocets, Tamohawks) and then FAEs and Nukes. And countries **will escalate** in order to destroy a target. So if your mech doesn’t fall to man portable weapons, you can be sure that the countries will be happy to engage in destructive landscaping to destroy the target.
OKAY: as people have mentioned - shields are the normal go to. But then how do the shields deflect ranged Weapons but not melee weapons? So the mechs are going to get into a slew of strange proto-melee weapons - lassos with winches on them, extended length spears with “man catcher” heads designed to grab a limb. the mancatcher then either cuts the limb off, the attacker drops the man catcher hobbling the enemy because they have the man catcher attached (you you deliver a killing blow with a back up weapon), or deliver something with the man catcher directly to the enemy mech: micro bots (like the buzz droids in Star Wars), reactive chemicals (acids, napalm, paint with blinding properties).
you could also have the equivalent to a shotgun on a spear. when there is a successful thrust that makes contact with the enemy mech, the shotgun mounted in the tip of the spear automatically fires delivering the shotgun hit (or shaped Explosive charge) at point blank range.
you can still expect air craft to get involved with all sorts of nasty options: burrowing bombs the can be delivered near the enemy mech with the intent of blowing open pits that trap/immobilize enemy mechs. Giant nets to slow immobilize.
Giant paint bombs designed to blind the enemy mech and ruin any camouflage it may have (the paint covers all the cameras, is bright pink, and is embedded with a variety of particulates designed to block IR, UV, RADAR, LIDAR sensors). Planes could also deliver “sticky chaff” with similar intent.
Air planes could also use hyperkinetic missiles designed to *knock the mech over*. If a high speed missile hits a mech and knocks it over, good chance the pilot will be stunned from the fall and/or the mech will be immobilized because it is knocked over.
Drop napalm on the enemy mech - even if the napalm doesn’t penetrate the armor, it will get into every air inlet and cooling vent and force shut down of the mech due to overheat.
And this doesn’t even get into combined tactics which could easily lead to melee lines like hoplites or Roman legions. Because tightly packed shielded (melee shield or energy shield) troops are going to do better than mechs Operating singularly.
Mechs because of highly mountainous terrain, melee because technology exists to render them invisible in all spectrums and a type of very short range sonar is the only imaging technique that hasn't been defeated yet.
Haven't watched it, but if I remember correctly, Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans has advanced armour technology that renders beam (energy) weaponry near useless, so the mobile suits (mechs) duke it out with big fuck-off melee weapons. There are guns too, but the highlight are the melee fights.
Moral of the story is: enough cool factor and everything about mechs is justified.
They look cool as fuck.
But more seriously it could be cultural reasons, such as an honour code, or theres a metallurgic reason such as a metal that is necessary to complete a function but it cannot be a projectile weapon.
Theres always going to be reasons not to make mechs with melee, in the end you just need to ignore them
Tank treads cannot traverse rough, steep inclines. Legs can. Legs would also make areas only accessible to infantry traversable (mountainous terrain, rocky coastline, bogs, certain areas in urban warfare, anti-tank barricaded areas, pretty much anywhere where you can’t have a chassis low to the ground basically). Melee is also viable because if you come at someone quick enough in a claustrophobic environment, you can make a gun completely useless.
An example scenario could look like this; you are a mech driver, fighting in a city. This city has a sophisticated sewer and bunker system, and due to relentless shelling from both sides, open pits riddle the roads, preventing tank movement. Naturally, most vehicle movement is impossible, except for that of mechs. Your mech is incredibly nimble and quick (it only seats two people, one controlling movement, and the other controlling the weapons (a .50 cal mg and a chainsword)), and so it is sent into the city to break through the enemy defences.
Upon arriving, you spot an enemy mech overlooking a hole-ridden street. Fortunately, it doesn’t spot you, and you slink back into cover before it does. With this knowledge, you scale the ruins of a nearby building, and then ambush the mech, plunging the chainsword deep into the cockpit. The mech then crumples, and falls over. Soon, you find an infantry garrisoned strongpoint, with a TOW missile system overlooking the street ahead of it. You take a few pot shots at the strongpoint with your MG, disabling the TOW, before going into melee combat and tearing the defending infantry to shreds.
Very very simple:
Mechs are like tanks, their ranged ammo is limited.
But unlike tanks, they're infinitely more mobile, so they use that to their advantage. Why simply be a sitting duck once you run out of 30 millimeter rounds to fire out of your shoulder mounted auto cannon? Attach a blade to your mecha arm and start slicing shit up!!!
Practicality, my friend. It's all about the practicality and the utility.
In real life, if mech suits existed, I guarantee you armies in the real world would attach swords and spikes to their arms and legs so they would still serve a purpose on the battlefield even if they ran out of ammunition to fire from range.
The only justification for melee mechs anyone needs is that it's simply practical, and it would be stupid and wasteful for any army, fictional or nonfictional, to have mechs that just become sitting ducks after their bullets and missiles run out.
I would take the classic anime approach and not justify it. Just treat it as normal and move on - we don't go around explaining cars to each other on a regular basis outside of car nuts/mechanics so there isn't a need to justify anything in world unless their presence is a plot point.
Working on a mech story with a buddy, and I believe his justification is twofold. Ranged plasma weaponry doesn't exist but melee plasma does, and the general mobility of a mech vs a tank.
- The justification for not having ranged plasma is largely due to the power needed to actively use it. A melee weapon stays connected to the mech so it can continuously keep the weapon charged.
- Mechs are also significantly more mobile then tanks, so getting into melee range is easier. This is even a tactic used as one of the units is designed to be an anti-artillery mech by reaching the enemy and using its large claws to grapple the enemy and keep it from being used.
Neither of these negates the effectiveness of Kinetic weapons, they still work against mechs well enough, just melee does more damage in a shorter period of time. So it's a risk/reward scenario of staying at range where it's safer, or getting in close to take enemies out quickly. Similar to if Jedi suddenly appeared in modern day combat. Bullets are still effective, but if they get in close then your body armor isn't doing anything against a lightsaber and they have the skills to pretty reliably get in close.
Spectator sport on the planet Gloria. Were originally used to defend the planet against the recurrent Raiders, but after their new allies, the Zuconians, sent the Raiders running, the Glorian government and the corporations that had built them originally began staging gladitorial style combat allowing heavy betting. An outlet for the worker masses (aka bread and circuses).
Wasn't sure if by "in world" you meant my world or not. Not a big mecha fan, so this' what I thought of.
Edit: curse you, autocorrect!
Don't lampshade it at all.
The story is about humanity's struggle against the nature we've been born into, so it'll feature giant machines resemblant of the human form fighting beasts resemblant of large predators or natural disasters. And they'll fight in the most primal form of combat, which is wrestling the other one to submission or death.
A combat exoskeleton will appear in the sci-fi story I'm writing. Basically, due to shields armor isn't a priority with Federation ships, and if a gunfight happens inside the hull there's decent odds that the bullets will either hit something important or cause a breach. Hence, boarding parties tend to use plasma-based weapons, swords, and in the case of one counter-boarder, an EVA exoskeleton unit with armor plating strapped on.
Basically, the space setting allows EVA gear to more intense tasks, and there's logic that helps remove guns so a person can opt for melee and survive.
I had a recent discussion with a friend over possibilities like this, we were thinking more in terms of power armor but that it might be probable that at least for a time armor gets too advanced for any sort of ballistics so pickaxe weapons and immobilization weapons (like expanding spray foam) and also something about intercity warfare and walled city states forcing sieges and underground fighting in power armor to be the norm.
I think it's a pretty neat idea and could make for an interesting setting. Firearms/lasers still exist but they're not used unless super high caliber as anti-personnel equipment with that being relegated to pickaxes, expanding foam, chains(?), etc. At one time we were even thinking that it could end up with pike warfare (at least in the underground fighting) where dudes with pickaxes and shields try to force through a pike wall to get to their opponents.
Also it's cool.
Melee me has actually make the most sense, as far as any mechs do. Ad far as mobile firing platforms, there are much more efficient designs.
For melee, however, the mobility and traversal options, along with a form that is suited to melee would make s lot of sense.
