😂

@@skepticalmagos_101 **reads your username** Oh, the inquisitiors must LOVE you (as does your Regimental Commissar), lol

not gonna lie, love the battle of zion, and i am a fan of Mechs, but i was mad when i saw those exo suits, i mean come on, last line of def and all, but, a little armor for the pilot?, or ya know, support units covering them from blind spots? infantry or even i dunno, SHIPS they got, figthing in the battle?, nope just unarmored exo suits with dual machine guns, nothing else, oh, and the support units are only for ammo, not covering, get the hell out!

@@251spartan Also EXTREMELY poor control systems.

What is a flak tank nerd boi?

@@JeanLucCaptain indeed, this has the marks of a jury rigged at the last moment before the battle unit, not something that was on service before, but something that was made hours before the battle, just to buy some more minutes.

@@prohumans420 An armored, mobile, anti aircraft vehicle. Look up the ZSU-23-4. It’s a Soviet tank with a quad mount of radar directed 23mm auto cannons.

with wheels in the feet for optional rolling or planting itself in the ground so it isn't easily pushed. or have a setup like the tachikomas in the Ghost in the Shell series (minus the irritation high pitched voices they had in parts of it). where they have omni-directional wheels for feet that give them a lot of mobility options

The lawyers from pokemon would like a word 😁

Given that they have no armor&did a good amount of damage. I say a flat bed, 4 wheeled vehicle with a couple M2 or grenade launchers would be every bit as effective, more mobile&be far easier to maintain&produce!

Take the Urbanmech from Battletech. It’s literally a turret that walks.

@@arbhall7572 m-2s dont have near the punch for that situation. Firepower wise, maybe something like the zsu 23-4. But it doesnt track fast enough either, plus mobility is limited. I guess that was the apus biggest strength, it could change targets as fast as the operator could move. Maybe a hyper version of a ciws would work.

Browning always wins

Even in 41st Millennium, his design still lives on.

"47 World Wars!"

30-millimeter, not .50-cals.

Even a fucking bow and arrow would do it avatar style lol

They actually did in the first machine war where they had a really hot lazer

Ironically Gundam got it right. As their Mobile suits were originally designed for use in microgravity or zero-G. Basically giant space suits that somebody looked and said “what if we gave them a gun instead of a tool?” And it went from there.

The walkers probably a r e work platforms. The way I see it, the humans where lacking resources; they had none to spare for actual war machines. So it was either design weapons they can strap on the work robots they already have or nothing. A war machine can fight, but it can not do anything else useful.

@@schwarzerritter5724 armoring the cockpit at least is a few plates of metal. Or using this machines to build fortifications to fight from. If you have such marvelous WORK suits you can build a lot of stuff from stones already

@@JeanLucCaptain maybe in basic concept, not in execution in the slightest. By any measure of even the slightest amount of realism, there is absolutely zero reason a humongous bipedal walker would be a better option than a space fighter. The reason for this is because adding limbs adds mass, weight and complexity. If a MS and the fighter used the same engine plant the mobile suit would have considerably lower overall performance than the fighter because of that extra mass. Greater mass in space means less acceleration. Those limbs also add cost and size, which means a carrier would be able to carry less mobile suits than the space fighters, they would be more expensive, and they would have more maintenance downtime than the fighters. Sure a mobile suit might beat the crap out of a space fighter that insists on limiting itself to flying and operating like atmospheric aircraft, IE. star wars fighters. But realistically designed space fighters, designed for actual space, ie Babylon 5 Starfuries, wont have that maneuverability disadvantage. Plus since there are no aerodynamics in space, there is not much reason for a space fighter to limit itself to fixed forward facing weapons. They can easily use turrets, with the only disadvantage being a slight mass penalty of the turret over a fixed weapon. Sure a mobile suit is space doesn't face all the disadvantages of a land based walker. Like the simple issue of recovering walkers with inevitable engine breakdowns. If a wheeled or tracked vehicles engine quits on the move, the vehicle simply stops. Then you can set the transmission to neutral, break out a towbar, and use another vehicle to tow the disables vehicle to the workshop. If a land based walkers engine quits while walking, chances are its going to be in an unstable position and fall over, damaging or destroying itself. Getting that disabled walker back to the workshop is going to be a bitch and a half. If the walker has the courtesy of breaking where you could get it onto a flatbed truck or trailer, its easier. But if that walkers engine decides to be particularity rude and break down in an area where you couldn't get a flatbed truck near it, that's a really bad day. At least with a mobile suit in space, if the power plant quits, a leg locks up, or some other rude mechanical failure immobilizes it, well towing things in space is easier.

