The biggest problem with mecha is that no matter how versatile, no matter how powerful, they cannot match a tank for sheer balance of protection, and most importantly, offensive capability.
Now, machines serve all sorts of different purposes, and all have their own strengths and weaknesses. No matter how big a mech is, no matter how powerful, it simply cannot match a tank's perfect balance of mobile protection and firepower.
Our Grierson tanks first went up against Ganzai mecha on Sherman's World. The Griersons were squat things with sloped front, back, and side armor. They were like pyramids with tracks on the sides, but really squat and sleek, like a pyramid leaning forward. They're practically marketable! People made plushies of them before the war.
Mechs need to be lightly armored. They can't help it. They need to be mobile. That's their entire advantage. And it comes at the cost of balance that our Grierson tanks had. A tank is designed to be an equilibrium between mobility, firepower, and armor.
Most people think of Main Battle Tanks in terms of armor, and that's certainly key. But tanks also offer a powerful offensive weapon that serves a different role than infantry. That was their original purpose after all, to punch through the stone wall of the western front. The tank offers thick armor protection, but also highly mobile firepower, combining the abilities of cavalry and field guns into one fighting machine. They carry huge artillery, weapons, and ammunition an infantry grunt simply cannot. If one makes a man-portable weapon with similar power to a tank cannon, for instance, that wouldn't render them obsolete. That weapon can be scaled up to be even more powerful as tank armament because the vehicle has a bigger space to work with. It has a larger area to work with, more power, it can carry sensors, it can do so many things.
With the wide variety of armored vehicles that exist one must realize that each can serve different purposes. Mecha cannot replace tanks. The Ganzi learned that on Sherman's World.
We were the armored platoon for the 25th MEU, deployed there ahead of time after tensions with the Ganzi got worse. They blasted the fleet division in orbit, or drove ‘em away, and got into a sparring match with the wet navy at sea and our own surface railguns. I saw our jump jets kick butt with the best of them! They fired their air to space missiles, and so did the navy’s fighters. The squids dodged like mad, moving around to keep the enemy in view even if they were on the other side of the hemisphere from the wet ships …and I saw a few of them burn too. The enemy lasers were no good hitting the surface, but they could hit a good number of fighters.
They wanted the surface intact so they couldn't just glass it. They couldn't saturate us with fire, and we were mobile enough to avoid their more direct rounds. Their occupation forces would have to deal with us.
The Navy’s Surface Effect Carriers picked us up on one of the beaches with an old Ship to Shore Connector. The carriers went pretty slow, only fifty knots the way I heard it, I guess they wanted to throw off the hamsters’ aim.
Hamsters? Oh yeah, that's what we called the Ganzi back in the day.
It was a bright sunny day. I was in the cupola and it damn near blinded me. The SSC was rattling and roaring in my ears. We rolled out from under the Surface Effect Ships and a freakin’ destroyer zipped past us firing their guns. The wake from that supercavitation nearly flipped us, I don't know how those guys kept the hovercraft straight. Maybe that's their speciality.
There's missiles going off, railguns hitting the shore *and* firing into space, I'm seeing helicopters pounding the shore, and I'm sitting there like an idiot. We could see the secondary spaceport in the distance, the laser array was pretty tall. It wasn't one of the new efficient models. And all I could think was “God I hope this thing can float”.
We made it to shore and rolled out. The Buffalo light tanks were snarling, they weren’t always the best with sand on that planet. I think it was all the volcanic ash or something, maybe it was the plants, I dunno. It was a fucking jungle island, those places are weird. But our Grierson MBTs didn't have a problem. We rolled on uncontested and I got back in and started going through my screens. I had feeds from drones, aircraft, one of our AWACS airships, and I still felt nervous. We didn't know a whole lot about the hamster military in those days.
We were the tip of the spear. The lieutenant snapped, “Hey Columbo get your ass in gear!” Our tank was named Columbo. My hatch wasn't closed, so I reached up to pull it shut.
There was a buzz and a hiss and I swear to god they nearly shot my hatch off. I dogged it and checked the area. Out of fucking nowhere I saw the hamsters. They lit up on my thermal screens. Their rocket left a huge plume. “Gunner! Coax! Fire and adjust!”
“Coax on the way!”
We ripped up their AT team, and cut up the rifle squad supporting it. Saved one of the Buffalos in the process, the way I hear it.
We cut our way through their ground troops, they hadn't had time to dig in. There was a big dogfight going on above us, our planes caught a bunch of their hamster balls and fighters on reentry. Ah, yeah, their dropships looked like hamster balls from the ground. Yeah, I know they're more cones but it was funny at the time! We called their strategic transports flying squirrels too!
