Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: headdie on July 20, 2010, 12:51:28 pm
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/10703219
Basically Lockheed Martin is preparing to put its prototype powered exo-skeleton for 8 weeks of lab testing which After the lab tests, the HULC is likely to go through more field tests in 'real-life' military scenarios during 2011.
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armor*
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armor*
Britain does it different (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or)
Anyway looks like it might be useful for hauling equipment and ammo up some hillside, but its still quite a ways away from being a combat frame.
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armor*
Britain does it different (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_English_spelling_differences#-our.2C_-or)
Anyway looks like it might be useful for hauling equipment and ammo up some hillside, but its still quite a ways away from being a combat frame.
Was thinking the same as i read:
...which can fit different body sizes, also allow for jumps, squats, crawling and slow-speed running.
Well, i guess develpement on these just started.
Apart from military usage, it might be useful in other areas, e.g. removing rubble after a earthquake to look for survivors in areas which are too instable for heavy equipement and/ or not practical, in commercial areas where people have to lift heavy cargo and such, things like that.
No Crysis style Nanosuits yet. :sigh:
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its one of those techs which will have huge benefits in all aspects of human activity even at mundane levels like a nurse better able to move a patient between a bed and a wheel chair.
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Power Armor Sports! :P
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Yes, Power Armor Sports. Can we get no-holds-barred fights like the one in Iron Man 2 where the contestants try to knock each other out with objects that would kill a human with a single blow?
And yes, armor needs to be spelled properly in the title since we are talking about a piece of American equipment made by an American company. If a British company was working on this they could spell "armor" however they like and I wouldn't care.
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sorry, American company or not I'm still British and I will communicate I'm my home language
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Biggest problem with power-armour is the soft, squishy human inside it. I think we aren't going to see power-armour in a combat situation until we make steps in genetics more than engineering, I suspect the only way to get a 'working' version of that sort of thing is to have almost a cyborg, a machine that is powered by genetically created muscles and sinew controlled by the brain of the person sitting inside it (or in a booth a few miles away), and even then, it's a question of power over torque.
Thing is about Biology is that it isn't as scaleable as people think, it's like the old legends of the Dragon, simply making a big lizard and putting wings on it won't work, so over the years there have been increased mind-doodling over things like hollow bones and electric 'thimbles' in the dragons mouth to ignite Hydrogen. The Human body is the same, a larger body means larger bones, larger bones means more muscle density, more muscle density means more weight... etc, and if you want to armour to react with human-type reflexes, the torque created by turning etc in a larger frame increases exponentially with size iirc.
That said, it's pretty astounding stuff, but in truth, there are probably better, if less cool-looking, ways of approaching a live battlefield ;)
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See this would be a perfect example of when to use power armo(u)r. To decide with mechanically augmented fisticuffs which spelling should be used!
In all seriousness though, I'm willing to bet the utility side is probably going to gain traction quite a bit faster then mounting M-249s on it will.
@ Flipside, to be honest, I don't think it needs to be quite as complex as all that. Space Marine esq power armor is cool and all but a more practical version of that exoskeleton really could be battlefield applicable squishy meat bags or not. The major thing with the exoskeleton would be for it to not hinder the trooper's movement and for the power source to allow for practical combat power for a good duration. It doesn't need to make them a walking M1A2, just increasing their carry capacity for ammo and gear would be a big plus. Right now a modern infantry man is carrying roughly 80 + pounds of body armor, ammo, water and other gear. Your generally only good for maybe one decent sprint carrying all that ****. If an exoskeleton could double their carry capacity and allow them to run and take cover without having to actually bear any of that weight? That'd be worthwhile technology.
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I expect so, I think Power Armour will end up being far more Aliens than Avatar ;)
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Honestly though, this thing could work, you just need to keep the size down as much as possible to minimize torque. And we don't need artificial muscles considering BattleTech-style myomer has already been invented. I read about a more prototype version of power armor (the Raytheon armor design) in an issue of Popular Mechanics (right after Iron Man I had been released), and they've got a myomer-like material that contracts when electric current is applied, and apparently does it 200x as strong as human muscle.
Of course, my eventual hopes for power armor is what they have in Starship Troopers: The Book.
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Even with stuff like that, it's not just a question of expansion and contraction, it's also a question of shock absorbtion, impact damage reduction, and reaction time. People don't realise how quickly and naturally their bodies react to unknown situations, even the act of standing upright all the time is a constant balancing act for the human brain, and muscles are kind of 'fluidic' in nature, they don't simply expand and contract, the level of control a human subconciously has over them is quite literally mind-boggling, Something as simple as picking up an object is a complex, and slow task even for the most advanced machine, change that object to a fragile object like an egg and it gets worse. Firing an arm mounted gun involves recoil that, in a human combatant, is absorbed and compensated for, once again, this wouldn't be the case in powered suits.
