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I've been thinking about it and ti seems that real life mecha might not be tha far off.
Power Source
What people against mecha love to point at at as flaw. Welll New Fusion reactors using Helium3 seems to be a possibility.
Movement
Most likely electric motors. Hydraulics, though efective, are rather slow and hard to maintain.
Weapons
Conventional weaponry would most likely be used. Anything past that is beyond our knowledge unless plasma is used but that is tricky.
So post any other proablems and I'll answer to the best of my knowledge.Do you think it will work. Do you think it won't?

Until the development of magic armor (so to speak) a mecha is mere a giant walking target. A Jet Fighter and some dude with a targeting laser would make a mockery out of a mecha. You're slow. You're plodding. You won't be able to fly. Your armor would be a thin sheet of steel. Thin enough that most assault rifles will go through it at medium ranges (Said Assault Rifles use 5.7mm x 23mm rounds). You're not going to be more mobile. You require far more maitenance then an equivalent amount of main battle tanks or attack helicopters, speaking of which, fulfill its role better, and cheaper.

The magic armor in question, would have to spend a gram or two of mass to stop a .50 caliber round. That's heavy machine gun round yes, but a lot of stuff carries a fifty cal. This armor must also stop it without being ablative either. You're now asking for a lot out of a gram or two of armor. Anything bigger, such as 120mm cannons, GAU-8 Avengers, stuff like that, will still make a mockery of your armor. For reference, a GAU-8 Avenger will punch through a foot of steel and keep going, and leaving the 1 ft x 1 ft x 1 ft block steel molten. As for explosive strength, I'd say one gram has to be able to resist a pound of TNT before being remotely useful.

Even then you now have your magic armor. Stick it on a tank for cheaper and be done with it. Or even better. A helicopter. Hell, if you have a Helium 3 Fusion Reactor, stick it on an Apache, and have the ultimate in long-range attack craft. Jet Propelled Airplanes are a no-no, unless you have them entirely turbine driven. You still have to toss something out the back to go forward.


The only real feasible mecha for quite a while is most likely power armor. And even then, you're Rocket Propelled Grenade bait. God forbid you bump into the bigger Russian RPGs. Those things can Mission-Kill an Abrams Main Battle Tank (Read: Current U.S. Military Main Battle Tank.)

I know.

You don't have the armor for them to be *remotely* useful. It's a sad day when five guys with an HMG and assault rifles can bring down your multimillion dollar scout vehicle. Simply put, you get owned by assault rifles. Don't bother. Again, a Hummer, which can armor itself against bullets, will be more effective in a scout role. Mk. I Eyeball is always better then the latest ubersatellite.

Apaches are quite fast. They go about 165 mph, and have an effective range of 300 miles. That's quite good. Not to mention can carry far more deliverable firepower onto a target as needed. A Jet would have to circle multiple times to deliverable the same amount of firepower that an Apache can do right now. Not to mention the jets guzzle a ludicrous amount of gas. A VTOL drinks even more gas. To the point where they're ridiculously short range for a dubious benefit.

Power Armor doesn't have to be customized. You just design adjustable controls. Just like a car. 3nodding

Then do what the army does for vehicles. Select a certain body type and have height guide-lines. If you want to use VTOL for a VTOL capable jet, you're going to burn a lot more fuel doing the same thing a conventional take off would do.

A Hummer would go around said tree. Or even better, the guys would get out and continue on foot.

There's no reason for giant mecha. They're walking targets that some dude with a Soviet RPG from thirty years ago will kill in one shot. Same thing with M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks. Current generation Leopards and Challangers can survive a hit or two, and remain semi-combat operational.

Dragon Scale failed all of the U.S. Army's tests. Miserably. An M16A2 at 50 yards, the second shot out of a three round burst penetrated the armor. Kevlar wouldn't go down like that. Not only that, but its much heavier then modern body armor for a dubious increase in protection. Let's also look at the fact that it's glued together. This glue fails in 90 degree temperatures. It fails in 60% or so humidity or greater. In fact, the only good place for Dragon Scale armor would be indoors. 68 degrees, in 20% humidity.

Quite frankly, you're better off with conventional steel armor. Wait, a Giant Mecha's design precludes doing any of the modern armoring techniques, like sloping the armor to have shells ricochet, stuff like that.

In the end, it's a wasteful idea. When two guys with an Javelin Missile Launcher can obliterate three tanks at 4500 yards in the space of a minute twenty, a Mecha would be an even better target because its tall.