Just a theory so bear with me. But could these also be barely understood machines left by the machines for the humans to use? I mean a councilor said they have huge machines he has no idea how they work. How much do they know how to actually build in their 'real' world? I mean I assume matrix learning does not cross over.

yeah, the Squids are a fine exemple of fonction over form, they can be used to move stuff around when not in combat (so 99% of the time), are highly mobile whish is important for scouting around the mechanical nightmare that is earth in the Matrix AND they have the fear factor, whish is useful when the only thing your gonna be fighting against are squishy Humies. the only things they could be improved with his some ability to use range weapons, an option to having a gun attached to the end of the tentacles for exemple.

They literally stop being effective when someone gets a high RPM flak weapon. They aren't even threatening....but the Matrix sequels aren't known for being too bright.

@@LostInTheFarmersMarket i disagree, i think having that flak weapon makes it worse, you get that sense of building hope as you blast them to bits but as there seem to be endless waves of these things, they just keep coming at you. Ammo is a false hope in this case, plus that gun can't fire forever, it will need to stop firing as the barrel heats up and the crew that man it start to tire and slow down. like old school shambling zombies, they will get you eventually and every weapon or defense you build only works against you by providing false hope.

@@DrewBorrowdale I do not think you understand flak then. Flak is an area effect weapon that degrades targets by shredding them en-masse. The force of having a flak shell detonate near you is as bad as the high velocity shrapnel as it creates over pressure and will damage delicate things like electronics used in the sentinel's internals. In short it's a force multiplier against airborne targets that can start killing them by the bushel at range. I am not talking the ww2 era concept of flak, I'm talking Sci-fi flak which is way more effective. Sentinels have very little armor because they rely on sheer numbers any mass multiplier weapon would be more effective than the APU's existing weapons. Really the residents of Zion should have built Riflemen (battletech) rather than glorified power loaders with a severe case of John Woo-Itis.

@@LostInTheFarmersMarket Very much aware of what flack is, also very much aware of what maintenance needs is, and what material stress is also. The problem isn't that its a bad weapon or the wrong type of weapon for the job. In a simple on off battle with a single wave of squids then sure, roll out the 2K22 Tunguska but that's not what you will be up against, you could jam yourself in the best place with a warehouse of shells behind you, have a team of engineers on standby ready to clear any jam or dud shell and be trained to a elite level, but eventually you have to stop firing, either due to personal exhaustion, mechanical failure, or simply being out of ammo. the squids will bury you in their wreckage. their numbers and total absence of self preservation will get you, the amount you take down before that is irreverent unless you're covering someone else's escape. again, its why slow moving shambling zombies will always be more terror inducing then modern runners. they will get you eventually. anything you do, any weapon you use will just prolong your hope.

Against a melee-only enemy and using a ranged-only weapon set, doesn't most cover merely reduce angles at which you can fire on that enemy? Armor on the unit, yes. But cover between you and the enemy helps them more than you.

Considering how much space a Sentinel takes up to move and fight effectively, I'm surprised Zion has no tight tunnels of thick steel to bottleneck them.

You talking common sense Rogal Dorn

Did you watch like an even stupider version of the scene? Because while the scene I saw was bad, it was basically what you described but with the machines still pushing through the defenses incredibly quickly till only a couple mechs were left. Zion had a giant auto cannon firing at the only breach but the machines just rush through it so quickly that it wasn't enough. They then picked off APUs and the infantry behind cover until they were able to destroy the main gun and mopped up the remaining ground forces. As weird and out of place as the scene it was probably one of the best future warfare scenes in film

Like what's better? The edge of tomorrow scenes? Which is essentially just APU vs matrix machines? The tomorrow war? Which is basically just ordinary humans against versus organic matrix machines that can't fly and can be taken down by 5.56mm? The starship troopers series which is the same? Halo? Where a personal shield generator on a augmented guy with a 12.7mm handgun could destroy entire armies?

The problem with a hover platform is that they're firing kinetic weapons (you can see the guns on those arms bouncing around during the fight), so either the pilots are constantly adjusting position or they're going to be getting scooted around the battlefield from their own recoil. Or they're going to be grounded, in which case we're back to "why bother with a mobile platform if it's just going to plant itself?"

