Retropunk Mechanics!

[Necratoid]

Well, first off the gyroscopic/balance issues can be mitigated a lot by making wide feet with the toes going in all four directions instead of a human style foot, for a bipedal mecha. As was mentioned, an AT-AT.
Settling on the 4 footed variety, I then went with the hydrothermal self opening temple ddors method for moving the feet up and down. Basically a fire is started on top of a metal cask of water and as water heats expands and pushes the foot down which lifts the mech up tilting it to one side. This lifts the mech until the leg is up enough to get to the vent on the leg that lets up enough to cause the water level to sink below the vent (causing a blast of hot water and steam out, vented through tubes outward as a defensive weapon.)
Now that up and down is cover you have to get it to walk foward. Have slaves/solders push the leg foward, as it goes up and backwards when its down. Thus the mech walks forward, granted training the teams have to be timed together or your going to walk in circles/drunkenly. Steering is equally hard to time. Also you either have to time it so the fire is the same temperature in each of the 2 diagonal legs in 2 sets of 2 legs or have the a system of pipes for 2 central ones to to get the thing coordinated. Though reverse is equally possible.
Slow granted and hard to steer, but its going to walk. You also have to add in room for the design to allow greased slats to prevent steaming the guys moving the legs around. The main weapons are missile ones (ballista and bows) as this is a walker, the secondary are steam blasts from the basic legs operation and the forward mounted main steam/water vents (or from front and back in the 4 heater design) ones that go off to stop it /clear the defenders from the wall before the frontal boarding ramps drop and the back feed ramp is lowed so that the army can run into the city from there. Pity it causes so much mud though.
Its a wooden frame with armor plates strapped onto it like the Colossus of Rhodes.
Thats the earliest I think it can be done, without magic and with a bit of science flubbing. As soon as Automated temple doors came around The Muslims came after Jesus... they aren't going to get a chance to do much as they won't exist until after the ancient Greeks. The Chinese will base mechs off their dragons.... which do ot even have legs.
Edit: Due to hitting ENTER during title, instead of TAB.

[Acyl]

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The Chinese will base mechs off their dragons.... which do ot even have legs.

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Um, sorry, but not exactly.
Chinese dragons are sometimes depicted without legs, yes. But it's much more common for them to be portrayed with forelimbs ending in bird-like talons. Sometimes they also have rear feet. Sometimes also feet like tiger paws.
That said, the talons could be weapon mounts.
In any case, there's a raftload of other mythological beasts in Chinese background culture for designers to draw on. Guardian lions, for example, have featured in Chinese art since around 200 BC.
Allowing for contemporary drift, they're the first thing I think of when asked to envision a Chinese creature...though admittedly, that may be because the statues are so common in Chinese communities. You've probably seen 'em before - they're typically big stone or metal things that look like a bulldog and lion loved each other very very much.
-- Acyl

[Necratoid]

Okay, granted... however I still don't see the Chinese as getting the walking mecha first. They tended to put their engineering into massive fortifications likes walls, or massive clockwork things like that model of China in the tomb or the water clock multi-story complex thing.
Also, it may be end up being a lack of knowledge on my part... but I can't recall China having seige tech that was as elaborate as Europe got into during the ancient age. It may be the man power ment several thousand expendable workers thing they used for major construction, like the Great Wall.
If they did make mecha I'm seeing more crawling tank types that are heavy on projectile explosives for China.

[ordnance11]

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Well, first off the gyroscopic/balance issues can be mitigated a lot by making wide feet with the toes going in all four directions instead of a human style foot, for a bipedal mecha. As was mentioned, an AT-AT.

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As soon as someone mounts a flywheel as an auxillary power source, someone is going to make the connection that the walker is more stable with it.
__________________
Into terror!,  Into valour!
Charge ahead! No! Never turn
Yes, it's into the fire we fly
And the devil will burn!
- Scarlett Pimpernell

[Necratoid]

I looked up 'flywheel' on dictionary.com and the first entry lists it as a 1775-85 so adding it in the 2500 years ago plus era is a bit dubious... have an earlier source I'll except that. Though that would help a bit with balance. I'm guessing no one sees a real problem with the basics of my design in flubtech, if improvements are being suggested.
The other problem is that we have to answer the question of 'Why?' Why would an ancient civilization build a walker mecha? Its an engineering nightmare... coolness isn't enough of a driving force, on its own anyway.
The seige machine I described above has a purpose and at least a chance of being functional. The Greeks have walls to deal with and liked siege machines... like towers with ramps on wheels.
Another useful piece of flubtech is one based on the sun collecting crystal that sat a top the great pyramid. Apparently it collected the power of the sun for some reason or another. Without going into electronics they could have used the collected heat/light or whatever to heat the water instead of torch/fire pits and if they can break the connection and have an off mode. Trade between the Egyptians and Greeks is recorded at least 3500 years ago.

