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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."
Too bad the designers watched the movie instead of reading the book!
"Who are we going to be fighting with this stuff? Terrorists? Belgium?"
Notice this is defense spending instead of offense spending. Build these things, train our soldiers on them, and nobody's gonna wanna fight us.
(That's the theory anyway.)
"Derp de derp."
A counter measure to this would be 'sniffers' looking for these signals. Program guided warheads/projectiles and you could have a relatively easy kill.
Wonder if these suits will come with an excessive moisture sensor? ("I think Johnson has just entered combat - or is incontinent").
They [presumably] don't mean absorb as in the lead will become embedded in or otherwise part of the armor, they mean it can absorb whatever impact the round itself doesn't absorb, which means the round doesn't penetrate though it may deform. I'd like to know what kind and what caliber of machine gun rounds we're talking about, though. If they're big enough you're going to be knocking people over if nothing else, then while they're on their back maybe you can drop a bomb on them :) Mounting a weapon directly to the "uniform system" (read: powered body armor) is not a new idea by any means, but it is a good one. Something like the steadycam .50 cal in Aliens seems highly likely. Of course, the weapon will have to be armored, too, because mounting it on the armor means you can't easily move it around.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the soldiers on the ground are going to be so completely dependent on electrical equipment? These things don't have to be a giant explosion any more, either. I believe there has been progress in directional, possibly portable, EM-disabling weapons. I know. Let's put all the soldiers in faraday cages! Mosquito netting for the 22nd century!
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the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
China
Heh, the problem is that we cannot keep this technology exclusive forever. China is using a lot of US money to modernize it's military, and after the US pissed off a lot of countries in Europe, they want to lift the ban on trade of weapons to China.
Nothing stays exclusive for long(unless of course it is never deployed!), from defectors to captured/dead soldiers, abandoned gear for reverse engineering, keeping military technology a secret is very difficult. Why do you think the engineers for defense contractors are paid much more than your average commercial engineer? Because they don't want a Chinese agent to come up to them and offer them $500,000 and a few Chinese virgins to come work for the Chinese government.
"...an onboard computer that sits at the base of the soldier's back"
People into concealed-carry handguns have been warning each other about carrying anything hard against the small of your back for quite a while. The thought is that a backwards fall could damage your spine quite nicely.
"Defense" is just a nicer way of saying it. (The way the Secretary of War is now the Secretary of Defense.) Anyway, I think these uniforms will be used for terrorists; I mean, it makes sense like that,
That is practically right out of Larry Niven's Ringworld series. The characters wore armor that stiffened when impacted. Very cool anyways. "What we hope to gain from this program is body armor that wears like a traditional textile impregnated with nanomachines connected to an onboard computer, DeGay explained. "So when you shoot a round into the uniform system, it's normally pliable until it senses the strike of a round -- it becomes rigid, defeats the strike of the round and becomes soft again."
stealth velcro.
Yes, thats right. Back in the late 80s or early 90s the US military wanted to use velcro for pockets and whatnot on military uniforms. Unfortunately, none of the higher ups had ever used velcro, nor knew that velcro made a swwwissh ripping noise when opened, so when they arrived, the soldiers thought they might get shot if they opened their pocket for a condom or something. So they spent many more millions of dollars to invent stealth velcro.
Today they use snaps and zippers.
It's not a matter of whether the war is not real, or if it is, Victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous ... In principle the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia but to keep the very structure of society intact. (George Orwell, 1984)
The infantry already carries a huge amount of weight with them at this point. All of this stuff is really cool from a tech standpoint, but the last thing a soldier really needs is more wieght.
DeviantArt Page
NSFWWell we sure as hell better not get into a REAL war with this stuff. This is all okay when we fight one sided battles against underdeveloped nations, but if we ever got into a major battle with someone capable of putting up a fight, and not having air superiority we'd have major issues. Sort of sad to think that maybe in the not so distant future we'll have a pile of soldiers who don't know what in the hell to do because their batteries ran out. The effects of an EMP weapon would probably lead to almost comical situations.
Electro-magnetic emissions. A human soldier can turn off his WAN/LAN if he doesn't want to be detected. A remote controlled robot becomes about as useful as a boulder when this happens.
Unless you want to use trailing cables of course...
Be glad life is unfair, otherwise we'd deserve all this.
I'd be curious to know how they're going to maintain the WAN without it being a radio beacon for the enemy to spot. Frequency hopping would help a little, but I'm sure a creative engineer could work around that.
It's like a portable target beacon for missiles!
Hence the need for a powered exoskeleton that increases carrying capacity 300%. 50% of the increase will be devoted to carrying the power/battery system.
I'm curious about this personal armor that can take a machine gun round in stride, simple momentum tells me that isn't really possible. And speaking of momentum, I'm imagining these super soldiers having all sorts of maneuverability issues, encumbered by armor, exoskeletons, and all manner of electronics. Maybe you equip one squad as these human tanks, but you still need normal soldiers for walking to the second floor of shoddy third worls construction, entering buildings/tunnels stealthily, etc.
