Mech vs Tank

You can reduce anything to it's base values and pretend that it doesn't have any intrinsic value you retard

"Czterej pancerni i pies" ('Four tankers and a dog', I suppose) - old Polish series about WW2. Good show, but has awful lot of pro-USSR propaganda.

it's not a matter of weight
it's a matter of power output

and even then, it depends on how high is the output.
there's a treshold where the humanoid form becomes better for maneuverability, since it can change directions easier than a tank on tracks.

Guardman's tanks vs Tau's mech, how did that turn out?

hammerhead beats vanilla russ
Vanquisher vs hammerhead depends on who shoots first

Depends on the terrain.

In a relatively flat area with nothing to hide behind the tank wins, but in all other scenarios (assuming this is at least a mech capable of being driven by a single pilot remotely or manually) the mech easily wins.

The ability to enter areas the tank cannot, the ability to be faster in pretty much every decision making aspect as a single person will be much faster than a team, and the advantage of the rule-of-cool makes it a nonissue.

Depends on how the design of both mech are loadout, skills of the pilot/crew, morale, condition etc. Are the robots stands upright ala gundams? Variable clearances like Metal Gear and their derivatives? Bipeds? Quads? Humanoid? Biomorph? are the tanks build like standard tracked tanks? Wheeled? Spider tanks? Spherical ala Dominions? How the crews/pilots are? Experienced? Veterans? Rookie?. Where is it? Urban? Open Terrain? Jungles? Montainious?. Condition? Foggy? Unstable terrain? Molten areas? ECMs? Storm?

There's so many possibilities in battlefield that can favor either sides of the combatant m8. This is not some random DARPA advertisement vids.

What about in each edition and considering stats in each of the RPG's? We need a tiebreaker on this.

Isn't the hammerhead a hover tank and not a mech?

Considering how much firepower you can slap on a mech chassis, my money is on the giant murderbot.

Mechs aren't real. They don't have any actual properties to compare to those of tanks other than those arbitrarily ascribed to them by the writers of fiction. That being the case "depends on the setting"

You may as well ask how a tank would fair against a wizard or dragon.

Pound for pound tanks can carry more armor and gun than a mech. Legs are just a silly idea because of the square cube law.

A tank's front will always be the optimal ratio of armor thickness, target size and deflective angle for its carried armament. Essentially the whole part of the tank behind the front is just a support structure to keep the front moving and supplied.

In case of a mech the support structure also forms the front, which is a massive increase in surface area that the armor needs to be distributed among. You automatically end up with weaker armor on a larger target.

Also modern tanks are often so heavy that they will sink in many forms of terrain, effectively becoming stuck. This is despite them distributing their weight over a very large surface area beneath their tracks. Concentrating all that weight into the much smaller surface area of legs will mean that a mech of equal weight will sink into terrain a tank could easily pass over.

For comparison: A spider enlarged to the size of a car would sink into concrete. And spiders are a relatively lightweight construction with more than two legs.

In addition a mech faces problems with exposed joints, falling over due to recoil or a slippery surface and losing balance due to shifting weight distribution (ammo and fuel consumption!).

The only realistically feasible ways of using mechs in a modern military is for:
a) Small, lightly armored tank hunters that can navigate through broken terrain and flank tanks with recoilless rifles and AT-Missiles.
b) Logistical units for infantry that can be used on broken terrain. An AT/AA-gun emplacement that can carry itself and keep up with footslogging infantry is a great asset for area denial.

A formal treatise for why having more guns is not necessarily a good thing and in fact rarely actually benefits the user.

It should be noted that one on one, the tank possesses a marginal disadvantage in that it cannot use its superior unit coordination abilities to outmaneuver the mech. The biggest issue mechs suffer from is the fact that they usually only have a single pilot, who not only has to move the thing but coordinate the weapons and operate the radio while reading any information that floods his screen on a HUD partially obscuring his view of the battlefield. This turned the Zakus into tank bait after their initial shock wore off: a small group of machines could easily be cornered and overwhelmed by light vehicles like the Anti-Zaku Tank due to their sluggish unit-wide response to wolfpacking, in spite of their superior individual agility.

Well unless you've got crazy good tech to the point of weaboo fightan magic robots like the animes, tank is probably going to win.
,
>lower profile makes tank harder to hit and allows "hull down" fire from much flatter terrain. A tank will need just a railway line or something, whereas a mech would need something like a 2 story housem
>lower profile allows more armor per square inch toward the front of the enemy, as well as the armor being solid, unlike the mech, which will have lots of exposed weak points and joints that the armor cannot cover as well
>simpler operation increases reliability
>Can more easily accommodate a crew, increasing efficiency as you don't have one man trying to drive, shoot, scan for targets, manage power, etc .
>more than likely faster in all but the most difficult terrain.

and most importantly, a factor that Trump's most else.
>More stable gun platform, allowing for increased accuracy and a heavier weapon to be mounted than a similar tonnage mech, increasing the chance of a kill on the first shot.