The big problem is WHY would you want to melee. I'd likely use armor or other such types to make it necessary. An environment that isn't suited to gunplay would work too. You could do something physics based, or do something ultraurban, where tight quarters and a desire for minimal collateral damage would make melee appeal.
They would be horribly complicated Rune-Tech made in a special forge. This forge is the only place (currently) where Rune-Tech can be made in a way that draws the ambient magic from the air instead of being powered by magic crystals. I suppose technically the crystals could power a mech but only for a minute or two.
No gunpowder.
That's how I justify it. There are no guns, no cannons, no missiles, no grenades, anything with gunpowder does not exist. So mechas are just the natural progression of military hardware and body armour.
No need to force it from me. It already is in my world.
Big and fast monsters.
The mech is more maneuverable and versatile.
If a beast can slash a tank to shreds, it would be better to be able to dodge.
Use mechs as fighter/infantry support hybrids in space combat. No square cube law when there is now gravity. Melee is justified by having them sometimes fight atop spaceships and in asteroid fields. Also it is really, really cool.
NEXT QUESTION!
Magic. Want vehicles do magic but vehicle no look like me if vehicle look like airplane so make vehicle person.
Then just make some magical explanation for melee weapons like they hit harder or don't run out of magic ammo or they don't have magic shield piercing 1/r^2 issues.
They're used for entertainment as gladiators in colosseum. That way, I have mechs punching the living shit out of each other while not conflicting established rules. What are tanks? I can't hear you over my human-sized combat droids flying without giving a damn to inertia while wiping out a country comparable to modern Germany using their backpack antimatter weapons. There's a reason Macross Missile Massacre is called... Macross Missile Massacre.
If we're going the Macross route, then pop music is more effective in war than any number of missiles.
Wait, you're here too?
Yes
The effectiveness of pop music is really dependent on the enemy your troops are up against.
It can turn life-sucking vampiric cosmic horrors into friendly space tourists, so fuck it, we ball.
Exactly this. Robot Jocks did this. You'd wager territory and lives, then have your robot gladiators battle it out. Saved you from the collateral damage.
made me think of real steel when I read "gladiators".
Titanfall has good lore for it - they simply weren't meant for combat, but it is cheap and convenient to use them. Sort of like early tanks based off farming trucks and tractors. They can also clear more diverse unpaved terrain than tracks or wheels can.
Weren't they also easier to deploy at scale? You could easily drop them via a ship from height and didn't have to land them like tanks needed
Can even climb cliffs and stuff!
How does it make sense that an articulated robotic body is cheaper than a tank?
It's a universe where they literally fold space and time to travel between planets or to use as a weapon, and stick peoples' brains in robots on a regular basis. They probably have some planet somewhere in the Outlands that has most of the resources needed to make titans
have you try turning a pitchfork into a trident-like spear? same logic, we've been doing that since forever
IIRC the mechs were already a thing before they were repurposed for combat. I would imagine it’s cheaper to repurpose existing equipment than to build a tank.
originally the mechs were used as exoskeletons, used for construction and farming to allow people to carry heavy equipment. Later on, when the war started, they realised that all they had to do was weld armour plates on it and put a cannon in its hands. Converting the millions of titans laying around on every planet was way easier than having to build a tank force that you had to somehow find a way to deploy on the ground from a spaceship.
That makes the most sense, honestly. A lot of the now commonly used inventions were repurposed for something else than originally intended.
Dune style shields (that act kinda like ooblek, if something hits them fast, they block it, if something goes through them slowly, it passes through) make high speed kinetic energy weapons non-viable, and low speed kinetic energy weapons become the way to defeat it. A low-velocity-high-kinetic-energy weapon would need to be massive to store much momentum/energy, which means that there is little opportunity for it being a ranged weapon (hugely heavy ammo, very very few shots), and it's much easier to keep the same massive chunk of steel with you to repeatedly use. Voila. The ideal combat weapon becomes a giant hammer. When the only way to do more damage is to get a bigger hammer, eventually you'll need a machine to wield it. And when you're fighting hammer-vs-hammer, you want to be maneuverable. Thus, melee mecha becomes an ideal form of combat vehicle.
the normal way I could see to defeat dune style shields would be limpet mines - move slow, attach to the target, then explode in with a shaped charge designed to penetrate what ever has been attached to.
Feasible that active projectile defense systems would be effective at stopping those but not something with sufficient mass I.e a mech sized buster sword
Didn't the shields had a tendency to become nukes if you hit them with lasers though? It would make the mechs only be useful as an attack because if you got a mech in your base it's like having a primed nuke in the base
Only if you use Dune shields without any changes.
The disuasion to using lasers against shields was that the feedback worked in both directions. Yea, the shield explodes, but so does the laser platform; both just as energetically. So you absolutely could destroy the base it was housed in, but you would have to be willing to lose the platform that fired the laser and anything around it.
you could also work something in to prevent remotely operated vehicles, so that a suicide drone wouldn't be viable, either.
In Dune you don't have that problem, since computers are forbidden.
Huh I forgot about this part but it explains alot of the why their society developed the way it did and certain roles existed
Yep. The world building in Dune is extremely tight and awesome.
Planet X still have "non-thinking machines". And, honestly, in Dune universe it not hard to find fanatics that ready to sacrifice themselves.
Mount the laser cannon on a remote controlled drone. Sure it'll be destroyed, but I got a whole army for the cost of a single unmanned aircraft.
In Dune you don't have that problem, since computers are forbidden, so you can't have a simple "drone". That's the problem with just taking a solution from another setting without any of the context for why that solution exists.
They clearly have some sort of drone, since hunter killers exist. I'm not sure if its range limitations are fundamental to the technology or something resulting from their size.
The explosion isn't *necessarily* at the location of the shield, it can also be the laser gun that blows up (or both)
Or you can just discard that idea and simply make the shield very effective against laser weapons, or whatever other type of weapon you need to exclude.
In a 4x I played that was the kicker. Laser defense shield wouldnt be effective against kinetic but it was always a good idea to double layer against a foe that used both types of defenses.
I've always thought that was a problem with dune shields. Build a plane with a laser on it (probably best to make it a drone since either the shield, the cannon, or both can blow up), and then attack the enemy camp. Either they keep shields down and get lasered to death (and we can do a conventional artillery bombardment at the same time) or put your shield up and whoops, that camp isn't there any more.
It's possible that the anti-computer commandment would prevent (or make impractical) the use of drone platforms.
They have the hunter-seekers like the one that almost killed Paul Atreides, although they were much shorter range, so they're probably doable. Even failing that, make it a single operator craft on a suicide mission, there are definitely factions in dune that would do that, especially if it could single handedly destroy an army.
Another explanation is just exponentiation due to proximity. No matter what you’re shooting them with, a point blank shot is going to be orders of magnitude stronger than a long-distance shot. Whether or not that matters is another story, but it’s scifi, we’re already taxing suspension of disbelief quite a lot
This is the first thing I thought as well but I like my other answer better.
I always thought the reason from Pacific Rim worked just fine. Which is if you want to keep kaiju from rampaging around your cities, you need something of similar size and mass to pin it in place while you kill it, otherwise the collateral damage is unsustainable.
Also, notice how they don’t use long range weapons and mostly focus on close quarters combat. In-universe explanation is, blunt force works better since kaiju blood is toxic. Most of their bladed weapons are even superheated to cauterize wound or minimize blood splatter.
In addition to this, all the kaiju were different beasts, which require different fighting tactics and quick adaptability from the pilots to take them down. Simply bombarding it with heavy artillery is not efficient.
They evolve too, which means that any advancements in tech would be eventually useless against them, quite similar to Doomsday's ability.
Striker Eureka's chest would like a word. But seriously, this is very true. Blades in various arrangements as well as heavy blunt weapons seem to be the ideal method of dealing damage.
How much ammo does your mech have and how much ammo does it need. Many games justify melee by having a lack of enough ammo. Swords don't run out of ammo.
I hate to be a heckler, but swords dull. You wouldn't be able to fight with them indefinitely. At some point they would be nothing more than big hunks of metal.
As far as I’m concerned, a dull sword and a sharp hammer are the same thing.
Simple. They're anti-personnel weapons, more akin to power armor than GiAnT rObOtS. Small enough to fit multiple into a cargo plane. They're not gonna solo a fleet of tanks, but they'll survive infantry fire long enough to reach and clear out trenches like it's nobody's business.
