Here's a link to Onyx from Lockheed Martin, a further development of their earlier HULC system. For those of us who have dream of power armour and exoskeletons this is exciting news. While Onyx is only a lower torso enhancement it does look promising.
There was a thread on the Heavy Gear FB group about the practicality of mecha – larger walking power armour. I posted this:
In general to the OP. It all depends on your assumptions whether or not large bipedal combat suits make sense. When writing my novels I made some assumptions on how they developed (basically a step on from riding a mechanical horse), to use (dense terrain), and factored in adaptive camouflage (reduce chance of being seen).So it's all about the assumptions. Open field advances across the steppes of Russia, not so much. Lurking around in urban areas providing fire support for infantry and able to keep up with vehicles, possibly what's needed.
The last couple of weeks I have been writing more, working on my novel Two Moons, which will give the readers more information on where the series story arc is going that the characters will have to work through. I'm excited.
If I'm open-field advancing across the steppes of Russia, in a world of cheap drones and missiles, I've already lost.
ReplyDeleteAs I see it…
Upright posture is an error. Optional upright posture is fine, but even human-sized things (e.g. humans) need to be able to drop prone sometimes. Those Onyx links make it clear that you can at least kneel in it, probably lie down, and that makes it a lot more practical than many proposals. I'd believe in a mecha design more readily if they changed posture in this way, though of course in the real world you get scaling and energy management problems (e.g. when you drop prone you break stuff).
Legs have obvious advantages in bad terrain, but I wonder whether something more like a spider, with a low profile and legs that arise from the side rather than the base, might not do better.
Obviously for any given work of fiction you can set the parameters as you like, but I think it's good for authors to be aware (as, for the avoidance of doubt, I think you are) of the reasons why these things haven't taken over in the real world.
I would posit that any effective mecha would have to be able to adjust its posture like a human. This will set a maximum size, but what that is I can only guess at.
DeleteMy assumption is around four to five metres, 13 to 16 feet or so. Caveat, my assumption could be wrong, but I will own right or wrong.