[The General]

The problems of manufacturing mecha or mobile suits or ground destroids is the expense for research, type of building materials for them, and the problems of stablity of walking plus other dilemmas that other panelists have stated. That make a frustrating exercise on dreaming futurists raised on science fiction stories, manga and anime. We don't live in the Patlabor universe timeline where mecha has become commonplace. Until the real breakthroughs are made to allow them walk properly in rough and uneven terrain, we stuck with tanks, copters, and airplanes. Those vehicles are quite vulnerable by countermeasures like guided missiles, radar and other sensory technologies, LAWs and field artillery. That frustrates your typical military officers looking for a blitzkrieg duration of a war in any invaded rouge nation.

Here's a historical example of a war theatre operation where a mecha could have forced the enemy to rethink their trench war delaying tactics.

After the end of the Sicily invasion in the early 1943, the Western Allies were deciding how to end the war by choosing the Nazi-held territory that will be the shortest path into Germany. One of the preposed territories for invasion was put forth by Winston Churchill was take out the Italian nation and advance through the East European nations. The real reason for Churchill's preposal was that of a political reason of mistrusting Uncle Joe's intentions towards the Eastern European nations after the war. By making a physical presence in Eastern Europe, Uncle Joe would have compromise with the Western Allies. But the Americans vetoed the idea and wanted a French invasion and only allowed the Italian invasion limited to having Axis Italians kicked out of the war. The problem with the invasion was that Italy has mountainous terrain with few developed highways for motor vehicles. To completely overwhelm the Axis there, the Allies would have to launch numerous seaborne invasions up the whole Italian coastline to prevent any enemy defensive response. But the Allies didn't have seaborne invasion equipment assets to cover for both the Italian operation and Operation Overlord. The results were disasterous for the Allies. The Axis(mainly the Germans) were able survey the Italian frontier and were able make good use of it to place their large caliber anti-tank guns in natural road gaps areas and were able make limited use of their AFVs in that terrain. The Allies were forced to make slow progress up the Italian boot because their armor and their airpower couldn't make the difference due to that terrain. To make matters worse is the roadways were to narrow for supply trucks to traverse in. So pack animals like mules and horses were used to carry essential supplies to frontline troops. Any form of practical advance in the Italian boot was done by use special operations units like US/Canadian Special Forces or 'The Devil's Brigade" with huge unit loses.

The only practical forms of countermeasures for the Allies if they were not so conservative against new weapons was if they have a fairy godmother that blessed them with real super geniuses who could create practical weapon guidance systems and more powerful conventional explosive muntions for anti-armour and ground interdiction applications that the Axis can't stop and the practical attack aircraft and the soldier portable devices to carry these new arsenals to their enemies in very short time (ie. within a month).

For a mecha like a VOTOM(the closest practical mecha to be made because the only barriers in its creation is the computer hardware and software, and a very heat-resistant hydraulic fluid. Its height much more practical than a gundam because it's no higher than an one level house and squat down for a more short height to hide itself) makes it possible for the foot soldier have the armor needed to take out those tough salients. The Germans would have to have Newtypes among anti-tank or tank crews to stop a VOTOM because it moves like person on roller skates or skateboard on rough terrain if it's not walking or being incredibly very lucky or narrow pathways for a VOTOM.

What's the other alternative weapon system to take place of the mecha. Hover AFVs? Heavy armor plus the big caliber guns on normal hovercraft is not possible due the limitation of the current powerplants used for hovercraft. So what's the better alternative?