[hmelton]

I know this doesn't quite fit the thread and it did inspire my slow light crystal idea below the link.
I came across it in a thread over at Space battles and thought of this thread and the idea below.
Go have a look.
img.photobucket.com/album...676940.jpg

Your talking about crystals perhaps your ancient Greeks or Egyptians get their hands on a source of crystals that slow down light to say 1 meter a day within the crystal.
Wrap a reflective metal around a crystal 3 feet long 1/2 foot wide rod and put one end of the crystal at the open end of a large solar collector and let it sit there and fill with a days worth of focused sunlight.

Put reflective caps on both ends and you have a power source that can keep a "charge" for a day or two and boil water by simply sliding off one of the reflective end caps.
Add in some sort of crystal that can columnate the focused light into a beam and you have a power source and a light beam weapon.
I can see it now solar powered trojan horses with laser beam eyes.

howard melton
God bless

[Acyl]

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Okay, granted... however I still don't see the Chinese as getting the walking mecha first. They tended to put their engineering into massive fortifications likes walls, or massive clockwork things like that model of China in the tomb or the water clock multi-story complex thing.
Also, it may be end up being a lack of knowledge on my part... but I can't recall China having seige tech that was as elaborate as Europe got into during the ancient age. It may be the man power ment several thousand expendable workers thing they used for major construction, like the Great Wall.
If they did make mecha I'm seeing more crawling tank types that are heavy on projectile explosives for China.

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Oh, I agree - that's the more likely form for any Chinese mecha to take. Something more akin to an insanely oversized tank...which still fits the broad definition of 'mecha'. Just not a walking one. My objection was mainly to the assertion that a Chinese machine would be based on dragons, and that Chinese dragons don't have legs. Which, y'know, isn't the case.
It's the Europeans who developed siege warfare to a fine art - both the weapons used to break down fortifications, and the defensive structures to match, which is somewhat closer to the kind of engineering we're talking about when it comes to, well, walker mecha. Not entirely there, either, but closer.
Question, tho. Maybe someone's answered this already, but I haven't been paying attention. Once one military has mecha, it's logical for other nations to develop their own, and build mecha to fight other mecha. But what's the military reason to make one in the first place? Something that fills the battlefield niche of the early tanks?
-- Acyl

[Necratoid]

The tank is called a tank because in WW! they had trench warfare and somebody got the idea to put up barbed wire in the middle of the field... this meant that anyone who left the trenches had a 70-100% chance of dieing to machine gun nests. This made for many of the most spectacularly high casualty rates of any style of war... ever. It also applied to both sides. And this was sucktastic for everyone on the ground.
The British got it in there heads that it would be nice to have some for of protection against... well some form of protection at all. So the made a secret device that they told the guys making them were actually water tanks... for the Egyptian front. That is why they are called tanks.
Anyway these large metal things with treads (wheels have to be insanely large and rock solid to have a chance of getting anywhere in trench warfare.) The tank started off as a mobile wall with a couple of gun ports on the side. The primary purpose was to have a portable wall for the troops to get to the enemy trenches behind.
Having a giant thing come at you that ignored your weapons and was very, very loud. The only thing the could do on the German sides was hope for one of the badly engineered things to break down or to try an take it over... so only the British had tanks in WWI... everyone else ripped off the idea for the next war. Only they made them not suck as much and gave them a main gun.
You already covered siege warfare battles... so I'd say the first thing that has a chance of being considered a mecha for war are the Egyptian chariots... which had a guy with a bow (maybe a driver also) as fast attack mobiles (like jeeps and Humvees today). Later they added spinning knives that stick out of the wheels so they could butcher people on the way by.
That is why I designed a seige walker... the idea of mecha is the old 'find a need and fill it' model of inventing. You need the legs to get up high enough to get over the wall for the ramp. It probably would have to do with walls to deep to tunnel under and torch the bottom support so the wall collapses. In which case you'd use a siege tower and push the thing along with 200 or so of you troops. The legs/steam thing could be because the enemy is using horses/chariots effectively outside their walls. So you'd lose far to many men if you pushed it around. That and it shows just how much cash you have available, that you can make such a thing.

[Kokuten]

I would think a military justification for walker mecha would be broken-ground or unimproved-ground mobile armor, that could basically ignore archery..
which, sadly, means the English will _not_ have walkers - the clothyard arrow in a good longbow can do a number on plate.. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Necratoid]

Longbows are about a thousand or two years off the time period for the Greeks to worry about... but assuming that you mean progress wise for English in the future of this theoretical mecha containing past we are discusing...
Longbows can easily shoot through the 3/8ths of and inch to whateverever amount less than an inch platemail got up to... Walker mecha would have armor that its several inches thick and probably muliple layers... so you'd have to have an absurd draw strength on the bow to get through the armor... like cybernetics level strength here.