The only place a mech would have an advantage would be extremely rough terrain that a tank normally wouldn't enter anyways, and fording rivers. Even in urban combat, the tanks ability to use cover, hide, and faster speed would likely allow it to triumph over an equally classed mech. In close range its top armor could be vulnerable though. In addition, most tanks don't have a lot of elevation/depression to their guns, so perhaps in a knife fight style urban fight, all tanks would be able to do is go for the kneecaps and then go for a kill shot when the mech is down.

Yeah I would go with the tank in most situations.

Wew lads, it's getting a little /k/ in here... keep it up!

If the Mech had TOW missiles and the tank was made in WW2, it would be the Mech.

Weight doesn't really tell you shit about capabilities.

The winner would be the one who didn't do drugs :3

Rather than starts a pointless fighting between depraved nerds, why don't post the picture of both?

what if the mech can crouch behind giant sandbags?

Did somebody said weaboo magic?
youtube.com/watch?v=Qp9BmKn5NKg

>Impliying square cube cannot be minimized by design and sufficient composites.
>Impliying it have the same skeletal density and composites of a puny humans.

T-Rexes are laughting at you

Why not?

Unless you do what that picture does and pit a sci-fi mech against a real world tank, or have some full on gundam fuckery going on, it'll almost certainly always be the tank. A tank built int he same world as a mech will have the same guns on a shorter, harder to hit chassis and without the structural weak points of legs. A bipedal mech is a stupid idea anyway, heck aside from humans there isn't really a bipedal anything.

Also nice metal gear rex hat on the mech

You'd have to lower material density so much that it wouldn't work as armor. Square cube law still applies to things not made of meat.

...

Tank, realistically. Simply put the tank can carry more armor with a bigger gun on a smaller engine while moving faster. Legs are inefficient relative to wheels even if we worked out all of those issues such as falling over 3 steps in. Mechs are like the segway, they're trying to solve a problem that doesn't really exist.

Then it can't move. A tank needs to trade neither low profile or movement.

Another factor that's being forgotten; mechs are basically built like giant people, their guns and ammo hoppers are metres off the ground. You aren't going to be able to rearm and resupply anywhere that doesn't have substantial equipment for it, tanks can take on fuel and ammo from practically anywhere.

Then it's still going to have to expose more of itself to shoot back plus what it exposes is never going to be as well armoured as a tank in a similar position. Behold the hulldown position in the attached picture, where all you get to shoot at is the front of the turret, aka the single most heavily armoured piece on pretty much all tanks ever.

>Square cube law still applies to things not made of meat.

So?

In square cube bigger, more volumes: more support, means design and composites is all that matters. Also, you can make an armor with low density m8, by either lighter but stronger materials or by creating layer of reactive lamelars.

It also means that we just need to makes the mech comparable scale-to-scale with tanks, we don't need it to be 18 meters gundams m8, 7 meters are enought.

Not sure if you can use the Gundam series for ideas on what mechs should be cause that series jumps back and forth on just what mechs can and or should be. Sometimes ranging from legit warmachine to shonen anime hero characters or extensions of the pilots personality. It's goes pretty much anywhere with the damn things. Not saying your example is bad, just too damn variable depending on which show your watching.

You're doing it wrong. A hammerhead is a tank.

You should be comparing a leman russ to a riptide. And also for good measure comparing a sentinel to a hammerhead.

Power is only one half of the equation. If your vaunted humanoid mech sinks up to it's knees every step, then it is still going to be slower than a tank that doesn't have that problem because it's treads spread out it's weight over a larger area.

Of course you could add jump jets to your mech at which point it becomes the most hilariously inefficient fighter jet design ever.

Rule of cool is only a thing in entertainment driven fiction and nets zero prizes in a fight to the death. As for decision speed, you can take the technology for single person mech and apply it to a tank far more easily. A mech requires far more active control just to stay upright when walking in a straight line. If your fancy computers can handle that then they can handle much more simple stuff like driving from point A to B while the tanker devotes her full attention to her surroundings.

If your 7 m tall mech gets to cover itself with fancy super lightweight material.

Then a tank can use that same advanced material science to equip a vastly tougher but heavier armour.

Right now whoever gets the first shot off wins.

riptides have a reputation, so there might not be a comparison here

>heck aside from humans there isn't really a bipedal anything.
Birds
Kangaroos

A lot of these answers are relying soley on conjecture, primarily that a mech has to be humanoid and not, as pointed out, far more efficient by having a low profile, less exposed joints, etc.