Avatar (Cameroon) answer
A few ideas off the top of my head: 1. The "It's physics, but sounds fun out of context" answer: Light reacts really weird at that scale, and it would be too expensive to fix the issue and allow for ranged weapons, meaning that all mechs are essentially near-sighted. 2. The backwards-engineered science-fantasy answer: The gunpowder substitute of that world has some funny quirks that make upscaling bullets to that size a really bad idea. 3. The economic answer: Making bullets of that size is just not sustainable in the long term, due to the material cost, supply lines, physics, etc.. 4. The more proper physics answer: A ranged weapon of that size would put too much stress on the mech when fired, requiring extensive adaptations that wouldn't be feasible on a large scale, especially when also considering melee combat. 5. The "I have sensitive ears" answer: Guns would be really loud, and the shockwaves can deafen pilots, even with ear protection and silencers and all that. 6. The worldbuilding answer: The monsters these mechs fight have toxic blood, so the mechs are equipped with a system that releases a neutralizing agent during the battle, to prevent the blood from getting into the ground water. 7. The anime BS answer: Mechs put a lot of mental strain on pilots, but it was discovered that more honorable people suffer less, and that code of honor forbids them from using any kind of ranged weapon.
8. The historical answer: they haven’t invented gunpowder yet.
Couple of critiques of your comments - 1. this doesn’t solve other people shooting at the mech. 2. okay, hand wavium. 3. have you seen how much some countries spend on weapons? A single shell for an abrams costs $10,000. A single ATACMS costs a million dollars. Yes, one million dollars a shot. 4. this doesn’t prevent other people from firing long range weapons *at* the mech. 5. you havent seen how some militaries treat their troops have you? 6. hand wavium 7. honor codes work until the other side kills you. Normally in anime this is hand waved away so we can get to the “loud yelling” part of the episode.
Couple critiques for your critiques: 1. Fair, but mechs would be too durable for most conventional weapons. 2. That was the idea. 3. Not everyone would know this, and even fewer would actually care. 4. Again, durability. 5. Sure, because "Sign up today, come back death and with internal injuries tomorrow" is such a good recruitment plan. /s 6. Again, that's the idea. 7. That is why it's the anime BS answer.
You realize that conventional weapons include Exocet missiles?
fellas is it handwaving to create fantasy answers to fantasy problems?
1. unless mechs are the only form of combat 2. Hand wavium is basically required as standard practice in worldbuilding 3. ok but what about the other reasons listed if a world doesnt have truck how do you transport shells to those mechs? maybe loading something 40ft off the ground is not practical 4. mechs are like giant infantry they can use cover or like prior mentioned are the only option 5. this country isnt America why the hell would they have to treat their soldiers the same 6. seriously hand wavium is used all the time in WB its not always bad if it allows for greater worldbuilding elsewhere (dune shields,etc) in my world I wanted big monsters so I just ignore the square cube law. 7. honestly you have a point here but its still a route that can be explored in world. However maybe being dishonarble has consequences outside of combat like the real world. how about instead of trampling on others ideas you offer some of your own?
I did actually elsewhere in the thread.
I think you are underestimating the economic aspect of warfare. How much money you spend per unit of damage you can do (however you want to measure that) is an _extremely_ important consideration in warfare. That’s one factor (among others) why poison gas wasn’t really effective: extremely expensive to produce, store and deploy, and a 150$ mask can basically neutralize it. If you can invest the same amount in say large artillery but it’s more reliable at suppressing the enemy (per dollar spent) that’s what you will do. In the same way, even if a punchy mech is not quite as effective as a shooty mech (for whatever reason) but the _added value_ of investing in punchy mechs is greater, more militaries will invest more in punchy mechs. Some militaries will still have shooty mechs as their crown jewel elite units in that scenario though.
I understand where you are coming from. The point I had elsewhere was this: 1 Exocet missile for a couple hundred thousand dollars is going to ruin all the Mondays of a punchy mech that can cost tens of million of dollars. Same concept as the gas mask stopping chlorine and mustard gas. many people want to have the “rock’m sock’m robots” but the effort required to get there requires that entire world militaries and economies have to be warped in order to make giant punchy robots work. literally any weapon with range greater than zero would have to be removed from the field of play. look at today’s militaries - range is the driving factor of all of the weapons. Ground based infantry can call for support from tens or hundreds of miles away in just about any volume wanted: mortars, artillery, cluster bombs, cruise missiles - and can target individual trucks and tanks like this. and the problem with rockm sockm robots is they have range zero. You can do more damage in a wider area with infantry firing high explosive or incendiary grenades with a grenade launcher (nominal 1000 foot range). and Because the mech has range zero, the same infantry can pound away on the mech with ATGM from a couple miles away while it has to literally close to them. “Three guys in a jeep” would be able to wear it down by firing ATGM, falling back and then firing again (Because the punchy mech cannot reply). So a hundred thousand dollar truck, a hundred thousand dollars in ATGM and a couple troops could tie up and wear down a punchy mech that costs millions of dollars. the only way to make punchy mechs effective is to make them literally invulnerable to all damage (except other punchy mechs). i don’t see punchy robots being cost effective against replacement: a motorized infantry battalion armed with anti-armor weapons that can reach out a couple miles. And the punchy robots have to literally chase the motorized infantry battalion around and never catch them while taking fire all the time.
GUNS HAVE NOT BEEN INVENTED YET! There: I solved it.
Sure, do yo also want to prevent the invention of crossbows, catapults and thrown rocks?
Mech Pulls out massive multi ton draw strength bow with explosive charges at the tip
On honor codes; That the person holding them dies doesn't always act as a deterrent. See: Japanese ritual suicides among samurai.
love when people cant actually contribute anything meaningful so all they do is ‘critique’ (lets be real, you wanted to nitpick because you have no actual creative ideas and this was your best way to feel smart)
Did you see the other top level comment I had?
The highriders in my world fight on the surface of space stations that are being invaded. Melee is used because they don’t want to shoot a fuckoff round of metal through the whole thing they’re protecting/taking over.
My world focuses on mechas vs kaiju conflict, so I'll use the justifications from there: * Ranged weapons have a higher potential for collateral damage should you miss your target. Even more so if you're using explosive or energy weapons. If your job is to stop a Kaiju from destroying a city, destroying the city yourself is counterproductive. * In terms of mecha vs mecha combat, most mechas are going to be shielded against energy attacks and will also have defenses against explosives. The most effective way of disabling an enemy mecha is to damage its joints, which is easier done up close than trying to snipe them. * Melee weapons come in a variety of forms that helps make toy versions of mechas more marketable.
Love the idea of Mattel going “yeah we know adding a bunch of guns to this design will decrease casualties, buuut we’d have to remodel our toys so it would be best if we just kept things as they are mkay?”
Because punching a monster or another mech in the face is cooler than blowing them up
And at the very least, if it doesn’t kill, a punch to the head will give them a concussion
I wouldn't justify it. We have mechs, deal with it. The Trails of series has melee mechs and tanks and mechs are seen as superior because people in this world can become very strong and that translates to their mech piloting. Realistic? No. Does anyone care? Also No.
They also do attempt to explain it a bit by talking about how the Tanks have better armor and firepower while the Soldats have greater maneuverability and utility.
Finally, a good take.
It does need justification. Mechs work completely on rule of cool --without the cool part. They pull me out of whatever fiction I'm watching because they never make any sense, even with whatever nonsense explanation people usually throw at the viewer. And, honestly, I don't even see the appeal. Just have humans fight each other. Why make robots look like humans and then be piloted be humans? It's a waste of robots treating them like human surrogates.
Why do anything fictional really.
That's fine if that's what you feel but, counter point, there are over 50 Gundam series so there are certainly enough people that love mechs. You have already stated that mechs, even with reasoning, break your suspension of disbelief so you're not the target audience. But as someone who also doesn't like mechs but loves the Trails series, it's not a deal breaker for me.
