r/battletech • u/Human-Pension9892 • Aug 18 '26
Question ❓ Question, could battle tech mechs win against kaijus from pacific rim?
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u/Xynith Debatable Tactics / Amateur Painter Aug 18 '26
Given there are megafauna rules, and they can damage mechs - and are nowhere remotely near as large - maybe not. At least not if it gets a hold of you.
Mech lasers on flesh is pretty devastating
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u/dirtyLizard Aug 18 '26
Of course there’s megafauna rules 😂 Do you know where I could read them?
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u/Rise_Crafty Aug 18 '26
I can’t say for sure, but i believe they’re in Battletech: Gothic.
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u/phosix MechWarrior (editable) Aug 18 '26
Megafauna/kaiju in Battletech predates Gothic by quite a bit.
I believe the current (non-Gothic) megafauna rules are found in A Time of War Companion.
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u/phosix MechWarrior (editable) Aug 18 '26
A Time of War Companion, p. 133 has rules for converting AToW megafauna for use in standard Battletech AGoAC/RoW play.
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u/CabajHed Periphery Shenanigans Aug 18 '26
They're mostly mentioned off-handedly in some ruleboooks but if you want to actively control them you'll want to use the "beast-mounted infantry" rules in the Tac Ops book; page 294 to make your own, or alternatively just use the abominations from Gothic and reskin them to however you like.
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u/TyrKiyote Aug 18 '26
I say yes. We have a lot of them, whole factories situated in space or on other planets.
what really choked humans with the kaiju's was being one planet still squabbling about governace. (I'm glad battletch doesn't squabble about governace.)
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u/GrandBasharMilesTeg Aug 18 '26
I get what you're saying, but BattleTech is literally built around multiple Succession Wars squabbling about governance, and then the Clans show up and squabble about governance. And then the religious half of the phone company starts a huge squabble about governance!
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u/st0rmgam3r Aug 18 '26
The mechs themselves would struggle a bit, it's the numbers that would eventually win, but battletech also has orbital guns for taking out ships, I feel like those guns, as well as orbital bombardment from said ships, would do some significant damage to any Kaiju
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u/PessemistBeingRight Rasalhague Dominion MechWarrior Aug 18 '26
A Heavy Naval PPC does 150 points of standard damage. A McKenna battleship broadside is 12 of them, that's 1,800 points of standard damage. Over 100 tons of 'Mech grade armour turned to slag. No matter how tough a Kaiju is, if it's subject to physics it's going to evaporate under a WarShip bombardment.
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u/FragmentaryParsnip Aug 18 '26
I wonder if the blood is still toxic if it has been flash cooked and aerosolized
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u/PessemistBeingRight Rasalhague Dominion MechWarrior Aug 18 '26
If it's been buried in what amounts to plasma flame, no it wouldn't be, or at least no more dangerous than the result of doing that with anything else.
The blood must still be composed of chemical elements, and when the molecular bonds are shredded it's only as toxic as individual elements can be. Maybe Kaiju blood is loaded full of thallium, mercury, cadmium and lead? Even then, blasted into atoms by naval grade weaponry and spread across an entire planet, there would have to be an incredible amount of Kaiju blood for it to be a large scale problem.
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u/FragmentaryParsnip Aug 18 '26
That was my think, I assume it's full of heavy metals to be that toxic but this is probably only a moderate amount of additional cancer risk
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u/Double_Scale_9896 Aug 18 '26
Honestly, the Radiation risks are higher as we're talking about UrbieNukes possibly being used.
Toxic Metals? Small issues by comparison.
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u/NullcastR2 Aug 18 '26
No, that's why Gypsy Danger had a plasma cannon. It cauterizes.
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u/tilleyc The Bird is the Word Aug 18 '26
Depends on the 'mech, but yes.
Kaiju can be defeated through conventional weapons (even if they need a lot of them), so battlemech grade lasers, ppcs, and autocannons should harm them.
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u/Xtrepiphany 2nd Canopian Lancers Aug 18 '26
I guess it all depends on what rules we're playing by. Pacific Rim, ya Battletech wins all day, against some incarnations of Godzilla though I have my doubts a PPC does anything but make him mad.
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u/oyog Aug 18 '26
Every time Godzilla Minus One cores a mech it would just absorb radiation and that thing got fuckin massive.
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u/Limp_Entertainment56 Aug 18 '26
Fusion reactors, not fission
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u/Maximum_Boros Aug 18 '26
The fusion cores are still radioactive when running and they absolutely release a gamma burst when they crit (probably a short range neutron burst as well. They just don't generate fission products which are what typically cause long term contamination.
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Aug 18 '26
[deleted]
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u/NonNewtonianThoughts Aug 18 '26
The only sustainable fusion reaction I know if is the sun, and that 100% pumps out radiation.
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u/TorchShipEnjoyer Aug 18 '26
Fusion reactors blowing up would absolutely pose a radiation hazard, at the very least the reactor would be radioactive via neutron activation. The radiation released wouldn't be as strong as a fission reactor, and any radiation from the fusion reaction itself would quickly vanish as the reaction gets too cold. There would still be radiation.
A fusion bomb releases radiation because nuclear fusion generates radiation. Even D-He3 fusion generates radiation, although its emmission of neutrons is greatly diminished. Thermonuclear weapons do not utilize D-He3 fusion, and will release more radiation.