How about this, a mech with a chasis quite similar to a tank, but equipped with thick armored quad legs. The legs themselves are armored with plate around the joints as thick or thicker than tread guards, so the complaint about the legs being a weak spot is moot since treads are just as much the weak spot of a tank.

Additionally, it can do what a treaded vehicle cannot, crouch. As well as dig itself a hole for hull down position like a normal tank could do.

*the leg configuration is done for the sake of much, much faster speeds than a treaded vehicle.

Similarly to how a cheeta or a leopard can outright a treaded tank toy or a bomb drone of comparable size.

Depends on the setting.

No, I'm fucking serious, it depends entirely on the setting. Different settings treat mechs and tanks and the tech involved in either completely differently, so just saying they're of equal weight is completely meaningless.

Pick a setting and we'll go from there.

And one more thing.

When moving it runs like a leopard, or in combat, much like the actual predator, it crouches its legs and keeps its body low, crawling and clawing forward.

The chain on 40k seems the best place to start:

That look slow as shit.

Leg gets hit, the whole thing is now off balance. Tread gets hit, the tank stays right where it is. Also, recoil from the gun is also going to be harder to mitigate with legs of any number or size, so the gun will also have to be proportionally smaller.

And something that doesn't really factor into a fight but is a reality of legged vehicles, legs are way harder to repair and maintain than treads. More complicated moving parts, more complicated computers, more complicated armor.

Assuming, available materials are the same (no unobtainium for the mech armor if the tank doesn't have it).
Tank wins as long as guns are the more relevant weapon for the armor category. Not only it's got lower profile, the armor is at an optimised angle.
If unobtainium armor makes guns moot, mech may win as the tank is now a glorified bulldozer. Not that a mech is very nimble, but it can do tricks that baffle the mind of the treaded beast (climb stairs, get the high ground).
Mech may claim advantage of mobility in a really fucked up terrain (highly situationnal).
Tank team may say fuck off and just pile off armor to get a draw at any size.

Realistically, the tank, it's a more efficient design. Practically speaking, though, just as likely the mecha, since if it exists as a piece of military hardware the author/worldbuilder probably thinks they're cool and made them effective in the setting.

If it's current day tank vs mech with bullshit superscience space magic, the mech wins, otherwise no chance

>Leg gets hit, the whole thing is now off balance.
Take the leg off a leopard.
Do you think it will have a hard time lying upright?

Try it yourself, get on the ground on fours with your belly to the floor. If you lift one arm in the air, are you suddenly going to be tilting? All it has to do is lay its belly on the ground. Sure it can't move, but neither can the tread hit tank.

What's more, unlike the tread hit tank, it can still crawl without making circles. Unless you mean to tell me you couldn't crawl on three limbs either.

> recoil from the gun is also going to be harder to mitigate with legs of any number or size
> legs are way harder to repair and maintain than treads
Assumptions. I could just as well say leg propulsion technology has advanced to meet that.

>More complicated moving parts, more complicated computers, more complicated armor.
Not a problem if you can afford it. There's a reason our moder computerized tanks did so much better than the republican guard tanks that had hand crank turrets.

wait all that image says is that firing more than one shot or salvo isn't as effective as you may believe

but it doesn't explain why battleships had lots of guns?

>Assumptions. I could just as well say leg propulsion technology has advanced to meet that.

I could just as well say tank treads have been made indestructible.

Battleships and tanks are wildly different machines.

Indestructible tank treads still can't climb vertical walls.

Gecko inspired smart material?

it can run like a big cat

Sure, but one's a mechanical problem while the other's a separate, material science problem (right?), so if you want the mechs to be a little better you could have one and not the other.

But much less maneuverable due to tracks and low LoS due to limitation of low clearance.

Eh, both had their own plus minus.

but not originally, the original idea of tanks was to be Land Battleships, and if a tank can't fill that role on the battlefield, why not use mechs as a Land Battleship

This is the typical pro-mech argument. If you have technology that enables you to make a legged tank outrun a current day treaded tank, why not just apply that to a treaded tank and make it go sanic fast?

Better question. Hover tank vs mech, which do you prefer in a sci-fi setting?

i think its not about who would win in a fight, but more about fulfilling different roles - a mech could be used to the same effect as CAS but without the need to be so wary of AA

It would be able to climb but it wouldn't be able to get over the top of a building without falling backwards.

The moment it reaches the top and less of its treads are touching and half of it is reaching for the sky, the heavier top will tilt it backward.

On sand? That size, with those small stubby back legs? BULL FUCKING SHIT.

