r/worldjerking

A’ight Hear Me Out.

The tactical role of a mech shares almost complete overlap with an attack helicopter. To be clear, this applies specifically to mechs depicted as agile enough to bob, weave, and dynamically shift their own weight. Not lumbering, slow moving combat platforms. The fast ones. The speeeeed bois. (Sorry spider tanks) (Titans you can stay)

In real military doctrine, attack helicopters occupy a precise niche. They are neither the blunt, grinding dominance of a tank nor the fast, high-altitude detachment of a jet fighter. Instead, they excel at low altitude, close fire support, rapid repositioning, terrain exploitation, battlefield loitering and responding to fluid, fast changing ground situations with a level of precision and presence that neither a tank nor a jet can match. A tank is powerful but earthbound slow to reposition, committed to roads and open ground. A jet is fast but blind to nuance, locked into its flight path, gone before it can truly read the battlefield. Both of these basically do their job better than a humanoid robot would or could.

The attack helicopter though, sits in the divot between these two. It’s nimble, responsive, and intimate with the fight and A humanoid mech, especially one with direct neural interface control, occupies that same divot. Because the frame mirrors the human body, a brain controlled mech would be instinctively intuitive to operate. The pilot doesn’t learn a new kind of movement. They just move the same way they normally would with just a bit more inertia. Reaction times and situational awareness happen in a way that traditional vehicles can’t replicate without a crap load of training. Mechs even lean into the battlefield intimacy, the humanoid form lends itself to rapid combat engineering like opening doors, clearing debris, manipulating objects, or generally supporting troop movement. Things that could take days to accomplish conventionally but a mech could conceivably do while still being shot at.

A mech can also straight up chill in a location. A helicopter has gotta stay airborne to function and loiter the battlefield, burning fuel, generating noise, remaining permanently exposed. A mech can crouch behind terrain like a ridgeline, a treeline, or a buildingline then stand to fire then duck again. It uses terrain as cover the way an infantryman could, being able to play peekaboo, bobbing and weaving through danger. This subverts one of the biggest criticisms about mechs, that being the joints and legs are a vulnerability. But that’s only if you can actually hit it while it’s doing straight up parkour, making the joints no more a vulnerability than the rotor on a helicopter.

A helicopter even illustrates that a military is willing to commit to a ludicrously complicated (and equally massive amount of accompanying maintenance) vehicle if it is useful enough.

Im not trying to say that mechs are more realistic as helicopters (no matter how much I want in my heart for them to be ༼;´**༎ຶ ۝ **༎ຶ༽). It is a tactical use for mechs that makes a surprising amount of sense and it’s an angle I’ve almost never seen a story actually lean into and explore. the implications for how such a unit would fight, move, hide, is oozing with storytelling potential.​​​ and I would love to see it explored (by someone more talented than me)

Context:

> Elves are a very rare species in my world called Omnihome and that they can only be found in one of the two developed countries. That is of The Infernal Anarcho-Imperium & The Asfejian Xenereidhe Republic. And the drastic difference on their culture & behavior is extremely easy to understand. One is progressively moral & the other is morally bankrupt.

> The Infernal Anarcho-Imperium is a progressive-autocratic-anarcho theocratic country built by the Rebellion named "The Infernal Rebellion" who toppled its former fascist vampire government "Holy Sal'Nalis Imperium". Founded & Organized by its Rebel Leader "Iblis" they made their quixotic vision a reality with the help of pure faith & determination where anarchy, dictatorship, communism & theocracy somehow managed to blend together into a democratic country more democratic than any other democratic country. Today it is 1 of the most awesome country on Omnihome where its inhabitants enjoy high quality of life, tourists experience a wonderful nation & refugees welcomed with a shelter.

> Now for its evil twin Asfejian Xenereidhe Republic is the Empire's polar opposite of a nation. It has no official rulers because the government, the corporations, the foreigner agents, the rival conquerors, the criminal syndicates, the opportunists and many more organizations are locked in a perpetual battle royale. It is a country where civilians are constantly catching the collateral damages & destruction of the war. Because there is no order to keep check on the people it became a lawless battleground between those who fight, those who run, those who hide & those who gave up.

> The people know that there is no order but the politicians, lobbyists & lawmakers are stubborn on letting order pass in a dignified way. So they try to keep a semblance of order even if no one will believe that order exist. Its people cope by either believing in a poorly dressed lie, partake in the destruction, pray for an invisible savior or just escape the doomed country. It is slowly spinning its national moral bankruptcy where malevolence & selfishness reigns supreme. Its warlords try to keep the country together but because they hate the idea of working together & the idea on building of at least a tolerable future they are not that different to the people who wage war for no reason other than for the vague belief of restoring Order.

> The elf above it is one of the type of people you may encounter in the Doomed Republic. They gaslight themselves to believe in an immoral ideal because they are desensitized into apathy by the constant death & despair made by the chaos. They had at least killed or wounded someone for self-defense or for greed or for senseless evil etc.

I've had to explain to multiple people on multiple occasions why individuals in a post-apocalyptic world would use obsolete weaponry like swords and muskets.

1. Just because assault rifles exist doesn't mean they're commonplace.

2. It's much easier to replenish a small supply of ball and powder than it is a sustainable supply of modern ammunition.

3. IRL people are equally able to be killed by machetes and knives? Why wouldn't people use them in an environment where guns are rare?

Also ignore the fact I misspelled "existence" I promise I'm a good writer okay