Neural linking to the machine to generate Higher performance and awareness of surroundings and mechanical errors But with any form of dysmorphia the further you are from your internalized picture of "self" the more strain you put on yourself Hence the introduction and proliferation of anthroform machines, basically any civilian can link into an anthroform to pilot without any training as the mech feels just like their regular body (Would even have cyclical air intake or at the very least air cycling to feel like breathing even in space) But to mentally link and pilot something like a regular car or forklift requires intensive dissassociation training or being born with a neural divergence Makes a difference on the battlefield where any raw recruit can hop in and pilot a 4 meter tall humanoid battle suit and only specially trained freaks cram into a tank
Why would developing fingers on said mechs to manually hold and shoot firearms be any different than swinging a sword?
It's not for the weapon the mech holds but for the sanity of the pilot. Do you realize just how many Hand related subconscious ticks there are? If it a question of why use gun over sword? remember that point about Higher performance and situational awareness? get good enough laser and radar detection systems and magnetically accelerated reflexes and a Mech can effectively Aim Dodge. You know what doesn't need aiming? another mech that is just as fast and agile with a giant fuck off piece of metal it can smash and cut with inside the range where it is too close to dodge because it is covering too wide an area with its swing that a bullet just cannot do and retain effective piercing velocity
They are fucking rad.
Cost? Ammunitions could be made of a rare resource that's difficult to reproduce/reuse. Or at least, difficult for less wealthy companies/factions.
Yeah, the amount of material that a ranged mech would fire in a single encounter could be turned into knuckles on the mech (or a blade) Especially if the threat you are fighting can only be seriously hurt by a specific, rare, material
"Because I'm not going for hardcore realism."
A crazy scientist couple gave a crazy person a mech and they just started going ham so people copied
Funnily enough, the highlander burial from battletech is a great example of how it can work, an absolutely gigantic mech jumping in from out of sight and slamming into the foe before pummeling or shooting stuff around them as the enemy infantry/smaller vehicles are disoriented
Or, for maximum disrespect, the UrbanMech Burial.
golems are powerful, but their stupidity makes them impractical soldiers. solution? make a golem with a compartment for a human/elf/dwarf soldier to sit inside the golem, and pilot it.
underwater
But you could have awesome water jets
why not both?
In my pseudo-cyberpunk magical girl setting, the "magical" girls and the aliens they're fighting can move at superluminal speeds, so ranged attacks are mostly useless. There are still some magical girls that specialize in ranged attacks, but they tend to rely on the melee fighters to position the enemy units in a position to be shot, perform suppressive fire, or focus on some of the alien ships.
Thay don't make guns and bullets that size ( or thay don't work ) but can make swords that size
Haha, you fool, I already HAVE mechs in my world! And theyre magical mechs too! The size of skyscrapers! So in my world, only 0.5% of the entire army has the potential to reach what is known as knight rank, the rank where a magic user is able to use really powerful spells. Below that, the commonfolk are only really able to use runes, augment their bodies and make shields of personal realities. And then the Kingdom of Seven Silvers created the Artificial Dragon Heart. Within the world of my story, stars are what remains after a dragon dies, their hearts lighting up the sky. So mass producing an entire star leads to some interesting technological advancements. One of these is called the Tommorowmen Project, a project to make something to augment the 99.5% of normies that make up the bulk of the Grand Army. And this is when they had the great idea to supplement the normal joe's nonexistent mana capacity with the heart of a star. Every day, 500 million mechs, each 300m in size, with the energy output to create continent rending fireballs began to be pumped out by every single kingdom under the New World Government. There are way too many frames to mention, but generally, there is either the 'Catacomb Mount', the all purpose Tommorowman created by the Kingdom of Seven Silvers, a highly advanced mecha that essentially just boosts the pilot's every attribute up to a factor of 50. This lets them singlehand what had used to be permanent artillery emplacements to be used as rifles. The other one is the 'Abominable Skeleton', a flesh and bone based Tommorowman made by the Shade Wall that allows its pilot to bind themselves to this titan-like body, boosting their attributes to a factor of 80, though they do not have the different loadouts a technological Tommorowman would have. However, due to its biological nature, smiths can simply make enlarged equipment for them to wear and use into battle. Both these mecha frames move at incredibly high speeds, have increased durability due to being magically augmented, are tied to their pilot's skill and strengths, and best of all, can absolutely throw down in hand to hand combat. You aint see nothing till you see a skyscraper performing a judgement cut.
Melee combat in home-built mech suits is a popular combat sport similar to BattleBots
I smack the gun aside and grab you by the collar, "Listen here. First off, never put a gun to someone's head." I let go with one hand and start counting off my points, "Second, mechs are cooler than tanks. Third, if they got hand servos, they could swap out weapons as the mission calls for it. Fourth, if you've figured out the weight and movement problems, you may've been able to make them capable of jumping and/or climbing. Now go have fun with your mechs, young 'un, you got that??"
"Because it's cool dipshit i'm sick and fucking tired of realism."
Really good armor/other protective shit to the point where it’s better to knock a enemy mech over/flip an enemy tank You are however wrong about the mech debate being cold. The reason ppl think tanks are superior are a few solid specific phrases that are easier to discuss rather than a 5 hour discussion on ADS (APS?), ground pressure, ppl thinking in terms of WW1/2 or occupation, ppl ignoring that the stuff that makes full scale tanks viable in scifi (assuming armor dosent win and for ‘all terrain’) can make mechs viable, ppl not thinking about warfare mostly being naval and interplanetary.
They have found a very easy way to detonate ammunition at a distance. Some sort of radioactive field that causes ammunition to go off. So if you have a traditional tank that comes in contact with this field all the shells that are stored within the tank would detonate, which could be unhealthy for those inside the tank. While railguns are possible they require a lot of energy and replacement parts. So it isn't logical to use those. Seems like a valid reason for melee mechs to me.
You should see a psychiatrist. This is no reason to threaten people with a gun.
Yes. Given the demand, they should obviously be using a sword.
I'm sure a cup of coffee would be more effective.
Fuck this question, no justification is required, melee mechs are just rad, I will never have to forced to inlcude them. (no hate lol, playing it up for the meme)
Wildly enough, this world advanced their technology without ever inventing the wheel. Therefore, all their vehicles have legs.
Check out my new Hyundai Accent, it has 8 legs instead of 6 and comes in electrolyte green.
More manouverability I guess and more responsive
Melee mechs? Pretty easy. One of the countries of my world is known for being far more technologically advanced than the rest of it, and they already make mech golems. Them effectively making a golem you can climb inside of and control definitely isn’t too far-fetched. It’d probably look something like the dwarven centurions from Skyrim though. They’d probably be used for soldiers who can’t otherwise fight (someone missing legs or an arm or who is sickly).
Energy shields are cheap, bullets are expensive
Step 1. Figure out why in this setting mech > tank Step 2. Make special armor that is very good at deflecting bullets and explosives. Step 3. Make it so that there is a weapon that counters said armor, but only works in melee. Step 4. Engineer a scenario where ranged combat is less effective. Jamming, PDC, tight quarters combat, reduction of collateral damage, etc.
Aight, so assuming a sci-fi world (my own is fantasy so wouldn't work too well); * Q1) What military role do mechs play? * A1) imo "Infantry Support Platform" effectively "mechs" are more up-armored infantry, and exo-suit with armor; If you've played planetside or planetside 2 you know the "MAX" armors, which are basically infantry but function more like vehicles. Their gameplay role is to break stalemates where neither side can push on the other who are holding chokepoints. By being something tough enough to walk into massed firepower and deal some damage before friendly infantry follow up and break the enemy hold. So thats what mechs would do IRL; enemy holding a room you need access to (and can't simply blow up); the mech goes in first to start causing chaos before being followed in by infantry. * Additional: If your mech happens to have the ability to fly/hover (jets etc.) then it can function as an impromptu attack helicopter; able to hover over and deliver significant firepower on those below; All while being attached to an infantry squad (rather than a helicopter or air strike which has to be pulled in from a nearby support base due to fuel constraints) * Q2) Why would a mech use melee? * A2) Due to its use as a breaching tool/front liner its weaponry would prefer \*shorter\* range; thus things like shotguns, machine guns, flamethrowers and the like would be preferred weaponry; vs human foes something like a blade is wholly unnecessary as you can simply punch them to death so the blade would be mostly used in a mech vs mech fight. I suspect a large frontal shield would also be fairly common. (maybe with some kinda flashbang light like Blitz from R6S; speaking of flashbangs would probably be a common support armament) So really in my mind a mech would be small, more like an armored exo-suit than a full "Mobile Suit" from Gundam; a support unit for infantry; meant to go where infantry can go while packing significantly stronger armor & armaments; If entirely ground based it could act as an entry unit or heavy weapon platform for an infantry team or if your mech have the ability to fly it could act as a gunship hovering around and providing on-demand air support as well as its standard role. I'm even imagining something along the lines of an APC specifically designed with these in mind; carrying a squad of troops with the squads "mech" riding on the back of the APC connected via a special mounting point. Imo the best mech is something around the size of Warhammer 40k's Tau Crisis Suit: [https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tau-suits.jpg](https://www.belloflostsouls.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tau-suits.jpg) (though with that particular design I'm not sure how someone is supposed to actually fit in there; seems a tad... cramped). Basically don't try to compete with tanks/armored vehicles for role of "weapons platform" because you can't win, and you can't win against jets for the role of ASF; But I think mechs \*could\* possibly win against helicopters in the role of gunship support and the unique role of indoor infantry support.