[Kokuten]

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Walker mecha would have armor that its several inches thick and probably muliple layers...

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Which would weigh so very, very much, that our hypothetical English Walker would never be able to move.. Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979Wire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979

[Necratoid]

Two inches of armor will shatter any arrow fired from a long bow without much effort. Angled correctly it will just deflect most of the arrows. Two or three two inch plates will shrug off anything, but siege weapons. Also, penetrating the armor a small amount will not do much but line the outside with point bits that fail to hit anything useful... unless the thing gets knocked around a lot they won't hurt the people/parts inside.
I specifically stated that these walkers are for attacking walls/fortresses, the armor is on the front and lesser to the sides. it doesn't need 360 degree protection... it needs to be able to protect the invaders on the approach and give a defensive position (a foothold) on the enemy walls.
Walkers aren't going to be fast/maneuverable enough to move quickly. You need omnidirectional weapons and armor only if the thing is being outflanked. That is something with the base close to the ground. A low center of gravity is good for turning fast in these mecha... so a crawler or wheeled tower fort thing are better for army swarm combat and anti-infantry tactics.

[itsune9tl]

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Regarding Chinese gadgetry, 's been a while since I studied Ancient Chinese History...
But the Qin and Han Dynasties are regarded as China's Golden Age in terms of technology and culture. The Qin period was 221-206 BC, and the Han after that.

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If I remember my very basic ancient Chinese History correctly, they actually had the tech base for (rocket) powered gliders.
The only reason they didnt build any thing capable of manned flight was the Emporer at the time said (very loosely)
"The world ends at this Great Wall. Do any thing to prove me wrong, and heads will roll."

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I could easily see the Chinese flying "man lifting" dragon kites
for a combat drop onto an enemy's fortress.
D">

[Acyl]

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If I remember my very basic ancient Chinese History correctly, they actually had the tech base for (rocket) powered gliders.
The only reason they didnt build any thing capable of manned flight was the Emporer at the time said (very loosely)
"The world ends at this Great Wall. Do any thing to prove me wrong, and heads will roll."

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Mythbusters did an episode on the legend of the Han Dynasty Astronaut... that is, the tale of an astronomer who tried to reach the moon by, well, getting his servants to strap a crapload of rockets to a chair.
Now, of course, it's obvious that...if this actually happened...he would have failed. So the question is more of, well, how badly would he have failed?
As the episode concludes: very.
Whooooosh spin spin spin boom.
-- Acyl

[Bob Schroeck]

Re: that episode, from my quote file:
Adam Savage: I think we need to get professional help... then maybe find some rocket experts.
Adam: 80 lbs. of gunpowder, 22 idiots, 1 crash-test dummy... priceless.
-- Bob
---------
Visit beautiful Boston, proud successor to Seattle as
"City Most Scared Of Its Own Shadow

[Norgarth]

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Mythbusters did an episode on the legend of the Han Dynasty Astronaut... that is, the tale of an astronomer who tried to reach the moon by, well, getting his servants to strap a crapload of rockets to a chair.
Now, of course, it's obvious that...if this actually happened...he would have failed. So the question is more of, well, how badly would he have failed?
As the episode concludes: very.
Whooooosh spin spin spin boom.

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And that was with modern rockets. the take using ancient style chinese rockets had less whoosh and spinning and more 'BOOM!'__________________
The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live. - George Carlin.
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin

[itsune9tl]

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Mythbusters did an episode on the legend of the Han Dynasty Astronaut... that is, the tale of an astronomer who tried to reach the moon by, well, getting his servants to strap a crapload of rockets to a chair.

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There would be a lot of trial and error in the design process, yes.
However, they had "man lifting" kites at the time and, despite frequent CATO problems, they had rockets capable of delivering a payload. The point being here is they had the basic tech available to build a glider with a primitive JATO engine.
Mind you I wouldn't want to be a test pilot back then.
CATO -- CAtastophe on Take Off. (it went BOOM)
JATO -- Jet Asisted Take Off. (A rocket booster for air craft)

[Necratoid]

Considering that this is a thread about ancient Flubtech mecha, I though that the MythBusters stuff was kind of random. I liked the salami rocket bit better anyway. Though them using an average white man as a body model for an old Chinese guy was also off... unless I'm missing something an old Chinese guy in ancient times was smaller and lighter than Joe Q. Public white guy of today. So while the complete lack of steering was far more of a problem... it only screws things up further that the test body was a 1/3 over sized/weighted.
Speaking of expendable lab assistants for test flights... if you were a guy wanting to learn something scholar like in those days... you may happily volunteer for that test pilot position... or hold an old school style lottery for the villagers.