The M1A2 Abrams is just under three meters tall (That's about 10 feet), and its considered tall for MBT standards. Now. Apply six meters tall. Oh yeah, you're a huge target that can be seen for quite a distance.

Welcome to the Age of "If you can see it, its dead!" warfare.

And before I forget theres the intimidation factor. If I saw a giant mech coming towards me, I'd be scared outta my mind. tTats what would happen.

I'll take the word of guys who actually used in the field, whom I often talk to on a fairly regular basis (Read: I'm talking to one right now.) then Future Weapons. 90% of Future Weapons will never be used. That automatic shotgun? Yeah okay. Never gonna happen. Logistics. Metal Storm? Never gonna happen. Again, Logistics. So Future Weapons are 'kewl' but will never be. Ever hear of the XM Assault Rifle? No? Figures. That weapon should be on Future Weapons, because it does everything. But the Army canned it. Why? M16A2 does whatever the XM can, and better.

Besides, if the vest is heavily damaged after a grenade, then you are a mess of ruptured guts, broken bones. You will die. AK-47 rounds may be stopped, but they will still crush your lungs, kidneys, intestines. You will die of internal bleeding. Dragon Scale is too expensive for what it can do.

MP5s are eye boogers. s**t has a use. Eye boogers don't. They are terrible weapons. They won't penetrate modern body armor. Why? It shoots pistol rounds. AK-47s are also powerful, but they have no penetration qualities. I can assure you if that you loaded it with 7.62mm Armor Piercing ammo, it'll make a mockery of Dragon Skin. Dragon Skin is crap. Get used to it. Same thing with 5.56mm x 45mm Armor Piercing ammo, which is used against things like Cars. Simply put, Dragon Skin is an overpriced toy that will never be used because it doesn't do anything better then what modern armor does.

Besides, what would you rather wear... a 28 pound kevlar vest with ceramic plates on your back and front, or a 47 pound Dragon Skin vest. This doesn't include your 10 pound rifle, or your 80 pound kit of stuff, or your twenty pound set of ammo... knife... grenades... etc. Again. Dragon Skin belongs indoors, where you don't have to go anywhere. Hell, the armor is useless if you go outside in 90 degree + weather, so why bother? Your armor discs will start sliding off the armor

As for Giant Mecha, scared? Sure, if you're a crowd of people with shotguns and pistols sure. But against a U.S. Army Anti-Tank team? "Ooooh! TARGET PRACTICE LOLOL!" That's a 45k missile for your multi-million dollar walker. And before you direct any meaningful firepower, said AT team will be long gone, wasting your ammo which costs money.(And yes, they will be multi-million dollar vehicles. No infrastructure exists to support construction. Thus, to make the money back on such development, they're going to inflate the price.)

So, when you can tell me how cost effective it is to trade an RPG for a multi-million dollar vehicle, then we can talk. Until then, giant mecha usable for any real military purpose will be ridiculous, and even when feasible, there's nothing that an attack chopper or tank can't do that's better then what the silly walker can do.

Metal Storm? Law Enforcement? Are you nuts? Why don't we just give them tactical nuclear weapons and be done with it since the effect would be the same thing. I'm sure the army has some Davy Crocketts lying around for personal use.

Level VI Kevlar with the ceramic plates in can actually make the wearer survive. Injured yes, but the M79 won't leave him a bleeding mess. A block of ceramics found in Level VI kevlar armor are the same you find in you know... tank armor.

Dragon Skin is redikulously fragile. You sacrifice protection for dubious mobility. Besides, the armor isn't even good. It gets destroyed by bullets. Kevlar doesn't get destroyed by bullets unless you're using stuff that isn't approved by the Geneva Conventions. Like... 35mm autocannons. Other then that, a Level VI vest is pretty much the ultimate in personal protection. Also, consider the fact that a bunch of guys in the Army that I know said they wouldn't trust Dragon Skin with their lives. That should tell you how worthless it is.

Metal Storm is a one barrel system that can be utilized to fire from one to however many shots in the cartridge. That means, you can have a single bullet of twenty bullets. Metal Storm's shtick is that all the shots are perfectly accurate since they fire at the same time. You also can't change ammunitions in a Metal Storm. To do so, means you need to take it apart, rewire everything and then put it together.

Compare to "Change Magazine" for a conventional weapon.

Please, know what you're talking about. So far, I haven't seen any decent counters to anything I've said. You have not addressed its vulnerability to weapons of any sort, the lack of armor that can be carried on it, actual fueling of the machine, or actual mobility.

Also, "Future Weapons" is 100% Marketing by the corporations who made those weapons.