No Guns, No Swords, No Briefcases

[DELTAprime]

I always loved Hot Rod's exhaust lasers or whatever they were called in the '86 movie.

[Jellico]

Melee works when your ranged weapons lack impact. Eg humans have been mostly able to armor against archery. Accuracy was a big issue with guns before industrial rifling. Waiting for the whites of their eyes was a real thing. Alternatively rate of fire can be too low, see the traditional bayonet. Finally range can be so low ranged weapons become too awkward to use. Eg trench combat in WWI.

I am not sure that any of this applies to a species with black hole tapping fusion cannons.

The big issue I see with built in weapons is that you lose your wrist. Wrists offer a lot of fine tuning.

[Jetfire in the sky]

So if we're talking robots here there is no need for a melee weapon unless it has some sort of energy emission ala light saber, so then I'd go with a combo rifle, a long range out to 5000m energy weapon with back up projectile with depleted uranium tip option and then a shorter accuracy out to 1000m energy/projectile weapon with high explosive launcher attachment.

A shoulder mounted rail gun would be nice too if I'm a giant robot.

[Galvatran]

*snip* because honestly, ranged weapons are just superior to ranged weapons in practically every single way.

Melee works when your ranged weapons lack impact. Eg humans have been mostly able to armor against archery.

Eg against zombies.

[GoktimusPrime]

Melee works when your ranged weapons lack impact. Eg humans have been mostly able to armour against archery. Accuracy was a big issue with guns before industrial rifling. Waiting for the whites of their eyes was a real thing. Alternatively rate of fire can be too low, see the traditional bayonet. Finally range can be so low ranged weapons become too awkward to use. Eg trench combat in WWI.

Again, you're referring to pre-automatic assault rifle range weaponry there. The benchmark would be the automatic assault rifle. Anything at that tech level or better would render melee weapons effectively useless.

Melee weapons might be useful for needing to take out a target silently, like sneaking up behind an opponent and then gagging them while plunging a blade through their back. But it would be for scenarios where, for whatever reason, sniping them from a distance isn't an option. Lockdown in AOE showed just how incredibly deadly long range sniping can be. Poor Ratchet stood about as much of a chance as a fart against a whirlwind.

I am not sure that any of this applies to a species with black hole tapping fusion cannons.

lol! Many tech levels above the assault rifle! But yeah, it was the assault rifle that rendered melee combat useless here on Earth (as has often been mentioned in the Martial Arts Discussion thread), which is why I'd use it as a minimum technological benchmark.

The big issue I see with built in weapons is that you lose your wrist. Wrists offer a lot of fine tuning.

Losing your wrists would make you incapable of operating non-built-in hand-held guns too.

So if we're talking robots here there is no need for a melee weapon unless it has some sort of energy emission ala light saber, so then I'd go with a combo rifle, a long range out to 5000m energy weapon with back up projectile with depleted uranium tip option and then a shorter accuracy out to 1000m energy/projectile weapon with high explosive launcher attachment.

Even an energy melee weapon like a light sabre would be pretty needless if you just have energy projectile ballistics. This is why even Star Wars needed to disclaim that only highly trained/adept Force users would ever wield a lightsabre in battle, especially against opponents with energy weapons. But even then their powers are limited once the enemy has sufficient firepower. Obi-Wan and Qui Gon couldn't hold their ground against the Droidekas. And we saw many Jedi being outgunned and killed by Clone Troopers at the execution of Order 66. The lightsabre is really a melee range duelling weapon with limited capacity as an anti-ballistic shield. But as it's also explained the Jedi are keepers of the peace, not soldiers.

At best guns and swords on Transformers would work similarly to that on Samurai. In actual warfare the Samurai would absolutely use range weapons like bows and rifles, but in one-on-one duels they would use swords.



Historical Tangent
By the Tokugawa Shogunate, Samurai had become very proficient riflemen. About 30% of Samurai forces at the time were riflemen. When Tokugawa attempted to invade China, they were met by resistance by the Koreans (who were allies of the Chinese). The Koreans knew that they couldn't defeat the Samurai in land battle due to a combination of superior weapons tech (guns) and skills (i.e. battle hardened after the Sengoku Period). But the Koreans (actually just one dude) knew that what they lacked in land battle capability, they made up for in naval superiority. The Koreans (and later a Korean-Chinese alliance) managed to defeat the Japanese by intercepting their ships and defeating them at sea before they could make landfall. And even Japanese forces that managed to slip by and land were cut off from the rest of the fleet (and thus were unable to be resupplied). The Yi Sun Shin revolutioned Asian naval combat because he took advantage of their use of superior cannons rather than just boarding enemy boats and effectively having land battles on deck. Blow up the enemy boats and sink them before they could get close enough to board. Admiral Yi also developed boarding-resistant turtle ships. Admiral Yi actually won more naval battles than Horatio Nelson. Nelson won about half of his battles. Yi won almost all of his battles. And the one battle that he lost was really because of treachery from a Chinese ally; but even with that setback he never lost a ship.

[Jellico]

Ah Japan. Their history is so messed up and revised and reimagined every time the guys in charge change everything works.
But yeah. Point well made. When Samurai needed to fight as soldiers guns were very welcome.


Having brought up Nelson here is an interesting naval example.
French doctrine basically said aim for the rigging and disable the ship at range.
English doctrine was to wear the hits, get close and aim for the waterline.
Now admittedly the English got a lot more practice and could actually hit something. But it shows an environment where both sides were using basically the same technology but short range combat was more effective than ranged and the sorts of prerequisites needed.

Perhaps we are looking at this wrong. Instead of looking at the strength of the weapons maybe we should be looking at the armour? Depends on the universe and the power of narrativium but most Cybertronians seem insanely tough to kill.

[GoktimusPrime]

Having brought up Nelson here is an interesting naval example.
French doctrine basically said aim for the rigging and disable the ship at range.
English doctrine was to wear the hits, get close and aim for the waterline.
Now admittedly the English got a lot more practice and could actually hit something. But it shows an environment where both sides were using basically the same technology but short range combat was more effective than ranged and the sorts of prerequisites needed.

Ship-to-ship battle is a different thing from interpersonal combat between individual combatants. Space battles are never accurately portrayed in science fiction, because quite frankly they would be really boring if they were. The fact is that expelled energy blasts like lasers literally travel at the speed of light. This is pretty much impossible to dodge. A starfighter or ship trying to dodge laser blasts is akin to a person trying to dodge a bullet. Unless you're living in the Matrix it's pretty much impossible.

Perhaps we are looking at this wrong. Instead of looking at the strength of the weapons maybe we should be looking at the armour? Depends on the universe and the power of narrativium but most Cybertronians seem insanely tough to kill.

Heh, Cybertronians are about as tough or easy to kill as the plot demands. Brawn is the second strongest Autobot next to Optimus Prime, and yet a single shot to the shoulder was all it took to finish him off.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Unicron had lasers coming from his eyes and corrosive(?) breath. Thought that was pretty badass.