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I've heard that the US Army had been working on Power Armor since 1960s. (and it could be an inspiration to Fallout series meow). even by our time. several institutes in the world still developing an economical version of working power armor. i've heard that there is AT LEAST one model (and i think it was Japanese-made) that works as we expected it to be. well it's not actually an 'armor' but it has some aspects of power armor (wearer can lifts MUCH more weights than what he/she normally could). however it was designed for medical use and not military ones


^ An Uke in power armor =^.^=

Questions.
1. Do you really think that this technology is a practical ones? will it really works out like what many Scifi settiings (including our Forthykays) says it is? (Ex. in Fallout series. it is said that the US. Army Powered Armor is a developement on MBTs (and out of the neccessity of the settings, at some point... The energy crisis concluded that any conventional MBTs is ineffective. it sould be evolved into something that one man can handle and able to enter a cramped space and easy to airlift)
2. Should any armed forces in the world have at least one company equipped with this tech?
3. And your point of view on similar (and competing) technology.. the 'Armored combat mechanized walker' ? Do you favor this technology over the Power armor or vice versa. or do you dislike both?

meow.

That's not "power armor".

That's an exoskeleton. The exoskeletons currently being developed are not intended to "protect" the operator, they're intended to increase the combat effectiveness of the operator by increasing the amount of equipment they can carry.

The other question is will the governments feel that a solders life is worth the cost of the power armour if it is invented.

Kanluwen wrote:That's not "power armor".

That's an exoskeleton. The exoskeletons currently being developed are not intended to "protect" the operator, they're intended to increase the combat effectiveness of the operator by increasing the amount of equipment they can carry.

wait! are you saying that the exosuit thing designed for offensive rather than defensive? i.e. wearer may carry a set of beltfed gatling gun with 2,000+ ammo ?! while the body armor itself remains either FlaK armor or carapace armor. correct?

Lone Cat wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:That's not "power armor".

That's an exoskeleton. The exoskeletons currently being developed are not intended to "protect" the operator, they're intended to increase the combat effectiveness of the operator by increasing the amount of equipment they can carry.

wait! are you saying that the exosuit thing designed for offensive rather than defensive? i.e. wearer may carry a set of beltfed gatling gun with 2,000+ ammo ?! while the body armor itself remains either FlaK armor or carapace armor. correct?

No it increases the amount of equipment you can carry, lets you have a bigger backpack.

Exosuits aren't really being designed for any kind of offensive OR defensive purpose.

They're designed for a utility purpose. They have a side effect of allowing more weaponry/equipment to be carried. They're worn by the operator in addition to their standard ballistic vests/protections.

I don't think it's a worthwhile idea. We don't need our soldiers (and Marines) to be walking tanks. We do just fine with what we have (which contrary to some opinion, is indeed much improved over what we were using even ten years ago), and improvements will be made gradually to accommodate the current mission. I don't see "power armor" as a necessity in the current type of conflict we find ourselves in.

For certain things, like carrying a Large caliber machine, I could see certain motorized load carrying aids being useful, but you're cutting down on the overall effectiveness of the soldier by putting a piece of delicate machinery on his back. I can't imagine it would be easy to be a good fighter while having to worry about this massively expensive piece of tech on you.

Militaries do ruck marches for a reason though, so most soldiers are already trained to deal with heavy loads. Carrying a machine gun is hard, but when that's your job, you get over it, I'd imagine.


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carlos13th wrote:The other question is will the governments feel that a solders life is worth the cost of the power armour if it is invented.

Most likely not. This concept is apparent in every aspect of the military. Dragon Skin is down-right proven to save lives, and doesn't compromise the integrity of the vest when shot. It's prohibitively expensive though, so of course the military won't adopt it. A soldier isn't worth the 3000$ the vest costs. It's unfortunate, but it's just a fact.

A lot of military gas masks were truly ineffective prior to the adoption of the NATO 40mm canister, and the Standard US gas mask (m17) didn't protect against anything more than tear gas for almost 35 years of service.

ha! if at least one squad is assigned with exosuit. and a team member wields a gatling gun i've said earlier. he might use the weapon pretty much the same way pop culture always portray how gatling gun can potentially works!
so you say the US army will NOT bring this tech to war. but a whole company (or maybe, a platoon) of infantry wearing carapace armor and wields conventional weapons is considered sufficient. right?

=^.^=

Kanluwen wrote:That's not "power armor".

That's an exoskeleton. The exoskeletons currently being developed are not intended to "protect" the operator, they're intended to increase the combat effectiveness of the operator by increasing the amount of equipment they can carry.

I think we need to redefine the concept of armour, again.

An exoskeleton will increase the amount of equipment soldierscan carry and that includes protective layering. What you see today with exoskeletons are the prototypes and those used for basic powerlifting. Battlefield exoskeletons will be the same but have ballistic protection added on or included or supplementary. Is the 'armour' seperate from the 'power', initially maybe, but more likely the protection will be included with the mobility in one package, it makes sense this way.