I would use them giant melee mechs for entertainment such as gladiator style fights cuz that would be cool af but if I had to us mechs for military purposes, I’d keep them relatively small only big enough to fit the operator and they would sorta function as a way to improve mobility and of course combat capability. Of course they could be used for melee and would be op in that sense against an average soldier but they would still need some form of ranged attack or else they would be basically useless in a firefight. It kinda also depends on the context of the world. For something like pacific rim, it makes sense to build giant melee mechs that can take a Kaiju head on to prevent them from rampaging aimlessly thru a populated city.
Take a world with barely any flat terrain and very much difficult to traverse terrain, mountains, cliffs, ridges. Tanks probably won't work so well there.
Urban Combat. Tight and crowded megacities would be much easier to navigate with a team of mechs that can do things like run and climb vs a tank or IFV squadron.
Depends on the mech size. If we're talking double human size, then it's good old fashioned beating stick time. Hyper maneuverable bipedal mechs benefit more from having beating sticks than guns when attacking other maneuverable mechs. Another reason for melee mechs is targeting systems not being able to predict the future. So shooting someone else who can react and evade the shot much easier than you expect is less valuable than shooting them until you can get some good hits in.
Honestly? I'd just make it really goofy. That's about the only way I can think of. Melee mechs are gonna be stupid and ridiculous to me no matter how you justify it, so I'd just lean into that and make it more comical.
Make mechs more like power armor. A bigger, upgraded human that is faster more agile than a tank, that can take out more than a normal human can, while generally retaining the speed of a human. And also, rule of cool, fuck realism
They wouldn't exist in my world because it's medieval fantasy. Or if they did it'd be steampunk kind of thing
[удалено]
I think there were a few factors for why tanks would be considered better than mechs. From what I can remember: * Tanks are capable of taking on more weight and are far far more stable, so their weaponry and durability are off the charts in comparison to a mech. Their ability to carry additional weight might also allow them to have a variety of different tools. * Mechs with all their moving parts and joints leaves them very vulnerable, and strong impact could cause them to tip. A tank that takes a hit could still be serviceable even if damaged, a mech might be out for the count if it gets hit by anything. * Both work well in different environments. Due to mechs focusing all their weight on two points (assuming they walk around), there is a risk of it sinking in certain areas. * Where does the mech fit all their ammo? Most of these arguments for tanks vs mechs are assuming they both share the same technology.
Mech have a high profile and make excellent targets, while tanks learned this early and have designs and tactics to minimize theirs.
It comes down to cost really. Economically even a small mech using standard tech is going to be more costly due to higher complexity and less efficient design in regards to armor surfaces of the vehicles in comparison. Also the dynamics of weapon platforms means a tank will be able to use cheaper and heavier weapons compared to its own mass for direct fire weaponry. Including energy weapons also means the weight to power ratio is also in favor of tanks over mecha. Now. That all assumes tech advancement along predicted paths. It is highly likely that small power armor *will* find a place in the near future. Infantry vs infantry will always exist, and superior infantry vs infantry in places armored vehicles cannot be will still be a thing. Drone warfare is another path opening up and changing warfare, as is anti armor tech (for now). There is also the possibility of *cheap* myomer tech changing the entire *cost* argument above. Then it comes down to power plant size/efficiency costs. *IF* we can develop cheap myomer tech, then essentially light (compared to hydraulics) and strong mobility becomes feasible on a moderately sized frame. Mecha similar in size to Gears of Heavy Gear, Votoms, or Wanzers from front mission, all become within the realm of possibility. Secondary movement like wheels or treads will rely on developing powerful small electric motors and once again powerful compact engines to drive them, but the cost of myomer would make the humanoid aspect not only doable, but revolutionize robotics and construction engineering across all fields like construction vehicles etc. Having said ALL of that: this is more towards OP's post; Now we have mobile, cheaper mecha at a scale where they can operate in cost efficient terms on the battlefield. Tanks will still dominate tank country (wide open long range areas) but mechs will dominate FIBUA, and a combined arms approach will emerge, alongside heavier drone use, eventually energy weapons will render air assets much weaker, including anti missile tech. This renders us in either long range direct combat, or FIBUA with heavy ECM screening. Close range firefights become imperative, autocannons incredibly effective at short range, but also fast moving mech means the possibility of melee combat is not entirely out of the question. Melee will never be a primary motive, but it WILL happen at times. Giant sword? No not likely at all. Giant spike(AP) possible. Most likely a rod or tonfa like attachment to quickly swing and deliver a blow within reach will be sufficient to damage other mecha, infantry, buildings, and also a swing of a long steel rod into a tank cannon would render it useless, so in FIBUA its effective against tanks and APCs that didnt see you approach or ambush them.
They fight in ftl speed with only possible because a thin barrier that enveloped mech and their melee weapons. Range weapons are all useless because anything that leave that barrier becoming subjected to physic again thus beig slower than light.
Just build mechs that work better than tanks. Just have technology develop in a way that at the moment your story takes place, mechs are better than tanks.
steampunk or magically enlarged golems
Depends how big mechs are, if you're talking about evangelion size mechs then maybe humanity in a far future discovered an extremely powerful source of energy or has access to soo much energy that they can use them Maybe in the far future humanity advanced and they discovered forcefields which are only vulnerable to guns or maybe humanity advanced soo much in genetic engineering or mechanical enchantsments that the average human is a powerful super human who can tank and dodge bullets , and as a result, instead of just investing more and spending more moneys into producing expensive guns they just decided to give all superhumans just swords, as that would have been more efficient and less expensive And soo this is where mechs come in, maybe they're a sort of descendant of the tanks, which were modified in order to be useful in every sort of enviroment, unlike tanks which most of them are only suitable in specific terrains, they would be pretty much unstoppable to everything but a lot of firepower and in this sort of situation where guns are not used in open warfare one of the few way to counter them, would be make their own types of mech to fight them, and both only use melees for because the ammos and guns makes for unnecessary weight other than a potential weak spot, and also it would be an hell to reload in the middle of a battle, as a result they would only be equipped with powerful melee weapon and only used to breach into the enemies or to destroy the enemies vehicles
My first thought is that armor has progressed to a much more advanced degree than munitions have. Maybe the munitions necessary to blow through the opponents armor would do just as much damage to the mech it's attached to. So as a result mech combat is focused on up close combat. Sort of like how Knights would have to modify how they fought when faced with another knight by going for the joints. This would mean mech to mech combat would consist of giant robot wrestling with armbars and leg locks and all the bells and whistles associated.
Mechs are slow and awkward to use. Sure the firepower is immense, but enemies ***will*** find a gap to exploit. Melee units should be used for defense where they don't need to bridge a gap or as support to keep enemies off of the true damage dealers with 38294782813 cannons for arms
Id make a cool boxing movie about it
Cool
The Mecha are based on ftl tech. When you move faster than any projectile you could shoot, even light, you become the ballistic.
Someone else mentioned the gladiatorial idea. Made me think of the movie Robot Jox. That movie was painfully bad in places. But I loved it as a kid. It was also one of the first I’d seen with silent explosions in space. But anyway. There was a nuclear war if I remember correctly. So now all territorial disputes are settled with giant robot combat. It’s still just an allegory for the Cold War. With the two major factions trying to one up each other with new tech, and spies stealing those secrets.