Any kind of physical man-machine interface is going to cause delays in reaction time, add to that the weight of the structure, the armour requirements, and therefore the power requirements, and the little problems that are going to crop up, and you'll probably find the best weapon to have on the ground in a combat situation is grunts with guns, who can cope with far more unexpected situations and terrains, and can react to situations instantly.
Edit: In summary, I doubt there is any situation in which a power-armour system could provide more effective support than a hover, tracked or wheeled vehicle, and they will probably have the same operational terrain limits, the difference is, a hover or wheeled unit is (a)faster and (b)cheaper.
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In all seriousness though, I'm willing to bet the utility side is probably going to gain traction quite a bit faster then mounting M-249s on it will.
I remember watching a James May program showing a civilian system being developed in Japan for nursing so I know some civilian companies are playing with the idea though it looked a lot bulkier than the example shown in the article but again the program was from a few years ago
but yes civilian applications will take significantly less development first thing that springs to mind is that for the power armour you need to figure out how to construct the armour without being to restrictive to the soldiers movement, second is how to prevent shut down from electronic weapons.
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its technically not armor, just a strength augmentation doohickey.
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true but how long is it going to be between getting thing battle viable and someone starts strapping Kevlar and steel/titanium plates to it
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Flipside, a human always knows where his limbs are and what they are doing, so why would that be different if he was wearing power armor? With proper training I'm sure a human could adjust to the enhanced strength, and yes, even pick up an egg (very, very carefully of course). The most important part is making sure the operator knows what forces are being transmitted to him, so the cerebellum can subconsciously compensate.
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true but how long is it going to be between getting thing battle viable and someone starts strapping Kevlar and steel/titanium plates to it
The logical application is EOD, and the logical reason to add armor is to make it fragmention proof. After that it'll probably go to combat engineering, then eventually line infantry.
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They were playing ads for this on the screens at the FIRST internationals this year. Everymorning we'd walk in early, and a 5 minute movie about this would be one of the things in the cycle.
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Looks like a death trap to me.
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Flipside, a human always knows where his limbs are and what they are doing, so why would that be different if he was wearing power armor? With proper training I'm sure a human could adjust to the enhanced strength, and yes, even pick up an egg (very, very carefully of course). The most important part is making sure the operator knows what forces are being transmitted to him, so the cerebellum can subconsciously compensate.
Certainly, with training, but the kind of training needed would be for a combat machine that is slow, overtly complex and likely to be a liability to its operator. I can certainly as Starslayer says, see something like this being used for carrying supplies etc, and the light exo-suit enhancement shown in the first post is probably one of the better applications, but actual power-armor would, I suspect, be far more of a hindrance in anything but pre-secured areas. More vulnerable to rocket-attack, slower, more epensive and not really bringing anything 'new' to the theatre. As combat machines, Power Armour looks good, I love Warhammer 40K (and their 'physically and mentally bonded to the armour' Marines are actually more believable), but as an actual combat device, rather than support, I don't really see them being an advantage-bringer.
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if you can put 100lbs of equipment on one of those things, you can also put a ton of armor and a huge gun on it.
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Flipside, a human always knows where his limbs are and what they are doing, so why would that be different if he was wearing power armor? With proper training I'm sure a human could adjust to the enhanced strength, and yes, even pick up an egg (very, very carefully of course). The most important part is making sure the operator knows what forces are being transmitted to him, so the cerebellum can subconsciously compensate.
Eggs are actually pretty freaking strong. Go ahead. Clasp the entire thing in your hand, so the pressure's even. It's physically impossible to break it.
We need to somehow combine the power armor concept with eggs.
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Every pound of weight you add reduces motor-response time and increases demand on power, it could be done, but what would be the point? Other than the shock and awe factor, they really don't bring anything worthwhile to the battlefield, one marine with a shoulder-mounted RPG could be just as dangerous, be far less vulnerable in urban landscapes, more stealthy and capable of working from cover, an augmentation suit might allow that Marine to do their job more effectively, but power-armour would really be an expensive liability, you can stick a small-barreled artillery unit on the back of a jeep and get an equal quality of combat-effectiveness for a tiny fraction of the price, with the added bonus of the fact the occupants can run like hell if it all goes tits-up.
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heehee. tits.
