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Walkers as Tanks
Mojarn Piett
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 9:24 am 
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Quote (CyberShadow @ 17 2005 June,16:45)
Balance is a real issue with anything standing on two legs. Walking is really just controlled falling, and that can be costly with artificial systems without an innate sense of balance.

That is why I vote for the power armor as the first bipedal thingy on the battlefield: inside there is a human doing the balancing and the suit only has to keep up, which sounds a lot easier to me than the balancing itself.

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Markconz
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:57 am 
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Quote (Mojarn Piett @ 20 2005 June,09:24)
Quote (CyberShadow @ 17 2005 June,16:45)
Balance is a real issue with anything standing on two legs. Walking is really just controlled falling, and that can be costly with artificial systems without an innate sense of balance.

That is why I vote for the power armor as the first bipedal thingy on the battlefield: inside there is a human doing the balancing and the suit only has to keep up, which sounds a lot easier to me than the balancing itself.

If it is proper powered armour though (rather than just armour) then the suit would have to have all the circuitry to duplicate the human balancing. If it has that much circuitry, then todays leading technology can already build robots that balance very well, right themselves quickly when knocked over by an impact, as well as being able to move through fluid handstands, somersaults and other acrobatics with more finessse than all but trained human atheletes can achieve. Indeed, rather than the expensive time consuming training it takes for a human to achieve such athletic prowess - once you have the appropriate artificial neural program, training a ?robot with appropriate motor circuitry is instantaneous.

The higher level AI for such robots is still pretty rubbish though though, so such robots would have to be controlled by remote control (eg FPS computer game style), long before they are capable of operating semi-independently.




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Lion in the Stars
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:20 pm 
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iblis:  The short story you're thinking of is CAV, by James Cobb.  It can be found in the COMBAT collection.

IMO, the first combat walker is going to be something along the lines of Shirow's Landmate (roughly 10 feet tall, and controlled by negative feedback master/slave arrangements).  I don't see anything bigger than the Arm Slaves from Full Metal Panic! (roughly 30 feet tall, and controlled by a preson wearing a master armature that the 'slave copies the motions from.  The difference between the two is mostly a matter of scale.  A Landmate has exposed master arms, and the pilot's legs are in the legs of the suit, leaving a few weaknesses that are exploitable.  An Arm Slave has it's pilot inside the torso of the suit, completely protected by the armor.  The other option is the Tactical Armor/Fake from Gasaraki, where the pilot suggests the direction of travel to the suit, but doesn't 'wear' the suit like a Landmate or Arm Slave (joysticks instead of an exoskeleton, probably less fatiguing than running all over creation literally).  Hmmm... Markconz, you and I may be thinking along similar lines, I'm just thinking about having a human still in the vehicle (can't jam a datalink that's hardwired!).

I see multiped (4,6, or 8 legs) walkers being deployed as 'urban' tanks, but the Tachikomas' AI is a long way from reality (well, maybe not.  Ghost in the Shell is taking place in 2030, after all).

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Markconz
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:47 pm 
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Quote (Lion in the Stars @ 19 2005 July,23:20)
?Hmmm... Markconz, you and I may be thinking along similar lines, I'm just thinking about having a human still in the vehicle (can't jam a datalink that's hardwired!).

Interesting post Lion.

IMHO I don't think jamming a datalink is going to be a real problem anytime soon. Given the current world climate, a western 'solider in a suit', dying to an insurgent with a cheap RPG is far more catastrophic and likely. The political cost of drones getting broken is not nearly as high as that of human lives being lost.

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dafrca
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:28 am 
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Quote (Markconz @ 19 2005 July,15:47)
Given the current world climate, a western 'solider in a suit', dying to an insurgent with a cheap RPG is far more catastrophic and likely. The political cost of drones getting broken is not nearly as high as that of human lives being lost.

But I think this will be the case for more then just the present. I think the low cost explosive, traps (pit trap for example), and fire and forget missiles will always make the more expensive vehicles have to take precautions.

As long as a farmer can make a ?bucket of bang? in his barn and then plant it as a trap, there will be the need to address those kinds of things. I remember my father talking about the ?wire across the roads? in Europe. American driving down the road in the jeep and bang, his head is cut off by piano wire. Humans are cleaver and resourceful when it comes to killing cheaply.

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Legion 4
 Post subject: Walkers as Tanks
PostPosted: Wed Jul 20, 2005 5:29 am 
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Yep, that technique was still a threat in Korea when I was there.  All our jeeps had angle iron welded vertically on the bumper to combat that.  We humans can be a resourceful lot when it comes to killing ... just turn on the news ...

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