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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."
From the Article:
The uniform from the waist down will have a robotic-powered system that is connected directly to the soldier. This system could use pistons to actually replicate the lower body, giving the soldier "upwards of about 300 percent greater lifting and load-carriage capability," DeGay said. "We are looking at potentially mounting a weapon directly to the uniform system and now the soldier becomes a walking gun platform."
I suspect that they may be calling on Berkeley for their Bleex project on this one. The Berkeley Lower Extremity Exoskeleton exists now, and I'd imagine with 10 or 15 years to work on it they could easily meet the 300% lifting and load carrying requirements. Of course the Japanese have envisioned soldiers as walking gun platforms for years. I wonder how long it'll be before we see Mecha Warriors in real life...
Urge to post... fading... fading... RISING!... fading... fading... gone.
It should be noted that those 2000 pound bombs dropped in residential areas are normally 2000 pounds of concrete. It's all kinetic energy, not explosive ordinance, designed to keep collateral damage down. Your IEDs, on the other hand, are designed to inflict as much collateral damage as possible, which is why Americans gawk in horror at them.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
For those who haven't read the book, or haven't seen the movie, the parent is not saying that watching the movie kept the designers from seeing the suits (which I understand were removed from the movie(, but that the book emphasized repeatedly the fact that a soldier is a soldier. That the armor is nice, but the real power is the mind inside it. There's a scene where one recruit asks (during boot camp) why they're learning to throw knives when they have rifles, machine guns, tac nukes, ad infinitum. The drill seargant's response is that an army can't let a temporary malfunction or lack of tech stop them from achieving their objective - and further, that massive tech is not always the best solution.
I like the fine staff these firms bring to the operation - like Apartheid-era South Africans with warrants in their own country for crimes against humanity.
Look up "spread spectrum".
--- Ban humanity.
I heard it was due to budget constraints.
:)
Yep, I know someone in the animation side of things that worked on it.
Basically, they screwed up the budget completely, and eventually had to decide: Suits, or Bugs?
Bugs won
I did a little more research and I can't find a reference to dropping concrete more recent that 1999, in reference to the No-Fly Zones (AKA the Protection Zone For Al-Qaeda Terrorists In Northern Iraq).
Anyway, not saying that we are or are not dropping concrete these days, but I would be a little surprised if we prefaced the invasion and occupation with anything less than the most lethal air power. If you know otherwise, though, by all means school me.
I don't see how you can say roadside IEDs are designed to inflict as much collateral damage as possible. Haji calls the cell phone when the hummer goes by. It's a military target. Car bombs, on the other hand, are the preferred weapon of the terrorist.
The Paul Verhoeven (sp?) movie 'Starship Troopers' was based on the Robert Heinlein novel of the same name. The movie is basically a satire of very serious concepts presented in the novel, which mightily offends many of us who are Robert Heinlein fans. It's rather like the only movie version of, say, Moby Dick, being a Ben Stiller farce of the novel. It's very, very offensive, really.
There is an animated TV show (Roughnecks? Something like that) also based on the story, but is (I'm told) a bit more true to the nature of the original novel than the movie was, though still not quite there. I've never seen the show, so I can't give you my own assessment of it.
Right, we've created our own asymmetric threat.
Consider that the cost of the 9/11 operation was about a half a million dollars over five years. In response, we've spent about 150 billion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in just two years.
We are outspending the enemy 300,000 to 1. This takes pyrrhic victory to a whole new level!