Because the idea of a land battleship is retarded. Even more so now than it was back then.

Would such technology necessarily translate from legs to tracks? Those seem like pretty different mechanisms.

Go to bed, Hitler.

Flexible treads. Two or more separate sets of treads.

nature finds a way with some configuration of animals

No, I mean you're technologically advanced enough to make a legged tank outrun a modern MBT (which can reach 70 km/h on streets), but you can't use your technological advancement to make treaded tanks go even faster? Seems fishy

What the fuck are you even saying?

That's much smaller. A 60 ton tank on two legs is gonna sink into pretty much everything. It's also likely to ruin pavement with every step.

seemed to work for at least one war

Seeing as you can calculate when and where you should fire, using a rustic old cannon these days, and still hit a fucking airplane, your speed don't count for shit.
The running tank will get hit just as easily as a threaded tank, and the question remains who will suffer the most damage. A running tank in full speed, being hit (don't even need to hit it on the legs, just throw it of balance), will most likely crash. And the regular tank will simply be put to a halt.
Seeing as the crew inside the running tank should be quite smashed just from the movement alone, how do you intend for them to survive a full on crash in a good 100km/h speed?
I'm in no illusions, if you have a tank going in 70km/h, I'm doubtful the crew will just get up and keep the spirit up after a direct hit, but at least their crash wont be nearly as harsh as the running tank.

But then again, all your answers so far is "well, if you can imagine", and thats not really good enough.
Sure, if you put a bazillion $ down the drain, you might get your fantasy running tank. Fitted with recoil calculator, full AI and no crew, faster than light... and so on. But for a fraction of that cost, you could achieve a better result with a regular good´ol tank.

Cost and effect my friend, cost and effect...

Starting speed, and therefore reaction speed.

Not enough traction. Turning your treads and wheels super fast isn't gonna do jack if all your doing is making dirt fly or tearing up the road. Or worse, digging in a hole to get stuck in, just the same as a regular car trying to get out of the dirt.

A sprinter can get to his top speed in a few seconds, a racecar will melt its tires if it tries off the bat.

You know thats the same argument some people use against Dinosaurs having existed right?

Maybe they were working full-tilt on man-sized android soldiers to phase out human infantry and the technology turned out to scale up pretty well.

But that thing isn't packing multiple 105mm+ cannons, is it?

Artillery and bombers is the reason why land battleships don't exist. Too big and waste of resources. Main reason why I hate the baneblade from 40k, because it's an oversized piece of shit.

>Quoting Sigint.
>Quoting someones who's used as mockery on how /k/ek failed at predicting future combat.
>Someones who also approve the developements and production of REX 30 years later.

Kek, hypocrites.

That's not a land battleship. They just called it that. And you could pen it with a man portable rifle.

IRL? Tanks, Even disregarding the profile, a Mech has to be able to stand up, that's a whole lot of space dedicated to legs, arms, etc. Tanks put all that weight into guns, armor, and the like. The only exception might be if you design mechs to be decent at melee combat, getting into knife-fighting range with a tank.

Rule of Cool? Mech wins everytime. Because tanks are blah meh and samey. Effective doesn't mean exciting. Consider the soldier with an assault rifle, versus the guy carrying the minigun and ammo backpack. Is the latter realistic? Fuck no. Is it way cooler to watch? Fuck yes.

except Federation Tanks also had one pilot

Don't forget can't cross bridges or muddy terrain.

again if thats the case why use battleships/battlecruisers etc

What dinosaurs exiting got to do with a 60T mech running like a tiger?

>Not enough traction. Turning your treads and wheels super fast isn't gonna do jack if all your doing is making dirt fly or tearing up the road. Or worse, digging in a hole to get stuck in, just the same as a regular car trying to get out of the dirt.
That's usually because of too much weight keeping you down. So what do you think would happen to an MBT like the Abrams (~60 tons) if it tried running on legs with very small surface contact area in such circumstances? The legs would simply sink in, like when you try to walk through deep snow

>Don't forget can't cross bridges or muddy terrain.
A mech could though

>except Federation Tanks also had one pilot

Wat?
If you mean Type 61 have 1 driver then i'll agree, but 1 crew? Fuck you

If the technology was handwaved, would a setting with 2 person Mechs in a pre-WWI setting work?

>again if thats the case why use battleships/battlecruisers etc
Don't see too many of those around anymore, sadly

Depends on the weight and volume i'll presume

If anything with modern day tech a tank is more maneuverable because it has more grip (momentum of 60 tons is a bitch) and the low LoS is a fucking advantage that allows a tank to hide more easily.

ITT: Tank Sluts vs. Mech Sluts.