Realistically speaking, what would be a practical application

Absolutely nothing, but fighting a stationary Scud launcher wouldn't have made for a particularly compelling final boss.
The ingame justification is that railguns are stealthier than missiles, but this is kind of bullshit considering the amount of heat and noise railguns produce.

Literally Peace Walker.
An AI that launches a nuke when it detects a nuke has been launched without human interference.
The thing can also cross borders and detonate the webcam-head which is actually a hydrogen bomb.

Apaert from the autistic screeching, that is

>>33353281
So a dead hand initiative on legs?

>>33353279
>railguns are stealthier than rockets
Maybe the projectile has a lesser radar signature?
Why does it have a sword-whip, tho?

>>33353314
>Why does it have a sword-whip, tho?
because the skull guy thought it looked hella sick and otacons dad agreed

>>33353231
>For what purpose?

it looks cool as hell

>>33353231
None. Other vehicles already do what it does and better.

Also, kojima is a fucking hack.

>>33353314
>dead hand initiative on legs?
Pretty much yes.
If metal gears were real launching a nuke from anywhere would be devasting on a political level. Imagine using a metal gear to launch missiles from north korea into china and cause a proxy war between them.

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>>33353394
Kojima sees the future.

>trump's campaign.
>smart guns with built in remote deactivation

>>33353231
>expecting realism from MGS, one of the most retarded sci-fi series ever made

Japs just want MECHA LOL, they don't care about functionality.

>>33353231
>What does it do that an icbm can't?
They explain this IN THE GAME you dipshit, the railgun allows a nuclear warhead to be fired without radar detection from any possible location. Untraceable nukes with perfect plausible deniability.

>>33353231
Rex wasn't a bad idea, just an all terrain stealth nuclear launcher.
They've gone full retard and just turned them into second rate gundams at this point though.

>>33353477
RAY was just a water-based REX with offshoots for amphibious combat. Not quite as dumb as some of the later variants - though Shagohod and Peace Walker were at least conceptually interesting. Sahelanthropus is retarded through and through

>>33353447
Except you got a big fuckin metal dinosaur stomping around making autsim noises.
How the fuck do you even move this thing around the world?

>>33353537
yeah it makes no sense why they treat this thing as some revolutionary weapon

it would take a metal gear 7 days to walk from the border of Afghanistan to Tehran. Assuming it didn't get stuck, intercepted, or run out of power.

Nuclear subs from the 50s would be way more valuable than metal gears

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>>33353394
I'm pretty sure he knows that mecha are impractical already bud

>>33353231
No real application that couldn't be offset to a tracked vehicle. They're too much of gigantic targets and in a realistic scenario helicopter gunships would make short of them firing ATGMs lased by ground forces.

>>33353434
Holy SHIT!!! Donald Trump is George Sears!!!

>>33353424
How the fuck would you move something like that unnoticed? Not to mention the fuel, spare parts, maintenance crews.

Metal Gear is the greatest weapon known to man.
>cost trillions.
>slow, shitty armor, retard weapons.
Simple, a nation builds Metal Gear, goes to war, and all of them get destroyed. Your nation goes bankrupt.
Only a Jap could design such a weapon.

>>33353231
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c

if it has wheels on it's legs, it would be viable because it can roll energy efficiently while also being able to scale rough terrain.

Is Kojima the Japanese Tom Clancy?

>>33354091
No
That would be Motofumi Kobayashi

>>33353281
Ballistic missile submarines already fulfill this purpose and do it better than any land-based platform, much less a huge bipedal robot, could.

>>33354091
no, because Clancy can't write for shit. He was a real moron.

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>>33353231
>what does it do that an icbm can?

It is an icbm launcher you doofus

think of how big a nuclear submarine or Missile silo is.

By comparison Metal Gear Rex is miniscule, with offensive and defensive capabilities far exceeding an tank or jet, and with anti-air and long range detection capabilities on par with a first world naval vessel.


And with its main purpose as a nuclear weapons platform it would be basically unstoppable without specific anti-MetalGear weapon, thus the production of Ray units

Imagine if we attacked another nation with walking nuclear submarines than had an excessive anti-air/armour/infantry arsenal, and could pass rugged terrain at high speed.

