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More on Next-Generation Army Gear
An anonymous reader writes "The Army is funding development of new super suits. From the article: 'The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie'. 'The new system has the ability for each soldier to be tied into tactical local and wide-area networks with an onboard computer that sits at the base of the soldier's back' and 'The helmet has sensors that register vibrations of the cranial cavity so [soldiers] don't have to have a microphone'. The article features several photos of the suits."
"Rico's Roughnecks, hooaahhh!"
Great.. now we can look-forward to our individual soldiers suits being hacked and controled by the enemy.
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Man, they look just like normal suits with some extra crap on the front.
I was hoping for some anime utility suit or Gundam mech you climb inside of or something.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
The Army's future soldier will resemble something out of a science fiction movie.
And here is my thinking they would look like something out of a period drama.
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Does it run Linux?
Look at the solider in the black. Make it white and we're pretty damn close to having our boys overseas looking like Storm Troopers. All that remains is for Bush to claim himself Emporer, and Chaney to learn the secrets of the Dark Side and become horribly disfigured in some sort of Volcano-related accident.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
...that with the billions of dollars invested in this project that they would have chosen a manakin that still had it's nose intact.
From the article: "A medic, who can be miles away, will now be able to diagnose and treat a soldier who is about to have sunstroke, without even physically seeing the soldier.
Radio traffic: "Alpha Bravo Charlie appears to be out of action! Doctor, can you give us a report on his telemetry?
Doctor: "Is he wearing that black, 50 pound Darth Vader suit?"
Radio traffic: "Yes!"
Doctor: "It's probably sun stroke."
"Hey Wayne, what a bummer, who's James Bond gonna fight now, man, the Guatemalans?"
-Waynes World on SNL, around the end of the Cold War, roughly paraphrased because I was a little young at the time;)
The Army has is all wrong. Instead of spending money and the U.S. soldier, they should just outsource the soldiers and have other nations fight for us. It works for corporations, why not the Army...
Somebody put me out of my misery.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Who are we going to be fighting with this stuff? Terrorists? Belgium?
Nope we will be fighting giant squid-like robots that fly in spiral patterns.
"There is only a one in six billion chance that you actually exist"
Well, you'll need a battery that won't be damaged by impacts. Then I'd probably go with a piezoelectric power source in the shoes. I remember hearing about a guy who recharged NiCads that way.
Or you could put a reciprocol moter powerd by air pressure generated from flexing of the gloves. Or even a simple hand crank+dynamo that you sit down and wind whenever you have the time.
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I love this quote (emphasis mine):
"The Future Force Warrior will be a responsive and formidable member of an invincible battle space team," DeGay explained, describing the system scheduled to be fielded by 2010."
Invincible eh? That's some pretty neat gear... does it include a quick dipping in the River Styx?
Did anyone else notice the soldier's display was running Windows? Uh-oh! What happens when a soldier gets the BSOD?
Plus, the higher the tech, the worse the reliability all too often.
"Sarge, my CPU died. All my displays are down. I can't target. Wait, there's a guy with a ROCK crawling up to me.... ARRRGGGHHHHH! (transmission lost)"
Ever seen Wallace & Gromit: The Wrong Trousers? I've just had an idea for NetSky.ZZZ ;-)
But how the hell is this all going to be powered?
It is obvious. By the two wheeled battery cart the soldier pulls behind him/her.
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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
"It looks like you're trying to fire your gun. Would you:
* Like help aiming?
* Change the type of gun?
* Use a template battle situation?"
or, in a Robocop-esque way:
Directive 4: Armed assault against any member of Microsoft management will result in the suit BSOD'ing.
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
Syntax error at #9871289 line 2 at or near '(which', missing ')'
Syntax error at #9871289 line 2 at or near '(, but', missing ')'
Comprehension of post aborted due to compilation errors.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
grunts are cheaper than licenced copies of windows ce and a wireless card.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
The problem I see with that is signal jamming. The exoskeletons would just fall down like rag dolls...
Or if they reached their preset kill limit, they would just shut down.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
Sure, you can go that route -- provided you're okay with waking up one day to find a script kiddie in command of the 82nd Airborne or whatever.
-- I could tell right away that she was impressed with my HUGE Slashdot Karma.
Your suit's Clock may be incorrect. Blink once to install Gator Suit Commander or Blink twice to trust our software.
Imagine yourself in the battlefield and suddenly a red blinking popup in your eye. Is it an enemy alert, battery low maby? No, your one of the 500 lucky people, Blink once to receive....wtf?
Message from god, Please logoff, rebooting the Universe
Feed 'em oodles of beans and cabbage then route resulting methane into a fuel cell!
Just give me my Stimpacks and U-238 shells and a hot medic babe never far behind me, and I'm invincible.
Remote mini guns. Why send humans into an enemy held building. Send a team of remote controlled armored Uzi's into a the bulding.
In which case, why send the soldier at all? Just imagine the horror of all those first person shooter afficienados, finally unleashed to control remote drones on the other side of the world.
The ultimate low-ping bastard!
And if you get hit, well, the respawn point is just back at the machine carrier.
Or you could put a reciprocol moter powerd by air pressure generated from flexing of the gloves. Or even a simple hand crank+dynamo that you sit down and wind whenever you have the time.
Private: pant, pant, pant
Sarge: Private! What are you doing?
Private: Winding my crank, sir!
Sarge: Oh very well, carry on...