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[Parsely]

How are they propelling the mechs?

What part of the 16th?

If the mechs are something in the vein of spider tanks, operating with relatively simple oscillating chechanics in the legs, then the legs could have their stride lengths and/or speeds individually controlled with what amounts to a mechanical gear transmission.

It would have to be some kind of handwavey bullshit engine that doesn't need maintenance or refueling. Relying on 16th century people to invent gasoline is just too much. I don't want to throw fuel concerns completely out the window but these mechs need to be something you can turn on after thousands of years of no maintenance.

Sorry if I was misleading, it's not alt history. It's Not-Earth, focusing on people who are similar to 16th century men.

Forgive me, but what is it about having more than two legs that would enable a mechanical gear transmission? I did envision the mechs being bipedal, but I'm open to having any kind of shape and size so long as I can justify it.

Wouldn't it be more entertaining if they had reverse-engineered the railguns-?

No.

Then you could have ye olde sea battles with gauss weapons.

No! Ancient sea battles would be piss boring if there were gauss weapons. It'd just be a matter of who could zap the other guy first. Plus, how in the blue hell are they going to make ferrous ammo, let alone power the gun?

More problematic is the power supply, i guess electric power would need some more time to develop and steam engines would need huge amounts of coal.   

The advantages of a huge armored machine (especially if you can get the high tech materials from the original mechs) is that it would be impervious to small arms fire.

To be clear, they're not inventing mechs, these mechs were discovered. The story is post-apocalyptic. These people are finding mechs their ancestors built before their civilization collapsed.

It doesn't even have to be anything more advanced than steel. Black powder firearms struggle to penetrate even body armor of the time.

[Arx]

I'm still curious what part of the 16th you particularly have in mind. Since the beginning of the Renaissance, technology has been advancing at a surprising rate.

The four (or more)-legged business is because I cannot imagine a 16thC civilisation managing to operate and maintain bipedal robots. It also makes manual control significantly easier because a many-legged robot is much more forgiving of mistakes than a bipedal. You know what happens when you try to take a really long stride? That would be a very expensive mistake to make in a bipedal mech. A many-legged mech would have the same issues, but on a lesser scale because there are more supports.

[Parsely]

I'm still curious what part of the 16th you particularly have in mind. Since the beginning of the Renaissance, technology has been advancing at a surprising rate.

The four (or more)-legged business is because I cannot imagine a 16thC civilisation managing to operate and maintain bipedal robots. It also makes manual control significantly easier because a many-legged robot is much more forgiving of mistakes than a bipedal. You know what happens when you try to take a really long stride? That would be a very expensive mistake to make in a bipedal mech. A many-legged mech would have the same issues, but on a lesser scale because there are more supports.

I can't say, because I only had vague notions of the period I wanted to evoke. I wanted to be on the verge of the complete takeover of firearms, so that the people in the setting would have a basis on which to understand chemical propellant weapons, but still have the potential for mass melee combat.

I was thinking that the mech mostly balanced itself. The pilot's controls just tell the mech which direction to go, and it can intelligently navigate on it's own, like those mule robots the military is working on. If the mech stumbles, it uses its arms and whatnot to correct on its own. So the crew's job is just to lead the mech along a manageable path.

[Tack]

Yeah I feel like bipedal walking requires so much intricacy that you can't really do it without 'push stick forward to go forward'.

I mean, just the various muscle groups we have constantly making fine-tuning so that our knees don't wobble whilst standing still is freakin' insane.

[Parsely]

Yeah I feel like bipedal walking requires so much intricacy that you can't really do it without 'push stick forward to go forward'.

Now that I actually thought of it, it seems like a really attractive way of skirting the piloting issue. It makes sense that something that big and complicated would be controlled that way. Fighter pilots don't manipulate every individual control surface on their aircraft after all, they just tell it "roll right", "pitch up".

[Mel_Vixen]

Postapocalyptic huh? How about "AI" cores that are bolted to the reactores which tell the people how to build them NEW bodies.

[Arx]

I'm still curious what part of the 16th you particularly have in mind. Since the beginning of the Renaissance, technology has been advancing at a surprising rate.

The four (or more)-legged business is because I cannot imagine a 16thC civilisation managing to operate and maintain bipedal robots. It also makes manual control significantly easier because a many-legged robot is much more forgiving of mistakes than a bipedal. You know what happens when you try to take a really long stride? That would be a very expensive mistake to make in a bipedal mech. A many-legged mech would have the same issues, but on a lesser scale because there are more supports.

I can't say, because I only had vague notions of the period I wanted to evoke. I wanted to be on the verge of the complete takeover of firearms, so that the people in the setting would have a basis on which to understand chemical propellant weapons, but still have the potential for mass melee combat.

I was thinking that the mech mostly balanced itself. The pilot's controls just tell the mech which direction to go, and it can intelligently navigate on it's own, like those mule robots the military is working on. If the mech stumbles, it uses its arms and whatnot to correct on its own. So the crew's job is just to lead the mech along a manageable path.

