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Inventor Slims Down Exoskeletal Body Armor
The Hamilton Spectator is reporting that inventor Troy Hurtubise, creator of the "bear-protection suit" made famous by taking a hit from a moving vehicle, has slimmed down his design in hopes of landing a lucrative government contract. From the article: "He has spent two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the 'first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armour.'"
- Beaten with baseball bats
- Slammed by a large log
- Pushed off a cliff
- Hit by a truck
- Beaten by a gang
Google Video has a different videoJust as a start, here's his Wikipedia entry.
So until his claims are proven, he's in the group of people whose claims should all be taken with a grain of salt.
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I want to say that the rifle (an elephant gun or not) was fired straight into the chest plate. The joints might not be so well armored (and in the 40 pounds version, they are not even be protected).
It's a play on the inventor's name, Troy. Trojan = "from Troy."
At the very least, maybe they'll use them in the Halo movie.
Jon Acheson
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From TFA:
Aren't the major joints kind of important? One baseball bat to the pelvis, and the bear-man would be pretty much fubared, no? Doesn't appear to be a real "invincible man" suit like this guy's other inventions.
Looks pimpy, though.
> I'd think in the future we'll see joy-stick controlled metal-storm/.50 cals
> where the gunner is inside a vehicle with software aided remote targeting
Actually, thats not the future, its been in use for a while.
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My supervisor at work used one of these when he was deployed and supposedly (I may not be remembering correctly, so assume any error is mine) it can put a grenade in a window at a 1000 yards.
Even then it would still work better than most stuff that humans ever used as body armour. If you look back into history, humans have been quite happy with a lot less before.
Humans settled for a chain byrnie (basically, inaccurately: t-shirt) for a long time, until basically everyone was already trained to slash at the legs. Then they basically just made it longer. When bodkin tips and primitive firearms made maille useless, people just came up with a thin plate armour, but even that wasn't as invulnerable as you'd think. Then eventually guns got more and more powerful and all the weight was concentrated in a super-thick breastplate and helmet... at the price of leaving the arms and legs completely unprotected again.
(As a side-note, that's one of the factors that confuses people about medieval armours. They see a late musket era breastplate that weighs a lot, and get ideas like, "man, the whole suit must have weighed 100 kilos." In fact, at that point the breastplate and the helmet were the whole suit.)
At no point was the armour supposed to make someone 100% invulnerable. Something like a lance during a cavalry charge was nigh impossible to reliably stop, because with an armoured man and a destrier horse behind it, that was a helluva lot of energy and momentum pushing that tip. So armour never really tried to be invulnerable to that. Estocs could do a pretty good job of penetrating a knight's armour, and so could warhammers (think a thin sharp spike perpendicular to the handle, much like a pickaxe, not the massive hammers portrayed in video games), and so could back-spikes on axes, spiked maces/morningstars and flails. Even if it didn't penetrate, a mace or flail hit could crush articulations.
And in the age of chain armour, it was even more funny. A good hard hit with a straight sword could easily crush tissue and break bones even if it didn't penetrate the mesh of iron loops. Padding helped a bit, but only so much.
Basically the purpose of armour in all ages wasn't to make you invulnerable, but to give you better odds. If on the average you could hope for 1-2 disabling blows deflected by armour before one finally got you, that was advantage enough. Anything more than that that would have been impractically heavy and ultra-expensive. The weight was especially a factor, as they actually had to be able to fight in those suits.
So basically what I'm saying is that if this suit's only vulnerability are the joints, well, then that's already head and shoulders over what has been considered good armour before.
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Ok, he's videotaped himself, IN THE SUIT, being hit by a truck, wailed on by baseball bats, etc. And you're arguing that the suit must not exist because he also believes in some other nutcase idea?
Look, the suit exists. There's documentary evidence. (Literally; a documentary was made about his efforts to use the suit to observe hibernating bears, which is what it was originally designed for.) Regardless of what else he believes, this is definitely a product that can be useful to the military.
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Tricky. Aramid polymers (such as Kevlar or Twaron) are a few times stronger per weight unit than steel. Thus a suit made of steel would be a few times heavier than its polymer counterpart. Thus I'd think there's little interest in such beasts.
One interesting snippet though is that bulletproof vests are not knife resistant and knife-resistant vests are not bulletproof. This has to do with the type of weave.
You are mixing "strength." Aramid polymers are not stronger than steel if your measure is bending it. They may be able to stop a bullet with a few times less material, but that's not a measure of "strength." If solid parts are so bad, why are the ballistic plates solid inserts into bullet proof armor? Solid is better than fabric sometimes. The benefit of this suit is not the suit as he makes it. He can't make it as it should be made. It should be lightweight but strong sandwiches of cermaics and steel, covered in a woven fabric (Kevlar, if you wish) bonded to it. Something with some form holding capabilities (the steel) added impact resistance (the cermaics), and penetration stopping (the fabric) all made into an armor patter like the one he laid out.