Useful cool tech:
Better/fuller armor. We don't lose as many lives, but soldiers are losing a lot of hands/feet/arms/etc. Folks are going to realize this soon.
Video gun sights. Stay behind that wall and just stick you gun into the line of fire.
Better communications. Securely relay each soldiers location back to tactical command so reinforcments/flanking actions/artilery hits the right spot.
Anti-Sniper systems. Radar systems track bullets back to the sniper location and fire a response within 3 seconds of first shot. Bring a new meaning to "one shot one kill" to enemy snipers.
Remote mini guns. Why send humans into an enemy held building. Send a team of remote controlled armored Uzi's into a the bulding.
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
I remember at one point the military was looking for a full robotic exoskeleton that went above and below the waist. I believe that they gave up and decided to persue lower-body-only technology because they were running into problems with the exoskeleton ripping the tendons and ligaments of those who wore the suit prototypes. The human stretch reflex is a function of the central nervous system and is designed to prevent limbs from being placed into positions that stress the connective tissues. Obviously, with a powered exoskeleton one wrong move could result in an arm getting pulled much further than your nervous system would ever let you position it under your own power. I believe that the researchers got tired of wrestling with this problem and decided to focus on the lower body because human joints in the lower body tend to be of simplier design (and easier to replicate and control) than the upper body ones. Ultimately they'd like to have powered legs that are capable of complex motion like running so that troops could cover large distances in a single day. But running is complex enough even without a suit. I imagine it's going to be a long time before you can put on a set of techno-trowsers and not rip your hamstrings right off your bone!
GMD
watch this
I wouldn't be surprised if electrorheological or magnetorheological ferrofluids come into play. I always imagined a Kevlar vest with tiny capilaries our even small chambers behind the Kevlar filled with this.
On bullet/shrapnel impact a trigger membrane sends an elctric charge into the fluid thereby turning the previously flexible Kevlar vest into essentially rigid body armor.
If the Bleex framework was used, the same kind of ferrofluid could be used to give super-rigid support of the lower body- instant standing foxhole support.
R(k)
As a non-American (but citizen of a supposed ally), the U.S. military's superiority makes me a little nervous when coupled with their "might-makes-right" attitude. For example, there's a popular new American song whose lyrics include, "we'll put a boot up your ass, it's the American way." Is this really the foundation of American values? Is this the mentality that the rest of the world can look forward to from the current economic and military leader of the world?
It's sad to me that growing up, I always regarded the U.S. as one of the good guys, but now I've realized that once they realized there was nobody who could stand up militarily, they are just as willing to coerce other nations with the threat of force as any other major power in history.
Let me give an example of current American attitudes toward right and wrong. When the news about the Abu Ghraib prison abuses came around, someone in the U.S. government (can't remember the name) publicly defended the actions saying that it wasn't as bad as what was happening there under Saddam. To that, I raise the question, "Do you want to be the good guys, or not?" My grade seven teacher told me to always compare yourself to the best, never to the worst, or else you'll eventually be no better than the worst.
Anyway, sorry this got a bit off topic, but I think it shares a major concern. I completely agree with the need for a nation to have adequate military strength to deter aggression, but is it inevitable that a nation that possesses such strength will invariably let that power overcome their sense of right and wrong?
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Actually,this is probably what they'll be carrying:
g ro und/oicw.htm
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/
==== Warning:this poster contains subject matter that may be offensive. Flaming discretion is advised.
Just curious when this technology is going to spill into sports like football or hockey.
Should make for an interesting game with less injury.
(Although, maybe more injury because the players can be rougher.)
The communication part would have some obvious advantages though.
I'm afraid you need to do some more research on these issues. There's a kernel of truth to what you say, but I don't think, in general, that you are correct.
Human intelligence is not really the purview of the US military. Their intelligence arm, mostly integrated with individual units, is primarily tasked with synthesis, that is, gleaning the operational meaning from existing information. Not to undercut the DIA, but intelligence gathering has been primarily the domain of the CIA. Perhaps a subtle difference, but it is totally different colors of money, and the DoD can't really contribute to the CIA budget.
As for language skills, the US military actually has some of the better language schools around. Army Rangers speak a second language; my understanding is that most Special Operations Command troops do. Perhaps what you are referring to is a shortage of Arabic speakers. That's sort of a structural thing; there is a limited number of people who were interested in learning Arabic. They are correcting now, and I don't really see how spending more money would make it go faster.
Regarding peacekeeping/policing, I'm unclear on the complaint. The military has certainly learned since Somalia; the lessons learned there have been employed to great effect in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Fallujah Brigade, while a mixed success so far, is certainly an innovative idea. The ING already has a unit patrolling on its own in the Sunni triangle--not even any American "advisors." Talk to some soldiers in the theater now and I think you'll find a remarkably different story than what's told in the news. They think we're pretty effective. That 90% of the Afghan population is registered to vote, according to the UN, suggests that we probably are. The Iraqi oil industry is actually *ahead* of projections. Sure, there are killings and there is sabotage, but to demand that there be none of either is to suggest that the NYPD needs to spend more money on policing because someone got robbed on the subway.