Furthermore we need to redefine expectations of power armour. You looking for something where a man can stand proud in a battlefield and watch small arms fire spark off their chest. No, not that soldiers wouldn't still use all cover available anyway but because bullet stopping is not a viable goal of armour. Better goals are fragment stopping, reducing the lethal and effective ranges of artillery and grenade blasts, even more important are environmental protection. Current NBC armour is very restrictive, power armour will enable air conditioned suits. This could be used, at a pinch to deploy soldiers for short term operations to another theatre without acclimatisation, more importantly it will enabled soldiers to dip into harsh conditions like near frozen water without concern, and most importantly of all will enable soldiers to operate in desert or jungle conditions with the suit sealed with minimal loss of combat effectiveness.
As side effects you can have thermal image suppression, increased carry capacity and the ability to stop some small arms fire, probably proof against light handguns at any range, blunt/blade and any bullets in the bottom 20% of their combat range.


I am a firm believer in power armour, and think that when it comes whatever bullet stopping power it possesses will be an ancillary feature.

Orlanth wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:That's not "power armor".

That's an exoskeleton. The exoskeletons currently being developed are not intended to "protect" the operator, they're intended to increase the combat effectiveness of the operator by increasing the amount of equipment they can carry.

I think we need to redefine the concept of armour, again.

An exoskeleton will increase the amount of equipment soldierscan carry and that includes protective layering. What you see today with exoskeletons are the prototypes and those used for basic powerlifting. Battlefield exoskeletons will be the same but have ballistic protection added on or included or supplementary. Is the 'armour' seperate from the 'power', initially maybe, but more likely the protection will be included with the mobility in one package, it makes sense this way.

Actually, the battlefield exoskeletons we're seeing in development are basically the same as the civilian exoskeletons. They do not have ballistic protections added on or as a supplement, they are included as the components have been chosen for being rather rugged and potentially able to serve in hazardous conditions.

Furthermore we need to redefine expectations of power armour. You looking for something where a man can stand proud in a battlefield and watch small arms fire spark off their chest.

Not really. My "definition of power armor" is a suit of armor which is:
1) Worn by the individual, while allowing them to retain dexterity to operate weapons, tools, etc or has said tools+weapons built into the armor.
2) Cannot be more than double the size of the individual operating said armor. Once you get over that, you're effectively not talking about "armor" you're talking about a mechanized battlesuit.

To add a visual component:

I always like to equate Power Armor to how the Battletech universe did.

and


Those are the two examples which always come to mind when discussing "Power" or "Battle" Armor. The wearer/operator is standing inside, and controls it manually. He is still able to interact with the world at large and receives ballistic protection and enhanced combat capabilities.

Power Armor in the US military was spawned by Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers, which actually has a fair amount of speculation into how infantry warfare would evolve with advancing technology.

The other question is will the governments feel that a solders life is worth the cost of the power armour if it is invented.

This is the big question when it comes to this kind of technology. In the end, it may not be cost effective to use it.

They're designed for a utility purpose. They have a side effect of allowing more weaponry/equipment to be carried. They're worn by the operator in addition to their standard ballistic vests/protections.

While he exosuit is a concept spawned for mountain warfare and rough terrain, it is a stepping stone in a very vague military plan to possibly develop power armor at some unspecified point in time. Right now its not even cost effective to develop power armor as a concept let alone start talking about the multitudes of technology involved in actually making it work. Power armor I think, could spawn a return to heavy infantry tactics that have been dead for about 400 years.

I doubt mass deployment would ever happen, but power armor infantry units could find a place in order of battle as an in between for infantry and heavy vehicles like tanks (this stretches the line between power armor and battle suit).

The precedent was set in Batman Begins where we learn that "the bean counters didn't think a soldier's life was worth 300 grand".

Well, what if a soldier's kit combined an exoskeleton with armour like that used by the "juggernaughts" in COD?
(bit obsessed with them at the moment)

Would that not allow the soldier excellent protection, without compromising their ability to function for long periods without exhaustion?

I'm just theorising, I have no military experience, and I don't even know if "Jugger" armour exists, let alone if it's as effective as it is on COD, so feel free to shoot me down in flames here.

I don't think power armour is likely to be honest. It's inefficient as the armour is going to need fuel which will therefore also have to be transported- diminishing returns. I think it's unlikely that something like that will see large scale production in any of our lifetimes. I also think that with something like that, it's going to need so many redundancies built in to avoid it becoming a liability if it gets damaged, it's just going to be way too expensive.

I think one of the reasons power armor makes sense in 40k is because space marines protect mankind from only the greatest of threats, and one space marine is worth much more strategically than a guardsman (MUCH more. Thousands of times more), so it seems justified. I'd bargain that a suit of power armor (that is, what space marines wear) would cost you something like a hundred million dollars.... Unless I'm seriously underestimating something about them (ceramite? Plasteel? What exactly are they and how are they obtained?)

