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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, David Rabadan wrote:
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Hello everyone. I was checking out Ryan Wood’s Jade Empire Hong Hovertank post and he mentions that we have
seen little in ground combat vehicles other than
power suit. That
got me thinking, when you have Power Suits available, should tanks be used /
are they really needed? Can tanks add anything that power armor cannot?
As a power armor fan myself I believe that they can replace tanks and do a
better job than mechanized armor. They can carry a diversity of weapons;
they are a bipedal weapons platform system. They can access areas that tanks
may not. They can perform “surgical” strikes and with less collateral
damage. What do you think?
David Rabadan
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This is an interesting discussion that I’ve seen before in other places, but
never commented on before, so I figured I’d add my own $.02.
Most of the time, it seems that the comparison is made between future power
armor systems and current tanks, but we need to consider the fact that as the
technology for power armor advances, so will tank technology. This brings us
back to looking at which system is inherently better for the task.
A tank is a relatively simple machine optimized to be a tough, stable,
relatively quick, and powerful weapons platform. A mecha is a much more complex
system that may have an advantage in traversing some obstacles like large steps
or narrow passages, but is much less efficient at performing the basic tasks a
tank has traditionally been used for. Mecha type machines using the same
technologies as tanks would be more prone to failure because of increased
complexity, more vulnerable to attack, more expensive to produce, slower, and
because of their upright posture, would present a larger target to other ground
units. Also, large separate weapons would be unwieldy, and if the weapons were
smaller, they would be less powerful. Not to mention the fact that unattached
weapons could be lost.
For these reasons, I don’t really think that mecha are going to replace tanks,
but I do believe that power suits in some form may fill a different niche. Small
personal powersuits like the ones DARPA is researching may be very useful in
enhancing the abilities of infantry if the technology can be made to work well
enough.
I personally think that robots are very cool and I guess if the role of future
tanks drastically changes, battles on relatively open areas are no longer the
standard, and some of the versatility that a mecha design offers is required,
someone may build something mecha-like. I believe that tanks of one kind or
another will continue to be the choice of militaries, though, not because they
can do something that power armor can’t, but because they are a lot more
efficient at what they do.
-James
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Message is in Reply To:
 | | Tanks or Power Armor
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| Hello everyone. I was checking out (URL) Ryan Wood's Jade Empire Hong Hovertank post> and he mentions that we have seen little in ground combat vehicles other than (URL) power suit>. That got me thinking, when you have Power Suits available, should (...) (20 years ago, 24-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.build.mecha, lugnet.space, FTX)
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