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Spider Tank: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''Artemis Gordon''': Ok, What does Loveless have? ''(notices factory complex)'' Oh... he has his own city.
[''out of nowhere a giant mechanical spider shows up'']
'''[[Will Smith|Jim West]]''': He's got an 80-Foot Tarantula.
'''Artemis Gordon''': Yes... I was getting to that.|''[[Wild Wild West (film)|Wild Wild West]]''}}
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** Fuchikomas and Tachikomas also have the ability to cling to walls and deploy wires that let them swing around or descend vertical heights, meaning that unlike most other Spider Tanks, these ones actually ''are'' basically spiders, or rather, they're Spider-Man, in Tank form. [http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h245/DRCEQ2/GITS/Tachikomas/Spiderkoma.jpg The Tachikomatic Days omake lampshade and parody this.]
{{quote|Tachiko-Man, Tachiko-Man, doin' the things a Tachikoma can....}}
*** [[Ghost in the Shell]] also features the Jigibachi attack helicopters which resemble wasps
{{quote|'''Tachikoma 1:''' [Worried about an impending confrontation with several Jigabachi] So, wouldn't anti-tank helicopters be like... [[Oh Crap|our natural predator?]]
'''Tachikoma 2:''' Hmmm... Mister Batou, can we go home? [[Blatant Lies|We have upset stomachs.]]
'''Batou:''' Stomachs? What stomachs? }}
* Staying with the Masamune Shirow theme: Spider Gun Platforms in ''[[Appleseed]]''. The fourth volume of the manga also features smaller Attack Drone robots with actual abdomens that are almost entirely made up of a [[Gatling Good|Minigun]] and its absurdly large ammo drum.
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** ''[[The Simpsons]]'': parodies the ''Wild Wild West'' spider tank more affectionately in where Skinner tries to maintain realism in a Civil War re-enactment, despite the interruption from some nearby [[World War Two]] veterans...
{{quote|'''Skinner:''' Tanks?! Oh, this is just too inaccurate.
''[Professor Frink appears behind him in a [[Wild Wild West (film)|giant robot spider]].]''
'''Professor Frink:''' Well then, you're definitely not going to like my steam-powered super-spider. [[With the Hurting|With the]] ''[[With the Hurting|stepping]]'' and the ''squishing'' and [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|the web made of NYLON]] }}
** Jon Peters' obsession with the vehicle goes beyond just those two movies. The most egregious example might be his attempt to fit the contraption into the proposed cinematic adaptation of Neil Gaiman's ''[[Sandman]]'' series.
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== Tabletop Games ==
* The Chaos faction of ''[[Warhammer 40000]]'' loves this trope. There's the Defiler (demon possessed mech with four legs and two clawed arms), the Brass Scorpion, a giant mechanical demonic scorpion used by the forces of Khorne, and the Soul Grinder, which is basically a demon bolted onto a Defiler's legs. Also note the new "Blood Slaughterer".
** The 5th edition Necrons Codex also introduced the Triarch Stalker, although it's only six legged
* ''[[Rifts]]'' has both Spider and Scorpion Skull-Walkers for the Coalition States, and the Bug and Land Crab [[APCs]] for the New German Republic.
* ''[[Dungeons and Dragons]]'' has the "Apparatus of Kwalish", a barrel in which a person can hide himself. Multiple levers allow one to turn the barrel into a Spider Tank (complete with flamethrowers) and control it. Which was a standard magical item in 1E and became an artifact by 3E. It was actually primarily an underwater submarine (lobster), complete with glowing "eyes" with continual light cast on them and retractable claws in the front. It returns as a standard (if expensive) magic item in 4th edition.
*** Featured in ''[[Nodwick]]'': "[http://nodwick.humor.gamespy.com/gamespyarchive/index.php?date=2002-08-15 Behold the wrath of Gygax!]"