Nuclear fission-fusion hybrids have been proposed, but that's not really relevant to the topic.
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u/CalligoMiles Aug 18 '26
You're thinking of fission. Fusion is hard to sustain and easy to shut down - even if you directly puncture the heavy engine shielding instead of damaging it in any of the more likely ways that give the systems the milliseconds they need to shut down, all that comes out is hydrogen plasma. Which will absolutely still make the kind of mess that's easily mistaken for a small nuke, but it's more like a boiler explosion of pure thermal energy - there's little if any radioactivity to it, and certainly none of the highly radioactive isotopes involved in fission.
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u/AffectionateBison841 Aug 18 '26
Shin godzilla would be horrific too. Lol
Honestly tho the stand out one thatd absolutely wreck battlerech as a universe would be rodan. Dude flying at mach fuck out running and out maneuvering figterjets and burning/detonating anything even remotely flamable on the ground give heat management is so important to battlemechs theyd be absolutelt screwed
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u/uhataot Aug 18 '26
Funny you mention Godzilla, because if I remember correctly, there is some official rulings specifically for fighting Godzilla in Battletech
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u/LiePotential5338 Aug 18 '26
Yea no a standard ppc wouldn't hurt a fully evolved shin godzilla... but a top of the line exppc .... yikes that'll hurt
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u/AffectionateBison841 Aug 18 '26
Itd hurt.....but shin godzilla is basicly the borg of godzilla itll work.....once. and then you end up on the end of his. I wonder what level laser/ppc gozillas breath would count as for shin???? ...... I mean it cuts through buildings in milliseconds like daym
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u/SuspiciousSubstance9 Aug 18 '26
On K-day, modern conventional weapons utterly failed. They had to resort to nuclear arms.
I don't think Long Tom Artillery Pieces are anymore potent than modern day artillery pieces. Modern artillery that failed to penetrate, let alone damage the Kaijus. If that Long Toms aren't doing it, autocannons aren't doing it.
Same with cruise missiles.
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u/MrKatzA4 Aug 18 '26
The bigger problem is that Kaiju blood is toxic, that's why Jaeger usually just punch Kaiju to death.
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u/Vector_Strike Good luck, I'm behind 7 WarShips! Aug 18 '26
that's why Jaeger usually just punch Kaiju to death.
Ah, so that explains the lack of communication with the Clan Homeworlds. The Kaijus conquered them through ignoring batchalls and engaging in dishonorable melee.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Aug 18 '26
Like one more ruined planet is that much of a big deal.
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u/MrKatzA4 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
I think you're forgetting that Kaiju are made, and the aliens that made them are a multidimensional civilization.
Kaiju are essentially what they use to terraform the world that they're conquering.
Ruining that planet mean they have won, and they are now moving in and on to the next one.
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u/Zippydaspinhead Aug 18 '26
I think you're forgetting he's applying the context of the battletech universe, where "one more ruined planet" is just Tuesday.
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u/MrKatzA4 Aug 18 '26
One more ruined planet is one more planet in the aliens hand you mean.
The planet isn't ruined to them, it's a paradise.
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u/DeluxianHighPriest Aug 18 '26
That's... Not actually true. For starters, modern day artillery is usually about 155mm, to my recollection the Long Tom is somewhere past the 300mm range.
Also mind that Jaegers are documented attempting to deploy conventional cannonry vs Kaiju - just of massive size. Which implies that the problem of conventional weaponry vs Kaiju is indeed one of armor penetration, but also one that can be overcome even with modern day conventional weaponry assuming sufficient size and correct choice of ammo.
Additionally, BattleTech weaponry IS significantly more effective then conventional weapons today are.
To put it bluntly, on February 5th 2439, conventional weapons utterly failed to penetrate the PRIMITIVE armor of Charles Kincaid's Mackie. To this day, the so-called rifles that stand in for modern day tank cannons in battle tech have a special rule that specifies that they deal significantly reduced damage vs armored units that don't use commercial grade armor. Hell, light rifles straight up bounce off!
Whilst certain weapons like autocannons and maybe even artillery like the Long Tom could certainly struggle vs Kaiju, I strongly suspect other weapons - like, for example, Gauss Rifles, PPCs or Lasers - would prove quite effective. And particularly Lasers and PPCs would likely quickly prove the preferred weapons as I'm pretty sure they'd cauterize the wounds they cause Kaiju in the same strike, which, yknow, helps with the whole toxic blood thing.
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u/Icy-Ad29 Aug 18 '26
Yet the mk4 Jaeger came equipped with non-nuclear missiles that are shown to cause damage. Rapidly moving steel is able to cut them. Short range plasma was enough to kill a Kaiju off a couple shots. Just simple kinetic damage via punching us a preferred method.
This means rapidly moving kinetics ( ac canons) do damage and can kill. High powered lasers, and ppc aswell. Heck even standard s/lrms would damage too.
The kaiju would absolutely wreck mechs in close quarters. But, depending on era, battletech mechs have the range advantage and firepower to bring kaiju down. The biggest threat would be the kaiju who bring about EMP effects. The mech wouldn't power down, but the helmets would fry, and thus leave the mech a sitting duck.
