Anyway. This has reminded me of a thread I came across long ago on The RPG Site, in which people got very passionate, irate and serious about the unrealisticness of mechs and how tanks would always be better. I sadly can't find the thread now, but here is a more civilised version. If you google "mechs vs tanks" or similar you will discover that this is in fact one of the great arguments of our times, akin to nature vs nurture, left vs right, somewheres vs anywheres, and whether that dress was black and blue vs whether you are INSANE AND AN IDIOT.
Nerds have problems with culture. I have just finished reading Max Hastings' Catastrophe, his thoroughly enjoyable history of the military campaigns of 1914. At that time, it was fairly well understood that cavalry were no longer generally going to be suitable for use in contemporary frontline warfare except for some limited purposes. Yet the Great Powers all went to war with huge cavalry contingents. Why? Because the horse had prestige and that was hard to shake.
Another good example of this phenomenon is Japan's abandonment of firearms in the 17th century. Japanese armies in the 16th century were armed to the teeth with guns. By the time of the 19th century they weren't. This wasn't for lack of guns or the capacity to make them. It was because of culture - the sword had prestige.
Yes, eventually cavalry were abandoned and the Japanese started to use guns in warfare again, but it isn't hard to imagine a far future in which the prevailing culture(s) insist on the use of mechs for, say, the aristocracy and ban other war vehicles as vulgar. Why would people in the year 40,000 be duking it out in giant robots rather than the far more efficient and sensible tank? Because of culture - or, more plainly, because it's fucking cool. Duh.
I wish our own world ran on the rule of cool more often than it does.
ReplyDeleteI watched the Zoids TV series as a kid and while my memory is pretty hazy I remember they were mostly if not entirely used to fight as sport. There was even a referee for each match (dropped onto the battlefield from an orbital space platform, IIRC). Horses are still kept around to race and play polo with and whatnot too, so "obsolescence" or "impracticality" don't matter when it comes to recreation. So feel free to play Battletech but if you want realism just pretend it's a pay-per-view event played inside a big sports arena.
ReplyDeleteNever saw the TV series in the UK as a kid, but Zoids were a super popular toy when I was five or six... never allowed them because they were too expensive, but fortunately better-off neighbours permitted me the pleasure.
DeleteEach kit came with a little comic, and the stories therein were surprisingly sophisticated. Turns out the writer was Grant Morrison: ZOIDS were his first writing gig. Don't think he ever wrote for the anime (just googled and no, he didn't)
That is completely bizarre! What a great find.
DeleteI had a friend with family in Australia and he would always come back from trips laden with zoids he'd picked up in Singapore or HK on the way back. Like you my parents always said they were too expensive but one christmas I was given a sabre-toothed tiger zoid which I treasured for years.
Funny, there are several games where mechs exist as a form of armored cavalry/infantry combo. They are no more realistic than any other game about giant robots shooting at each other, but some effort was made to sound more reasonable. One called Lancer even describes them as well, Lancers.
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember the old Battletech (?) games having mechs?
DeleteI did like Zoids, back in the day.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Though I definitely agree that mechs are cool, I think one thing that separates them from cavalry or swords is that those real-life examples are forms of older technology that were displaced by something newer, whereas mechs have yet to be developed and it seems it would be verry difficult to do so.
ReplyDeleteNo need to be snarky about patriarchy by the way. I know you see yourself as center-right and all, but you're a smart guy and I know you know it's possible for oppressive patriarchy to exist without tainting all aspects of traditional female socialization, just as not everything about how boys are traditionally raised is tainted by toxic masculinity. For what it's worth, my son is a bit older than your daughter but it seems they both engage in similar ways of non-violent imaginative play.
I really enjoy reading your posts and I don't mean to come off as censorious. I figured that remark was probably off the cuff, but I'm from the other side of the aisle and don't like to see such ideas treated dismissively, so I just wanted to push back a bit, hopefully in a friendly way.
Fair enough, but there is a lot of stuff I come across online which treats ideas I hold dear highly dismissively as a matter of course. That's just life, I'm afraid. I don't intend to post about politics all the time or turn into RPGPundit or anything like that, but nor do I intend to self-censor entirely.
DeleteI recall attending a lecture on mounted infantry before World War One. The last modern war for Great Britain had been the Second Boer War - hardily a conflict of equals, but the Boers were well armed. Manoeuvrability across the vast spaces of South Africa had been essential and had given the Boers quite an advantage. The lesson had to some degree been learnt and mounted infantry became popular - at least as a concept, I don't know how far War Office plans got - though it was the wrong lesson for the Western Front.
ReplyDeleteIf we apply this lesson to mecha, perhaps the story is that humanity needed mecha for some very specific set of circumstances. And having made the cultural and financial commitment to mecha, the armed forces continue to use them....
According to Hastings the British cavalry were probably the most effective because they were basically treated as mounted infantry. Cavalry were also still very useful on the Eastern front.
DeleteI like the idea of mechs having been invented for something specific, but it is hard to think of what.
I liked the original Heavy Gear video game (own the RPG but never played) where the 15' tall mechs are basically originally utility designs, or artillery platforms, useful for scouting and skirmishing. But actual MBT tanks are far more fearsome, heavily armoured & powerful'endgame content'.
ReplyDeleteI'm kinda sure that's half canon in the Battletech universe. 'Mechs are the vehicles of choice not only because they are good war machines, but because they are status symbol (to the point that I'm pretty sure alot of characters in novels have done dumb stuff with them for pure bragging rights - even getting killed in the process)
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