​@@seanheath4492 That's a good point. Although as far as armament is concerned, it needn't be so recoil-prone. I think the Matrix's universe has other means of fighting the machines, such as E.M-pulse launchers. They wouldn't cause significant recoil when compared to the damage they could cause to the machines. And even if that wouldn't be possible - as the scene showed, much of the recoil would be directed downward as the machine forces mainly breached Zion's ceiling i.i.r.c. I'm not saying my solution's the best - or even good, for that matter, but instead I'm trying to preserve the intended scene without changing things too much.

@@spyrelle3970 The idea that they'd be firing upwards only works while they have the sentinels in a bottleneck (which didn't last very long even when they were only dealing with one breach point). I don't recall any instances of them having a directional EMP weapon (the shipboard ones are omnidirectional and don't even spare the ships deploying them), and it doesn't seem like those lightning gun thingies would have the kind of range they need even scaled up for use on a vehicle. I think what I might have done in that situation (which doesn't even require knowledge of the Smith-possessed Bane) is hold some of the ships in reserve when they sent them out to try and EMP the machine swarm so that you'd have more guns to defend the docks. But then, I'm not a huge fan of committing to an all-out attack just because Murphy always likes to put in an appearance. The Battle of Zion is one of those things that's fun to watch, but doesn't really hold up under scrutiny.

@@seanheath4492 Amen.

I thought they used magnets since the underground was a giant metal maze?

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

@@elliotyourarobot that one guy that went limbless still haunts me to this day lmao

@@jdprofanitybatman5212 dude don't remind me. I have to spend effort to not think about that when its brought up.

@@jdprofanitybatman5212 to me its the helplessness of the mechs and guys just stuck there struggling and screaming

@@elliotyourarobot It's mainly the design if you think about it. Theres no failsafe in the event a pilot has to evacuate the APU for any reason, which just adds to the helplessness as well.

That is the one image that I have from watching 'The Animatrix' 18 years ago.

@@johnbigboote8900 welcome to watching-animatrix-at-23h-alone-ptsd-group

@@majstealth Thank you. It's comforting to know that I'm not alone.

It didn't make it invincible. Armour isn't meant to make you invincible. It's the same way ballistic helmets aren't bullet proof, but are meant to protect against shrapnel. You want to be enclosed enough so you don't get taken out by a glancing attack or shrapnel. The fact that once you're pinned down by 1000:1 numbers that you can be lasered or hydraulically cut out doesn't invalidate the need for some level of armour. Also, screw the animatrix, regardless of it being pretty good overall. All the nukes woulda glassed and fried the machine city. And radiation does in fact destroy electronics over time. They would have been utterly annihilated in the initial strike long before they retooled for war.

@@goranmihajlovic6179 The nukes would have been intercepted. Laser and ballistic TROPHY/CIWS systems that have been refined by an AI interested in doing literally nothing else from the moment of its inception?

Considering it was based on the walking death trap version from the Animatrix which came before this movie....

Honestly I was writing up a comment to say exactly the same thing when I saw yours. It does look like a civilian thing pushed into military service with the retrofitting of guns. The technical of matrix world if you will.

@@SallinKari The irony is that it was used by the human military against the machines during the big war (which in of itself has several plot issues) so military to civilian.

@@SallinKari Its actually a military suit. Why they decided to use .50 instead of explosives or direct energy weapons (we know they had those during the great war) is beyond me. Animatrix 2nd Ren is pretty, but in terms of story and world-building it isn't great. All style and no substance, you know?

@@LostInTheFarmersMarket If it wasn't for this then I would have guessed that these mechs were repurposed police units to fight city-wide rioting in some dystopian setting.

Considering their enemies are robotic AI, I imagine the humans aren't too fond of automation. Not to mention anything remote controlled would also be at risk of getting it's signal hijacked.

@@EmeralBookwise exactly

@@EmeralBookwisethey are not going far have it all analogue, not signal means no hijacking. Line gets compromised or interrupted robot goes boom.

The new Galactica kinda explained that: you don't network your computers when you're up against AI.

that's another thing i don't get. the squidies have lasers, why not, if the humans can't make them, scavenge them from damage squids? then make a laser array, that they can put on a dedicated movable platform, that can aim at whatever hole the squids pour out from.. but nope, we get un armored bipeds that btw, CAN'T STRAFE BECAUSE THE FOOT AND ARM CONTROLS ARE SEPARATE AND REQUIRE BOTH HANDS TO OPERATE, which kind of defeats why they have legs to start with.

I can only assume the power requirements for the pads are enormous, or the power plants have minimum sizes.

