As someone pointed out, "What's to stop a clever infantryman from
chopping the cable."  Same thing that has the Angles attacking the
EVAs instead of their cables.  Stupid plot devices.  In effect, the
most efficient attack that an Angle could have performed would be to
snap the cables until the EVAs ran out of them.  Simple.

That was me. I think it would be practical for infantry and not angels
for several resons. An angel is an obvious target, which you can see
coming. Infantry are small and can hide themselves pretty easily,
especially considering WW2 tank sensors consisted of 'looking out the
window'.

Also, angels only ever attacked in ones or twos. A single EVA, or a
squad, could easily watch that many targets and block any attempts to
reach the cables. Conversely, 20 infantrymen coming from different
directions would provide too many targets. At least one of them would 

be

able to get close enough to get through. That is teh reason why tanks
were vulnerable to infantry in urban warfare. There were too many 

hiding

places for infantry to get close and dump a grenade through a weak 

spot.

This same vulnerability that tanks had to infantry would be present in 

a

WW2 mecha.

Finally, I *think* the angels were 'agents of divine retribution' (not
literally). What I mean is they were 'programmed' to act in a certain
way, which may havce included a defination of 'honourable combat'. That
would certainbly stop them doing the dirty on the power cables. WW2
nations were under no such restrictions of honour codes. It can be said
that even Japan manipulated its martial honour code to get its soldiers
to do otherwise suicidal acts of heroism/stupidity. USA used nukes,
which we now considerable a dishonourable weapon in *future* wars.
Britain considered using Anthrax as a weapon (check out that island in
Scotland). And Germany would be the last nation anyone would consider
'honourable'.

Not sure this was even a consideration in Evangelion... after all, how 
many battles actually lasted sufficiently long to deplete the Eva's 
power? Only the 14th (in which the Eva had no cord to chop) and the 15th 
(which had an Angel not equipped to chop things.) Everything else was 
really short encounters.

WW2 mecha would fight best in open countryside, ideally fighting
equivalent sized opponents (ie tanks or mecha). They could mow down
infantry in open country until the infantry got too close to the 

cables.

In a city they are just a funny shaped tank with a power cable as an
extra weak spot. Mecha could also make decent AA platforms.

In fact, that is one of the best reasons to HAVE battlefield mecha in 
WW2... the planes have to attack from machine-gun range, so you can see 
the fraggers coming and sidestep out of the way. Makes it darned 
difficult to walk fire over an enemy force when it's not limited to 
forward or backward movement, eh? This doesn't even mention the fact 
that the mecha could easily elevate their main weaponry for use on 
aircraft as easily as on ground targets, meaning that even a mech armed 
with a few machineguns becomes rather deadly for that strafing P-51 
pilot.

The biomechs someone mentioned appear to be the best means for getting
around real-world physics. They need no power cables, and onboard fuel
isnt a limiting factor. Make the biomech muscles have some regenerative
powers, else a flamethrower would play havoc. You could even have 

flying

mechs with wings :)

Plus it keeps a bit of the Eva theme going, neh? <chuckle> Though I'd 
personally NOT give it the easy out against a flamethrower. More drama.

Seriously, though, without the AT field, the Evangelion unit would make 
no sense whatsoever... you don't PUT big, easy targets on the modern (or 
WW2) battlefield, because there's no armor thick enough that a gun can't 
make a hole in it. <g> I like the idea of smaller ones, AT-ST size, 
though.

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