** Lolth uses a giant version of one of these as her headquarters in the adventure ''Queen of the Demonweb Pits''.
** ''[[Spelljammer]]'' elves got "Spirit Warrior" - giant (20' and up) undead insect carapace, operated by a pilot [[Bond Creatures|bonded to it back when the thing was alive]] (replacement bonding after the previous pilot died is possible, but dangerous), capable of leaping, transformed so that they have "hands" and can use specially made giant weapons; depending on the original insect, they also are quite good at fighting with mandibles and claws (mantid), has stinger modified for use as a greek fire projector (aphid) or can [[Gale Force Sound|emit bone-splintering screech]] (katydid). Zwarth is the greater version, with crew of 5-8 (though they all must bond to use it), a spelljamming helm and [[Amplifier Artifact|spell amplifier]] as range weapon. The drawback is that pilots [[Synchronization|get feedback damage]], but those things have better armor class than any elf alive.
** ''[[Dark Sun]]'' has Undead War Beetle. And when we say "beetle", we mean "elephant-sized giant rezhatta" (or sometimes watroach). The zombified carcass carries driver (spellcaster who animated it), commander, 9 troopers on the upper deck and another 9 in weapon ports. And it still can attack with mandibles, though cannot do anything at all without command.
* Four-legged ('quad') BattleMechs are a distinct minority in the [[BattleTech]] universe (starting with the ones from ''Dougram'' mentioned above), but they do exist. Their main in-game drawbacks are their lack of arms and more rigid firing arcs (partly due to lack of a twistable upper torso) -- in particular, the construction rules don't allow for weapons covering their ''side'' arcs at all, thus creating significant blind spots. On the plus side, they get minor maneuvering benefits and are less likely to fall down as long as all legs are still working.
* The [http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=3600 Phyrexian Walker] from ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''.
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* Actual vehicles have been built that use the motor configuration of arachnids. However, [[Cool but Inefficient|they move much slower than just using wheels.]]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-Q8wmYyWI Big Dog] (from Boston Dynamics) may not be a vehicle, but just you wait. [http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_ls3.html LS3] The in progress bigger brother.
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ-Q8wmYyWI Big Dog] (from Boston Dynamics) may not be a vehicle, but just you wait. [http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_ls3.html LS3] The in progress bigger brother.<br /><br />However cool legged machines may be, there are several disadvantages. Maintenance is a major concern, and walking tanks are pretty much guaranteed to have at least 16 high-stress (hip lateral, hip vertical, knee, ankle, multiplied by at least 4 legs) compared to 4 for tanks (just the drive wheels, an M1 could almost certainly get by without a few of its road wheels given normal ground pressure of ~15 psi). That's only for cargo walkers as well, actual combat walkers (as actually fit the trope) have to factor in armour, recoil, speed, etc. most of which count against walkers.<br /><br />All of this plus the touched on, but not explicitly mentioned ground pressure issue. A tank spreads its massive weight over a pair of equally massive treads resulting in ground pressure per unit of area no higher then a walking man. An armored walker of the same weight balancing on four much smaller pads would have massively higher ground pressure and could easily bog down in any sort of soft ground (ironically much like a wheeled vehicle). You could of course try to sort of counter this by making the feet huge like snowshoes, but this would be a weak work around and could make walking unwieldy to say the least. Or you could have extra "stability" legs that are used specifically at rest or when stability is needed, and leave them retracted on the move - like on some cranes and artillery pieces. It's a solution for self-propelled artillery rather than tanks, though.▼
** However cool legged machines may be, there are several disadvantages. Maintenance is a major concern, and walking tanks are pretty much guaranteed to have at least 16 high-stress (hip lateral, hip vertical, knee, ankle, multiplied by at least 4 legs) compared to 4 for tanks (just the drive wheels, an M1 could almost certainly get by without a few of its road wheels given normal ground pressure of ~15 psi). That's only for cargo walkers as well, actual combat walkers (as actually fit the trope) have to factor in armour, recoil, speed, etc. most of which count against walkers.
▲***
* Speaking of walking on soft ground...the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2V8GFqk_Y Timberjack] hexapod deforester which can walk on uneven ground effectively (albeit has very slow turning) is proudly claiming that its feet cause less damage to ground when compare to a normal caterpillar. What kind of magic it use? Rubber dampers.
* And that's why the cheap robots they're designing to wander Mars are called 'spider-bots'. They only have six legs, though. And they're kinda small. And there will be a ''lot'' of them. They're cheap, after all.
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