With the right materials, his would be bulletproof and knifeproof, just like you mention is difficult to do. It would also be lighter than people expect, though it would still probably be very bulky.
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In this video, he claims that the built-in AC unit is powered by powerpacks on the back of the helmet with solar recharging capability. (I presume the headlights are powered by the same packs.) FWIW, there are battery packs with extremely long field-use durability. Nothing incredible, but enough to keep the guy suited for an 8 hour mission before he has to visit the charger to swap battery packs.
Getting back to the Yucca Mountain thread the other day, they *could* use some of that material for batteries that never die, or at least recharge themselves. Unfortunately, I doubt the military would want to take the chance of any radioisotopes getting into the hands of enemy combatants.
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I believe it is because the Humvee is designed to be an all purpose vehicle, and the guns can be quickly mounted or dismounted depending on what they need the vehicle for. The Humvee is a truck first, and an armed platform second - quite the opposite of a tank or howitzer.
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For one thing, the primary risk is not from above, but from below (IEDs) and the sides (IEDs, small arms, RPGs), so that's where you should concentrate any additional armor. For another, there are limits to how much further the HUMVEE can be modified: it's already slow and dangerously prone to rollovers because of all the added armor, and adding armor to the top of the turret is going to make those problems even worse.
Well it's complicated. I'm an ex-Marine and the M-16 rounds we were issued were completely different from civilian rounds. For instance:
:)
* The powder they used was composed of silvery disks, not black powder grains. Each disk was about 1/32 of an inch wide, and flat. Someone told me once that they contain some magnesium to help the powder burn more consistently, but I can't verify that.
* The projectile itself was made of steel, with a thin core drilled through it and filled with lead (for weight). It was jacketed with copper.
* The muzzle velocity, according to our manuals, was 2800 feet per second. The chamber pressure was over 52,000 psi.
We were told that our modern M-16s would fire straight through a car. They went through people without even slowing down. This was apparently a reaction to some of the older, viet-nam era ammo being underpowered, deflected by brush, etc. HOWEVER, we were ALSO told that the body armor issued to Force Recons (our friends in the next berthing on ship) would stop "everything short of a fifty cal round". The armor was composed of layers of kevlar sandwiched with disposable ceramic/steel layered plates. The heavy kevlar vest padded the armor, the actual bullets were stopped by the plates. They were heavy, but the guys didn't complain!
Note that "everything short of a fifty cal round" means "fifty cal rounds penetrate rather effectively". If you've ever seen a fifty cal round, they're HUGE. The brass is like an inch or an inch and a half wide and a foot long, with the actual projectile being as big as your pinky. The rounds are made of steel with a lead core for weight just like all our other rounds. They'll go right through concrete, steel, you name it.
Funny anecdote: when I was in training, we were told "according to the Geneva convention, you may not fire a fifty cal at a human target! It is an anti-vehicle weapon only. So, Gentlemen, swing that fucker wide when you're hitting the pickup truck at the end of the street! And it's their own damn fault for getting in the way!"
Bottom line: it's possible to create armor that will protect against small arms fire (like AK-47's) but much harder to guard against a heavy machine gun like a Browning. If the suit works against most small arms fire, it's worth building. But you shouldn't expect miracles.
Unless they've changed pintle ring mounts since I was in the service, swapping guns is *less* than a 5-minute job. This isn't really a turret, it's a pintle on a rotating ring mount. You pretty much carry the gun to the vehicle, drop it on the pintle, and away you go. There are some specialized weapons that may require more complicated mounting, but I haven't seen one on that type of mount.
Good point about the replacement; Medical costs are folded in with the 'hospital stay' daily rate.
8 weeks of basic training would be $3k for the salary of the trainee alone, then you figure another $400 to feed him, $800 for his 'share' of the drill instructor.
Then you have the advanced combat training. Another 8 or so weeks(varies by specialty and enviroment), at $4k for the trainee's salary(been promoted), Another $1k because you have more personal training being conducted. Food, housing etc...
Call it $10k and 4-6 months to get yourself a basic squaddie.
As for the fitting, well, I'd do it the way I want to do weapons. You're issued your equipment, to include weapon, gas mask, and armor along with the more convential uniform items & duffel bag.
Well, come to think of it, the armor could be issued when the recruit reports for advanced combat training or is assigned to a combat position. That way the suit might fit a bit better, as most trainees gain weight once out of basic/boot.
I don't read AC A human right