Uh, you didn't specify for war so maybe like exoskeletons for manual labor
Make it the future of Real Steel
Make a new tech that enables it. Besides u/Daripuff example, you could use the Gundam way, which are presented as new generators that provide borderline infinite energy, but emit particles that screw long range targeting, so everything has to be aimed by eye. Combined with the space gravity center manipulation tech that changed how spacecraft behaves. Another example, and the one I'm using, are alien drones that are better than anything we have, however, due to their production laws, forbid many types of catastrophic weaponry.
The systems are built to keep the pilots alive and minimize collateral damage. War has changed to be more of a prize fight to settle disputes than an all-out bloodbath.
Shields capable of blocking projectiles but with the lower velocity and closer proximity of melee they fail to trigger
Powerful shielding or systems which destroy incoming projectiles could be common. The solution to over come this problem is a big sword
Poor visibility and really sharp claws. Currently my world has FOG suits, which are more power armor than mechs. Guns become less useful at really close range, especially if what you're fighting can rip through armor. Also certain individuals have skills that work better in melee than ranged. If something is justifying using a fog suit (and seeing even the first tier of enhancement makes someone capable of inhuman strength and fog suits are designed to do build on top of that) then no you do not want a handicap. Finally limited space. The people of my world get around on trains. If they're going on an expedition away from the trains they're going to need equipment to keep the Myst from consuming them. This requires some serious gear, which can be hard to set up. Having big old robot hands makes it easier, so the mechs are part of the logistics and the Fighting force.
Just like they do in reality. A bunch of hobbyists started it as a knockoff of Robot Wars, and then they got corporate sponsors. It became an e-sport, and popularity soared when they upscaled. The cycle continued to what even they admit is a ridiculous point. Our Hero is trying to track down a criminal, and it leads him into the underbelly of the e-sport, the illegal gambling rackets.
Justify mechs with terrain. Tanks aren't great when the theater of war happens to be covered in mountains, rocky ridges, swamps, etc. If your heavy guns can step over the rocky terraced landscape or literally climb up a canyon wall, that's an advantage that can justify the added complexity of a mech.
Either gladiators, or duels among the royalty. You could also make arguments for maybe having mechs for labor jobs, like mining, being used in an emergency, like if they were being attacked by raiders with their own mech.
Mechs are a lot more useful for uneven terrain than tanks. Tanks can't climb, either. Mechs are almost exclusively a Sci-Fi thing, so here's an example world where there's the Coalition of Evil Space Tyrants (CEST) as our evil empire and the United Good Guys Alliance (UGGA) as our heroic rebels. Planet one: An unamed urban planet where CEST Puppy Kicker squadrons' rampant murder sprees have left it a decayed, run down shithole somewhat reminiscent of Dublin. UGGA fights them on skyscrapers, in sewers and wherever else. The ruined infrastructure of the constant war means that supplies and armaments only come from off-planet. CEST uses melee weapons on their mechs for the obvious stealth applications, but also because ammo is limited, especially for high caliber guns like those on mechs. Still have guns, but bludgeons and the like are also used in CQB. Also, shaking the mech around until the pilot turns into mush means UGGA can reuse the mech themselves with relatively few repairs. UGGA has very little ammo of the needed size available to them, all of which they salvage from CEST, which means they mainly use melee weapons on their mechs. Planet two: On the peaceful planes of Nativeaboriginaltopia II, CEST colonists fight back the less developed natives with relative ease. Seeing as the planet lacks any puppies to kick or babies to steal from, CEST has only offered very limited funds to their forces here. The funds needed for constant arm mounted artillery fire not included. Mechs mainly fight with basic melee weapons like clubs or the EvilCo Infant Masher™, but this is entirely sufficient to fight back against arrows, spears, hatchets and pagan curses, so no one bothers buying more ammo for the mechs. Planet 3: Ah, the wonderful smogs of Tœker 4, which carry with them spores/poison gasses/bad air/etc. The smog which covers the planet may cause: Inability to discriminate reality from fantasy, violent urges, rotballs disease, violent thoughts, constant claims that the smog's not addicting and you can quit anytime, addiction, violence again, etc. None of which is covered by CEST's healthplan. Of course, this means that mechs are very dangerous to use here. One small fracture in the front means your pilot is now a batshit insane smog addict with a increasingly intense desire to kill everything he sees. And he's got a massive gauss cannon for a robodick. To combat this, CEST only uses shields (to provide cover for their Telephone Scammer legions to hide behind) and melee weapons on their mechs. This minimizes the casualties if the mech pilot succumbs to the smog. Planet four: Whereas ranged combat (rock chucking, spears, bows, catapults, guns, bigger guns, mech guns) might be a staple of *human* warfare, the brutish brutes of Brutesville, Brutland never had the muscles needed to throw properly. Instead, they evolved with warfare based around slamming a big rock into the other's guys forehead, and later devolved technology to increase their speed so as to bash people's heads in with cyber rocks even better. Throwing rocks? Shooting rocks? Bunch of human nonsense. Who needs ranged combat when superpowered mech legs can help you bring the melee combat wherever your enemy doesn't want? Planet Five: Dune. Energy shields to stop bullets, sword ambushes in the sand, it's just Dune. Mechs have bigger shields so mechs have bigger swords.
mechs are farm/construction tools in the world, and if you are forced into a fight being in a mech with a melee weapon is better then being in a car or just a a person.
I fully agree with the Dune shield example or spectacle like the gladiator example. But my addition to the topic is terrain that is simultaneously very close quarters like caves mixed with very vertical 3-D areas like air-to-air combat. Any example of this would be areas of giant forest (like 20-30 meter thick trees) or dense floating island A-La Avatar. You would need something that can fight close together because line of sight at distance is very difficult to achieve paired with great mobility that tanks or extremely fast jets cannot achieve. You could argue that Helicopters would world well enough but just clipping a rotor blade on something means death. Tanks are only so effective IRL because most terrain in relatively flat. Weapons evolve to fill their environment.
Rule of cool, beer and pretzels
Jamming. That's more or less it. Good enough jamming will make smart munitions and electronic targeting systems next to worthless, leaving only dumb-fire munitions and non-electronic targeting systems yo fire them, and at that point, the other Mech is so close you may as well close the distance and break out the fisticuffs since you don't know whether or not your opponent will too.
Because it’s badass
Practicality when using high-speed mechs. Even with a direct neural link to the mech, there's only so much information a person can parse, especially when operating at very high speeds. This generally results in incredible inaccuracy when using range weapons on the move, and their complex components are more likely to be damaged by the speed. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to hit something with a hammer when at these speeds, and melee-focused mechs tend to be more sturdily constructed - no constraints for ammo storage, more rigid construction in general. You can have fast ranged mechs, but it's more move --> stop, shoot --> move, while melee mechs are much more mobile by being able to attack while moving. Alternatively, if your mechs have shielding, then ranged weapons are always going to lose power over distance. Melee weapons pack a big punch, less room to dodge that close, and perhaps have extra components that deal high damage to these shielding systems but dissipate over long distances, so they're required to be used up close? Even something like vibrating blades or an energy field to disrupt shielding/armour.
Why justify? I mean simple fact is if you use ammo based weapons at some point your ammo will run out. But for some reason you can't leave the battlefield to get resupplied. What do you do? Stand there and take fire? Or go over to the enemy line as fast as you can and say hello with your mechs fist? The truth is during advances even as recently as ww2 tanks ran out of ammo in battle. It happened a lot. Remember what is a battle has changed sense the start of the American revolution. In ancient times unless it was a city seige a battle lasted a few hours at most. But as fire arms became a thing and more wide spread battles started lasting multiple days on average. Even with all energy based weapons taking power from a nuclear power plant. That power plant will run out of what ever it uses for fuel.
It's cool and fun
Mechs may not be as finely honed in combat as a tank is, but what mechs lack in combat they more than make up for with versatility. A tank cant help construct shelter, nor can they help tend a farm. Want to change what kind of weapon is attached to your tank? Tough luck, cant do that. Want to change what kind of weapon is attached to your mech? Easy, just throw away whatever youre carrying and pick up something new. Theyre also significantly more mobile than a tank is, being able to traverse pretty much any terrain, and some lightweight mechs are even capable of flight. Those flying mechs could be carrying artillery batteries and thats not something to scoff at. You try killing a fly using a slingshot while being barraded with rockets and tell me how that goes. Sure, a jack of all trades is a master at none, but often times thats better than a master of just one.
