The Walking Tank is real.

[Davey Woo]

It looks unbelievably comical when moving, especially the slow-mo stumble on the ice. But it's incredible how it can keep itself from falling over.

Why have they developed this, aren't there already bots that can get across most terrain with relative ease?

 

[AlohaJo]

Metal Gear?!

It looks like a dog and a spider had sex in a nuclear reactor, and this is their offspring. All I ask is that it does NOT have stealth technology and that it does NOT have a giant rail-gun that is capable of silently launching nuclear warheads, and I think I'll be able to sleep easy at nights.

 

[brucelee13245]

Wow if i was walking and saw one of those walking at me id freak out a bit. Theres something really creepy bout how that thing walks.... and loooks. reminds me of something from silent hill. o god.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

Can someone say WANZERS/MECHWARRIOR?

 

[BE4T]

As I explained somewhere on this forum a couple months back:

Walking tanks, regardless of the number of legs, are insanely impractical bits of lightly armored, low mobility, and light-payload targets.

In real world physics, just about any country's Main Battle Tank (American Abrams, Isreali Merkava, Russian T-90, UK's Challanger II, the German Leopard) is going to easily handle any mech, HERC, or Gundam you can come up with.

Building up means exponentially increasing weight, which greatly reduces payload, stability, and how much armor you can slap onto it. Since they walk, they have joints. Joints are ALWAYS a failure point, not to mention weak points in already light armor. You cannot arm them with heavy weapons systems (GAU-8, any MBT's main gun), which greatly reduces range and firepower. Because of their complicated drive system (which adds yet more weight, and more points of failure), they would have extremely complicated control systems that you would have to spend a great amount of time teaching to your pilots.

If it loses a leg, pilots cannot get out and crack track.

Really, the only plausible Walkers? Are really just armoured exoskeletons.



Also, robot is creepy. Also

The only way for any Gundam-Type weaponry to work is if we found a super efficient energy supply to make it all go.

Can you guys imagine camping or hunting in the middle of the woods, hearing this thing and then seeing it walk in your area?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Gah ... why? There's a reason why we don't have bipedular or quadripedular tanks ... because they don't have the stability or rigidity needed of an APC or MBT. What possible benefits could this machine possess over standard vehicular combat machines?

You won't beable to carry the same ordnance as a MBT. It will be less stable. It will be harder to deploy. It will be less resistant to HE mines. It will cost greater fuel reserves to keep powered due to spent energy into powering multiple servos.

That thing weighs 245 pounds and a single guy managed to almost topple it with a kick.

Reduced surface friction = greater instability and reduced force insulation.

Some things work great in science fiction. AT-ATs are awesome ... Not so much in practice.

 

[FalloutJack]

It looks like a pair of guys hauling a large object.

Good god, man! Put some ranks in stealth, though!

 

[vodkainferno]

Its like watching a baby Metal Gears first steps....

OT: It has the potential to be a walking tank, of death, or use this en mass to scare the opposition. Hundred of these walking in sync, with that horrible buzzing noise.

 

[2fish]

Where is the point of weakness for me to shoot it when it goes evil? All robots hve a weakspot right?


I am slighty creeped out.

It's okay, it won't go evil. Robots can only do what they're programmed to do, and will never become sentient.

If you don't believe me, take a computer science course. Seriously, the sheer number of things that can will go horribly wrong with your programs will castrate any sentient robot threat.

So humans can still program them to be that they can't be an accident is what you are saying? well that is kinda comforting?


Wait....
How would we know this unless we already tested this?

Who made you? What is your directive? What is your serial number?

 

[Koeryn]

As I explained somewhere on this forum a couple months back:

Walking tanks, regardless of the number of legs, are insanely impractical bits of lightly armored, low mobility, and light-payload targets.

In real world physics, just about any country's Main Battle Tank (American Abrams, Isreali Merkava, Russian T-90, UK's Challanger II, the German Leopard) is going to easily handle any mech, HERC, or Gundam you can come up with.

Building up means exponentially increasing weight, which greatly reduces payload, stability, and how much armor you can slap onto it. Since they walk, they have joints. Joints are ALWAYS a failure point, not to mention weak points in already light armor. You cannot arm them with heavy weapons systems (GAU-8, any MBT's main gun), which greatly reduces range and firepower. Because of their complicated drive system (which adds yet more weight, and more points of failure), they would have extremely complicated control systems that you would have to spend a great amount of time teaching to your pilots.

