skeezy5 wrote:

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'.

Agreed.  Sheathe the cable with armor?  I guess thats impractical.

There's no need for the cable.  Although the proposed fanfic would 
use counterparts of the Evangelion characters, and some kind of giant
piloted "robot"...it isn't Evangelion and whatever dramatic 
considerations required the cable in that series do not apply to a 
series where the "robots" are required to be an effective battlefield
weapon capable of turning the tide against allied conventional forces.

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'.

Uhh... Honorable combat?  I didn't know mental rape was under the
heading of honorable combat...  As for your assessment of the German

It's nasty, yes, but so's leaving someone an amputee with your katana.  
Honour means living a given set of rules, but the rules don't have to be 
nice.  In the case of the Angels, they could be programmed to "play 
fair" since the goal is to test the pilots, not to just exploit the 
weaknesses in their hardware.  

military, you're being biased.  The German Military mostly came out
of a proud and honorable tradition.  It was the SS that did most of

But that honourable tradition not one comparable to some kind of weird 
gladiator culture.  They'd pull the plug.  

The biomechs someone mentioned appear to be the best means for

Speaking!

 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

Not really.  The biomechs do have exterior armour plating.  

 flying

mechs with wings :)

Mmm... Now we're sounding like Battletech.  As for flying mechs, that
isn't going to work.  You'd need a hellish amount of lift to get something
that heavy in the air...  The key problem with regeneration is: Where
the hell is the matter coming from?  

Where is it going in the first place?  Unless large chunks of the 
walker are actually blown off, the matter's still there, it just needs 
to re-establish the severed connections.  And I _said_ I was resorting 
to magic.  You have to, to make the concept work at any tech level.  

Unless you've got one of those

nifty Startrek Energy to Matter thingamajigs...

That's why I made it the original product of an incomprehensible alien 
technology.  Since the humans are using technology they don't 
understand, but which happens to be fortunately self-reproducing, you 
can avoid tedious explanations which don't make sense and just give it 
the capabilities required to make the story work.