Why are there almost no human vs. mecha shows, like Mellowlink?

Because Mellowlink was that good.

Because Mecha should fight Mecha!

Mecha can generally just step on people

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>>15780345
I always wanted a series about the crew of a totally-not Flak/Pak 88 against mechas.

>>15780345
because having a mecha and infantry fight each other in a vacuum is fucking retarded?

>>15780345

If conventional forces can reasonably hurt mecha with direct fire, why does the mecha exist?

It sort of invalidates anything bigger than power armor, mecha wise.

Mecha always has a hole in its military logic, and its best that point goes unmentioned for immersion. Sniper vs mecha as a concept willfully pokes and prods that flaw.

>>15780345

There's Heavy Object which you should totally watch

>>15780447
then they decide to put the not-Flak 88 on a not-AFV, and now it's a mecha vs mecha show

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>>15780382
But Eru, you can't gundamjack if you're already in a mecha!

>>15780485
Well you could say the same about body armor or if you want to go further in tech, exoskeletons. Neither of those are 100% invincible but they still do (and would still) have a use in fighting.

Or same with armored vehicles, which can be destroyed even if someone shooting a pistol or a standard rifle won't do much.

>>15780345
I love anti-tank rifles.

>>15780485
This seems pretty reasonable. I wouldn't say that it completely invalidates mecha, and >>15780548 has a point, but putting a human with a rifle up against a generic walking, flying, rocket-punching robot is something that the genre-wide suspension of disbelief doesn't quite cover.

That said, Mellowlink made it work really well. The power imbalance was severe enough that there was a real sense of tension that I don't often get from mecha shows.

I tried to construct an argument that every human vs. mecha show would be "Mellowlink, but with X", but I can actually imagine a couple scenarios that don't fit the mould and would make good shows. They just become "science fiction shows, and the bad guys have robots sometimes".

I now think it's just because of the audience. Pitching human vs. mecha would be saying "It's only going to appeal to mecha fans, but there's no protagonist mecha". That's a really hard sell.

>>15780485
>If conventional forces can reasonably hurt mecha with direct fire, why does the mecha exist?

yeah in a straight fight the mech would have the edge but that's kind of the point. A show that focuses on guerrilla strikes, sabotage etc. History is full of shit like this.

>>15780646

Now to be fair, Merrolinku had some pretty big plot armor. Remember when he ran through a blazing inferno that was overheating a Scopedog to deliver the killing blow and survived without a scratch?

>>15780751
Really, the biggest plot hole for me was that one time he tried to go in for the kill without doing the face thing first. Come on, man. What did you think was going to happen?

What if we did Dougram but without the Dougram

>>15780345
gee, i wonder why

>>15780873

yeah why would we ever make something clever and interesting when we can just do beam spam

>>15780868
>a real mecha based on the events of Cuban and Algerian revolutions
DO WANT

>>15780927
>Kennedy in a glass bowl is cooking up a new scheme to invade Cuba and re-install their dictatorship or assassinate Castro every week, only to fail.
>S1 ends with Castro telling his dudes that he had enough of that shit and he finally puts a hit on Kennedy

>>15780345

M.D. Geist

>>15780345
Gorilla tactics vs mech when

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>>15781020
>Gorilla tactics vs mech when

Oh boy, would you look at the time?

>>15780345
Because the point of robot shows is to sell toys, and you can't sell as many toys if the protagonist doesn't have a robot. It was fine with Mellowlink because that was the entire point of the show, and because they just had to sell new scopedog variants model kits.

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>>15780345
powered armor count?

>>15780646
Anti tank rifles are outdated.

Mellowlink works as part of an established universe. Votoms is pretty small in scale when it comes to the actual mech combat, so it works. Other mecha shows tend to take battles into outer space and whatnot, so it's just not feasible to have humans take on these mechs. I guess that competition typically hinges on what Gundam is or isn't doing, so the need for a "grounded" mecha show where man vs machine would be allowed to work just isn't there for creators. Everything's gotta be big.

>>15780345
Mostly because the mech is a stand in for the human. A kind of human+.

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>>15780485

I was thinking of this for a while and decided to post it here and now.