We are no where near that level of technology.
Bare in mind we're talking about:

*A powered exoskeleton capable of carrying a huge amount of weight AND being flexible enough to withstand wear and tear of combat situations

*Some sort of lightweight armour plating that was capable of giving the wearer genuinely widespread protection from firearms

*The capacity to mass-produce such a device

So, no.

Testify wrote:We are no where near that level of technology.
Bare in mind we're talking about:

*A powered exoskeleton capable of carrying a huge amount of weight AND being flexible enough to withstand wear and tear of combat situations

*Some sort of lightweight armour plating that was capable of giving the wearer genuinely widespread protection from firearms

*The capacity to mass-produce such a device

So, no.

Bear in mind that Astartes powered armor is not mass-produced in any real sense of the word. It's effectively "hand-crafted", and the suits worn by many Astartes are relics dating back hundreds if not thousands of years.

The armor plating is not "lightweight" either. It's the same stuff the Imperium uses on tanks.
There's a reason that Astartes powered armor is not the same as "regular" powered armor. It's made for their gene-enhanced physiques, normal human powered armor consists of similar protection but it also requires a lot of muscle enhancing shenanigans, and if the armor is subjected to damage which renders it inoperable the wearer is trapped inside. The Astartes, however, can continue moving albeit at a disadvantage they normally do not have.

the most practical form of exo-skeletal armor is in logistics operations IMHO. A sailor who can lift a 500 lb. bomb by himself onto a wing mount of an FA-18 hornet sitting on the deck of a carrier means fewer sailors need to be on deck (a very hazardous place to be). Therefore, you can induct fewer sailors into the Navy. Since personnel costs are by far the biggest expense in any armed force, this *may* actually reduce overall costs - depending on what the final product looks like.

Yea I agree, the best defense is not having a soldier there (but then its battle bots and no one ever wins really)

that being said, I think the medical applications for such technology far outweigh any military ones.

ever seen Surrogates? thats what I imagine the future of warfare being.

Every time this comes up I watch this show again.

AustonT wrote:Every time this comes up I watch this show again.

those were awesome action figures!

You need an excuse to watch Exo Squad?

I feel bad for you, Auston.

More of a Voltron guy myself. I manage to slip a picture from Voltron in every unclassified briefing I do.

I feel a Robotic Arm would be much better; You step out of your giant suit, what are you? Nothing, compared to someone who has a robotic arm!

carlos13th wrote:The other question is will the governments feel that a solders life is worth the cost of the power armour if it is invented.

Most likely not. This concept is apparent in every aspect of the military. Dragon Skin is down-right proven to save lives, and doesn't compromise the integrity of the vest when shot. It's prohibitively expensive though, so of course the military won't adopt it. A soldier isn't worth the 3000$ the vest costs. It's unfortunate, but it's just a fact.
.

I think a mistake many people are making is assuming that military applications simply means giving mech suits to every grunt. This is incorrect: regular army's role is not combat; it is occupation. The role of combat in large-scale wars has long since been completely replaced by massively destructive long-range munitions.

Mech suits are very likely going to be used for small units of soldiers to carry out surgical strikes, in situations that require heavy firepower but cannot simply be resolved by carpet-bombing the location.

Heinlein's Starship Troopers pontificates on this idea at length in a very intelligently-crafted narrative. The book, that is. Not the movie.

I wouldn't say the narrative is the intelligent part of Starship Troopers. The book was pretty much a voice box for Heinlein's (at the time) political views with a spec of speculation into the future of infantry tactics. The narrative itself is rather flat for a book.

It would never work... look at those pathetic pieces of shoulder armor... lol

Da Boss wrote:I don't think power armour is likely to be honest. It's inefficient as the armour is going to need fuel which will therefore also have to be transported- diminishing returns. I think it's unlikely that something like that will see large scale production in any of our lifetimes. I also think that with something like that, it's going to need so many redundancies built in to avoid it becoming a liability if it gets damaged, it's just going to be way too expensive.

Yeah, I have a hard time seeing its practical benefits outstripping its likely weaknesses. Or, for that matter, any practical benefit.

I mean, what can it do that a tank or LAV can't? Walk through doors? Navigate mountainous terrain? That's cool, I guess, but given how heavy its likely to be I imagine going inside will be risky if the building has a basement. Moreover, why not just armor up a tracked or wheeled robot, then the issue of protecting the soldier just goes away. As to the mountains: helicopters and infantry that have weapons easily capable of defeating the battle armor.


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azazel the cat wrote:
Mech suits are very likely going to be used for small units of soldiers to carry out surgical strikes, in situations that require heavy firepower but cannot simply be resolved by carpet-bombing the location.

I still don't see it. Guided munitions are likely to far outstrip anything battle armor might be capable of.

As said before exoskeletal suits would have more use in a logistical role than combat. One of the biggest issues is powering the suits. AFAIK we don't have any kind of power source that is light enough to be installed within a suit and able to provide enough power for very long. Using current technology any kind of suit brought into the military would HAVE to be used behind the lines as logistical support. Trailing power cables aren't going to be much use anywhere else really.