Compare uses of tracked vehicles and combat walkers?

[Maniac]

I'm kinda wondering if it's possible to think of uses or situations where a combat walker is better than a tracked vehicle? Or do walkers make no sense at all?

To provide a definition, with combat walkers I'm thinking not of the StarWars type, but rather something like this:

Either a bipedal model, eg:





Or a spider-like model:




If there are different uses, any ideas how these could be represented in Civ4?

Perhaps a related question which can help to answer the walker question: what are the advantages and disadvantages for animals for having a bipedal, quattro(?)pedal or spiderlike movement method and leg positioning?

[Riesstiu IV]

Walkers for combat always seemed like a poor idea and not very believable. A walker in real life would just be a massive target with poor mobility. They purposely manufacture modern MBTs to have low profiles so they are less likely to be targeted. As far as I can see, even if materials were available to make a flexible walker, there would be no advantage for one and would highly exposed to all kinds of attacks.

[Zkribbler]

The whole idea behind a tracked vehicle is to give it the largest "footprint" possible so it can go over soggy ground without sinking.

A walker will have the opposite effect: its really small footprint will cause it to sink into almost any kind of terrain. This is why elephants don't go around on tippy toe.

[Blake]

Extra-rough terrain.

Think things like spider bots able to climb over rocks and even climb up trees and stuff.

Imagine how evil it'd be to fight little robots with a sniper-rifle mounted on their back, they can climb up trees, walls, up cliffs etc, then root in place and wait in ambush.


Another workable walker would be large centipede style walkers for traversing very rough terrain - meaning it's segmented. Each segment has a set of 2-6 legs and the connectors are variable angle and can be locked rigid.

To cross a fissure, it could make itself rigid and as long as the fissure is less than half it's length, it can just walk straight across it.

And to cross most terrain types, it could just conform to the shape of the land.

It could weave between trees.

It could arc it's back upwards to gain good line of sight/fire with it's head.

Not necessarily a super-viable combat vehicle though, more special utility. Any kind of large vehicle is going to be dead meat to Guerrillas with a RPG.

[Vesayen]

Walkers are silly. They would not be stable going at high speeds, how do you transport them long distances rapidly?

A tracked vehicle just drives.

How do you travel across uneven terrain? Tracks have a large surface area so they can get leverage, what do you do when small terrain details make your walker fall on it's ass?

[Spec]

MechWarriors imo would be a great asset in mountain like combat for taking up high positions. Sure, choppers would be able to do that, but choppers cant really take damage well.
MechWarriors could clear roads, easily walk in mines fields, taking into consideration that they could see/detect mines easily. Also, going down steep rocky hills would be a lot easier with Mechs than with tracked vehicles.

Mechwarriors, basically, adapt easier to rocky/uneven terrain.

Spec.

[Blake]

Walkers are indeed dumb.

Which is why I only humor the idea of crawlers.

Crawlers still have a relatively large surface area, stability is not a problem for them in that regard. Traction might be on soft ground, but they'd probably be used for rocky terrain.

There are terrain types which a wheeled/tracked vehicle simply can't cross, but it would be possible to cross it with a crawler.

The question is, if crawlers would ever be more viable than simply using traditional means (meaning on foot and carving out trackways, plus whirlies).

[Kuciwalker]

I'm kinda wondering if it's possible to think of uses or situations where a combat walker is better than a tracked vehicle? Or do walkers make no sense at all?

Mobile powerplant. Granted, that's not a combat use per se.

[Blake]

The footprint is an important thing. Walkers basically have to be "spindly". They can't be super-heavy things, if they're going to be heavy, you'd be better off using tracks.

Spindly generally means fragile, so these aren't going to be armored fighting vehicles, they're going to be recon and exportation type things, or rely on stealth.

Whatever way you spin it, it makes more sense to use tracks for an armored fighting vehicle.

[Kuciwalker]

The footprint is an important thing. Walkers basically have to be "spindly". They can't be super-heavy things, if they're going to be heavy, you'd be better off using tracks.

I'm not sure. If you have something that's going to be very heavy, ISTM that tracks would sacrifice too much mobility.

[Blake]

Err, why?

A walker basically needs to be able to lift itself, the motors need to be that powerful.

A tracked vehicle only needs to be able to propel itself forward, it doesn't need to have strong enough motors to lift it's own weight.

The degree to which a walker needs to be able to lift it's own weight, depends on the number of legs it has. With only 2 legs, this is true to a huge extent, with more legs, each individual leg can be weaker, but the more legs you add, the closer you are to a tracked vehicle in terms of mobility.

[Kuciwalker]

Because as the vehicle becomes heavier, you have to make it wider, which makes tracks progressively less maneuverable in uneven terrain.

A walker basically needs to be able to lift itself, the motors need to be that powerful.

Not quite, depending on how you engineer the motion.

[Blake]

But why would you want to build something so big and then send it into rough terrain? As noted, large targets in rough terrain are simple target practise for guerrillas.

[Kuciwalker]

As I said, mobile powerplant. Not terribly useful now, maybe useful in the future.

[Elok]

Powered armor, sure. Walkers, no.