livescience.com/technology/0 … _suit.html
Just starting, compared to how advanced this can get in the near future.
Check out the bit of info here about Japanese power_suits.
(( - For anyone who as played Star-Craft before: - ))
Something more lime a Terran suit will be possible in the future, for the military, etc. But, more-likely, there will be warbots in the future, as human polits will eventually cost more then on-board computers.
Dan,
I’m semi-retired from a company in France that makes equipment that is sold to various military bodies. I can tell you that lots of companies are trying, no racing, to invent a working model of an exoskeleton.
You can find prototypes online.
However, I bet that the end product will look more like the suit that you posted. That’s because you can’t have the mechanisms of the exo exposed, because one shot could disable it.
The goal, so far, is not to have the suit be as strong as Superman, but have it be stronger by several percent, so that would make the soldier better than an Olympic athlete. Also, the soldier if knocked unconscious can have his suit remote controlled back home.
I hope to live long enough to see one in action.
Dan~,
I think the first suits will be very similar to the one in the link you posted. I can see them being marketed to the wealthy elderly who don’t want to suffer the indignity of being stuck in a scooter.
To think that the military would waste so much money on exoskeletal suits that would give only marginal benefit just to have them shot up is assinie.
The military started working on them about eight years ago. If they are armoured it won’t be tin, but something pretty tough, and it will be easier to fix that a shot soldier. They will be amazing for morale too.
Remote control back home? Shit. I might start up heavy drinking again, if I can get one of those. Maybe not so good for married guys.
I like the married guys bit!
I just love the idea that an injured, or even dead, soldier can be brought home. That will deny the enemy bodies or play things.
I assume that the US will have this stuff first.
Well you’ll have your suits one day, but I predict the fighers, bombers and many other land-vehicles will be anything between remote-controlled and automated, because polits will cost too much compared to the alternatives in the future.
The pilots are the cheapest thing in modern warfare, easily expendable and replaceable.
I can just picture a squad of these ‘suited’ soldiers in the future being ambushed by their enemy. Now the enemy has the technology, and the US military is out a few hundred million.
Ah, but wait the US military can see that too, and when they are raising a whole class of future soldiers in the low rent districts of all the large urban centers it doesn’t make any sense to throw that kind of technology to their enemies. They’ll keep their high priced technology away from the front lines where it can be captured. The bomb loaders on the carriers might get to play with some, but not the G.I. Joes.
power suits? please… zoot and leisure were enough…
-Imp
It seems likely that such suits would not be for conventional military use, but used in the urban warfare situations where there is greater personal exposure.
The US military realized years ago that its soldiers would rather not kill people. This idea was based on stats from WWII, which I won’t go into. So, they started a whole program, kind of like a weird political correctness, about how the killing would be addressed. You say target instead of person and antipersonnel device instead of bomb, and so forth.
The more distance that you can get from the idea of killing the better. So, a bomb is better than a knife because your soldier has to deal with less horror.
As you say, automated or remote controlled weapons are the next step in this goal. Also, the biggest complaints that Americans have is that “our boys are dieing” and if the boys are back at base controlling the 'bots, then public complaints will go down. That’s good for business.
I believe that the power suits will be used though, and that’s for a couple of reasons. One, they will intimidate, and that is a part of battle. Seeing your fighters getting lifted up like rag dolls will not improve morale. Two, unless a robot suit could be as smart as a person, or have such a great remote interface, that it allows for the use of all the senses it won’t be used. Soldiers use all of their senses to know when to move and when to be cautious.
Many military devices contain devices that allow the user to destroy it in some way or another. These things will have all the GPS tech in them and one little signal could do them in.
Also, if you’re fight primatives like in the middle-east they wouldn’t even know what they had on their hands or how to understand it.
Personally, I’d put some kind of bomb in each suit.
Land-Warrior it’s a “power” suit isn’t it?
Land-Warrior
That’s not what we’re talking about.
A power suit would, at base, be a metal frame that surrounds the soldier. The frame is filled with servos and other devices that act as muscles, thus allowing the person to be stronger and faster than a normal human.
fuck, this could make war ugly.
kamakazi war robots and planes comming to your village would suck ass.
I would freakin’ love to have my own powered battle suit! Either a Warhammer 40K style power armour, Rifts Glitter Boy armour or a good ol’ Stormcrow. 
I’m retarded about this sort of thing, so I have a dumb question.
I can see the purpose of armor, that's pretty self-explanatory. But in a world of firearms, why does a soldier need to be [i]stronger[/i]? I mean, I can see it as a fringe benefit, but I don't see why it's worth all the frenzied research. About all I could see is that a stronger soldier could carry larger guns, and sport heavier armor. Is that the thought?
Ucc,
Right now, the weight of armor protection, weaponry, communications, field equipment is so heavy that you have to have the strength of a lowland gorilla just to haul your butt around. An exoskeleton would relieve the weight penalty as well as enhance movement on the battle field. Consider: a light rifle mounted to the frame that is ‘pointed’ by eye-scanning goggles (a technology we already have). How about frame mounted heating or cooling units for extreme weather conditions? The list of potentials is unlimited. The real issue is battlefield superiority, and anything that allows a soldier to be quicker, stronger, more lethal than his adversary is the goal of all armies.
That’s correct.
If you can carry all of your gear and say run at ten or fifteen mph then you’re going pretty well. All of this while wearing a mini-tank makes for an attractive package. There’s also a major psyops element to it that brings it all together.
Ask yourself how you, as you, with a machine gun would like to face that.