The UN apus could fly and they still got slaughtered

Legs, no armour and worst control layout on any Mech in sci-fi.

According to Entertainment Weekly there was a field repair E-frame in Parzival's garage in Ready Player One that supposedly people thought was a power loader suit.

In the animatrix the original design they show has the front shielded, every infantryman got one basically. Thing is any you recover will have had the cockpit destroyed or the blast shield lasered off.

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

I wish I could still play Hawken...

You can build wheels that allow sideways motion either through hydraulics, electrical systems, or through designing wheels with special wheels on them

@@jchoneandonly still far slower and more restrictive, especially with difficult terrain. The footprint of a tracked or wheeled vehicle will alway be bigger and that makes any ground obstacles far more problematic.

@@nathanthom8176 slower? Definitely not. If you're using multidirectional wheels it's pretty much instant movement, it's faster long range, and far less complicated while being far more stable. As for regular wheels, you'd have to pivot them quickly but it's more than plausible to move and they'll still be more stable.

@@jchoneandonly it is slower if you place any form of obstacle like a raise in elevation or any ground obstacle. It is also worth noting that most ground vehicles are longer than wide so going sidewards isn't even an option a lot of the time. Hell a walker with arms could climb over substantial blockages and pretty much gets stopped obstacles specifically designed to stop armoured vehicles.

@@nathanthom8176 the wheels and mechanical components I've referred to completely ignore wheelbase as it pertains to sideways motion. Both are capable of moving sideways without turning the chassis. As for elevations and obstacles, the docks look pretty flat and that's where the apu is used and you can mount wheels on suspension that's designed to climb and not have to sacrifice much mobility while they're also way simpler than legs and way more robust. Unless you're mountain climbing you're not going to need legs.

Not to mention that if they have that much control over EM fields then all of those ships and mechs should be using fucking railguns not standard ammunition. Their hovercrafts should be able to just slag the machine city from miles away with long range kinetic railgun bolts.

@@GankbotShuk You don't even need control over em fields for rail guns. Just shitloads of power. Using EM fields could be handy for coil guns, though.

Humans dont actually have the technology to make most of those things. They are salvaged relics from the pre-fall era that the Matrix era humans can just about get working. Just.

@@Gothmetalhead13 even if that's the case kinetic weapons on a walker make zero sense against a machine. Your going to go through millions in materials and manufacturing cost for one or two machines. Considering humanity always had constrains on manufacturing projectiles make zero sense. If they can make EM charge that can blast and have antigrav tech and all is salvaged - at worst make WW2 style live hoverbombs. Stick a pilot on top of a platform with minimum power for EM and antigrav, armor him up so he can get close enough and that's that. This may seem brute but Zion tactics and strategy are just idiotic. De Vauban was first to note (and this holds strong here) that as dimensionality grows the correct defence fortifications becomes gradually more resource expensive. The whole plot of Ender's Game is based on this simple fact that 3d defence (enemy coming from up/down or either side) is practically impossible. The only correct choice is offensive, especially when the attacker has greater numbers and/or resources since that is the only way to force confrontations at acceptable odds. This tactics are the mainstay of today's guerilla war everywhere. Move, concentrate firepower, hit and run using knowledge of terrain. No big sieges because it's seconds before regulars call in artillery and air support.

@@mdomans Well, the main reason the APU's are used is because they are, once again, pre-fall tech that humanity has salvaged and restored. Humans have found loads of these mechs and restored them. Why they never bothered to add any armour to them, I do not know. As for why they were there, Mechs are cool. Logically the defence of Zion is a mess, but seeing mechs blast squidbots is visually impressive, and so long as you dont think too hard its fun. Although, you would have thought that the devs would have armoured them. Scrap armour, sure, but armour. And maybe added in one or two largely intact pre-fall models as ace units.

According to the animatrix/matrix wiki, the reason the limb socket controls and heavy armor was removed in the movie designs was to give the pilots a less horrifying/painful death in the case the squids get a hold of the APU, in addition to said armor not actually being able to protect from anything since the squids have laser cutters that can just peel the armor off. You can say what you will about the reasoning and logic behind this, but that is the reason behind it.

To punch stuff, why these things didn’t have swords and maces is a good question though, if squishies are not gonna go out in melee then they ain’t doing things right.

And they're just mobile turrets anyways. No reason not to have ZSU-23-4s instead right?