If it loses a leg, pilots cannot get out and crack track.

Really, the only plausible Walkers? Are really just armoured exoskeletons.



Also, robot is creepy. Also

The only way for any Gundam-Type weaponry to work is if we found a super efficient energy supply to make it all go.

Can you guys imagine camping or hunting in the middle of the woods, hearing this thing and then seeing it walk in your area?

lol. If I saw this thing going through the woods, it would have a couple of .30 caliber holes through it.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

I've followed the "big dog" development for some time now (I think I posted some clips of it here some year or two ago if im not mistaken). It's an impressive piece of robotics and it will be interesting to follow it's development.

Making a machine walk/run on legs rather than wheels and maintaining it's balance is a pretty fucking hard thing to do after all.

 

[Housebroken Lunatic]

A walking tank is always going to be much more vulnerable to enemy fire than a tracked tank, you can't help it.

Yes, but then again, since it has legs to be able to navigate terrain that a normal tank can't, one could assume that the walking tank is going to use that to it's advantage, positioning itself to block line of sight, using cover etc.

At least against anti-tank weapons. Making the walking tank proofed from small arms fire however wouldn't be as difficult, so the tank could still fill a tactical role against antagonists armed with primarily assault rifles and similar weapons. It's the rocket propelled grenades and explosive ordnance that is difficult to deal with.

Then again, most tanks don't even want to get hit by those either. They might be armoured and designed to "withstand" such hits, but withstanding is not the same thing as being able to maintain 100 percent combat efficiency and shrugging of anti-tank weapons like it was no more harmful than rain. Enough HEAT-hits will eventually topple even the most impressive armour, and even the first or second hit might cause something to get jammed or malfunction due to a freak hit.

So even if a walking tank would go down due to a hit from some kind of HEAT-round, it still wouldn't make it useless or obsolete in comparison to regular tanks.

In fact, if the current trends are to be believed, highly armoured tanks won't be around for much longer. The battlefields of the modern age tend to favour more light vehicles with scouting capabilities and heavy weapons, able to strike from a distance and move away before the enemy can retaliate. And that pretty much sums up what you'd imagine a walking tank to be able to do and do better than a tracked variant, since mountainranges and other difficult terrain pieces wouldn't stop it from setting up shop where it needs to.

 

[Brawndo]

Interesting concept, but ultimately I think it's impractical and not cost-efficient.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

Oh that thing, the thing that looks like a deformed strider and sounds like a colony of angry bees.

I'm just joking, it is cool and it would be terrifying as all hell to see an army of these things on the battlefield. Also it would be kinda awesome to see soldiers riding these things, it's probably not a sound strategy, but it'd be really really cool to watch.

Impossible for spec ops though, you'd hear them 5 minutes before you saw them.

 

[Outlaw Torn]

As long as they only deploy it in areas with plagues of buzzing insects and disguise it as a blind, inebriated deer, noone will notice it coming.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I don't actually see it being all that useful, but fuck it's terrifying when it walks. Maybe they'll just make people think its going to kill them and fire off some rounds while they're distracted.

 

[Saltyk]

Thats pretty impressive, makes you wonder what will be around in 10-20 years.

Or what's around now. I strongly believe that any military tech that is revealed to the public is at least five years old, possibly ten. To me, it makes no sense to reveal true cutting edge technology to the world, where it can be studied and potentially copied.

More like 40-50 years old... They like keeping secrets you know...

Um, is that a problem? I don't think we need to know what is being developed at any given moment. Also, military development is a good thing. The military working to develop new technology and weapons gave us the computer, the internet, and the GPS just off the top of my head. This is one reason I think anyone screaming against military spending is really against progress.

If you want an idea of what they are working on, I'd suggest you look at Area 51. We know that it is/was a secret military development base. I suspect that there are other such places in the U.S. that never got as much press. I'd even suggest that it might just be a decoy at this point.

Anyway, I agree that anything we are seeing now is either old, obsolete, or barely holds a candle to what they really have. And anything they are willing to sell openly to other countries is as well.

 

[Redratson]

Thats pretty impressive, makes you wonder what will be around in 10-20 years.

That we will have vastly inprove the flaws and it will be at least 5 stories tall........and it will have weapons...............powerful ones.