Why Doesn’t the Army Have Giant Robots?

Rewatched Pacific Rim recently and that movie is awesome. If you’re not familiar, basically giant monsters (Kaijus) are rising from a dimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean and the world creates giant robots to deal with them. While the movie goes into length about why giant robots are better suited to deal with these monsters than tanks and missiles, I couldn’t help but wonder why such technology has not been widely developed in real life. Having watched a lot of sci-fi and anime, I know I am not the only one who thinks giant robots make excellent weapons of war.

First of all, let me be clear when I say “giant robots” I am not talking about Transformers. Giving robots artificial intelligence is a bad idea (I talk about that here). I am talking about human piloted robotic weapons, like mech suits or better. Something that is completely in control of a human pilot. I don’t want to give robots intelligence. Like the brilliant Elon Musk I agree that machines that can think will be the end of humanity. But I have no problems with tanks or planes or cars all of which can be piloted by humans. So robot war machines (not unlike War Machine from Iron Man) are cool in my book.

Speaking of Iron Man, that’s another thing the army should work on. Kevlar doesn’t really cut it on the field of battle anymore. We need repulsor technology and metal suits. I’ve always said that Iron Man is a more plausible super hero than Batman. And as mentioned we already have a Tony Stark in the form of Elon Musk. I’m sure he could come up with some sort of experimental fighting suit (with or without flight capabilities) that could be used on the field of battle.

Or perhaps something that is familiar to most people, a plane that could turn into a robot. No, I am again not talking about Transformers. I already said that. I am talking RoboTech (for the anime fans, I know RoboTech is a combination of two different anime series, but I’m only familiar with how it was aired in the States). RoboTech had planes that could transform into robots in order to fight giant aliens. But since the fighting was only part of the show the planes could be, well, planes in order to maneuver and fly.

Of course if I am mentioning giant robots and Anime, I can’t leave out Gundam. Gundams are what most people imagine when they think of Japan and giant fighting robots. There have been multiple Gundam series, each featuring different variation of the titular giant robot with its own strengths and weaknesses. Gundam seems to imply that the only way we can fight the giant robots of our enemies is by having giant robots of our own. Which just means America needs to build giant robots before anyone else does because someone else will.

To me that seems to be the real reason the army doesn’t have giant robots. It’s not that no one wants them, they just don’t want to be the first to start developing them. It’s kind of like when you go out to dinner and they pass around the desert menus and you don’t want to order desert if no one else does. But as soon as that first person bravely orders something, then everyone else feels like getting something. I see giant robots as that. They’re the desert of armed combat and we are just waiting for someone else to order first so we don’t feel as guilty about it.