*ahem*
Yeah, but how cool would it be if we could replicate the last scene of iron man 2.
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Flipside, I'm not sure how big the power armor you're talking about is. I'm talking about a suit of armor that is man-sized, not something massive like it seems you're implying. Fighting in an urban environment and using cover should be easy for something a little larger than the size of your average human, and broken terrain with lots of obstacles should be less of an issue for something like that than a wheeled jeep.
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I referring more to the kind of 'strap lots of armour and a big gun to it' kind of power armour, I'd consider, for example, the kind of power-armour in Crysis to be a glorified 'augmentation suit', with a chunk of science-fiction thrown in. I think suits like that could be used for increased physical strength, or with stealth devices attached (though increased speed is another matter, you'd certainly need to at least be mentally 'bonded' to the machine in some way for that to work), but as a 'stand up and fight' device, I just don't see them being any more effective than other, cheaper alternatives.
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true but how long is it going to be between getting thing battle viable and someone starts strapping Kevlar and steel/titanium plates to it
The logical application is EOD, and the logical reason to add armor is to make it fragmention proof. After that it'll probably go to combat engineering, then eventually line infantry.
As a qualified EOD combat engineer I can see the benefits in certain scenarios. But it would NOT be beneficial for the most common EOD tasks or IED clearance.
Not at all.
By the way, this is quite coincidental to what I got up to earlier :D
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Every pound of weight you add reduces motor-response time and increases demand on power, it could be done, but what would be the point?
Mainly, fragmentation-proofing and small-arms proofing would vastly increase the lifespan of a soldier under fire. If you can increase a single soldier's resistence to enemy fire such that it takes at least 12.7mm to hurt him and render him grenade/mortar proof, this is a major step forward.
He doesn't have to carry anything more than a normal soldier, and at that point you might well be able to get away with less. The armor doesn't have to be performance-enhancing; it merely has to be performance-neutral, canceling out its own increased weight and keeping gross speed and reaction times similar despite increased weight.
But it's the fragmentation-proof that will really change the battlefield. Fragmentation weapons are the reason why infantry is no longer the arm of decision in a major conflict; artillery kills them far too easily. If you can change that, it will be an epoch-making weapon, something akin to the first tanks or the ironclad in importance.
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Yeah, but then we stop using small-arms and go to assault rifles firing mass-reactive miniature RPG's.
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Yeah, but then we stop using small-arms and go to assault rifles firing mass-reactive miniature RPG's.
Still a very different ballgame from fragmentation weapons.
Imagine that you're playing an RTS game where you counter large blobs of small units with splash damage weapons...and suddenly splash damage stops working.
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Well, if we use power-armored soldiers, I doubt we'll be using them in large blobs due to cost. And someone will find a way to counter them cheaply and effectively, and the best way to do that is to just use bigger guns. NGTM-1 thinks being able to stop anything short of .50 caliber rounds will help, except it is cheaper to have a bunch of .50's lying around in case of power armor than it is to have the power armor. Armor really only works if it forces your opponent to have a major shift in tactics or to develop new weapons, and having a suit of armor that needs a simple pintle-mounted .50 to penetrate it may not be that useful. At that point you're better off with dragonskin armor for cost-effectiveness, especially since I've seen a video that had a dragonskin vest be literally on top of an exploding frag grenade and not have any shrapnel penetrate through the armor.
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Yeah, but then we stop using small-arms and go to assault rifles firing mass-reactive miniature RPG's.
Still a very different ballgame from fragmentation weapons.
Imagine that you're playing an RTS game where you counter large blobs of small units with splash damage weapons...and suddenly splash damage stops working.
Then you start countering with directed explosives and volume of fire. :P
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Then you start countering with directed explosives and volume of fire. :P
yeah, but our usual enemies can't really afford that ****, so it would be good for the 'modern battlefield' where we send in a highly equipped super-army to take on what are essentially desert rednecks.
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Well, if we use power-armored soldiers, I doubt we'll be using them in large blobs due to cost. And someone will find a way to counter them cheaply and effectively, and the best way to do that is to just use bigger guns. NGTM-1 thinks being able to stop anything short of .50 caliber rounds will help, except it is cheaper to have a bunch of .50's lying around in case of power armor than it is to have the power armor. Armor really only works if it forces your opponent to have a major shift in tactics or to develop new weapons, and having a suit of armor that needs a simple pintle-mounted .50 to penetrate it may not be that useful. At that point you're better off with dragonskin armor for cost-effectiveness, especially since I've seen a video that had a dragonskin vest be literally on top of an exploding frag grenade and not have any shrapnel penetrate through the armor.
