Mechwarriors.

[BrettNortje]

Have you guys heard of this game or fantasy? it is where pilots fight in huge robots. i think this should become a reality, because, tanks cannot travel through jungles and mountains, but things with chicken legs can! then, they don't use jet fuel either, maybe using a electric engine will do it? i know with the state of robotics in Japan and China, this will be easy to do.

 

What do you guys think?

[CraigD]

Have you guys heard of this game or fantasy? it is where pilots fight in huge robots.

You can’t be a fan of manga and anime (which I am) and not be familiar with mecha, though not necessarily like the fictional genre (which I don’t). I like only a couple of mecha fictions: the so-bad-it’s-good 1985 movie Robot Jox, and the self-parody 2004-2005 cartoon Megas_XLR.

 

As nearly anyone alive today with access to television of the internet knows, The Star Wars movies had mecha of a sort, the gigantic 4-legged AT-AT and the smaller 2-legged AT-ST. Hundreds of millions of people, including I, found them pretty cool.

 

i think this should become a reality, because, tanks cannot travel through jungles and mountains, but things with chicken legs can!

True walking vehicles (one where the legs can move independently, rather than via an unchangable mechanical linkages) have been a reality since the 1960s. This webpage has a long list of them, with references to source URLs. :thumbs_up Note that many of these prototypes, such as GE’s 1968 CAM ("cybernetic anthropomorphous machine") “walking trucks”, were intended for, but were never successful enough to actually see military use. With advances in technology ca 2005 with allows the human driver to be eliminate, companies like Boston Dynamics have had more success with smaller machines like their Big Dog 4-legged robot, a version of which was used this year in an USMC exercise. (source)

 

The great disadvantage of walking vehicles vs. wheeled and tracked vehicles is speed: most are very slow, the fastest yet slightly slower than a human athlete can sprint. Many tracked vehicles are about 3 times as fast as a human, while ordinary wheeled vehicles are 6 to 10 times as fast as a human.

 

Another disadvantage of walking vehicles vs. tracked ones is that walkers distribute their load over smaller “footprints” than tracked vehicles, so can’t carry as much weight without sinking into soft ground or damaging pavement. They’re well suited for cargo carriers like the Walking Truck and Big Dog, but not heavily armored fighting vehicles.

 

they don't use jet fuel either, maybe using a electric engine will do it?

Walking vehicles use more power to move the same payload the same distance than wheeled ones, so while, like an ordinary car, they could use electric batteries, to have better range, they need to use higher energy density fuels like kerosene (ie: jet fuel) or gasoline. The 110 (empty) to 260 (fully loaded) Big Dog, for example, uses a 11000 W (15 HP) go cart motor. The GE Walking Truck used a car motor.

 

Because these “true walkers” have to be able to move their legs in a variety of ways, they need precise yet powerful actuators, so all of them use their gas motors to pump hydraulic fluid.