-db
or allowing anyone to snoop,
Military snooping comes in two forms: COMINT and ELINT. Avoiding COMINT observation might be easy, as all authorized users can synch-up encryption keys ahead of time (which only works until an enemy mugs one of your guys- but that's close enough).
But avoiding ELINT surveillance is a different matter. The more you rely on infantry reporting their actions on radio, the more likely the opposition will be to use radios to guess your position and evade the assault.
thus not broadcasting any false information to others,
Actually, if the enemy captured a fancy-suit and tried to use it, you'd want him to continue broadcasting. Of course, the data should be flagged so your own troops know not to rely on it, but the commander will like to know where the suit goes, so he can direct a retrieval mission. Or simply put a JDAM on it.
Trivial problems, I would think.
No, they're quite important. Combat is fast and chaotic. Any mechanism meant to keep the device out of enemy hands runs the risk of hitting a false-positive and denying itself to a legitimate US soldier, who might not have time to re-enter a password when taking fire.
And then just TRY to match the biometric voice-recognizer when sucking out from a pierced lung...
(On a related note, tanks don't have ignition keys.)
The uniform from the waist down will have a robotic-powered system that is connected directly to the soldier.
;-)
Psssst! Wanna see my gun?
This just really does beg to be joked about. And as for the nano-technology; I see lots of problems. For instance - how does the nanobots know the difference between the person and the clothing? Will they accidentally convert the person's skin from one thing to another? Think about it - one of the reasons crimes get solved is because all things leave traces of themselves on other things - like bodies. So the clothing you are wearing is actually leaving small amounts of itself on you as you wear them. If the nanobots are keyed to convert all of X into Y won't they then, just maybe, convert skin into....what? Or even if they just collect around the point of impact to solidify the cloth-like substance into an Ironman outfit - won't the speed of the bullet mean that by the time the nanobots converted the cloth that the bullet would have already partially penetrated the person's body? I mean, after all, they may be fast, but a bullet is travelling at an extremely high rate of speed. Thus, for every 1/10 or 1/100th of a second they attempt to converge on and stop the bullet - the bullet will have traveled some distance. And that distance is not a millimeter but maybe as much as a centimeter or decimeter. So suddenly the nanobots are attempting to stop the bullet after it has penetrated the skin. Wouldn't that mean that they might just enter the blood stream? If they are keyed to react to heat they might suddenly decide that the blood stream needs to be stopped.
So in reality, the nanobots would have to recognize that something was moving towards the target at a high rate of speed which, when the calculations are done, would show that the item would hit the target. Then the nanobots would all have to be told to go to the potential impact area so they could build up against the impact (or convert the cloth in that area to whatever material is going to be used to resist the impact). This doesn't account for exposed areas such as the head, hands, or other areas exposed by the nanobots rushing to one particular area (and possibly leave something hanging out for everyone else to see).
Last, but not least is the fact that multiple shots being fired from multiple locations at the same target could also confuse the nanobots leaving the person to look like a zebra or maybe a cheetah as the nanobots try to protect the person within the suit.
My money would be on a more classical outfit with a PDA for a brain, greater memory so it can handle the increased needs, some kind of multitasking OS so it can handle all of the requirements, and a networking/cellphone interface so it can handle that as well. Probably less than ten pounds altogether. If they used current laser technologies on transmitting data they'd just need one fiber to do all of the i/o and visuals. PDAs are already used to do sensing in classrooms, to do fingerprinting, and will very soon probably be able to run another display.
As for power - I see fuel cells as the way of the future with PDAs. Today's bulky fuel cells are going to be replaced by slimmer, lighter fuel cells. Thus, the PDA suit could be powered for an entire day if necessary via a fuel cell which conforms to the soldier's body.
Other methods to generate electricity for the suit could include light weight, piston based, energy generators. These generators are situated on the outside of the arms and legs. They are not heavy, bulky metallic rods but are instead smaller light weight polycarbon rods. The rods are hollow and have wires running back up to the helmet/neck region. (Or down to the lower back.) As the rods are pulled
Someone put a black hole in my pocket and now I'm broke.
Why did you get marked funny? This has been a critical point in Bush's plan.
The Iraq war and the Afghanistan conflict are a training arena for the world's army for when we storm North Korea. Did you notice the second largest army in Iraq is now South Korea and no longer Britain? Humm... 1 + 1 = ?
Imagine a large, well-trained, peaceful army in Iraq. That would be two large, well-trained peaceful armies in the area. Imagine how much effect they will have, even with no American soldiers within 2,000 miles!
With these armies in place, it will free up soldiers from places like, I don't know, South Korea, Saudi Arabia (which are now stationed in Kuwait and Iraq) and Europe. We will either be able to bring our troops home, or bring them to bear effectively on hot targets in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.