How could giants be used in near-future combat?

Question

Some things about my giants:

They're extremely limited in number as they are made through surgical & genetic modification to regular humans rather than being a separate species as well as only a small amount of facilities being able to do these modifications.

They have all over armour capable of stopping HMG rounds such as 14.5mm with the head & torso being protected against light 20mm & 23mm autocannons.

They're roughly the size of Madness: Project Nexus G03LM at roughly ~1.5 times the size of a regular human at ~9-11 feet tall:

In this setting warfare has evolved to some dedicated melee units, a few type of advanced weapons such as lasers with body armour capable of taking a few hits from a normal infantry rifle before breaking available for most with advanced armour technology being commonplace.

Answer 1

Well, giants in future warfare ! The first thing that came to mind was the Engineers from the movie, Ridley Scott's Prometheus. That or the Warhammer 40k Space Marines who perfectly fit the description of armored giants that are few in number, but great in strength (compared to the mundane imperial guard from the same universe). Big benchmarking opportunity here. Oh and also Goliaths from XCOM game series. And regarding giants in medieval era, oh boy. Lord of the Rings, any medieval fantasy with giants, and so many more. Might be worth looking into, if only for random ideas.

Now, on to the real answer:

After a few minutes of searching, I found this question and the associated answers. Although they talk about more medieval to renaissance-level of tech, much of it is still relevant: the weapons might have changed, but the tactics...not so much.

So, an updated version of the excellent answers from Deepon GhoseRoy/Glorfindel, user3644640 and Seallussus:

I divided these in two parts due to the fact that they often use more of a particular advantage the giants have: mobility and strength. Note that these are not exclusive, it is juste the most important attribute for said role

Strength-oriented roles

Shock Troops

Your Giants are, well, giants. That makes them more powerful, intimidating and apparently quite resistant to bullets than traditional soldiers. Give them close combat weaponry, and actually melee weapons teams might even become a thing. Who cares about puny rifle bullets when you can easily stave off 23mm autocannon rounds? Just close the distance an slaughter ennemy infantry with giant sawblades, energy warhammers or whatever you fancy that looks deadly and sounds cool. Or take your trusty oversized shotgun and poke holes into whatever isn't a tank.

Heavy weapons teams

Ah, big guns. Do I really need to explain? Stronger soldiers can carry bigger guns. You have it. They come with an upgraded mobility compared to whatever exists today, because said guns would feel lighter to them. It's all a matter of size.

Anti-vehicle squads

Kind of a subgenre of heavy weapon teams, but specialized. Tanks are big, bulky, and quite resistant to damage. Unless you have the right gear at hand, preferrably wielded by 3 meters-tall soldiers, who will have no issue bringing any heavy gear/weaponry to the battlefield. Sentient missile-spraying mobile platforms for the win !

Recon

A copy and paste from user3644640's answer. It is on spot:

That amount of size does not matter that much if creeping on forests camouflaged. They could carry more equipment. Behind enemy lines there is no supply so everything must be brought by people carrying it. More resources translates to longer missions or heavier equipment. Heavier equipment can be stronger radios, more ammo, maybe even a machinegun. Ambushing with a machinegun would be insanely strong deep behind lines where enemy is not adapted to the possibility. Your basic special forces story but when back to barracks a bit similar situation to above mentioned things.

Logistics operatives

Imagine you have to fight in a dense jungle. No roads, too many trees, and you have to stay discreet, so no clearing space for helicopters and drops are too conspicuous. You need to take whatever you need with you. Conveniently enough, you have huge sherpas at your disposal, who will carry a ton of stuff for you ! Better than pack mules, since they can fight too.

Speed-oriented roles

Skirmishers

Due to their size, your giants will surely be faster than most soldiers since they have bigger legs. They can move around the battlefield quicker, climb stuff higher, see farther than the others. They would be great for harrassing troops provided they are in a terrain that vehicule won't be able to travel through (in which case they would lose the speed advantage necessary to skirmishers).

Human vehicles

Go wild ! why not make these giants off-road team transports, they could easily carry three or four soldiers with a dedicated harness or something. Or you could build giant-carts and have modern versions of war chariots. That would be both awesome and terrifying. Ram 'em while your riders are all guns blazin' !

Support, Relief and Kidnapping

a bit of an even mix between speed & strength

Giants are strong, and they are quick on their feet. They will carry injured soldiers to safety whilst being able to protect themselves. If you need to extract a friendly VIP, or kidnap an ennemy VIP, they are the go-to. Quick, resilient, strong. Carrying a random guy in one hand while holding a gun in the other is no problemo for them.

Now, on to their weaknesses

Not particularily asked in the question, but it may very well help make it more elaborate.

First weakness: Well, giants are big. They will be obviousely weaker in tight spaces. Got a giant on your tail ? Jump into the sewers. It will be a Tom & Jerry game between giants and infantry, especially so in urban areas.

Second weakness: they are big. That means, they are bigger targets. You might alleviate that by giving them superhuman reflexes and agility though. It is your choice.

Third weakness: again, they are big. As in, they will be a lot more susceptible to fall damage. Pitfall traps will be deadly to them. Consider giving them exoskeletons if you don't want them dying from soap-related accidents.

Fourth weakness: from what I could read, their limbs aren't protected by the ridiculous shock-absorbing armor. The ennemy would most certainly capitalize on that and train attack dogs (preferrably oversized as well) to attack your giants, or at least pin them while the regular army does its job. Or prepare traps especially for them. Douse them chemicals that would either burn them, poison them, or be especially flammable. No limbs, no threat. To prevent that, give them at least armguards and legguards, and a flexible suit. That would help with the dogs and chemicals.