Otherwise they'd have to use stealth (like moving underwater as was commonly done) to close the distance and hope the mechs don't just. Fall back.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Aug 18 '26
They are significantly more potent, all 31st century weapons are. Because 31st century armor is magic.
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u/IronWolfV Aug 18 '26
Well an AC20 is a battleship level gun. That would wreck a Kaiju's day. And a gauss rifle would blow through a kaiju like a hot knife through butter. plasma rifle would hurt it badly and I would also throw in Heavy and Clan ERPPCs would also likely hurt it.
But on the same token even assault mechs wouldn't last long 1v1 against a kaiju.
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u/OldSpaghetti-Factory Aug 18 '26
the problem I feel is scale.
battlemechs top out around somewhere between 12 to 18 meters, if I remember correctly(Marauder is 12 meters tall). Jaegermechs were like, 80 meters.
if a PPC or gauss round could punch a hole in a Kaiju. That hole would be like a bug bite to it.
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u/Nerdyguyj Aug 18 '26
12 to 18.sjould be correct but a marauder is more like the middle or above height for a battlemech
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u/caster Aug 18 '26
If someone was to punch a bug bite size hole clean through your body you wouldn't be looking too good either. A bug bite is superficial- a gauss rifle overpenetrating clean through and out the other side is a whole different thing. You hit the thing's head and it is probably done right there.
Kaiju are made of meat, not super-advanced armor that these weapons are designed to still overpenetrate.
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u/Maximum_Boros Aug 18 '26
Not a single AC20 is in the battleship caliber range. They're massive but they're like heavy cruiser massive. The biggest ones are somewhere in the 7-8inch range which means they basically compete with something like the US De Moines or Baltimore classes.
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u/why_ya_running Aug 18 '26
Actually the largest size for a AC 20 is roughly 255mm(10in) so the AC 20 would be between 7 and 10-in(so it would be closer to Admiral Graf Spee(11.1in)
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u/Kamenev_Drang Hidden Worlds Strike Force Aug 18 '26
Graf Spee was an overgunned heavy cruiser
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u/why_ya_running Aug 18 '26
Actually if you want to be technical she would be a undergunned large cruiser(Heavy cruiser is anything with 6.1 in to 8 in) her guns were too big and she was too heavy to be classified as a Heavy cruiser
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u/Ishidan01 Aug 18 '26
The problem is kinetics end off spraying their toxic blood everywhere. You're gonna want to stick to lasers, ppcs, flamers.
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Aug 18 '26
Strictly speaking, an AC/20 is heavy cruiser caliber at most
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u/ThoseWhoAre Aug 18 '26
Well in technicality there are a lot of different calibers that make up AC 20s from 200mm to 120mm, they are more like tank guns and most fire high explosive penetrators and can be considered to have much more advanced ammunition than what militaries today use.
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u/Maximum_Boros Aug 18 '26
The middle ground is really that ACs are equivalent small to medium ship armaments but capable of being mounted on something that takes to land like a tank (and is bigger so it can often mount multiple of them). I genuinely do not buy that the ammunition itself is particularly more advanced. The entire advantage is pretty much in the delivery system allowing them to use it where they do. Considering how much they trade muzzle velocity and range for that portability (much shorter barrels and likely much less propellant) I really h ave a hard time accepting that they're substantially stronger than equivalent caliber modern weapons.
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u/caster Aug 18 '26
Battletech weaponry utterly crushes anything modern.
A single lance would polish off a Kaiju quite easily and not consider it much of a fight. The Kaiju can't keep up with their speed at all and they just shoot it until it's dead. Mechs will go 50-200 kph. A kaiju is doing at most 50-60 kph on land, and that is taking a lot of liberties with short bursts of speed being above 20-30 kph.
As for destructiveness of the mechs' weapons, an AC20 is a fully automatic rapid fire 203mm howitzer basically. Lasers and PPCs would definitely be effective as well against kaiju tissue, although most likely not underwater.
Anywhere on land Battletech mechs would DEMOLISH a kaiju. But unlike an in-universe Pacific Rim Jager they aren't designed to fight on the bottom of the ocean.
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u/Indicus124 Aug 18 '26
Funny thing if mech Rifles are less effective against mech armor and they are the equivalent of 21 century tank guns that means that ballistic weapons somehow got a decent but more powerful in BT (probably not enough to make a difference here but hey) food for thought
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u/st0rmgam3r Aug 18 '26
You can kill anything if you throw enough urbies at it
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u/Atuday Aug 18 '26
DFA your kaiju with an AC 20 firing trashcan. Because fuck you that's why! Hahahahahaha.
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u/Atzkicica Edo shot first. Aug 18 '26
Heh yeah. From an orbital dropship lol.
LET THE RAIN OF URBIES BEGIN!!!
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u/Never_heart Aug 18 '26
Every Hunchie pilot who hears about them "I can take them" they probably can't. But they are absolutely going to try
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u/IronWolfV Aug 18 '26
1v1 not a chance. A solid Battalion shooting and moving, probably. Now a warship in orbit, rekt kaiju.
Have to remember largest assault mech is 100 tons. A kaiju can be well over 8000 tons.
Though I'm pretty sure weapon like Big bore autocannos, gauss rifles, PPCs, plasma rifles and SRMs would hurt a kaiju.