Very silly!
'A simple pintle-minted .50'. Not simple. Not cheap. Not common. Not...man-portable.
You cannot pretend that it's as easy to acquire, transport and equip a bunch of fifties as it is a bunch of AKs or RPGs.
What you're arguing is that armor isn't worth having if there's a weapon that can defeat it. Yet body armor in Iraq has rendered the casualty rate so ridiculously low - even in cases of direct mortar fire - that medical science has had to open up whole new fields to deal with injuries to people who would otherwise have been dead. And this body armor can be defeated by average infantry weapons.
Armor that can defeat everything up to a .50 would be a massive change.
Not to mention you're ignoring casualties due to things that probably take down far more soldiers than bullets or explosives: heatstroke, exhaustion...power armor can prevent these while enhancing mobility.
Let me go back and call out the most ridiculous statement in there:
Armor really only works if it forces your opponent to have a major shift in tactics or to develop new weapons,
The combat armor used by troops in Iraq works. Unquestionably it works.
It has not forced or required opponents to shift their tactics or develop new weapons. They still use AKs, RPGs and mortars. They still kill American soldiers with them.
They just don't do it as well, or as often.
The armor works.
Yeah, but then we stop using small-arms and go to assault rifles firing mass-reactive miniature RPG's.
Still a very different ballgame from fragmentation weapons.
Imagine that you're playing an RTS game where you counter large blobs of small units with splash damage weapons...and suddenly splash damage stops working.
Then you start countering with directed explosives and volume of fire. :P
Also absurd. What you're suggesting is a completely different matter from fragmentation weapons - more difficult, requiring more equipment, more precision, more training, line of sight, and more people.
Infantry warfare would need to be totally redefined. COIN and asymmetrical warfare would also change, because your average insurgent group can't manage what you're suggesting.
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The armor doesn't have to be performance-enhancing; it merely has to be performance-neutral, canceling out its own increased weight and keeping gross speed and reaction times similar despite increased weight.
I think that is next to impossible to achieve. Consider walking into an ambush when "equipped" with one of these - having maybe a fraction of a second to find cover before you get hit. All the delay that comes from the gear will only add to that which is intrinsic to human performance (and it gets only worse if carrying an unnaturely heavy load).
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The armor doesn't have to be performance-enhancing; it merely has to be performance-neutral, canceling out its own increased weight and keeping gross speed and reaction times similar despite increased weight.
I think that is next to impossible to achieve. Consider walking into an ambush when "equipped" with one of these - having maybe a fraction of a second to find cover before you get hit. All the delay that comes from the gear will only add to that which is intrinsic to human performance (and it gets only worse if carrying an unnaturely heavy load).
It's perfectly possible that a power armoured soldier carrying tons of gear will be faster than today's soldiers, who also carry tons of gear. Soldiers today carry unnaturally heavy loads, and they don't have exoskeletons to help out.
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I don't know if any of you have actually seen this stuff demonstrated but it's pretty impressive. As long as it has power there is no added weight. They had a guy lifting a 250lb bomb (dummy) with one. He gave up after a couple hundred reps due to boredom and that was with the first generation. They are on at least the second generation now.
As for the carrying vs armor well the suit can pick up the normal load leaving the wearer to be able to wear full armor like dragonskin that can take a grenade at point blank. It could also be equipped with countermeasures that can shoot down incoming mortars (and yes we have that tech too).
Also thing of the sensors and computing power you can put on that. One of the biggest drawbacks of the future warrior program is the weight of the equipment. This would cancel that out entirely.
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The armor doesn't have to be performance-enhancing; it merely has to be performance-neutral, canceling out its own increased weight and keeping gross speed and reaction times similar despite increased weight.
I think that is next to impossible to achieve. Consider walking into an ambush when "equipped" with one of these - having maybe a fraction of a second to find cover before you get hit. All the delay that comes from the gear will only add to that which is intrinsic to human performance (and it gets only worse if carrying an unnaturely heavy load).
Battuta's on the right track. It's perfectly possible that a power armoured soldier carrying tons of gear will be faster than today's soldiers, who also carry tons of gear. Soldiers today carry unnaturally heavy loads, and they don't have exoskeletons to help out.
Modern infantry carry around 80 plus pounds of body armor, ammo, water and other gear. Generally an infantryman is only going to get one good short sprint with all that crap. As I noted earlier if they could get an exoskeleton that didn't hinder movement and had a usable power supply, even if it didn't give them super human agility or allow them carry armor like an M1A2 just being able to move around the battlefield without having to bear the weight of their combat load themselves would be a big plus.