@@JeanLucCaptain With the ZSU 57-2, you'd still have the drama of being able to tear apart the squishies with tentacles from the open top.

@@MonkeyJedi99 yeah but with the ZSU you can just give the loader a Rifle too defend the turret with while the gunner does the pew pew. And switch roles when reloading needs to be done

Saw something online that said that the guns are 30mm, so based on the size of the ammo boxes you're probably lucky to get 200 rounds apiece in them, and since an M-61 Vulcan can burn through a hundred a second on full rock & roll...

They are fun, aren't they?

Even then, it would take only a bare handful of resources to fix a few glaring problems: When it's time to gear them up for combat, bolt the guns to the hands (even if they're still holding the guns!), run ammo feeds along the arms and down the back and *to the legs*. Now your reloaders (again, assuming nothing else here could be changed and so they were needed too) could just load the ammo straight in with wheelbarrows at human-height and skip the scissor lifts. If we assume armor is 'worthless', then at least give 'em a mesh screen, to prevent fragments (or spent casings!) hurting the pilot, even if it can't stop a Squid. They're strapped in, so weren't escaping in a hurry anyway... To be clear, all this is to say nothing of just strapping AA guns to the back of the local forklifts. ;)

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

no legs no need to worry about falls, tanks dont flip over thier side much when travelling on flat terrain

Pretty much the only reason to go with mechs over tanks is rule of cool. Impractical and a design nightmare in every way possible but they look cool.

@@epicstyle1000 To be fair, tanks have a long and storied past of getting stuck in holes and trenches and on large obstacles. Excess machine debris can probably act like hedgehogs. That being said, Zion probably doesn't have a depot of tanks sitting around, and these might just not have their armor anymore for whatever reason. They could have potentially jury-rigged some makeshift armor back on their of course, for some degree of any protection. I'm also not certain how well turreted things would necessarily work, considering the extent that these walkers seemed to utilize being able to shoot in more than one direction at once. Of course, you can put multiple turrets on a single small vehicle, you just run into mounting space issues with such set-ups.

but they barely moved after they started firing. I don't recall any running and gunning by the APUs

@@ranwolf7650 not enough budget for the CGI! 😏

Depends on the environment. Under ground, where you might need to cross obstacles legs can actually be more useful than tracks or wheels.

Its also to give the pilots more mercy when they are pinned

1 word A M M o

Better just to abandon the whole platform and find another.

@@SacredCowShipyards Yep!

Not yet.

Which is sad, given its present "mobility".

Its to give the pilots a quicker death

Welcome to the madhouse.

Ah yes, wheels. Something that needs relatively flat area's to travel in and can get stuck behind a fallen tree.

Yup, entirely manual control. In fact, I think a requirement for being part of the APU Corps was that you /weren't/ a socket-head. And they "aimed" by way of tracers.

@@SacredCowShipyards Right~, cause that makes total sense, mmm, wait, no...no it doesn't. And tracers..... *all of that technology* .....and they go with tracers. I guess they really didn't understand that tech enough to even try jury-rigging a laser sight to those APU guns, then again if they did understand the tech they were using on a fundamental level then someone would've no doubt created an APU variant with a floater/flight pack for construction/scouting/sniping/etc/etc. I know if I was in that setting I would've been downloading all of the science and engineering skill packs that I could while exploiting the hell out of that socket interface for training/research/designing. But that's just me I guess, or ship crews were trained to avoid any potential redpills with transhumanists leanings.....

So something like fallout sentry bots with a more robust design for each leg wheel?

@@vonfaustien3957 While it would certainly be possible to go that route with the technology we've seen on screen (although.....I'm not sure if they have enough rubber/plastic available) that arrangement might be needlessly complex for something that needs to be durable and low maintenance for the cities small population and equally small industrial base. For the tri-wheel basic design in a city like Zion I was imagining something of a cross between a humvee and those T-1 mini-tank-like terminators seen in Terminator 3.

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

@@elliotyourarobot true

Yeah, there's about seventeen different weapons/weapon platforms that the humies could have used that would have worked A LOT better than the nonsense they tried to use, but oh no, we HAD to go with walkers. Because walkers. Blessed primates.

@@SacredCowShipyards couldnt they just have stipped down like 5 or 6 hover ships to just hte hoovering and the emp and chucked one at the breech each time the squids attacked?

Sure, just don't bolt them to useless platforms.

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour of. Its just less horrifying that way

Wasn't that the implication?

The Second Ren from The Animatrix shows why they took the armour off. Its just less horrifying that way