The Mech Debate!

[Arizona Nova]

The "kinks" in mecha are... well, it's mecha. It has legs. Legs are bad in something that will face rockets and mines. Tracks are good, they can keep going even if half gets blown off, and can climb very steep gradients on most terrain. Mecha trip over themselves in rocky terrain, quite simply because big ol' stompy feet make balance really hard while travelling fast. So, mecha would also be slow. Easy targets. Crappy in warfare.

Well, thats why the legs are heavily armored... and in my case, lightly shielded. Tracks/wheels also lose a lot of speed going uphill as well. Wheeled vehicles that lose wheels are often also in trouble if they lose one or more of them. And yes, big rocks are never good for mechs, but that is only one type of environment in only one type of place - terrestrial. Mechs can carry more weapons and just look more stylish per ton than a stumpy tank. Mechs also have a weird taret profile, and from long range skinny legs are harder to target than a big fat tank with lots of weaponry on board. Besides, I see few people using Battletech or remotely Battletech stuff for RP, and if I'd like to at least have something that few other people have, even if people readily dismiss it because of modern biases.

[Underwater Asylum]

Well, you could do like I do. Have tracked... Sections, really, that unfold to become legs for certain terrains.

[Arizona Nova]

Or have legs that turn to track!

[Skeelzania]

While mecha have a definete "gee whiz" appeal and are good for impressing the peasents, their a blind ally in military design. What they essetially are is a big walking target with less armor and less weaponry that a standard MBT. You can't armor the bejeezus out of them because of weight problems, which also tie into speed problems (a heavily armored mech is not going to go anywhere and will sink into most terrain). Also, the heat signature from such a machine would be enormous, and unlike a tank which is low to the ground and relatievely invisible (heatwise), the mech is going to look like a torch on someone's infrared. The fact that they use legs is also a liability: if Omar ran up and popped a RPG into a mech's shin, it would come toppling down.

Upkeep would also be a problem. A fully articulated mech (capable of giving the enemy the finger and everything) would have more joints and moving parts than you could shake a stick at. A little grime gets into those parts and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. Maintenance would be a nightmare, since (because you can't armor them heavily) every shot would do major damage somewhere.

[Penguenia]

Good for space, mediocre on the ground. Unless they're tracked mechs or slow, hulking artillery mechs.

[Skeelzania]

Even in space their kind of pointless. A fighter is going to be more manueverable, cheaper, faster, and as good or better armed and armored. Though a Mech punching into a ship's bridge does wreak hell on the command chain...

[Arizona Nova]

While mecha have a definete "gee whiz" appeal and are good for impressing the peasents, their a blind ally in military design. What they essetially are is a big walking target with less armor and less weaponry that a standard MBT. You can't armor the bejeezus out of them because of weight problems, which also tie into speed problems (a heavily armored mech is not going to go anywhere and will sink into most terrain). Also, the heat signature from such a machine would be enormous, and unlike a tank which is low to the ground and relatievely invisible (heatwise), the mech is going to look like a torch on someone's infrared. The fact that they use legs is also a liability: if Omar ran up and popped a RPG into a mech's shin, it would come toppling down.

Upkeep would also be a problem. A fully articulated mech (capable of giving the enemy the finger and everything) would have more joints and moving parts than you could shake a stick at. A little grime gets into those parts and the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. Maintenance would be a nightmare, since (because you can't armor them heavily) every shot would do major damage somewhere.

Wait... is anyone here familiar with the "Battletech" universe? I'm not talking about "Mecha," as in those in the Mobile Suit Gundam series or those like it. Battletech's mechs, and especially the Clan designs I am fond of, rarely resemble humans.
Anyways, which MBTs mount more than one big gun? Tanks, and most vehicles in general, mount one big weapon, then maybe a few machine guns poking out here and there, and if you want to go Red Alert 2 on me, they may occasionally have a couple big guns and mount a basic SAM system. That is, however, about the limit. The mechs I use can carry more weaponry, and with the right cooling technologies (which might be hard for modern tech but not that much for future tech eh) heat isn't a big deal, unless one is engaged in a long running battle. Furthermore, an MBT with anything more than one big gun is going to go much slower, because it will need more ammo/generator room, and thus a lot more armor to protect said systems.
Heavy mechs are of course, very slow, but the bigger the mech, the more weapons and armor it can mount. Little mechs have less armor and less weapons, but can go much faster.
Yes, if someone managed to disable shielding systems and fry all the armor around a mechs legs, it would indeed be in trouble. BUT, if you blew off a wheel on a car, it wouldn't be going anywhere in a hurry either. If you armored the wheels and equipped a shielding system, now you have a very big car with a small reactor, which will still be going rather slow.
Keep in mind as well that I'm not for replacing everything on the ground with mechanized combatants. The premier principle of Arizonan strategy on ground, in the air, and in space is balance. Mechs have their role as much as tracked vehicles, hovertanks, and the like. I have a hovertank design up already at my site, in fact, and I shall begin work on a tracked vehicle soon as well.

[Arizona Nova]

Good for space, mediocre on the ground. Unless they're tracked mechs or slow, hulking artillery mechs.

Hulking artillery mechs... liiiike my Blood Asp class mech? Packs two MAC Rifles, and some LRMs and miscellaneous other arms. 8)

[Jordaxia]

But if the mech is to hold itself together, or at least, stop itself crushing its legs into.... bent metal, then its legs need to be excessively strong and thick. Explosions from mines would have minimal impact on such necessarily strong legs (and so they'd be very hard to knock out by necessity of design. Then you have the advantage of it being taller than your average tank, by default, extending its range. Also, it's so much cooler than a tank, by a factor of infinity. Also, if you have legs designed to shape itself to a surface, then stray rocks wouldn't be too difficult to overcome. Of course, I prefer powered armour to an actual tank-equivalent mech any day.

[Aegeus]

well, unless you happen to have super-contruct materials. You see, im able to put less actual armor on them to greater effect. The only disadvantage to jsuta bout all of my mech are that they generally weigh a friggen load. Now, as to what skeez said, that is a comon close minded misconception.

Tanks do not have an advantage over mechs, simply because tanks have hugly limited sightlines. Tanks can only shoot so far in front of them because of their design, wheras mechs, being versitile, generally have a much wider combat arc and can shoot in almost a total sphere, were, at best, tanks can only shoot in a semi-sphere. a second proving point is that tanks are generally slower than mechs. treaded tanks are limited by their terrain, and hover tanks get turrned into turrets if their hover drive quits for any reason at all, the entire reason the empire switched from the "juggernaut" wheeled MPD design to the modern AT-ATs is because you can deploy AT-ATs anywhere, and they kick major ass.

As to legs being a vulnerability, the principles use behind Myomer Artificial Muscles, used in battle tech, are the exact same principles used in you and I. Now take yourself and plate yourself in some ungoldy strong armor and give yourself bunches of guns and ammo. now, make yourself 20 times stronger and 20 times taller. now watch as tank shells bounce off of you, as mines do jack shit to you.

Now, if you want proof to the fact that mechanized leg warfare is becoming supirior, a new prototype design schematic was recently aproprated by the USAF, and is being tested at Eglin AFB. How do i know this? My uncle is working on a munitions project, and they've been instructed to build a mounting system. it's totally un aerodynamic, and they have a gnereal trickling idea of what it's for: A walker.