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Modern infantry carry about 80 pounds of gear if they're reasonably close to resupply. My dad was a member of the 82nd Airborne, and when he dropped in with an M203, he carried 80 pounds in grenades on top of everything else.
Even if this exo-suit or whatever they call it doesn't enhance actual survivability by excpetionally much, if it allows more gear to be carried, that potentially could enhance survivability, without glaring drawbacks, it's very much worth it.
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Just FYI, everyone, the reason you never hear about Dragonskin anymore is because it was a failure. Bullets were found to go right through when hitting the armor at a certain angle. Also, that grenade test is stupid. Even if the vest blocked the shrapnel, the force of the explosion would likely still compress your torso enough to **** you up, not to mention all your limbs would be blown off.
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So that's what happened to that. Anyway I always assumed lying on a grenade would do internal damage even if the armor protected you. Now being blown backward something like dragonskin if perfected could save your ass. Body armor on the legs and arms could also be achievable due to weight restrictions. Heck you might even have climate controllable body armor with the suit.
One other thing. Who says the operator will even need to be within miles of it in the future?
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Jamming issues? How well can an operator operate through a haze of white noise?
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Same way UAVs, remote controlled robotic guns, and everything else does. Even the newer medical units are all remote controlled.
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It's perfectly possible that a power armoured soldier carrying tons of gear will be faster than today's soldiers, who also carry tons of gear. Soldiers today carry unnaturally heavy loads, and they don't have exoskeletons to help out.
Sure, but once you're under attack you may need to drop the load in attempt to survive the immediate threat, right?
My doubts are about these extreme situations. How well can you side step in full speed, how quickly can you make 180 degrees in full speed, how accurately and quickly can you coordinate your moves with this thing attached? How about balancing on one foot and turning around while bending down? Let them perform The Nutcracker with those on and I'll believe it's all good.
That said, I'm sure it'll be great outside battlefields, where most of the negative effects don't have any meaning.
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its one of those things where infantry tactics will have to evolve to meet the new scenario, it happens whenever a new technology changes how dynamically the battlefield changes and the speed a soldier can respond to it as it has happened since the humanity started going to war
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Not really, not at infantry level, the only real alteration to infantry tactics over the centuries has been the change from formation-led combat to skirmish-based combat (and that was bought about mostly by the change from Bows to Muskets to Guns) and the Army still clings to the former for things like parades etc (partially because of the discipline required). Roman and Medieval soldiers used to wear armour that was made out of Bronze or Iron, which was just as heavy as the loads that modern soldiers had to carry, though, being in rank and file probably helped compared to skirmishing,
I don't think infantry will change all that much, even augmentation suits would not, I suspect, make it through the ranks, you would probably get a specialised logistics division, and soldiers wouldn't be allowed to take them into a direct combat situation, partially because of cost, partially because of military dogma. Certainly soliders on patrol would be at risk for being killed for their suit.
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Why the hell do you people assume, these things are going to cost millions?
This aren't space-proof, nuclear powered (...and armed) death machines from Starship Troopers.
Quite the opposite: they use as simple tech as possible. Batteries, (fuel cells?), high-performance but ordinary electric motors, lightweight but nowadays routinely used composite materials. What has retarded development was the fact that all these "ordinary" technologies didn't exist 40 years ago. The other thing is that this thing could be the poster boy for mechatronic engineering: THE feedback system, THE integration challenge. It's not the components, but how you control and integrate them that's the real problem... and mechtronics has been advanced by leaps and bounds in the last 10 years, especially thanks to the prelevance of computers.
Is is still complicated? You bet. Does it take expensive equipment to service? No really. Will it need highly qualified personal to program and tune in the field? Definitely.
In the end, these armors are likely to be even simpler to service than a jeep. However they'll need more frequent service and the supply personal will have to be highly trained as most issues with it will be interlinked. (So you can't portion out training to various specialties and rotate personal over your equipment like you can with vehicles, airplanes etc). The majority of issues will be control and programming related IMHO.
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I didn't bother to check the link but let me guess, something that enhances carrying capacity? Great news, there are lots of civilian and emergency uses for it but not so much in military.
There are a couple of thing I need to remind you of: Human body has its own speed limits. Even if the suit could go faster and pilot would be able to persuade it to, he would do it at the cost of breaking his own body. There are some limits for carrying capacity also. In order to give distinctively human kind feel, the surface pressure at the bottom of feet has to be roughly the same as human has. Otherwise, moving in rough terrain (take swamps or mountaineous area) will be different from human. Now, increasing armor and weight will increase the feet area, which will again make walking distinctively different from human.