One or two of them could take a country

It would be the new nuclear aircraft carrier in terms of military power projection.

>>33354408
Nuclear submarines have more firepower and are far harder to detect and track than a 10-15m tall bipedal robot.

>And with its main purpose as a nuclear weapons platform it would be basically unstoppable without specific anti-MetalGear weapon, thus the production of Ray units

Yes, because artillery, cruise missiles, and laser-guided bombs do not exist.

Listen bro--and I say this as someone who is a hardcore giant robot cartoon fanboy--there is zero purpose for a weapon like a Metal Gear, because there is no real world mission in which it would have better performance than any existing type of weapon.

>>33354408
>offensive and defensive capabilities far exceeding an tank or jet, and with anti-air and long range detection capabilities on par with a first world naval vessel.
>gets taken out by one faggot wearing spandex

>>33354472
Orbital kek

>>33354472
Doesn't Raiden kill like 20+ of them solo in MGS2?

>>33354301

MGS storylines are like somebody took that Instant Tom Clancy Plot Generator and made the plot 10x more retarded while somehow also making the characters 10x more interesting.

I love MGS but it is fucking goofy.

>>33354462
>no real world mission

It has plenty of applications, as mobile armoured support to an area of operations, it could effectively provide artillery, anti-air and anti-armour support to protect an objective such as a forward operating base in defensive front, but it can also utilize its mobility and below radar height and relatively quiet movement to cross borders and attack targets on short notice from local positions.

And it could be utilized like a peace walker, as a mobile automated nuclear retaliation system.

And more than anything else, force projection.

Only the wealthiest motherfucking countries can build these, in the fiction only superpowers have even build able to build decent prototypes.

And to be able to hang a weapon like this over the heads of your enemies is a huge "fuck you" to everybody else, but they'll all want to be on your side because of it.

Metal gear is a cool idea, maybe something that fills a similar role will be feasible in a couple of decades IRL

I always thought that the GEKKO from GotP seemed pretty plausible. We've got the technology for things like MIT's BigDog, just needs good AI (or hell, make it a drone), and you've got a compact armored vehicle maneuverable enough for aspects of urban combat where tanks and APCs might not fit.

>>33353500
Sahelanthropus was actually noted as retarded in the game, it couldn't move under its own weight and as such Psycho Ginger had to control it.

>>33354986
>mobile armoured support to an area of operations, it could effectively provide artillery, anti-air and anti-armour support to protect an objective such as a forward operating base in defensive front
Speaking in real world terms, and not videogame circumstances where weight and ground pressure dont matter (bearing in mind that Rex is canonically over 500 ton), how is it going to do any of this better than a tank or SPAAG?
>relatively quiet movement to cross borders and attack targets on short notice from local positions.
How the fuck is a 3 story tall clanking metal dinosaur relatively quiet?
>And it could be utilized like a peace walker, as a mobile automated nuclear retaliation system.
Why? If you cant afford silos, you'd just use an R400 or something similar

>>33353314
The idea was that a nuke launched from a railgun would not be detectable midflight or capable of being intercepted. Not every shot would be a Nuke, but you have the capability of using it should you try.

>>33353231
Since we're on the topic of crazy nuke delivery machines, let me tell you about something I just thought of.

Peace Walker, but airborne. Mix the Global Hawk and the B-2, and create a small nuclear bomber with a stupid high loiter time, high altitude, and stealth.

>>33353231
>what would be a practical application for a metal gear?
Terror tactics, and that's about it. I imagine that seeing a metal abomination the size of a house fitted with guns and nukes stomping towards you would be pants-shitting scary.

>>33353833
The joke behind that is that SIGINT is later behind the development of the Metal Gear featured in MGS 1.

There's no reason for Metal Gears to have tons of 'end boss' level weapons. It's just a highly mobile IRBM launcher, that's more all terrain than a truck.

Rex's main advancement is the railgun making the launch much harder to detect. That's pretty reasonable as a general concept: Just an improved mobile IRBM launcher. That'd be desirable for many countries that cannot support something like SSBNs and just have a few nukes. North Korea for example, would kill for a few reasonable Rex-type machines as compared to an SSBN.

