Real Robot Combat (VS Thread)

[Artemician]

Inspired by Eva vs Aestivalis (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=73032) thread.

I've just watched the two most critically acclaimed Real Robot animes. One features the Soviet Union, and the other features a rather mutated version of America. I am, of course, talking of Full Metal Panic! and Code Geass.

Both shows have their own unique take on the making of the Robots, and their mecha designs are as different as pie. Which universe features the superior mecha?

We all know that the trend in Robot shows in recent years has been steadily moving away from the "big huge mystical robot", and instead more towards hard sci-fi and mass-produced mecha. We cannot, therefore play the Robot threads simply as "Arbalest vs Guren" or "Shadow vs Lancelot". We must set team battles.

I present the following scenarios:

1) Unique Characters
-------a) Arbalest versus Lancelot
-------b) Arbalest versus Guren (should be the same outcome as 3a, given that the Lancelot and the Guren are evenly matched)
-------c) Arbalest versus Gawain

2) Squad Battle
-------a) MITHRIL's SRT versus Cornelia's Personal Squad + the Lancelot
-------b) MITHRIL's SRT versus Zero's Personal Guard, including Zero in the Burai

3) Mook Non-named characters fight
Which mecha chassis do you consider superior - a Knightmare or and AS? Why? Assuming the Soviet Union/United States of America were to face off versus the Brittannian Empire, who do you think would win? No uniques (Lancelot, Arbalest, etc)

For 1) assume no outside support. For 2), assume that HQ can relay and coordinate, but cannot send resources. For 3), it's all out war.

What would be the likely outcome?

[Fri]

Arbalest got lambda driver. It's like.... working man's AT Field. Dunno how, but this should skew the balance toward arbalest. If, sousuke is in the right mood of course.

Gawain got beam weapons though. Dunno if Lambda Driver can hold against beam weapon.

For Knightframe against Armor Slave.... Which one is more agile? Knightframe got those fancy roller skate though. And the weapons...

For Me, Armor Slave strike me as more 'real' robot. It's the third most real robot after Labor from Patlabor and Wanzer from Front Mission. Knightframe is more... ornated I guess. And the battle... would be like... Some crack commando vs a bunch of knights. Maybe Knightframe is stronger, but SRT would utilize more strategy, utilize the terrain more, use stealth, and so on. So maybe SRT would win. I need to think more about this though.

I'm not saying that Cornelia's personal guard is like a medieval knight without knowledge of modern tactic or so, but SRT is an elite anti terrorist mercenary team. They have better knowledge on surprise attack, strategy, tactic, and such.

On second thought, Knightframe team had Zero. He's like... Light Yagami on Mech!

So, Zero's personal guard win against SRT, and SRT win against Cornelia's Personal Guard.

For Full Metal Panic's Soviet Union vs Code Geass' Britannia Empire.... Woah, this is interesting. I need to think about this first.

[Rutee]

Argh. I keep meaning to watch Code Geass and then I keep not doing it. Too much to do.

What kinda destructive power do those special mechs pull out? 'cause yeah, the Lambda Driver is disgustingly powerful. Like, what do we see them do in collateral damage >.>

[Seraph]

We all know that the trend in Robot shows in recent years has been steadily moving away from the "big huge mystical robot", and instead more towards hard sci-fi and mass-produced mecha.


actually, just to nitpick, they were blown quite far from BHMR(Super Robots) in 1979 and have been steadily drifting back together over the last decade. Mobile Suit Gundam is a good more realistic than any mech show running in the last few years.

[Fri]

On top of my head (I'm too lazy to look for any reference)

Lancelot is supposed to be the best Knightmare Frame out there. Can't think anything too fancy, but it's really, really agile. Way more agile than your typical knightmare frame, and in my opinion, in flat terrain your normal Knightmare frame is faster than any Armor Slave. It can also use some special equipment to make it flyworthy.

Guren got this strange, vibration based weapon on its hand. Basically if it touched you, just once, It can turn your mech into a useless scrap of metal by shaking it really hard (and turn the pilot into a human milkshake). And if I'm not wrong, it can also used to make small earthquake.

Gawain had... beam weapon. Code Geass' mech mounted wave motion gun (though not as powerful as any wave motion gun, just relative to it's universe. Basically other knightframe only use your typical mech mounted machine gun, but he got a LAZER!). It can also fly. It's piloted by 2 pilot, compared to other knightframe that only had one pilot. And one of its pilot is... the best strategist in his realm. Really, I can only compare him with Light Yagami.


In my opinion, only gawain can stand against arbalest. Lancelot may be faster, but it can't hurt Arbalest. And if guren's hand can't touch Arbalest, its special weapon is useless. Maybe guren can shake the hell out of arbalest's lambda driver?

[Nerd-o-rama]

We all know that the trend in Robot shows in recent years has been steadily moving away from the "big huge mystical robot", and instead more towards hard sci-fi and mass-produced mecha. We cannot, therefore play the Robot threads simply as "Arbalest vs Guren" or "Shadow vs Lancelot". We must set team battles.
I have to disagree with this point. Between them, Gurren-Lagann and GaoGaiGar count for at least six super robot shows in the last season. Yes, that's three each. I do agree that Gundam's ubiquitousness means even super robot shows pay lip service to reality nowadays, but the real-vs.-super cycle's been going on steadily since Patlabor came out.

Anyhow, I'm glad I inspired a good vs. thread, but I sadly haven't seen either of these shows, so I can't really speak for either side.

[Rutee]

Oh, I missed that. Nitpick, Artemician; Real Robot Shows can never be Hard Sci-fi. They can be really close, they can have Minovsky Particles, but Hard Sci Fi is impossible with how inefficient a humanoid mecha is compared to you know, any other form :P

[TheThan]

Man, and I thought this was about real robot combat (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T500ecHP3pE) not anime.