Thank you for addressing my concerns. You've responded quite well, but I still have a few observations:
1. They tend to lead to a war of increasingly dangerous (and silly) technology.
Yes, it appears strict regulation seems to be the only way to avoid many of the pitfalls of our robot fighting forces, but even regulation is an imperfect fix at best.
2. The smaller robots are generally useless.
Indeed, having the robots serve non-combative roles is a great idea, especially if we place them in areas of high risk (such as Afghanistan, once we begin rebuilding the country, as we did with postwar Japan). They would help with the rebuilding efforts, make less necessary the commitment of a large force of American troops, and be right in harm's way if some misguided malcontents started jeopardizing our efforts.
I would, however, still suggest having our robots built so that they are of equal size (like Devastator rather than Voltron) and of a greater modularity to prevent the oft-used tatic where the enemies "attack one robot and prevent the formation of the giant robot". That is, any "leg" robot can become either a right leg or a left leg, and can join to form any giant robot.
As a quick example, say we have 10 Construticon-style groups of six robots in an area; 60 total robots so that, again, any "leg" robot could form a right leg or left leg of any robot.
So, our force of 60 robots have 20 "leg" robots. In order to prevent even ONE Devastator from being formed, guerilla forces would have to capture, destory, or distract 19 "leg" robots.
(...or 19 "arm" robots, or all 10 "torso" robots, or all 10 "head" robots. At this time, it's worth noting that a geurilla's tactics should be to target "heads" or "torsos", but even that can be eliminated as a weakness if the two robot types become interchangeable.)
OR, if a robot could serve as ANY part of the giant robot, then, in our example, ANY six robots would form Devastator, and 55 robots would have to be successfully detained by our enemies to prevent them from doing so.
Granted, that's a stretch, technology-wise, but it should be a goal; and, at least, we could make the robots virtually indistinguishable, so "leg" robots cannot be specifically targeted.
3. Control of the robots will continue to be an issue of concern.
Again, a good idea in principle, but there are very few Battlebot champions (really, very few successful controllers in the first place), and they may not be well-suited to handle the complex maneuvers of our robots and the unpredictable terrains of the real world.
The Battlebot champs would need to be trained extensively - and their ranks increased by heavy recruitment (especially if we do use multiple teams of robots to, again, prevent the successful targeting of one robot and the prevention of giant robot formation).
My gut instinct is that our current forces, particularly tank and helicopter pilots may be much better suited for the task. There are more of them, and they are used to operating truly complex machines in a real-world setting.
Also, using military men and women would allow us to place them inside the robots rather than force them to operate the machines by remote - eliminating the strategy of interfering with the control signal (a strategy that worked incredibly well in The Phantom Menace).
Having a panic button in case something went wrong is a great idea. But we should ensure as best we can that nothing goes wrong.
And, either way, we simply cannot afford to use quotas in assembling our teams of pilots. Again, the Pink Ranger fiasco shows that this technology is too important to leave it to complete imbeciles.
4. The Blazing Sword should be our focus of development.
Yes, other weapons are a good idea, but I would like to make recommendations on two other weapons common to the world of giant robots:
A. Fist rockets are a bad idea. Voltron used the heads of Red Lion and Green Lion (that is, its "fists") as projectile weapons. This is a terrible idea, in that one would also have to develop a retreival system and, more importantly, one couldn't "form Blazing Sword", much less use the sword, if you don't have your hands.
B. Boobie rockets are a great idea.
Okay, I don't know if ANYONE else remembers this one, but there was another giant robot cartoon in the 1980's. I remember it came out before Voltron - and it appeared that it was also produced before Voltron. The cartoon? Tranzor Z.
For a quick "refresher" course:
http://www.angelfire.com/sc/enforcer/
The robot was a single giant robot controlled by a human in a hovercraft that linked with the robot through a port on top of its head. It also used "fist missles", but an ally of Tranzor Z, Aphrodite A, had a much more interesting weapon.
Aphrodite A, a female robot, had "boobie rockets".
I am not making this shit up:
http://www.yesterdayland.com/popopedia/memories/show_mem.php?ID=SA1467
"Boobie rockets" are, simply put, a great idea. It keeps the hands free to form the Blazing Sword - and perhaps frees up the robot's movements to use the sword. It guarantees Congressional funding, and it's sheer BRILLIANCE as a weapon against the Taliban.
Imagine, you're a member of the Taliban, hiding in your cave, waiting for US bombing to cease so you can continue your human rights abuses against your own women, and what do you see?
A giant robot. A giant American robot.
A giant
FEMALE American robot.
The robot, with its shapely figure free from the constricting fabrics of baggy robes, then fires its "boobie rockets" right at you.
If I was that guy, I'd be scared SHITLESS.
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- Achtung Bubba
What did you find, Dad?
Me?
Illumination.