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u/RevanVonFox Aug 18 '26
If your interested theres a full rule set from the 90s for just this https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:ffa1eee7-be31-493b-bdf5-0e567e1535df sorry if the link weird I can dm you the few pages with screenshot if you would like
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u/Zippydaspinhead Aug 18 '26
Brother do you have a download so I don't have to dismiss their shitty AI agent every 30 seconds?
Edit: nevermind, after an additional 30 seconds on that god awful UI, I found the download link. Do me a favor and use literally any other PDF hosting site, that thing was not designed by or for humans.
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u/GugsGunny Aug 18 '26
No for one on one. A regiment sized (100 or more 'mechs) using tactics for kaijus, probably.
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u/SuspiciousSubstance9 Aug 18 '26
No.
Jaegers are 5 times taller than an Atlas and 20 times heavier. Kaijus are just on a collosal scale vs BattleMechs.
More importantly, Kaijus evolve with every encounter. So even if Mechs could stand in a fight, it won't take long for them to be out evolved.
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u/Ok_Shame_5382 Aug 18 '26
In melee, no.
At range, not as a 1 for 1 replacement, but Jaegers are 1700 tons or more. That's more than an assault trinary or reinforced assault company fields
The biggest problem is that mechs are not optimized for combat in water, and aren't nearly as big as Jaegers. By the the time a Kaiju is on land there is already substantial damage done.
But I would wager you need less tonnage in battlemechs to drop a Kaiju than tonnage in Jaegers if it wasn't for the collateral damage
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u/plyingpotato Highlander Simp Aug 18 '26
So I'll start by saying that I'm imagining the Kaiju got sucked out of Pacific Rim and dumped into Battletech, it's just Leatherback vs Mechs. With that in mind, I think the question relies on if a mech could even meaningfully affect a Kaiju. We know that Gipsy's plasma gun worked on Leatherback and Striker's chest rockets likely would have as well, but would a BT mech be able to do comparable damage?
Kaiju just feel too big and durable for even a Lance of Assault mechs to do much against. Factor in that BT Mechs fight at ranges of under a kilometer and it puts the Kaiju too close for the Mechs to do much of anything. If you keep throwing mechs at the problem you'll eventually kill it, sure, but I feel like that's still kind of a point in the Kaiju's favor.
Then again, who knows? We might have finally found the one thing the Helepolis is good for.
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Aug 18 '26
Keep in mind that those Jaeger weapons are probably equivalent in size to subcapital weapons in BattleTech. Sure it's a plasma cannon and BattleMechs can carry plasma cannons, but in Star Wars, an X-Wing and the Death Star both have lasers, but that doesn't mean the X-Wing can blow up planets.
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u/skitech Rasalhague 4 life Aug 20 '26
Given the Jaggers are like 1500-2500 tons the equivalent tonnage of mechs would probably be able to do it if you mass large weapons like AC20s or PPCs.
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Aug 18 '26
Not really, the weight mismatch is just insane. Pacific Rim kaiju generally mass around 2600-3000 tons (with Slattern, by far the largest known kaiju, coming in at around 6200 tons) and jaegers mass around 1800-2600 tons. A BattleMech masses 20-100 tons, with extremely rare superheavies going up to 200 tons. It would be like trying to sink a destroyer with tanks. Even if you can hurt it, you're not making big enough holes, while one hit in retaliation will absolutely paste you.
Kaiju are somewhere on the order of a target matched to BattleTech subcapital weapons, while full-blown capital WarShip weapons like naval autocannons and mass drivers would absolutely paste kaiju.
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u/ReaverGT Catapult CPLT-E[strasiol] Aug 18 '26
If you replaced the Jaegers 1:1 with BattleMechs? Not likely.
If you replaced Jaegers with BattleMech formations, especially on the scale of those that have been deployed on Earth in BattleTech? Those Kaiju are so fucked. No single target to attack, pilots trained to hit small moving targets (like Kaiju eyes), jump jets giving the 'Mechs drastically better mobility.
Sure, a lot of Mech weapons would probably be a bit small, but PPCs are going to hurt like hell en masse. And the Arrow IV exists.
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u/PessemistBeingRight Rasalhague Dominion MechWarrior Aug 18 '26
Imagine an Arrow IV missile redisigned as an anti-Kaiju weapon. Just a delivery vehicle for a massive tungsten dart, like LOSAT on steroids. TAG a Kaiju and then rip a hole clean through it that an Elemental could walk down.
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u/skitech Rasalhague 4 life Aug 20 '26
So the mechs from Pacific Rim are like 2000 tons to toss an average so say 25 AWS-9Q so 100 PPC shots a round at something larger than a building so good odds they don't miss much, that is going to do things.
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u/MWKhan Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
No but honestly if they were real our gravity would kill them all on its own... 600 ft tall and about 7,000 tons. Gravity wins.
Edit: Building example for a much smaller building than a comparable kaiju to explain how these house of cards monsters would fall apart. Since the weight of a building is literally just to keep an immobile structure standing against gravity, not move, not jump, not punch, not trip. https://www.quora.com/How-much-does-a-skyscraper-weigh
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u/Xtrepiphany 2nd Canopian Lancers Aug 18 '26
Nah, their bones are made of carbon nanotubes and their cartilage and muscle fibers are some kind of self-healing super reselin.
We just see traditional carbon based life because we lack understanding of alternative biology.
