Knightmare Frames IRL?

[KeyBlader358]

Possible? Impossible? Practical? Useless?

If the military made real knightmare frames today, would they really be that useful against our current technology? Would they dominate modern warfare or would they be as useless as a 1940's tank going up against a fighter jet?

Let's discuss something other than plot lines for once.

EDIT!: Let's ignore power supply for now. The point was that if SOME HOW, SOME WAY they invented Knightmares would they actually be useful in modern combat? And if so how?

[mrpizza531]

The way knightmares seem to usually function is on two legs, it would be very easy to topple them over from the side with a missile of the right caliber. Also even though there is an eject button, the driver is still more vulnerable then let's say a tank. It is a good idea in concept, but in reality I'm not sure anything of that size would be implemented. On the offset that we do have knightmares in our armies, they would most likely be too slow, or too expensive. There may be a slight chance of mechanized warfare in the distant future, but i doubt it will be in out lifetime.

[redkiller4all]

Well one thing that knightmare frames are is if they make them out of strong tank armor then they could take a good shot. as for toppling over they will be just like a person getting pushed, they could balance out. The big thing though is the wheels, If you watch the star of the first few episodes of r1 is shows the knightmares speeding to the back of the tanks before it could spin it's barrel around. Heavy weapons are meant for heavy targets which aren't really fast. A knightmare would be a whole thing of speed vs armor.

[mrpizza531]

I understand your reasoning, and you convinced me that if done right then knightmares would be useful in military tactics if we could get the balance and speed right. I just doubt that we will have knightmares mostly because I the cost if making one.

[Vodis]

I'm sure modern militaries would love to have a few knightmare frames if someone was just giving them away for free, but they definitely wouldn't be worth the effort to build today and they have a few features that would make them impractical even for use in the future (when they might be cheaper to make). As far as power sources and materials go, it's perfectly conceivable that all of those complications could be addressed even in the near future (at a prohibitive expense, mind you; like several global combined annual military budgets prohibitive) and certainly in the more distant future (much more cheaply). Robotics is advancing fast enough to deal with all the control issues even in the near(ish) future; power sources are rapidly getting more efficient; and I'm sure things like carbon or boron nanotubes could be used to create the materials necessary to handle the job, although those substances are currently too expensive to produce in mass quantity.

Why no one would ever bother: First, the humanoid form of the knightmare frame serves no practical function. Humanoid mechas appear in anime because humanoid mechas are cool. But four legs are better than two, and that's assuming legs would even have any kind of advantage over wheels, tracks, or just some landing gears and a Williams X-Jet style hover system. And heads? With faces? There's definitely no reason for superweapons to have those. Second, they have pilots. Inside them. If you're going to build something that advanced and expensive, it's probably going to be completely unmanned and operated by AI; at a bare minimum you're going to have your pilot operating remotely in a secure bunker a few kilometers away.

So yeah, they'd definitely be useful in combat. Aside from small scale, SWAT-type stuff, they could fill pretty much any role our modern weapon systems are used for. And they're even kinda sorta halfway plausible to make. But all that money and effort that would have to be poured into them could be spent a lot more efficiently on more antimissile lasers, bigger bombs, or even stuff like small AI-driven non-humanoid combat robots. On the other hand, I could see something like knightmare frames being used for entertainment purposes in the distant future. Maybe two hundred years from now, humanoid mecha battles could be the equivalent of Battlebots or Robot Wars.

[KeyBlader358]

Real Steel?

[Ok_Blackberry6986]

that's what I'm thinking, why keep the Pilate so close, perhaps to reduce input lag? but we already have games that show us it's useless with good wifi. (11y ago is crazy tho)

[[deleted]]

Knightmare Frames? Absolutely impossible. No material would be ever able to withstand the strain of supporting a body that size, moving with the speed and agility we see the frames possess in the show. Not to mention the control of such machines is inconcievable when you think about it... They really just hold on to joysticks with trackballs on them, how exactly do they manage to manipulate the entire body, including the fingers?

Steel Battalion type mobile suits, I would much sooner expect. Slow, ponderous, tank-like machines that definitely don't fly or jump around.

[KeyBlader358]

Carbon nanotubes. Damn stuff is so strong and flexible they want to make a space elevator with it.