Yeah, then there's no good reason to have more than one, maybe two people in the mech.

[Tack]

Depending how big they are you could possibly have rig-rats oiling the joints or warming the cores or shovelling the coal bullets or whatnot.

Reminds me of a book I read with dragons owned by privateers who would furnish them with webbing and then have a crew of fusilieers clambering about setting up matchlock broadsides.

No reason a mech couldn't have a similar array of troops festooned upon it.

[Parsely]

Yeah, then there's no good reason to have more than one, maybe two people in the mech.

One pilot, one commander who needs to be somewhere between the exit and the interior so he can communicate between the spotter(s) (who are still necessary for keeping maximum awareness of terrain and the enemy) atop the mech and the rest of the crew, and at least two men per gun.

On the mechs' place in combat: Assume that mechs are impervious to their own cannons (they're meant to be killed by railguns or ATGMs, none of which are available to the people in the story). So the only way to "kill" a mech is to knock it over with another mech.

Mechs would be amazing at breaking large formations of infantry. No one wants to get stepped on. I've been thinking about how this changes things.

No reason a mech couldn't have a similar array of troops festooned upon it.

One of my inspirations for this setting was Ring of Red, which has mechs that, instead of having a single ACE PILOT, sometimes have a tank-like crew complement, with other soldiers sometimes also mounted on them carrying rifles and RPGs. So yes, the mechs would be covered in just as many musketeers and crossbowmen as could be shoved on there. This is also the reason for my choice of mechs rather than tanks, because they can serve as walking towers. There's something about a metal vehicle covered in people that tickles me.

[Arx]

On the mechs' place in combat: Assume that mechs are impervious to their own cannons (they're meant to be killed by railguns or ATGMs, none of which are available to the people in the story). So the only way to "kill" a mech is to knock it over with another mech.

Let me introduce you to this thing I call a 'bombard'...

There's been a remarkable technological development recently, allowing my soldiers to reload it much faster than before too!

How many mechs were actually discovered? I doubt these people are going to be significantly able to repair a damaged mech, which means basically that if a mech goes down in a long battle that's game over for the mech, since a sufficiently angry enemy will have squads that swarm any mech that goes down, pack it with explosives, and blow it to hell. Enemy war machine: permanently weaker.

[Parsely]

Let me introduce you to this thing I call a 'bombard'...

How many mechs were actually discovered?

I doubt these people are going to be significantly able to repair a damaged mech, which means basically that if a mech goes down in a long battle that's game over for the mech, since a sufficiently angry enemy will have squads that swarm any mech that goes down, pack it with explosives, and blow it to hell. Enemy war machine: permanently weaker.

Didn't I just say that ya can't penetrate a mech using even one of their own cannons? Why would existing bombards fare any better? Muzzle velocity is the key to penetrating armor, that or developments that would be impossible for these people like shaped charge warheads, and bombard projectiles ain't gonna be faster than rifled modern artillery.

Putting a hard number on it seems like a bad idea. But I envision these locations where they're found (underground bunkers accessed via tunnels) containing perhaps a hundred of them, averaging less than three quarters of them in working condition, leaving plenty of corpses to dissect for examination and spare parts, as well as tools. Since these are bunker complexes, there would be other interesting things they might find.

Why would you destroy it? Capture it and use it for yourself. There's no reason to destroy these invaluable machines.

[Arx]

You specified yourself that tipping them over would be the primary method of disarmament, and I should think a projectile able to smash through walls can tip over a top-heavy mech. I mean, aiming is an issue, but given that literally the entire win condition of combat has become to remove the other side's mechs...

Why would you destroy it? Capture it and use it for yourself. There's no reason to destroy these invaluable machines.

If you disable a mech in battle, you make sure there's no way in hell the enemy is getting it back. Obviously the optimal way is to take it for your own use, but if you can't capture it absolutely you destroy it.

[andrea]

but you said that knocking them over is a way to defeat them. Punching is no more effective at that than using heavy bombard fire, depsite what all the movies with giant robots show.
Of course you might need very big cannons or very coordinated fire, but if knocking over is all that is needed, cannons can do that, armor penetration or not.

not that fielding some of them wouldn't be an advantage, provided they are recovered rather than built. But they are not likely to be impervious to conventional weapons, if melee mechs can disable other mechs. Depends on scale however... if they are castle sized, it may be truly challenging to bring one down.

interesting thought: in the war of the worlds novel, artillery can destroy martian tripods. the problem is getting to aim before they crush you.

pre-edit: ninja!

[Amperzand]

Basically, the issue with forced melee combat because armor too stronk is that chemical propellant and rifled barrels make much better force-amplifiers than muscle or gears. With the same mass of machinery, you can get more force out of a gun than a club, swords being useless against real armor unless implausibly sharp or heavy enough to basically be clubs. Punching is okay too, but you remove the leverage of a weapon, assuming the thing already has arms.

[Tack]

So these mechs are impervious to massed canon fire? Must be big.

Maybe assault crews and boarding parties.