That plasma breath Godzilla spits? Natural heat regulation in an animal that can't sweat fast enough to maintain body temp.
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u/MWKhan Aug 18 '26
The weight of a kaiju is less than that of a comparable brick of nanotubes at the same dimension... The single walled nanotubes are 1.6g cm-3 so 1600kg per cubic meter... 7000 tons is 6350293kg so 3,969m3 which is about a cube with 16m sides... The only way the math works is if the kaiju is literally made the same way aerogel is with a massive amount of void space. and then it still couldn't move without dying
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u/cchaudio Aug 18 '26
I haven't gotten into it yet, but isn't this pretty much what BattleTech Gothic is?
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Aug 18 '26
Sort of, except BT Gothic has roughly equivalent scale on both sides. Kaiju start around 2600 tons and mostly go up to 3000-ish, with a few exceptions.
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u/Ham_The_Spam Aug 18 '26
"By the time tanks, jets, and missiles took it down 6 days and 35 miles later, 3 cities were destroyed."
And based on the rotting skeletons in that intro, I'm pretty sure the kaijus just died on their own due to Earth's conditions or starved and the conventional weapons did nothing lol. Battletech has conventional weapons but stronger so I'd say they do win! ...5 days and 30 miles later, 2 and a half cities destroyed.
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u/VelphiDrow Steiner Scout Aug 18 '26
Also they had to resort to nukes by the end. Like they had to throw their neighbors kitchen sink at it
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u/Atzkicica Edo shot first. Aug 18 '26
Battletech MECHS? Maybe if you had a ton of them against one.
Battletech universe?
Yes they could. Very, very, easily.
Signed Edo.
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u/Nekokamiguru Aug 18 '26
A Kaiju and a Jager are hundreds of meters tall while assault mechs would be about 20 meters tall at the most so the Kaiju would have a size advantage.
But battlemechs have advanced weaponry that could damage a Kaiju.
The combat doctrine for battlemechs is significantly different from Jagers.
Jagers are single combatants that go of and face the enemy one on one.
Battlemechs would deploy as a unit in a company or even regiment strength combined arms unit , Aerospace fighters and artillery opening up at long range , with perhaps orbital bombardment from war ships while the Kaiju is at sea , then when the Kaiju makes landfall it is engaged by battlesuits , mechs , armored units , and mechs.
The battlemechs would have to offset their side disadvantage with numbers .
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u/OgrePirate Aug 18 '26
PPC, Gauss rifles and plasma cannons are probably your best bet. Conventionals werent too effective. The Conventional Jaeger guns pissed the Kaiju off but didnt really harm them that much. The problem is mechs are about 10m tall. Kaiju 100 or more. Kaiju would destroy dozens with charges and strikes. If you had 30 or 50 PPC 's discharge into a Kaiju, I suppose. Its just very different. I would like to play Battletech Gothic with my Pacific Rim figures however.
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u/Dazzling-Sorbet-803 Aug 18 '26
I remember a fan fiction from decades ago that attempted a crossover of BT and NGE. It had to go through some real twists and turns, since the average 'Mech is no larger than a two- to three-storey building, whereas EVAs (just as your usual kaiju eiga monster) are like four times that size and could easily go stomp-stomp on them.
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u/sluffmo Aug 18 '26
Technology wise they probably could, but mechs in Battletech are not designed to fight Kaiju. It’s like asking if a fighter jet can beat a submarine. It can’t as is because it’s not designed to, but you could probably repurpose the technology to create something that could.
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u/Substantial_Tiger824 Aug 18 '26
Kaiju from Pacific Rim are huge, hundreds of meters tall.
BattleMechs top out around 14m tall. I don't think even an Atlas comes up to a Jaeger's knee, let alone a Kaiju.
So, no....1v1, a BattleMech is going to be crushed underfoot. Maybe if you got an entire regiment - or more likely, an SLDF Division (BattleMech Division having 6 'Mech Regiments, 1 Armor Regiment, & 3 Infantry Regiments) -- you'd have a chance against a Level 1-3 Kaiju, but that would even be iffy...
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u/BBFA2020 Aug 18 '26
No chance. Even big bore AC20 rounds are little more than annoying stings, just due to mass and sheer volume of the Kaijus alone.
Sub capital or Capital grade though is a different story. And even if ol Godzilla can absorb thermal and nuclear energy, a volley from naval grade autocannons or naval gauss rifles is completely different (largely kinetic).
But sucks to be you if you are in the city where the kaiju roaming and a warship is given the full send command.
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u/Maximum_Boros Aug 18 '26
A single mech, even an assault, would get smoked.
The armies of entire clans or great houses could probably fight them effectively enough though.
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u/5parrowhawk Aug 18 '26
Kaijus are about as heavy as an Overlord-class dropship. We can assume they have a similar mass fraction dedicated to weapons. They are also shown to be very tough.
So picture an Overlord that moves about 7/11/7, has a full load of hardened armour, and can do physical attacks while firing all its guns.
Yeah.
It is not invincible, but I would not bid less than a full Trinary of mechs against it.
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u/DreyfussFrost Aug 18 '26
Gipsy Danger weighs 1,980 tons. That's 19.8 Atlases. It is 79.25m tall. That is over 5 Atlases tall. (Atlas stands 15.4m in modern materials)
Leatherback, the kaiju pictured, weighs 2,900 tons and stands 81.38m tall.