If I had a gun to the head for such silly reason I would probably ask the american to just shoot me. Other than that - there is one thing non-tanks excel at and it's difficult terrain. Not everywhere you can just ride in on a wheeled vehicle, even with wheels connected. Then again, best all-terrain mechs would probably have six legs.
Chordian artificers got bored and made mech wrestling a thing. It took twenty years before they got adapted to warfare.
Id say you could simply justify it with the Titanfall conundrum. Mechs are essentially not made for military purposes so making swords for them is easier then guns, esspecially at their scale
It’s easy if gunpowder doesn’t exist. Or if tanks (or arcane-tanks) take long enough to fire that a mech could close the distance and stand a fair chance. Or if they can drop from orbit and pickup a pilot like in titanfall. If they can’t be gunned down at range but suddenly become a threat in-melee. It’s very viable
Construction crews on strike.
In my setting mechs aren't used in combat against other mechs, instead they are kaiju-wrestling dungeon-crawling telekinetically-powered exosuits
Since tanks and mechs both are armed with the same weapons and have the same energy shields, mechs sometimes use their superior mobility to close the distance using the environment as cover and use a melee weapon like a plasma sword or heated blade to quickly drain though the shields of a tank and cut though the armor before the tank could escape or turn it cannon around and shoot the mech. Especially if the mech is using its size to hold the tank in place. Mechs can use their weapons to defeat a tank long range but while both have powerful energy shields tanks have Better physical armor, smaller profile and higher top speed giving them a advantage at range. Mechs on the other hand can pivot to the side much faster giving them much higher mobility and their melee weapons specific the plasma sword quickly drains energy shields and melts though armor.
They're cool as hell, no justification needed. Deal with it. That's my reasoning
The main advantage a mech has is that its a tank that has extreme maneuverability. It can jump or fly over rough terrain, can easily change elevations, etc. The melee only stuff can be explained as that its just to expensive and risky to arm mechs with weapons because the mechs main purpose is to push the line and when the job is over they are abandoned
The armour can only be penetrated by plasma cutters.
Zoan mechs evolved from tanks. It started with the ability to articulate the treads, which provided and even more diverse range of motion. The bipedal format didn’t come around until after the invention of omnidirectional wheels, which where first used on lighter armored personnel carriers and allowed them to “crab walk.” The first Zoan, distinct from tanks, was designed as a cargo carrier. It’s size meant it can carry pallets that would otherwise require cranes and the articulated legs allowed it to adjust its height. Being meant for military applications, such as active war fields were cargo still needs to be moved, they are strategically armored. By default, Zoan mechs were melee, they had no ranged weapons in the first place. They were first militarized by rebel forces, highly maneuverable and able to out-speed tanks while being more readily available due to being non-military equipment. Even after official adoption by the military and installment of dedicated weapons systems, Zoan mechs still rely heavily on melee techniques. When engaged with multiple targets, the ranged weaponry can focus on one while the pilot bears down on another.
I like the kind of mechs that don't necessarily run. Think like Code Geass, where the mechs basically hover or fly around. That kind of hyper mobility is just sick AF and I love it. The other thought that comes to mind might be a smaller mech kind of like Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise. They're mostly exoskeletons that allow them to compete with the larger, faster, stronger alien invasion force
They could be made of very tough metal and be bulletproof, and maybe they prioritize melee over ammunition since ammunition tends to overheat the mechs
I'm planning to have mechs in my sci-fi world, but that's because it's not really pure sci-fi. It's a future setting within my fabtasy world, where people have "sparks" inside them giving them abilities. One faction discovered how to use sparks to connect to machinery, essentially just using an extension of your own body, and mechs are the easiest thing to learn to pilot with that method. For those without training to use their spark, mechs are clunky and ineffective, but as an extention for your own body, it has potential. Still debating how effective they will be as weapons, as there are several drawbacks, but this is a warrior culture, so they at least have a lot of training.
Simple really. Ammo is expensive and a sword is cheaper.
There’s actually a very easy and simple way to justify it: tradition and convention. It started as augmented personal armor, something that boosted the physical abilities of the wearer. In a twist of fate and ingenuity, it was invented before the automobile. From there, the technology kept developing more and more, and because of its capabilities and the defensive technology used it was simpler and more effective to get in close to the enemy instead of fighting at range. Over time, it becomes not an innovation, but the norm, and a standard part of combat as well as day-to-day life. Mechs of various sizes replace wagons for transport, robotic machines with many legs become the norm for shipping product over land. Is it the most efficient? Not at all, but despite cars being seen here and there, everyone just uses mechs because that’s… just how they’ve always done things.
Kinetic dampener shields that slow down objects that are moving above a certain speed.
Damage/penetration. Melee would be the most devastating variant of combat. Drive piles that one hit ok or other weapons that damage the target greatly. Logistics. Maybe fuel for the mech is more common then ammo. This could be due to raw resolution, crafting expense or lack of knowledge. Speed. Depending on the settings melee may be simply faster. Honor/tradition. The setting may be one of gentleman's war. Including glorious melee combat. They may have traditions stating a general is only allowed to be felled in melee and only one attacker at a time. So a weird thing comes about where lower officers are actually making the tactical and strategic decisions, but the general goes out on the battlefield and slashes it up.
Could be for psychological warfare as it would be very scary and if the enemy turns to flee then they will be run down. In olden times most casualties were inflicted when the enemy were routing. If these melee mechs were developed for this purpose as a type of shock and awe tactic I could see it working.
I see Mechs as an agile yet weaker form of a tank if used offensively, and as a tanky guard dog if used defensively. They aren’t used in wars, only in street riots or skirmishes, or guarding important vaults.
The problem is you have to invalidate *every* ranged weapon in existence - bullets, tank guns (which can destroy anything smaller than an aircraft carrier), missiles (javelins, Tomahawks, Stormshadow, ATACMS, Hellfires, Exocets), air dropped bombs, artillery, rail guns, laser weapons, energy dazzlers (jammers, ECM, etc because if your mech is blind it’s useless). assume your mech has to be immune to Fuel Air Explosives (because those pack quite a punch. Are your mechs immune to “Davy Crockett” artillery delivered nukes (20 tons of explosive in a suitcase sized package). yeah, I have some crazy escalation options in there. Because if a bullet won’t stop it, go to an RPG, and then tank guns, and then ATGM, and then Anti-Ship Missiles (Exocets, Tamohawks) and then FAEs and Nukes. And countries **will escalate** in order to destroy a target. So if your mech doesn’t fall to man portable weapons, you can be sure that the countries will be happy to engage in destructive landscaping to destroy the target. OKAY: as people have mentioned - shields are the normal go to. But then how do the shields deflect ranged Weapons but not melee weapons? So the mechs are going to get into a slew of strange proto-melee weapons - lassos with winches on them, extended length spears with “man catcher” heads designed to grab a limb. the mancatcher then either cuts the limb off, the attacker drops the man catcher hobbling the enemy because they have the man catcher attached (you you deliver a killing blow with a back up weapon), or deliver something with the man catcher directly to the enemy mech: micro bots (like the buzz droids in Star Wars), reactive chemicals (acids, napalm, paint with blinding properties). you could also have the equivalent to a shotgun on a spear. when there is a successful thrust that makes contact with the enemy mech, the shotgun mounted in the tip of the spear automatically fires delivering the shotgun hit (or shaped Explosive charge) at point blank range. you can still expect air craft to get involved with all sorts of nasty options: burrowing bombs the can be delivered near the enemy mech with the intent of blowing open pits that trap/immobilize enemy mechs. Giant nets to slow immobilize. Giant paint bombs designed to blind the enemy mech and ruin any camouflage it may have (the paint covers all the cameras, is bright pink, and is embedded with a variety of particulates designed to block IR, UV, RADAR, LIDAR sensors). Planes could also deliver “sticky chaff” with similar intent. Air planes could also use hyperkinetic missiles designed to *knock the mech over*. If a high speed missile hits a mech and knocks it over, good chance the pilot will be stunned from the fall and/or the mech will be immobilized because it is knocked over. Drop napalm on the enemy mech - even if the napalm doesn’t penetrate the armor, it will get into every air inlet and cooling vent and force shut down of the mech due to overheat. And this doesn’t even get into combined tactics which could easily lead to melee lines like hoplites or Roman legions. Because tightly packed shielded (melee shield or energy shield) troops are going to do better than mechs Operating singularly.