>>33353231
REX: A portable platform to launch a nuclear warhead that wasn't self propelled, therefore(according to the game's logic at the time) being invisible to detection. Everything else about it was secondary.

RAY: Smoke and mirrors. Holding up a country with an invisible super-scary shotgun.

>>33353231
Depends, the original concept and what they became in-universe are radically different; Granin, the guy who created the original concept, envisioned them as literal walking tanks that would provide greater firepower in an extremely mobile package. With that in mind, the Gekkos seen in 4 and Reveangance are the closest thing to his original idea of ultra-mobile firepower. The concept evolved into the the current form of walking nuke launchers as a kind of mission creep/departure by Huey Emmerich at the behest of the CIA/Patriots. The explanation being that they were another easy to hide nuke platform to use, Rex's Railgun in particular was a step up from the others because of its projectiles greater resistance to tracking via high speed, small size, and lack of chemical propellants.

>>33356185
Even assuming this stealthy shit, if you want à discrete irbm launcher, why wouldnt you put the railgun on a fucking truck? THAT would be stealthy.
Nuke launchers are not front line units, without even getting into the whole mecha stupidity.
I blame jap autism.

>>33356251
Probably went like this:
>Hey, we want to launch nukes
>But what if we get found out?
>No prob, I got this design from that guy
>Shit walks, makes it hard to find
>Aight, slap a nuke on it

>>33356265
>shit walks, makes it hard to find
Does not compute at all

>>33356251
Not mobile enough. I think it was addressed in game.

>>33356270
The thing can go in the deep jungles and shit where wheels don't work, I'm assuming that's the logic, not that it's good but it is what it is.

>>33356274
>a 500 ton mecha that will sink knee deep into the first soft ground it encounters is somehow more mobile

>>33356286
>everywhere you want to shoot from is soft ground
>trucks never get stuck in the mud

>>33356281
>deep jungle
That's an even worse environment for a mecha. It will sink completely below ground level.
t. been in the amazonian jungle.

>>33356294
>platform with a shitton of range
>you somehow need to go offroad
Why would you want to give tactical-level mobility (that will destroy any road btw) to a strategic platform?
Just admit that those things were shat up because of the rule of cool.

>>33353231
It serves the same purpose as nuke sub, but on land so mountainous or poor or landlocked countries have same capabilities. Also terrorists

>>33353231
Two-legged machines are completely impractical unless you're conducting warfare on Mars or something

>>33356307
Because you have a strategic platform with tactical level mobility? Hey man, that universe had an excuse. At least they had a reason to follow that rule other than coolness.

>>33356314
>Because you have a strategic platform with tactical level mobility
Which is pretty much irrelevant to a strategic platform.
I bet you think ssbns do scouting off the russian coast too.

>>33353279
stealthy in the sense of early warning systems. Missile launches are detected with satellite infrared sensors, so in theory a railgun could provide little or no launch signature, although in practice most large-scale railguns use plasma armatures so there's a fuckhueg fireball anyway. The other aspect is the mobility, but submarines already fill that role.

>not putting ICBMs on a tunnel boring machine to create ZE LANDBOOMER

kids today.

>not nuking your enemies with your walking trashcan
superior nuke-toting robot coming through

>>33354517
with MANPADS lol

>>33356251
They tried the truck thing: it's called the Shagohod.

Always loved the name: it's caught somewhere between a badass russian word and a car Austin Powers would drive

>>33356322
The biggest limitation of "strategic platforms" is mobility. Launcher on land that can be carried by a landlocked country, or one with a limited navy. These things were supposed to be carried by shit-tier countries to scare and destabilze the power of superpowers.

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>>33356432

>>33356438
>They tried the truck thing: it's called the Shagohod.
Oh God I just googled that.
The metal gear universe is irredeemably retarded.

>>33356450
it moves with DRIIIIIILLLSS

>>33354986

It's way too centralized

Everything you described can be accomplished with specialized, individual weapons and platforms for a much cheaper cost. Not to mention one lucky shot won't take out your entire base of force.

>>33353231
SHALL