A battlemech is to a kaiju what an elemental is to a battlemech.
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u/Silent-Bit-3374 Aug 18 '26
YES
No ECM for Kaijus = a lots of tactical options for the battle.
Light mechs/fast vehicles with booby traps and good engine (maybe + Drone) = anything good against 100 tons of metal will do good against 100 tons of flesh. even if the 100 tons of flesh are just the head of a Kaiju.
Higher adaptiblability of terrain for the mechs. UMU, Jumpjets, MASC and Supercharger. having Advantage in the field in movement is king.
LAM-mechs with bomb-bay. fast as lightning and mean in fighting.
Theoretical every (Battle)mech is a little atomic reactor with the option to explode like one.
Since Kaijus in Pacific Rim lack of the knowledge of morality of Humans, they Just dont know how hard the willing of sacrifice can go. Kurita will know this.
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u/Rewton1 Your average Capellan scumbag Aug 18 '26
In the first movie they show a kaiju getting more or less stunlocked by a barrage if missiles from a jaeger. So LRM spamming to at least stun them would be viable.
We also see in pacific rim that melee weapons work pretty darn effectively, so tossing a few lances of hatchet men at a Kaiju could be another strat.
They also wholely lack energy weaponry in pacific rim lime lasers so its tough to say how those would factor in.
What we definitely see a trend of in battletech though, is if it exists, someone will cook up a way to kill/destroy it. The first few kaiju that show up would probably be a nightmare scenario, but eventually im sure they would cook up an anti kaiju weapon to slap on a Hollander or hunchback to level the battlefield
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u/NaughtyMasseuse Aug 18 '26
Plus call down orbital bombardments, besides, naval guns are usually much bigger, and with a good crew, surprisingly accurate. The Battlemechs hold the Kaijus in place wearing them down, while the big guns punch through.
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u/Beef__Strokinoff Aug 18 '26
Aren't the Kaiju huge as hell? I'm pretty sure they dwarf any BattleMech. Even so, though, concentrated fire from a large enough unit could probably bring one down.
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u/FunDipTime Steiner Scout Commandant Aug 18 '26
Yea, no. Assault mechs usually are around 10m to 14m in height I believe, the cat 1 to cat 3 Kaiju at already 4-5 times bigger with the cat 5 Kaiju being over 15 times bigger. Mechs usually use weapons found on conventional military vehicles, at minimum you would need warship or drop ship scale weapons.(Gipsy danger's arm cannon is basiclly a ppc the size of a large assault mech)
Unless you start spamming nuclear urbanmechs most Kaiju would probably flatten a lance pretty quickly.
With the amount of mechs and the amount of time it would take to kill a Kaiju(especially any Kaiju above cat 3), most cities would suffer severe collateral damage to the point where a tactical nuke would probably do less damage
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u/Old-Climate2655 Ludicrous Longbow Lover Aug 18 '26
No, not even a little. Since Kaiju are addicted to attacking cities, BT-scale mechs can't concentrate fire or formation enough to do much more than irritate.
Kaiju range from 350 to 600 feet tall, Jagers run 230 to 280. Given the tech level required to build a Jaeger that big and mobile, it's not entirely unreasonable to assume that the PR tech level exceeds the mechtech in the BT universe. Most of the combat in PR is melee so you could also assume that Kaiju hides are projectile resistant as well. If a Kaiju showed up on a BT world the answer would be naval weaponry.
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u/Inner_Coat1198 Aug 18 '26
Once they realize what the threat is and how big, they'll deploy warships. Then it's no contest.
For mechs? Mechs and tanks with either pulse weapons or PPCs, rotary ACs and gauss weapons. Get them at a kilometer out and cut them in half before they get to the shore line.
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u/TheyHungre Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Here's something I haven't seen mentioned: How do weapons defeat armoring? IRL weapons focus on penetration vs BT weapons which focus on ablation.
That distinction is why kaiju are problematic for modern-style weapons. They might not have the near-magical armor present in BT, but they throw mass at the problem: Godzilla just got too much junk in their nuclear powered dump truck trunk. Just a buncha thick, dense, self-sealing material in front of the important bits.
Each time you pull the trigger in a BT weapons platform, there's gonna be less of that hide remaining.
Doesn't solve the other problems involved such as physically arresting a kaiju's movement like a jaeger can, but a battalion of BT mechs rattling away like it's the siege of Zion absolutely should be able to open a kaiju up.
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u/T-Rex_Lazorblast Aug 18 '26
That thing gets out of the water and immediatly loses both kneekaps to several dozens of well placed urban mechs. Nothing else will happen. You cannot convince me otherwise! :D
In the distance - bagpipes.
...or some kind of sabbaton shit. "They are the urbie elite! Born to compete! Urbie elite! Suicide devision!"
...please dont take me serious.
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u/BudgetLanguage159 Aug 18 '26
If a plasma cannon can bring one down, I think PPC's and gauss cannons can do the same
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u/Balmung60 Purple Birb Good, Green Birb Bad Aug 18 '26
It's a matter of scale. That plasma cannon in the movie is probably about the mass of an entire Atlas.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Aug 18 '26
Nothing made out of meat is going to survive fighting something armed with plasma rifles.