I think I calculated the required mass for solely protecting someone from 7,62 mm bullets in an earlier thread, the result is that about 315 kgs is required - and that's only the weight of the armor! Add on that the motors, energy source and the pilot. Talk about 12,7 mm stuff then...
Let them perform The Nutcracker with those on and I'll believe it's all good.
Are you talking about this Nutcracker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker) or this Nutcracker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeXkFWBFkCA&feature=related)?
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I prefer this Nutcracker. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRhKSf16-w8)
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In order to give distinctively human kind feel, the surface pressure at the bottom of feet has to be roughly the same as human has. Otherwise, moving in rough terrain (take swamps or mountaineous area) will be different from human. Now, increasing armor and weight will increase the feet area, which will again make walking distinctively different from human.
So you have to learn to walk again. Most of us managed it the first time.
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There's no need for all around defense. Put thicker armor on the front, maybe even the side the soldier puts forward (the left flank), the rest of the can be thinner as it only needs to protect against shrapnel.
Heck, in situations where you're bound to get shot, give the soldier a ballistic shield that's mounted on a powered frame dangling from his back.
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In order to give distinctively human kind feel, the surface pressure at the bottom of feet has to be roughly the same as human has. Otherwise, moving in rough terrain (take swamps or mountaineous area) will be different from human. Now, increasing armor and weight will increase the feet area, which will again make walking distinctively different from human.
So you have to learn to walk again. Most of us managed it the first time.
I think you didn't catch all the implications of what I said.
For starters, I wouldn't call it "walking". "Staggering", "tumbling" and perhaps even "waddling" come to mind. And by mountainous and swamp areas I meant that it might be impossible to operate in such theaters with the suit. Ditto in the urban areas where one has to enter a building.
Decreasing the mass of armor by a considerable amount by thinning it from the back seems unlikely to me. I would expect maybe 40 to 50 kilograms maximum. The problem is then, power/fuel/ammunition are exposed and likely to be damaged by the shrapnel. If you make it larger to include all that stuff inside, the surface area will be increased, and yet again system gains weight.
In order to keep mechanical forces simple, it needs to be symmetric. Putting more stuff in front will result in center of gravity shifting forwards which has to be compensated by something. Making the thing to have one side stronger than the other will result in center of gravity shifting either towards right or left, which is also bad. Yes, it can be compensated mechanically by some degree, but will complicate things a lot. If uncorrected, it will again change the natural movement quite drastically, and it will not be about wearing a suit of armor, but driving one.
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Are you talking about this Nutcracker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nutcracker) or this Nutcracker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeXkFWBFkCA&feature=related)?
Was really thinking about the first one :D The second one would probably be too easy of a test.
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surely the first phase of powered armour is to mount similar levels of protection that soldiers already have. The benefits of this stand as
Reducing the load on the soldiers back and joints while keeping them just as if not more mobile than they are now while wearing that armour.
Reducing the chances of movement related injury because of the weight of armour and equipment.
Creating the smallest hindrance to rapid/split second movement.
More manageable material/financial cost.
Minimal effect on solders overall weight and profile (im guessing 10cm all sides except where the battery pack and control systems are
at this stage a ruptured battery or motor will be the least of a soldiers problems because they will likely have sustained injury from the attack anyway.
Once that standard has been reached then you can start looking at specialist systems/addons for stuff like heavy assault and omg here comes the ubersoldiers with their .75 gatt guns, missile pacs and 100 decrees C rated aircon which will sink to their necks in anything softer than firm grassland and cant fit through a cargo bay door.
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Most powered exoskeletons are self-supporting when not powered. And bioeletric sensors work faster than human flesh reacts to neuro-commands.
So possible injuries due to powerloss or sudden movement aren't worth much consideration. I suppose if you were hanging from a ledge, or something.... Meh.
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I think you didn't catch all the implications of what I said.
On the contrary, I did. I also caught your rather ridiculous weight assertions and didn't comment on them because they've already been debunked. We already have fairly lightweight bodyarmor that will stop military 7.62mm and fragments. Battuta commented on it earlier in the thread in case you missed it.
So basically I'm calling bull**** on your 315kg. You can do it with a lot less with modern composites.
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Yeah, well it wouldn't feel so lightweight after you've been walking around on patrol with it for the entire day. :P But the suit would be powered, so no worries there at least.
But yeah, 315kgs is obscene.
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I have to wonder if that 315 kg is gathered from making a hypothetical box around the subject in question?
If so, that figure is seriously flawed.
