What would it take to make real mechs?

[Weaver]

Wheels, tracks and hover skirts all work superbly, both technically and tactically, in the right environment, and 'the right environment' covers most of the credible battlefields on the face of the planet. Furthermore, radical new military technology doesn't just need to be possible, it needs to present (or at least claim) a significant advantage or improvement over existing technology. I cannot for the life of me see any situation in which a 30ft tall walking tank can do any military task better and/or more cost-efficently than alternative, more conventional technology.

It would be perfectly technically possible for your house to be replaced by a 20ft wide, 8-story tower: there are good reasons why we don't do that.

[zenrat]

I'm trying to picture The Empire Strikes Back with tanks instead of AT-ATs and it just isn't working.

[Old Wombat]

Try tripping a tank up by wrapping string around its tracks.

[Weaver]

I'm trying to picture The Empire Strikes Back with tanks instead of AT-ATs and it just isn't working.

You'd have to rewrite the scene with different tactics to suite the technology, but that's kinda the point. That scene in Empire was basically WWI with Hannibal's elephants instead of Mk.I tanks, not WW27 as fought by a space-faring civilisation.

[zenrat]

If you ask me it's all HG Wells fault.
Or was there earlier examples of walking war machines we could blame?

[Weaver]

If you ask me it's all HG Wells fault.
Or was there earlier examples of walking war machines we could blame?

Well there's a steam-powered walking machine in a Jules Verne novel that precedes WotW by quite some time:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Steam_House

[jcf]

I'm trying to picture The Empire Strikes Back with tanks instead of AT-ATs and it just isn't working.

You'd have to rewrite the scene with different tactics to suite the technology, but that's kinda the point. That scene in Empire was basically WWI with Hannibal's elephants instead of Mk.I tanks, not WW27 as fought by a space-faring civilisation.

How could it be WW XXVII when the story takes place A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .... 

[zenrat]

I'm trying to picture The Empire Strikes Back with tanks instead of AT-ATs and it just isn't working.

You'd have to rewrite the scene with different tactics to suite the technology, but that's kinda the point. That scene in Empire was basically WWI with Hannibal's elephants instead of Mk.I tanks, not WW27 as fought by a space-faring civilisation.

How could it be WW XXVII when the story takes place A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .... 

Hence no tracks - as it was before WWI the tank hadn't been invented yet...

[Weaver]

I'm trying to picture The Empire Strikes Back with tanks instead of AT-ATs and it just isn't working.

You'd have to rewrite the scene with different tactics to suite the technology, but that's kinda the point. That scene in Empire was basically WWI with Hannibal's elephants instead of Mk.I tanks, not WW27 as fought by a space-faring civilisation.

How could it be WW XXVII when the story takes place A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away .... 

Didn't say which World's War #27 did I? ;-)

[Old Wombat]

Ah, but you see, mate, tracked armoured fighting vehicles weren't invented anywhere until January 1916, in England, on Earth.

[zenrat]

Ah, but you see, mate, tracked armoured fighting vehicles weren't invented anywhere until January 1916, in England, on Earth.

Correctamundo 

[jcf]

Ah, but you see, mate, tracked armoured fighting vehicles weren't invented anywhere until January 1916, in England, on Earth.

Correctamundo 

Non-Brit concepts predate 1916 e.g. Austrian Burstyn of 1911, as does Little Willie, 1915.

http://landships.info/landships/tank_articles.html

[zenrat]

Ah, but you see, mate, tracked armoured fighting vehicles weren't invented anywhere until January 1916, in England, on Earth.

Correctamundo 

Non-Brit concepts predate 1916 e.g. Austrian Burstyn of 1911, as does Little Willie, 1915.

http://landships.info/landships/tank_articles.html

Those of us raised in the former seat of empire or one of it's colonies do rather tend to forget such detail.
Although what came first and when depends, I think, on which leg of the Trousers of Time your path leads down (or up).
It's probably quantum.   

Crud, I miss Terry Pratchett.

[jcf]

Ah, but you see, mate, tracked armoured fighting vehicles weren't invented anywhere until January 1916, in England, on Earth.

Correctamundo 

Non-Brit concepts predate 1916 e.g. Austrian Burstyn of 1911, as does Little Willie, 1915.

http://landships.info/landships/tank_articles.html

Those of us raised in the former seat of empire or one of it's colonies do rather tend to forget such detail.
Although what came first and when depends, I think, on which leg of the Trousers of Time your path leads down (or up).
It's probably quantum.   

Crud, I miss Terry Pratchett.

Welp, that would include me being originally from B.C. and sech. 

[NARSES2]

Crud, I miss Terry Pratchett.

I echo that sentiment.  I'm going to start re-reading the Discworld series from the beginning again in the New ear as there's next to nothing on telly