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u/mrgoobster Aug 18 '26
Not a chance. Mech weaponry is puny compared to the stuff that didn't work at all against kaijus. The militaries of the world tried every naval and aircraft -fired weapon imaginable before they had to use nukes. That means the really big sticks, 10,000+ lb of explosives delivered by ballistic missile, did not work. Battlemechs basically have tank level firepower. They are not meaningfully damaging the kaijus.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards Aug 18 '26
They are significantly more powerful than any modern tank. The first battlemechs walked through regiments of tank fire like they were dbz characters.
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u/Ginger_McGingin Plausible Deniability is what you pay me for Aug 18 '26
Considering how conventional, early 21st century military technology was capable of taking down PR Kaijū (albeit after days of constant battle & mass environmental damage from all that toxic blue blood), yes, but it would be very messy
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u/135forte Aug 18 '26
Pacific Rim Kaiju could be killed by what are big conventional weapons. Battlemechs have the armor that made those obsolete and the weapons that can beat that armor.
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u/Safe_Flamingo_9215 Ejection Seats Are Overrated Aug 18 '26
Sure. Just bomb it from a WarShip. This will do.
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u/Tough-Agent7028 Aug 18 '26
One on one, no way.
Mechs top off at perhaps 16m in height.... that's 52.5 feet!
Those kaiju were huge.
I'd give even a regiment of assault mechs 50/50 odds, but those are still long odds.
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u/Deathnote_Blockchain Aug 18 '26
Not really, because the whole thing about Kaiju is only another Kaiju can defeat them.
Same thing with zombies...eventually somebody makes a mistake and let's a zombie in the cockpit and it's all over.
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u/gamegalaxies Aug 18 '26
Maybe if you get a very large amount of them, but it would destroy the ecosystem with Kaiju blue since they aren’t using blunt force
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u/Kamenev_Drang Hidden Worlds Strike Force Aug 18 '26
Assuming your Battle Armour aren't too squeamish about carving their way into it's spine, sure.
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u/grumpykraut Aug 18 '26
Simply from looking at the size/mass difference: No way in hell unless you throw whole regiments at them.
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u/LezziestMania MechWarrior Aug 18 '26
Yeah its Possible. You need to bring the Heavy Hitter Though something with morr "GUN"
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u/LiePotential5338 Aug 18 '26
Let me awnser with a question ... if Taurus Majoris Mining can mine a whole planet just to make a few ships do you really think they wouldn't mine a kaiju for ANY and ALL resources they can gather
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u/Action_Man_X Aug 18 '26
Typical Kaiju from Pacific Rim ranges anywhere between 55 meters to something like 200 meters.
Even the Atlas is only 15 or so meters tall. It's going to take a lot of Mechs to match it.
Honestly, there's not a lot of mecha in pop culture (outside of Jaegers, obviously) that even come close to Kaiju size.
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u/BlackLiger Misjumped into the past Aug 18 '26
Answer: to scale, a mech reaches a kaiju's knees at best.
However... theres a limit to how strong flesh can be, so ppcs vs knees is a great shout
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u/SirArthurIV well bargained and done Aug 18 '26
I would like to see a kaju take a hit from a UAC-20 or LBXAC-20
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u/zirazorazonth Aug 18 '26
Faat mechs would probably do better as we never see much ranged coming from kaiju in pr.
A kaiju is probably instantly wrecking any mech it cam close in on except the crazy experenental 200 ton mechs.
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u/AffectionateBison841 Aug 18 '26
Really depends on the numbers like yeah eventualy youd throw enough fore power at anything and itll die lols. But how much.
Biggest stopper here tho is the absolutely rediculous speeds some of the pacific rim kaiju can move at like leatherback pictures above leaps like well over 500 feet through the air a lands on gypsys back at one point. That thing at full chuck youd not get more than one volley off before its closed range and is just dancing on the wreckages of your mech.
Jaegar weapons are much bigger calibur than anything a battlemech would carry too and tjey just bounce off some of the kaiju
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u/LotFP Aug 18 '26
No.
This sort of question ranks up there with "could BattleMechs take on Ogres or BOLOS"? It provides very clear evidence that the questioner is completely unaware of how things work in other fictional settings and applying those rules to the BattleTech universe.
To be very clear BattleTech technology would barely stand up against modern 21st century technology or conventional forces as it was not really future-proofed when the setting was created.
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u/snern Aug 18 '26
I mean isn’t the big thing about them that hitting them with bullets contaminated the area? I imagine anyone with a decent long range build could wipe em relatively easily…..
But as for killing them without making a new Chernobyl? No. Battletech mechs aren’t built for beating up meat bags. They’re meant for blowing off components. Which is bad if your opponent is made of Hyper Asbestos
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u/Jackal-Noble Aug 18 '26
Is this a bot thing? I've seen similar style cross IP questions on other subs recently
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u/Septuaginandtonic Aug 24 '26
The concept of an internet versus debate, which is to say "my dad could beat your dad!" but for fictional entities, is at least thirty years old.
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u/DINGVS_KHAN PPC ENJOYER Aug 18 '26
Isn't part of the jaeger doctrine that kaiju blood is toxic, so conventionally killing them is an environmental disaster on top of everything else? Like the jaegers are largely trying to just beat the shit out of the kaiju and kill them through internal injury. Gypsy Danger has a sword that it uses exactly once in an emergency situation, so it's not like external damage can't kill kaiju.