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No, the figure is calculated with the following numbers: average surface area of human male ~ 2 m^2.
Required steel thickness to stop bullets and shrapnel (I took this from BMP-1: 6-33 mm) and used a rough number of 20 millimetres.
Thus required volume is, 2 m^2 * 0.02 m ~ 0.04 m^3
Density of steel: 7800 kg/m^3 -> Total mass = 0.04 m^3 * 7800kg/m^3 ~ 312 kg
Does anyone disagree now?
The reason I'm using steel is twofold. First, price and manufacturing easiness. The other thing is that bullet proof vest and similar suits of armor don't prevent mission kills. Yes you stay alive but you still need to see the doctor, pronto! The only way to be sure is to use a material that doesn't transmit any shock to the person who wears it. Bullet proof vest only absorbs the lethal amount of energy from a bullet, but body still absorbs the rest of the energy.
So if such light weight armor is used then one still needs to crawl and take cover with that suit on like the rest of the troops. And my personal experience says that the less you have stuff with you when you start to crawl, the easier it gets.
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Yeah, definitely disagree. I don't think that design is remotely realistic. They're not building a suit of steel armor that covers an entire human being at a homogeneous thickness.
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Yes I still disagree. For one, you're assuming that the bullet strikes the armor at and only at the exact angle which would penetrate it. That's partially why German tanks were so damned hard to kill in WWII. They used sloping armor, so that shots that would have penetrated if it were just a slab of steel were deflected.
You could easily cut that figure to 10% if you used sloping armor and intelligent design of where hits are most likely.
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Or modern composite design a la actual infantry body armor. Mission kills are fine. They're trying to create better infantrymen here, not bulletproof juggernaughts.
The advantage to powered armor is preventing you from getting shot in the first place, not allowing you to tank it.
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Yup, armour that could take a hit or two, or, as NGT stated earlier, maybe a frag grenade nearby is perfectly acceptable, as opposed to a 'stand up and fight' machine, however, it should also be noted that tanks are designed mostly to face towards an enemy, that's why the armour thickness differs all over the body, any kind of footsoldier could be attacked from any side and any angle, so sloping armour won't be as effective as on tanks.
That said, there is no way on Earth that power-suits would be easier to maintain or build than a jeep, at least not for a good, long time. The simple number of sensitive input devices on such a suit would require constant calibration. That's not neccesarily a bad thing for the benefits, but it does also mean, remembering we are dealing with a real Army here, not an 'ideal army', that they would probably be relegated to the roles of logistics or special ops.
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No, the figure is calculated with the following numbers: average surface area of human male ~ 2 m^2.
Required steel thickness to stop bullets and shrapnel (I took this from BMP-1: 6-33 mm) and used a rough number of 20 millimetres.
Thus required volume is, 2 m^2 * 0.02 m ~ 0.04 m^3
Density of steel: 7800 kg/m^3 -> Total mass = 0.04 m^3 * 7800kg/m^3 ~ 312 kg
Does anyone disagree now?
The reason I'm using steel is twofold. First, price and manufacturing easiness. The other thing is that bullet proof vest and similar suits of armor don't prevent mission kills. Yes you stay alive but you still need to see the doctor, pronto! The only way to be sure is to use a material that doesn't transmit any shock to the person who wears it. Bullet proof vest only absorbs the lethal amount of energy from a bullet, but body still absorbs the rest of the energy.
So if such light weight armor is used then one still needs to crawl and take cover with that suit on like the rest of the troops. And my personal experience says that the less you have stuff with you when you start to crawl, the easier it gets.
or you can just accept that some one some where will figure out how to penetrate your armour, your best bet is to keep it cheep and mobile while being able to protect up to 5.56 or 7.62x39 at medium range.
I notice you assume that only 1 material will be used. Most modern armour designs use a mix of Kevlar and ceramic/metal plates for the core of the armour with the Kevlar absorbing the kinetic energy and the plate bringing the projectile to a stop. In a power suit a couple of extra mm in either would have little effect in mobility especially when compared to that solder without the assistance but it would have a noticeable effect on protection
Also what flavour of 7.62 are you talking about? we talking 7.62x39 as fired by AK-47 with an energy of 2,010 J (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x39mm) or 7.62x51 at 3,504 J (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.62x51mm_NATO) as fired by many light machine guns and sniper rifles
Lastly did you factor range in your calculation? a bullet fired at 10 meters has significantly more kinetic energy that the same round fired from 100 meters
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Again the extra carrying capacity could be used to prevent the solider from ever being shot at. Personal UAV's that detect the enemy before he can attack and alert to the enemy position could be carried. They are getting small enough. A good (and intelligent) offense is the best defense. Take them out before you are even in range. Not practical in urban environments but then again neither are the suits. Other robotic methods are being developed for that purpose.
