But, consider this:
it looks cool
this post was submitted on 09 Jan 2026
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I think a headless hexapod with guns a blazing looks way cooler.
I don't
You'd probably love Sea Spider from armored core 6
BattleTech explores this to a degree. While obviously mechs in the game have heads in order to look cool (and because headshots are a game mechanic), they do have in-world reasons for them as well.
Basically, since internal space and heat are major issues for BT mechs, providing a comfortably roomy environment at a human-survivable temperature is much easier in a part that juts out of the body than crammed in right next to the reactor. As a result, torso-mounted cockpits tend to be cramped and subject to heat issues. To make matters worse, nobody could get ejector seats to work with them so they're less survivable in case the mech gets blown to pieces.
All of which is really unfortunate as everyone in the setting is aware that any major hit to the least-armored part of the unit is likely to result in a mission kill. The trade-offs of torso-mounted cockpits make them uncommon, however.
(Note: Visually, there are mechs with no apparent head in BT. Mechanically, a head is always present even if the cockpit is in the torso. That head might just be a section of the torso with a window in it but mechanically it's there.)
That's cool, and makes a certain sense.
Gundam relies on rule of cool really heavily. They use chest cockpits, but the head usually carries a bunch of the sensors. Eye cameras, and the classic V fin on the head are antennas for communications.
Makes room for some fun scenes where a suit is "decapitated" and still fighting using secondary cameras.
Yeah, it's similar for a BattleMech with a torso-mounted cockpit; it can barely keep fighting when decapitated because one of three sensors is in the torso with the rest remaining in the head. If the third sensor also gets hit, however, they're so blind that they can barely stumble off the battlefield. You can kinda tell that both Mobile Suit Gundam and BattleTech try to make their tech somewhat sensible.
We even see some of the same tropes. For instance, both mobile suits and BattleMechs tend to fight at close ranges, Gundam justifying it with fusion reactors emitting Minovsky particles and BattleTech with mechs emitting a horrible amount of ECM and RF interference. Both franchises have neurointegrative technologies that tend to be unhealthy for the pilot, although Gundam's is a lot more powerful on the battlefield.
A major difference would be that mobile suits are much more, well, mobile than BattleMechs (especially since they can often fly) while many BattleMechs can tank hits that would blow a mobile suit to pieces. (Okay, BT does have flying mechs, but they're horribly impractical mech-airplane hybrids straight out of Macross.) I suppose that makes sense; one franchise focuses on cinematic battles while the other focuses on big stompy robots blowing each other to pieces.
Over the decades of novels and game fluff by 30 different authors, sometimes the head cockpit is super cramped, sometimes it has a jump seat and sometimes it's almost comfortable for a passenger. There are two-person cockpit as well, for command mechs like the Battlemaster.
And on the tabletop, rolling the random hit location for the HD can mean the game suddenly swings in your favor. We players have probably all experienced a turn one PPC to the face!
Heck, I've seen a battle turn because someone took a step backwards down a hill (using the optional rule that allows that with a PSR), failed their piloting skill roll, tripped over their own feet, and managed to fall on the cockpit, instantly crushing the pilot. In an otherwise pristine Supernova.
Y'know, superior Clan MechWarriors and such.
Must have been a Jade Falcon, quiaff?
Either that or a Goliath Scorpion on way too much necrosia.
Imagine a Manei Domini with Enhanced Imaging tattoos on Necrosia.
On the upside, they'd be an amazing fighter. On the downside, I'd give them about five minutes before they go completely nuts and do something very, very stupid. In any case, I'd prefer to be as far from whichever planet we're doing this on as possible.
It's probably either Turtle Bay or somewhere in the St. Ives Compact, since they get beat on pretty often.
The real issue is not mechs having heads. It's the top humanoid design itself. Why make a war machine top heavy and having critical failure point of losing any of the joints in one leg and limbs that demand thinner armor, etc. When you make a humanoid mech or some cases a mech at all (I mean any kind of walker with any kind of bodyplan) you have already entered the "stupid n improbable territory" so why even bother caring about why it has head or not, if your aesthetics sense demands mechs.
Carcinization rears its cephalothorax again!
If we're aiming more towards realism, there are many reasons no modern military fields anything which looks like a mech. Not the least of which is tall, thin objects stick out on a battlefield and becomes targets. If you want an armored vehicle with a big gun, you build it low to the ground and end up with a tank. More survivability usually boils down to two factors:
- Lower observability
- More armor/defense
You don't die if you don't get shot, and if you do get shot at you really, really want to prevent whatever hit you from penetrating in and killing the crew and/or disabling the vehicle.
Mechs, with spindly legs end up high above the ground and those legs become obvious targets given the complexity of making a leg work. You'd want to reduce the height, meaning shorter legs. Then you want to not have something as horridly complex as an actuating knee or hip. So, let's just use a tracked drive or wheel instead. At for the top, why arms? Again, too much complexity, just a single rotating turret would be simpler and easier to shield. That head thing can be reduced to a sensor mast and we'll just make the sensors omnidirectional to avoid the whole "make it spin" complexity. And um, we just built a tank. Sure, there is some advantage to walking vehicles, and they might make sense on a small scale or in support roles where they are much less likely to come under fire. But for a front-line armored vehicle, I'd buy tanks.
At the same time, mechs look cool.
Maybe an Eva wasn't the best choice to include in the article...
Well yeah, nor should they have human forms at all. There is no practical advantage to mechs.
Mechs, aliens, demons, etc. As great as fiction can be, humanoid defaultism is frustrating to see.
humanoid defaultism is frustrating to see.
Mechs represent the infantryman fantasy is scifi. A return to more personal, romantic and "noble" way of war in modern times. When fights in real wars happen at long distances, quickly and more often than not on a computer screen where the losing side never had a chance to fight back or realize what was happening mechs dueling with swords make it instantly more understandable to the viewer and return some agency of a singular soldier and "humanity" in it all.
However it's good that IRL war is shitty and ignoble or people might start to like it.