I think battlemechs deployed en-mass could kill a kaiju, but as others have pointed out, they're probably not gonna be efficient at it.
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u/Pretty_Ian Aug 18 '26
I'm pretty sure a Kaiju is 6x bigger than an atlas.
And that the Kaiju's movements are much more fluid, natural, and swifter.
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u/Friendlyxenonparty Aug 18 '26
They may not be as big, but im pretty sure the weapons are muuuuuch more effective
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u/Maresith123 Aug 18 '26
one on one. No. A lance or even A star vs one, maybe. Mech are slow, clunky, and have the agility of a brick. Kaijus are opposite and have special abilities or firepower.
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u/Sentenal_ Aug 18 '26
Kaiju from Pacific Rim tend to be anywhere from 60~ meters tall to a whopping 181 meters tall.
An Atlas is likely between 13 and 15 meters tall.
You would need a whole lot of Battlemechs to fight any Kaiju from Pacifim Rim. It would be like some sort of rodent trying to fight a person. Or a person trying to fight a whale.
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u/Fishfins88 Aug 18 '26
One thing people forget about is the toxic blood Kaiju have. https://pacificrim.fandom.com/wiki/Kaiju_Blue.
Just another thing to think about.
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u/SunSettingWave Aug 18 '26
So I thought an atlas might stand a chance but in reality you’d need an entire House Steiner scout lance to deal with one angry fish
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u/NullcastR2 Aug 18 '26
I think there's a good chance, since energy weapons are so common in BT that would probably meet the requirements of containing Kaiju Blue. Everything else is just good pilots and massed fire.
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u/Odd-Region1893 Drop bear in Elemental armour (she/her) Aug 18 '26
Possibly, but my Urbie is going to need a good wash after the Kaiju chokes on it
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u/Unique_Cash_3987 Aug 18 '26 edited Aug 18 '26
Poorly, the average kaju is bigger than your average battletech mech. Gipsy Danger was able to use an oil tanker as a baseball bat. They're huge! To put this into perspective most BT mechs are around the size of transformers. Optimus Prime would fit in a Jaegers hand.
I can see a company of battlemechs taking down 1 kaiju, but multiple would be a struggle. Of course if we're talking about all the weapons the average BT army has at its disposal against 1 kaiju then its no competition. Mech forces would win pretty much any engagement. Heck they could just through a rock at the kaiju from space and be done with it. Easy.
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u/Fenn_Rau Aug 19 '26
BattleTech Mechs are generally 8-20m (26-65ft) tall.
Gipsy Danger from Pacific Rim is 79m (260ft) tall.
So you'd probably have to upscale the BattleTechs significantly or rely on swarm tactics. But I won't rule out the possibility.
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u/HorrificAnalInjuries Aug 19 '26
If it was House Stiener vs the Kaiju, they could do it. Because Leatherback can smash 20 Atlas mechs, and it doesn't matter. Another 30 are marching forward, AC20s blazing
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u/SpartanBlast Aug 19 '26
In the movies, they had to keep resorting to nuking the kaijus before the jagers came onto the scene
There’s just no reasonable way to kill one in a “death by a thousand cuts” method, which is how battlemechs would have to fight it
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u/StarNote1515 Aug 19 '26
No, definitely no and if they could take them out would make enough mess to make it not worth it
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u/weirdwarhammerfucker Aug 20 '26
I think even an Atlas or Annihilator wouldn’t be tall enough or heavily armed for a one on one but a lance of heavies and an assault against say a kaiju around Otachi size may be plausible
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u/ChiefKeeferSoutherla Aug 20 '26
It was found that the only effective way to neutralize kaiju is with brute force, which is why Gypsy danger is 5 times the height of an atlas and 20x the weight. She was built to basically be an industrial power hammer on legs with her ballistic armaments being mostly distractions and backup options
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u/Kraegorz Aug 20 '26
Not even an Annihilator or super mechs would have much of an effect. Even an AC/20 Round (200mm size) would most likely bounce off its hide.. at worst it may be like a BB gun. Even a Long Tom or Arrow missile would tickle unless hitting inside a nostril or eyeball or something.
Kaiju are like 2000-4000 tons or something and like 160-230 feet tall.
An Atlas is like 40 feet tall and 100 tons.
Even a 2 year old toddler fighting against a 7 foot, 400lb man would have a better chance.
The only chance would be possibly like.. Cruise Missle 120s, which basically are like 60 ton bullets. As far as I know these are only mounted on Warships, so it is a moot point, since we are not talking about Warships, but mechs.
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u/Unique_Notice6536 Aug 21 '26
Probably not, but…
I think the best mech countermeasure wouldn’t be a big assault battery. It would be jumpy lights that can go for the eyes. Spider 8Xr in particular comes to mind.
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u/katanaking007 Aug 21 '26
The Battletech response to Kaiju would be interesting. Have multitudes of drop ships in orbit and deploy as needed.
Set up factories far from the Pacific and crank out tons of long range fire mechs
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u/EMD_2 Aug 18 '26
1 vs 1, no. But the dozens of Mech Regiments on Terra, probably; that's a lot of lasers.