Say that in the distant future humans learn how to turn their bodies robotic. They can't change their layout due to how their mind is laid out, which means they have to stay humanoid.

Because many things can only be miniaturized so far (Such as proximity fuses, whose shells can weigh no lower than six pounds) they instead try to make their own bodies bigger. Naturally this gives them reason to have giant robots.

Let's say someone pulled a Planet of the Apes, then. They go into a spaceship to another planet, only to end up where they started except in the future. They see a race of giant robots and freak out, which ensues in a bunch of fighting.

Of course, having a tiny scout craft versus a race of gigantic machines seems rather lopsided (Even if the mechs have weak points) so maybe a lost colony ship would do.

Pic related, semi-inspiration.

>>15780548

There are two flaws in that argument.

The first is cost. Unless the setting has gone loopy, a 25 meter tall war robot is going to cost way, waaaaaaay more than anything man portable, even power armor. If the war machine can be taken out by a man portable weapon, there is little reason to deploy it.

The second flaw there is use of tools. Lets say you have a sniper rifle that can blow through mecha armor. This invalidates the mecha, because the sheer size of the mecha means it is using mevha specific weapons and its easy to hide from and outmaneuver using terrain.

But your super sniper rifle doesnt invalidate power armor. Why? Because a dude in power armor can use the same super rifle, and will still have an advantage over any guy who doesnt have power armor in terms of mobility, strength, and pretty much everything besides firepower (assuming equal guns).

>>15781926
Have to say, Elementals were always the best part of BT.

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>>15780494

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>>15780584

This one's my favorite.

In a WWII setting I'd want a sawn-off one as an anti-materiel rifle or something.

>>15782203
Your arguments could be applied to tanks but they still exist.

The idea of a sniper rifle taking down a mech would require the mech to be lightly armored.

Power armor would have drawbacks as well, it would be bulky, require additional Maintenance, add weight and require power.

>>15782578
Wasn't that obsolete by WW2?

>>15782756

Not sure. I intended to use it as a long-range sniper/anti-materiel rifle, not an AT rifle.

Obviously by the end of the war it was useless but early in it was actually very effective, The 7.92mm magnums were designed to either cause spalling (In the case of that Polish one) or vent tear gas into the tank (Used by other 7.92mm magnums, which was for the most part less effective). IIRC that rifle is the latter, so I guess it isn't really that good as an AT rifle.

>>15782756
All antitank rifles were obsolete by the middle of WW2.
(unless you were going up against Jap tin cans)

>>15782796
Pretty much what this anon said, Anti Tank rifles were for the most part not used in WWII.

>>15782791
Even then there's far better guns to use as a sniper even at that time frame than a giant big ass heavy cut down anti tank rifle. I mean if it's fiction then fine, it'd be cool then. Kind of like the stupidly long mauser's the Captain used in Hellsing.

>>15782743
> Your arguments could be applied to tanks but they still exist.

Because tank armor has kept pace with man portable munitions. Anti-tank HEAT rockets? We've had tanks for about a decade that can shrug them off.

The fact that there hasn't been a serious war in more than 50 years means that a lot of military tech that sees use today is obsolete tech being used to fight other obsolete tech. When you enemy has hunting rifles and AK 47s, a 30 year old tank is fine because while there certainly are munitions that can rip you to shreds you are fighting guys too poor to have access to it.

Tanks, also, are designed to be ARTILLERY first and foremost, engaging the battle from afar rather than being in the thick of the firefight anyway. In situations where a Tank has to go in close to enemy infantry, the tanks absolutely needs its one footsloggers as protection or enemy troops will swarm and destroy it from directions that tank can't guard against.

Mecha that are not impervious to gunfire would have to follow the same restriction or get chewed to pieces. Except that doesn't work, because a giant robot is bigger and more exposed, leaving it open to attack from ranges and lines of sight that boots on the ground literally cannot save them from. Your sniper can be halfway across town, and the 20 dudes on the same street as you won't be able to do shit to stop him because for them there are buildings in the way.

>>15783077
Tanks are made to be versatile.

And what if the Sniper was ineffective?