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Again the extra carrying capacity could be used to prevent the solider from ever being shot at. Personal UAV's that detect the enemy before he can attack and alert to the enemy position could be carried. They are getting small enough. A good (and intelligent) offense is the best defense. Take them out before you are even in range. Not practical in urban environments but then again neither are the suits. Other robotic methods are being developed for that purpose.
Aye, concurred.
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Again the extra carrying capacity could be used to prevent the solider from ever being shot at. Personal UAV's that detect the enemy before he can attack and alert to the enemy position could be carried. They are getting small enough. A good (and intelligent) offense is the best defense. Take them out before you are even in range. Not practical in urban environments but then again neither are the suits. Other robotic methods are being developed for that purpose.
that's the other aspect sticking heavy thermal imaging and HUD wouldn't be difficult, I'm thinking if the HUD can be tied into the feeds from UAV/UCAV operating in the area to provide a direct visual overview when needed
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That'd be cool, as long as it isn't plagued by the issues that future force warrior or whatever the Army's "hey, let's do GRAW for real" project was called. A heads up display is cool when it doesn't lag for minutes on end. I'd just like to see this armour working effectively on the battlefield before we try and put any toys on it.
What I really would like to see is a detachable storage compartment. Who needs a pack when you can just stuff it in the suit and take it off before the contact's initiated. ;) But I guess that brings up the problem of what the section does if they come into contact with an enemy force while wearing their full gear.
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They have vehicles in development now that will follow squads and carry gear as well. So the unnecessary stuff for combat like extra food, water, tents, etc can just follow a designated distance behind.
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What I really would like to see is a detachable storage compartment. Who needs a pack when you can just stuff it in the suit and take it off before the contact's initiated. ;) But I guess that brings up the problem of what the section does if they come into contact with an enemy force while wearing their full gear.
Perhaps some sort of "quick-eject" button that peels the suit away from the soldier in half a second so he can move freely, lightly, and most importantly, quickly into cover or out of immediate harm's way.
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What I really would like to see is a detachable storage compartment. Who needs a pack when you can just stuff it in the suit and take it off before the contact's initiated. ;) But I guess that brings up the problem of what the section does if they come into contact with an enemy force while wearing their full gear.
Perhaps some sort of "quick-eject" button that peels the suit away from the soldier in half a second so he can move freely, lightly, and most importantly, quickly into cover or out of immediate harm's way.
Actually most designs under testing today have this feature already. Taking them off is no more difficult than taking off ski skids or a normal backpack.
@Flipside: you're assuming an all-enclosure suit, that mimics *all* the movements of the user. These are not and they don't. The number of sensors and joints could be a whole magnitude less then what you envision. Also the sensors are not as finicky as you imagine them to be, IMHO most of them would be hall-effect and watch the displacement of specific parts - ergo something that can be *very* sturdy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE
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that's the other aspect sticking heavy thermal imaging and HUD wouldn't be difficult, I'm thinking if the HUD can be tied into the feeds from UAV/UCAV operating in the area to provide a direct visual overview when needed
Even using a modern glance system, complex HUD is probably going to remain beyond powered exoskeletons or the like. There are just too many things to alter and not enough controls to do it with.
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They have vehicles in development now that will follow squads and carry gear as well. So the unnecessary stuff for combat like extra food, water, tents, etc can just follow a designated distance behind.
That'd be a good thing when operating in fairly flat terrain, I think. For everywhere else, people will probably have to lug their gear around the old fashioned way.
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They have vehicles in development now that will follow squads and carry gear as well. So the unnecessary stuff for combat like extra food, water, tents, etc can just follow a designated distance behind.
That'd be a good thing when operating in fairly flat terrain, I think. For everywhere else, people will probably have to lug their gear around the old fashioned way.
Nope. One of the mule bots in development is four-legged and based on a mountain goat. Really remarkable piece of kit.
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Seriously? I thought MULEs were these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multifunctional_Utility/Logistics_and_Equipment_vehicle) babies?
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Yea but they have other versions. Some for urban use that can climb stairs and extract wounded, some that are like the ones in the pictures, some for underwater use, and probably whatever you can imagine.
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Come on, everyone remembers that dog thing, right?
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For reference. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww)
If only they managed to make it run silently.
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I thought you were talking about this:
(http://fubar5.fubar.org/fubar/BASALOPE.GIF)