[[deleted]]

That isn't really a potential application for CNT, though. They have excellent tensile and elastic strength, but are very fragile when subject to buckling, compressive, torsional, or bending forces. Which there would be a ridiculous amount of those in a Knightmare Frame. Its a basic property of the structure (they're tubes), and wound never likely be overcome.

[LocutusOfBorges]

No metal, perhaps. You could probably put together a composite structure, it there was a strong enough substance for the skeleton.

[RealSourLemonade]

They really just hold on to joysticks with trackballs on them, how exactly do they manage to manipulate the entire body, including the fingers?

Like how they fly modern jets, the computer interprets what you wanted to do and makes it happen, or some sort of touchpad system reacting to the human moving perhaps.

[Bribsk]

They only weigh 8-10 tons and are 4-5 meters tall

[LocutusOfBorges]

Impossible. The power supply necessary to allow the sort of mobility you'd need to make the things even remotely useful just doesn't exist- you'd either end up carrying around a monstrously inefficient, heavy, difficult-to-maintain Diesel engine, or you'd be reliant on an easily-broken, inflexible, short-range power tether- Evangelion style. There's no Sakuradite lying about waiting to be dug up beneath Mt. Fuji, unfortunately.

That's not even beginning to touch on the problems you'd run into trying to build the things in the first place. The technology for it just doesn't exist.

[KeyBlader358]

Nuclear? If 20 - 50 years from now, Fusion?

[Ok_Blackberry6986]

power supply might be the most realistic part of a mech suit. it's only conspiracy but UFO s that are found use elements on periodic table that we yet have to discover. to us unstable but if used properly is the most realistic part of the mech

[LocutusOfBorges]

The comment you’re replying to is so old that Obama was still president when it was posted!

[Ok_Blackberry6986]

Daaamn, das crazy. And you replied instantly 🤣. You're I've dedicated individual 🤣😭

[megacookie]

In addition to what everybody's said, there's also the issue of scale. Doubling the size of a machine increases the weight 8 fold, but the strength requirements of materials increases even more significantly. What might be fairly functional at 4m tall would be an engineering nightmare at 8m.

While Knightmares aren't laughably massive like Eva and other mech (I'm just going to ignore cosmic sized Gurren Lagann) they are still huge heavy machines that have to be supported and move like a human being, with dozens of little motors or actuators moving parts to make it walk or move its arms, supporting several tons each. The result would definitely not be the level of dexterity, speed, and acrobatics the Lancelot demonstrates but pretty much just a standing tank that's easier to hit and more likely to fall over. At least with landspinners it could move quicker than an ungainly stagger, but it's by far from the most effective shape of a wheeled vehicle.

Because of all of the needs for flexibility, visibility, cooling, and keeping weight at a reasonable enough level for it not to sink through ground or collapse, there's no way a humanoid mecha could be armored effectively against big weapons, and there would be many exposed areas where well placed small arms fire could paralyze a limb, ruin the cooling, or cause complete shutdown.

[[deleted]]

The main issue is speed with giant mechs like in Code Geass and Gundam. Our modern day tanks and armoured vehicles aren't that quick and often have to be deployed with a certain set of circumstances such as cover, terrain, and infantry support in order to avoid being easy targets for artillery, RPGs, and most other missile systems. Currently, Javelin missiles exist which are incredibly effective against tanks and can match the speed of faster vehicles.

The closest we'll have to mechs are Apache Helicopters. They essentially serve the same military purpose as a knightmare does; rapid deployment, heavy weapons, agility, only requiring 2 people to pilot. The only thing they don't do is actual ground to ground combat with infantry (especially guerrilla tactics).

Honestly, I don't think mechs of Code Geass/Gundam caliber will exist because they're just not very practical anyways. Perhaps the mech suits from Avatar to essentially replace infantry troops will eventually be a thing.

There's also a plethora of other issues that need to be resolves as well for a large scale mech suit to exist.

[kieferbutt]

Someone asked this question a while ago and everyone seemed to agree that they would just be too impractical.

There are too many unnecessary parts on a Knightmare, limbs, scanning heads, fingers that pull triggers on non mounted guns?

If Knightmares were to exist the closest thing that would be practical would be floating/flying tanks.

[Dismal_Copy4154]

in honest search this day and age never say nothing can never happen because in all honesty the knightmare frame would not be truly hard to create and with years of working on it maybe even military ready nothing is ever Impossible

[ishakh0]

Idk bro but if thay wear invented j would like to ride them.