>>15781005
No, Kennedy should be killed by his own allies. This might have a pedagogical effect on young viewers

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>>15780345
Because it puts the whole mecha part in question, pic related had that as a central theme, wars were fought between the robots with barely any meddling from infantary and the economy adjusted accordingly but when both MCs started taking down objects the world got throw in disarray because the ultimate machines got their position threatened since two chucklefucks could take down state of the art robot what is the point of entrusting everything to them?

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>>15782756
They get truly obsolete by the mid of the war. In the early stages of the war (Polish Campaign, French Campaign) they still had some usefulness as both sides still had many tankettes and other light armored tanks in service.

>>15781063
Got the gif with the jackhammer?

>>15783077

>When you enemy has hunting rifles and AK 47s, a 30 year old tank is fine because while there certainly are munitions that can rip you to shreds you are fighting guys too poor to have access to it.

See, one thing I don't understand is why in a majority of mecha stuff no one has bothered to put more advanced technology into production. We have technology necessary to make stealth helicopters, machine guns comparable to the M2 that can be fired from the shoulder, and guided sniper rifles. Yet 99% of the time people are using Apaches, M240s, and M82s.

Hell, there's tech already in production that no one takes account for, like AP rounds for the .308 and guided artillery shells.

I'm surprised no one has made a setting around such things alone. A sort of hard sci-fi where everything could legitimately happen in real life, but doesn't because we're not in the middle of a third world war.

>>15783216

Oh yeah, incredibly off topic, but...

I'm trying to come up with a timeline for AFV engine placement, such as when front-engine offset designs (Such as the Wespe and Bradley), central-engine designs (Such as the Maus and Elefant [?]), and transverse mountings (Front like CCVL or rear like T-44) first showed up. We all know the "standard" (Rear-engine, not transverse) layout started in 1917 though.

As you might imagine, answering this is optional...

>>15783824
>Yet 99% of the time people are using Apaches, M240s, and M82s.
Logically because those have been in mass production for decades, and thus have had time to get entrenched into the supply lines and armories of military forces around the world.
>machine guns comparable to the M2 that can be fired from the shoulder
There's a .50 BMG HMG that can be shoulder fired? What's the name?

>>15783886

Look up the Lightweight Medium Machine Gun.

Not a .50 but still tremendously powerful. GD says it has equivalent range to an M2 and is more accurate when mounted.

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>>15782578
My favorite is in the OP's pic, the PTRS-41. It's like a giant SKS.

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>>15784778
Followed closely by the Lahti 39.

>>15780345
>>15784778
>>15784780
Usually my stance is against /k/ommando gruntfagging on /m/, but something about taking down a bigger target by using an overpowered rifle targets the innermost part of my soul.

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>>15783877
I can be wrong, or interpreting wrong what you trying to come with, but I think all forms of engine placements made their first appearances already in WW1.

>>15784778
There is no love for the Panzerbüchse 39 in today's world, it seems.

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>>15780345
because bandai needs to sell plastic models

>>15780345
The plight of the infantryman is generally considered far too banal for an anime to be made out of it. Even if they are fighting monsters, or robots, people don't care.

Whether you're talking about viewership or merchandise, people watch mecha to see mecha fight other big things. It's only once you've been in the genre for a while that you can start getting all postmodern and say "BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE GRUNTS?" and appreciate things like Iron Mustangs, Mellowlink or the IGLOO episodes about the pre-GM Federation soldiers.

Attack on Titan is arguably a very successful show about little folks fighting huge enemies, but they get away with it because the soldiers are all sword-wielding grapple-hook ninjas (and also they still have a lot of parts where it's big guy vs big guy).

>>15780345
Because Metal Gear perfected the genre.

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>>15784800
Funnily enough, the Panzerbüchse did appear in a /m/ related media, as it it was one of the weapons of the Jap army in the Kerberos saga manga. Which we will never gonna see translated, anyway.

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>>15784819
The Kerberos saga is great, it's pure, unabashed Teutophilia.

>>15781005
even better
>Kennedy wants to end the ceaseless conflict between his nation and Cuba but runs afoul of his Intelligence Community so they assassinate him and install someone who's willing to go through with their plan
>Bonus points if they use a former soldier in a previous war with "Communist Sympathies"

>>15780345
Well, at least we have games for that. A game.

>>15786288
That would require the US to not be the aggressor in the Cold War.