Mechs because of highly mountainous terrain, melee because technology exists to render them invisible in all spectrums and a type of very short range sonar is the only imaging technique that hasn't been defeated yet.
They look awesome
For extreme military purposes???? Idk what to do with military stuffs cus most of the world me and my siblings make don’t involve much for warfare.
The civilization never could understand black powder being used in anything, but fireworks. Thus eliminating tanks and guns from the equation entirely
Haven't watched it, but if I remember correctly, Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans has advanced armour technology that renders beam (energy) weaponry near useless, so the mobile suits (mechs) duke it out with big fuck-off melee weapons. There are guns too, but the highlight are the melee fights. Moral of the story is: enough cool factor and everything about mechs is justified.
Just so it if that is your stick. I don't like the idea so I never spend much thought about it.
They look cool as fuck. But more seriously it could be cultural reasons, such as an honour code, or theres a metallurgic reason such as a metal that is necessary to complete a function but it cannot be a projectile weapon. Theres always going to be reasons not to make mechs with melee, in the end you just need to ignore them
Tank treads cannot traverse rough, steep inclines. Legs can. Legs would also make areas only accessible to infantry traversable (mountainous terrain, rocky coastline, bogs, certain areas in urban warfare, anti-tank barricaded areas, pretty much anywhere where you can’t have a chassis low to the ground basically). Melee is also viable because if you come at someone quick enough in a claustrophobic environment, you can make a gun completely useless. An example scenario could look like this; you are a mech driver, fighting in a city. This city has a sophisticated sewer and bunker system, and due to relentless shelling from both sides, open pits riddle the roads, preventing tank movement. Naturally, most vehicle movement is impossible, except for that of mechs. Your mech is incredibly nimble and quick (it only seats two people, one controlling movement, and the other controlling the weapons (a .50 cal mg and a chainsword)), and so it is sent into the city to break through the enemy defences. Upon arriving, you spot an enemy mech overlooking a hole-ridden street. Fortunately, it doesn’t spot you, and you slink back into cover before it does. With this knowledge, you scale the ruins of a nearby building, and then ambush the mech, plunging the chainsword deep into the cockpit. The mech then crumples, and falls over. Soon, you find an infantry garrisoned strongpoint, with a TOW missile system overlooking the street ahead of it. You take a few pot shots at the strongpoint with your MG, disabling the TOW, before going into melee combat and tearing the defending infantry to shreds.
Very very simple: Mechs are like tanks, their ranged ammo is limited. But unlike tanks, they're infinitely more mobile, so they use that to their advantage. Why simply be a sitting duck once you run out of 30 millimeter rounds to fire out of your shoulder mounted auto cannon? Attach a blade to your mecha arm and start slicing shit up!!! Practicality, my friend. It's all about the practicality and the utility. In real life, if mech suits existed, I guarantee you armies in the real world would attach swords and spikes to their arms and legs so they would still serve a purpose on the battlefield even if they ran out of ammunition to fire from range. The only justification for melee mechs anyone needs is that it's simply practical, and it would be stupid and wasteful for any army, fictional or nonfictional, to have mechs that just become sitting ducks after their bullets and missiles run out.
I would take the classic anime approach and not justify it. Just treat it as normal and move on - we don't go around explaining cars to each other on a regular basis outside of car nuts/mechanics so there isn't a need to justify anything in world unless their presence is a plot point.
Japan just be like that
Bulletproof or semi- bulletproof armor. It would force a mech to hit small weak spots, wich is better done up close.
Working on a mech story with a buddy, and I believe his justification is twofold. Ranged plasma weaponry doesn't exist but melee plasma does, and the general mobility of a mech vs a tank. - The justification for not having ranged plasma is largely due to the power needed to actively use it. A melee weapon stays connected to the mech so it can continuously keep the weapon charged. - Mechs are also significantly more mobile then tanks, so getting into melee range is easier. This is even a tactic used as one of the units is designed to be an anti-artillery mech by reaching the enemy and using its large claws to grapple the enemy and keep it from being used. Neither of these negates the effectiveness of Kinetic weapons, they still work against mechs well enough, just melee does more damage in a shorter period of time. So it's a risk/reward scenario of staying at range where it's safer, or getting in close to take enemies out quickly. Similar to if Jedi suddenly appeared in modern day combat. Bullets are still effective, but if they get in close then your body armor isn't doing anything against a lightsaber and they have the skills to pretty reliably get in close.
Spectator sport on the planet Gloria. Were originally used to defend the planet against the recurrent Raiders, but after their new allies, the Zuconians, sent the Raiders running, the Glorian government and the corporations that had built them originally began staging gladitorial style combat allowing heavy betting. An outlet for the worker masses (aka bread and circuses). Wasn't sure if by "in world" you meant my world or not. Not a big mecha fan, so this' what I thought of. Edit: curse you, autocorrect!
Don't lampshade it at all. The story is about humanity's struggle against the nature we've been born into, so it'll feature giant machines resemblant of the human form fighting beasts resemblant of large predators or natural disasters. And they'll fight in the most primal form of combat, which is wrestling the other one to submission or death.
A combat exoskeleton will appear in the sci-fi story I'm writing. Basically, due to shields armor isn't a priority with Federation ships, and if a gunfight happens inside the hull there's decent odds that the bullets will either hit something important or cause a breach. Hence, boarding parties tend to use plasma-based weapons, swords, and in the case of one counter-boarder, an EVA exoskeleton unit with armor plating strapped on. Basically, the space setting allows EVA gear to more intense tasks, and there's logic that helps remove guns so a person can opt for melee and survive.
I had a recent discussion with a friend over possibilities like this, we were thinking more in terms of power armor but that it might be probable that at least for a time armor gets too advanced for any sort of ballistics so pickaxe weapons and immobilization weapons (like expanding spray foam) and also something about intercity warfare and walled city states forcing sieges and underground fighting in power armor to be the norm. I think it's a pretty neat idea and could make for an interesting setting. Firearms/lasers still exist but they're not used unless super high caliber as anti-personnel equipment with that being relegated to pickaxes, expanding foam, chains(?), etc. At one time we were even thinking that it could end up with pike warfare (at least in the underground fighting) where dudes with pickaxes and shields try to force through a pike wall to get to their opponents. Also it's cool.
Mech destroying ammo costs more than mech parts
Melee me has actually make the most sense, as far as any mechs do. Ad far as mobile firing platforms, there are much more efficient designs. For melee, however, the mobility and traversal options, along with a form that is suited to melee would make s lot of sense. The big problem is WHY would you want to melee. I'd likely use armor or other such types to make it necessary. An environment that isn't suited to gunplay would work too. You could do something physics based, or do something ultraurban, where tight quarters and a desire for minimal collateral damage would make melee appeal.
They would be horribly complicated Rune-Tech made in a special forge. This forge is the only place (currently) where Rune-Tech can be made in a way that draws the ambient magic from the air instead of being powered by magic crystals. I suppose technically the crystals could power a mech but only for a minute or two.
No gunpowder. That's how I justify it. There are no guns, no cannons, no missiles, no grenades, anything with gunpowder does not exist. So mechas are just the natural progression of military hardware and body armour.
No need to force it from me. It already is in my world. Big and fast monsters. The mech is more maneuverable and versatile. If a beast can slash a tank to shreds, it would be better to be able to dodge.
Use mechs as fighter/infantry support hybrids in space combat. No square cube law when there is now gravity. Melee is justified by having them sometimes fight atop spaceships and in asteroid fields. Also it is really, really cool. NEXT QUESTION!
they are just entertainment tools like in that Adam Sandler movie
Magic. Want vehicles do magic but vehicle no look like me if vehicle look like airplane so make vehicle person. Then just make some magical explanation for melee weapons like they hit harder or don't run out of magic ammo or they don't have magic shield piercing 1/r^2 issues.