We got past the treeline and onto the road to the laser launch site, we had to take it back. Two of us went one way, and the other two went the other. I sent our other tank to try to flank them through the forest and the airfield, while ours went up the service road.
We knew they were coming, we could see the fuckers on our infrared scopes. They had no thermal control, nothing like the kind we used. They stood out in that steamy jungle like an alpaca at a funeral. We picked them up on radar. They barely knew we were there and we could pick out the ticks and giant leeches on their armor.
Right around then we saw them with our cameras. The fuckin’ chicken walkers with arms. They were mecha but looked a bit different from a loader mech. Aside from the guns of course. They were a bit fat in the front and the back, and had a head that was always rotating. Whatever sensors they could cram in that thing wasn't good for the jungle though. I'm not sure if it would be good for much beyond navigating.
For a second I didn't believe it, four of them just popped out of the trees and stood there, two klicks down. Then they started shooting.
They launched damn near half a dozen rockets at us. Our active defense systems spun up and threw a bunch of ball bearings in their path. We had the Pitcher defense system back then. It was four disks that had a bunch of ball bearings in them. When it detected a threat it spun them up to high speed with centrifugal force and spat out dozens of the things in its path. It was a lot cheaper than some other defenses then.
The projectiles exploded in a ripple across our path. I slammed on the smoke launchers and cut up any chance of anyone lasing us. I don't know if the Ganzi used laser rangefinders back then. Like I said, those tiny sensor heads.
“Back up! Back up! Back the fuck up!” My driver didn't need to be told twice, he was already in gear. The entire thing started rattling. They must've had thirty millimeter ammo or something, it was peppering the hull! But it didn't penetrate. I don't know how they could hit us when they couldn't see us and at that range. With all four of them shooting I guess they could get lucky. We rolled behind a big rock and poked our nose out.
One of the hamsters tried running up the road at us. It was about as fast as a jogger. We got it with a HEAT shell. My gunner thought she loaded sabot. But the damned thing blew its ammunition! I think they stored it externally. Our sensors saw it light up and rounds cooked off in all directions. It was like a Catherine wheel firework! His buddy tried to fire at us, but couldn't hit us while we were hull-down.
We were safe, but I had a sinking feeling. I checked our sensors and sure enough I saw it, staggering around like an elephant in a jewelry store. So I decided to charge. I had us roll out and down the road. “Gunner! Tank behind us! Sabot! Fire!”
“Up!”
“On the way!”
The mech that tried to sneak up on us broke out of the trees behind us. It shot at us but they couldn't fire on the move easily. We could. Forty kilometers an hour, shaking and rattling we put a sabot in his head. Two more to go.
We made it further down the road again, and the enemy fired again. I was worried they might have AT weapons or something, a machine like that ought to be able to carry and load a recoilless. But that was the biggest weapon they had –I thought– a bunch of thirty millimeter guns! It bounced off our armor and we took it no big deal. We roared down that road like the roadrunner. Meep meep!
Turns out they had some brains in them. I guess if the coyote had a partner it would've worked out differently.
“Boss!” I realized my gunner was trying to get my attention. I didn't think, I wanted to get that sucker in the lead. We dropped our distance advantage. “Boss, look out!”
One of the guys had walked to the side. Just as we hit the one guy with our sabot, the other one popped our side with another barrage of fucking rockets. The Pitcher knocked out most of them, but it glitched or something. One of them went wild and hit us anyway. It didn't pierce our armor, but it threw our track.
I got spittle all over my monitors I snarled so hard. I swung my fifty caliber around, cursing up a storm, and let loose.
A fifty isn't much good for mission killing an MBT; it ain't gonna tickle them either. But this wasn't another MBT. I swear to god, that thing staggered back like it was trying to walk through hail. Bullets ripped through its arms, I saw it tear up hydraulics, my sensors went wild with all the light and heat and chunks going everywhere.
The thing fucking slumped, like… like I don't know what. We practically mission killed it with an old Ma Deuce!
Then it tried to stand up. I don't know how I didn't penetrate the cockpit. The fucking head was shattered. But I saw that gun move.
“High explosive!”
“Up!”
“On the way!”
I felt the gun go off. It threw me a bit with the angle we were at. The shell hit the engine powering it and it blew. Our camouflage tiles got a little cooked with the blast, but we could still camouflage later in the day.
Four mecha and all that for the price of a thrown track. They're all well and good for fighting on a space station, and they can drop a subway car on us in an urban environment, but anywhere else? The tanks reigns supreme.
- Sergeant CB Arnold, USMC, retired; veteran of the First Ganzi War.