There are surely more that I couldn't see, I'll edit that if someone has any ideas.

A small addendum, very much facultative as this question isn't tagged "science-based" or "reality-check". Your giants, because of the square-cube law, will have either enormous energy needs (as in, they'll eat a LOT) or might be pretty slow, in a lot of ways. They would also be quite have quite a bit less stamina than regular humans (bad for skirmishers for example). But you can handwave it all as you see fit.

Answer 2

In modern war, if you can see it, you can kill it. We have mobile line-of-sight weaponry whose ability to penetrate armor vastly outscales anything you can carry around on anything mobile.

If you build thicker armor, it is far cheaper to build a more penetrating gun.

If you aren't moving, we can kill it. Static defences slow down weapons we can carry around on mobile platforms a bit, but not that much.

Asymmetrical war ends up violating this. One side can have tanks that the other side's weapons cannot penetrate, leading to attacking them with mines, or just not fighting near the tanks. Air superiority can wipe out the surface-to-air capabilities of the defenders with overwealming firepower, and make attack aircraft less vulnerable to attack.

The last Iraq war is worth looking at, as it was a superpower attacking a 3rd tier nation's military (large, but not modern). Here, the USA took the "if we can see it we can kill it" to its logical extent; the front line was in effect a rapidly moving armed and lightly armored wave of spotters, which the second line and air cover would mop up. You'd spot from the air, you'd spot with scouts, you'd spot with APCs, and you'd advance at many miles per hour. On contact with resistance, you'd pull back and hit it with concentrated firepower.

Giants in this environment run into the problem that they are no smarter than a standard soldier, but are bigger. They might be able to carry more tech than a soldier and maybe slightly bigger guns; a modern infantry squad can already carry weapons capable of taking out a main battle tank, a building, or low flying air support.

In the near future, drone based combat is going to be standard. Infantry squads will be able to launch scouts and hunter-killer drones that let them shoot at things behind cover with a mixture of automated and manual control.

Again, the giant isn't at an advantage here. Strength grows with cross-section, so 1.5x size means about twice as strong; the giant can carry on the order of 2 infantry troop's gear. And 2 infantry troopers is a lot cheaper than a genetically engineered soldier.

Gear standardization will be a pain. Just the cost of scaling gear up will probably make it not worth it, on a force per dollar basis, to most militaries.

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Now, what could work.

One possibility is that the giants are not just big, but otherwise engineered to be better. They are smarter, have super strong muscles, more endurance, better healing (including wound healing designed for modern warfare), etc.

In this model, we have giants where each one capable of paying attention to 10 things at once, is a genius at mental and physical abilities, are as strong as 10 men, have circulatory systems that handle being penetrated by bullets or bruised by massive impact without dieing, and can operate at above half capacity for a full week before having to rest.

Such supersoldiers would be strong enough to carry a significant amount of hardware, like drones as mentioned above, and their ability to pay attention to multiple drone feeds at once and coordinate them. These cyclopses might be great at urban warfare, controlling a dozen drones that maintain situational awareness and root out potential enemies. Sigint and attacking the C&C links of drones would be standard in such a battlefield, but being on the front line and maintaining short-range LOS relays with the drones would reduce the attack surface.

Answer 3

What these are is essentially heavy trucks which can use weapons and dodge and duck away from harm, with a great carrying capacity.

All that is great, but almost every army group has grenades and rocket launchers, which would injure or kill them. You can't use them as shock troops. You need to use them in the same role as heavy military trucks.

Heavy weapon mounts and transportation.

They can carry adapted weapons like rotary machine guns and artillery pieces which they can use to deliver massive amounts of firepower in places vehicles don't fit well, like urban warfare or irregular terrain. This can destroy enemy positions or offer covering fire for conventional assaults without exposing them to easy assault.

They can also carry huge amounts of equipment. Technology is awesome, and offers a massive bonus to fights. They can deliver huge amounts of batteries to power night vision goggles and radios. They can deliver mortars and ammo to teams to keep pressure on the enemy. They can deliver heavy weapons to key positions to help keep them in a good place. Being able to carry a lot and move quickly is great. They don't have the range of vehicles, but in a smaller or rougher environment like an army camp they can ensure rapid redeployment of heavy weapons and resources to face any foe.

They can also carry heavy shields. With modern firepower, ballistic shields are of little use against armies. Being much larger and stronger would make them more useful, allowing you to carry thick enough shields to block most guns, fortifying positions and making room clearance easier.

Answer 4

The enemy gets a vote.

If your giant is a key combat asset (instead of, say, a logistical mule), then the enemy will prioritize attacking the giants, will begin carrying weapons capable of overcoming the giant's armor, and will reorganize their tactics to overcome this new threat.

• If your giant is protected by body armor capable of stopping a 23mm round, then the enemy will start using 30mm cannons against them. Or lasers to blind them. Or rocket-powered bolas to strangle them. Or whatever. Units will add a new giant-stopping drill to their toolbox of other battle-drills, and will have at least one effective weapon to use in that drill.

• Scouts will be trained to look for giants. The presence of several giants may indicate that group is the enemy's main effort. Engineers will emplace obstacles to snare or redirect giants. Low ceilings may become popular in field fortifications, as may deadfalls that require a giant's weight to activate.

Giants may make a good surprise weapon. For a week or two, your forces will dominate the battlefield while the enemy figures out a response...if an enemy spy hasn't already spoiled the surprise. But after the enemy adapts, giants might be too expensive and vulnerable to send into battle anymore.

And, after the surprise is over, your own society must adapt to have the surviving giants living among you and growing old for decades.