Realistic wanked out swords/close range weapons in sci-fi.

[Ford Prefect]

Why is the defensive technology suddenly so much improved over the offensive technology? Did the weapons designers go on a mass vacation for a hundred years or so?

Do you have any idea what they're talking about? They're talking about armour which can be far more massive than what a normal human could ever move even millimetres. A suit of powered armour could potentially have a ton or two of armour and still be faster and more agile than any normal soldier on the ground.

He is not suggesting that all weapons will be less effective, just that the armour will be good enough that it would take considerably more killing, which is perfectly plausible. An anti-armour warhead could very well turn the armour into nothing more than scrap, but normal soldier can't carry nearly as many of those as they can carry bullets. Conversely, the guy in the powered armour can tote around that sort of stuff, and due to the additional mass is a stable firing platform for larger and more powerful weapons.

It's not a case of armour being better than weapons technology, it's a case of troops in powered armour requiring more killing than normal troops.

[Starglider]

Why is the defensive technology suddenly so much improved over the offensive technology? Did the weapons designers go on a mass vacation for a hundred years or so?

Do you have any idea what they're talking about?

No he doesn't. He's clearly envisioning this as 'offense' and 'defence' stats in some mental RPS game. 'Wah waahh, you can't increase defence without increasing offence! That's unbalanced!' Physical realities don't seem to come into his model. See the discussion of nanostructured supermaterials in the thread on 21st century battleship plausibility. Improving armour strength does not magically improve the energy density of chemical explosives or the calibre of gun your infantry can carry. Maybe they will have man-portable railguns and halfnium RPG rounds, maybe they won't, but this is an independent research effort from power armour.

He is not suggesting that all weapons will be less effective, just that the armour will be good enough that it would take considerably more killing, which is perfectly plausible.

Yes. At range, this means engaging the power armoured troops with HMGs, RPGs and large-calibre recoiless rifles (or indeed just calling for fire support). But this thread is about what you do if you find yourself in close combat. The sticky thermite or shaped-charge grenade is probably the best option for normal infantry there (though it's still a long shot).

If that suit can do even half what is usually wanked about it, and is meant to work for long periods of time, I can't imagine any other power source besides nuclear that could be small enough, dense enough and powerful to do the job.

Fuel cells will do the job and have excellent thermal efficiency (compared to a human or a compact turbogenerator). You just have to refuel them every few hours. Obviously that's not practical for replacing general infantry, but for shock troops it's fine.

[Zixinus]

Fuel cells will do the job and have excellent thermal efficiency (compared to a human or a compact turbogenerator). You just have to refuel them every few hours. Obviously that's not practical for replacing general infantry, but for shock troops it's fine.

Which is why I added "for long periods of time".

[Starglider]

Which is why I added "for long periods of time".

My point was that a few hours of endurance isn't enough of a drawback to prevent powered armour from being deployed. It just prevents you from making it your standard infantry equipment (though cost and maintenance probably does that anyway, for near-future tech).

[Beowulf]

You're doing it again...

Why is the defensive technology suddenly so much improved over the offensive technology? Did the weapons designers go on a mass vacation for a hundred years or so?

Giving troops 10x the weight in armor they could have versus normal armor makes quite a difference in defense.

[Adrian Laguna]

You're doing it again...

Why is the defensive technology suddenly so much improved over the offensive technology? Did the weapons designers go on a mass vacation for a hundred years or so?

Tell me, when you see the following:




Do you conclude it's nothing but fantasy since defensive technology could never outpace offensive technology enough that a full suit of armour is plausible?

[Zixinus]

I recall that those things weren't impenetrable either. Granted, the better they became, that harder it became to penetrate it. But before gunpowder weapons came, these things could have been brought down by things like a warhammer.

[Starglider]

I recall that those things weren't impenetrable either.

But they took either luck, lots of training or specialised weapons (ideally all three) to take down. Militia going up against that were screwed.

But before gunpowder weapons came, these things could have been brought down by things like a warhammer.

Which are terribly unsuited to engaging spearmen or for that matter an oponent armed with a conventional shortsword and shield. So it's actually a good example of having to develop, purchase and issue special weapons to your infantry to deal with armour-wearing opponents.

[Covenant]

I recall that those things weren't impenetrable either.

But they took either luck, lots of training or specialised weapons (ideally all three) to take down. Militia going up against that were screwed.

Actually, if you could knock one of them over, they were pretty much boned. Most of the kills on knights were against guys who were felled and then either stabbed or speared through the eyeslot, under the arm, or other place. You could also just mash their head. The weapon of choice for a bowman--which is about as close to militia as you can get, was a lead hammer. People in that stuff were remarkably agile compared to what we think, but it's still no match for being two or three guys with sticks and hammers.

The real advantage was that most people didn't make weapons out of the same quality material as the armor. Late in the game when the armor became steel it basically outclassed most of the weapons. Some people might have had steel impliments capable of ripping the stuff up, but your average guy didn't. The best way to make an effective armor is to make it out of a material that is rare or expensive to produce, Gekiganium for example, and say that making bullets tipped with the stuff is expensive and stupid and that for some reason making it out of depleted uranium is just as ineffective.

If you're using powered armor to attack Space Peasents though, that's kinda silly. Just use a tank. Power Armor would need to be cheap and reliable to be used at all, and any fantastic material that provides exceptionally upgraded durability than modern metals would probably be best used on a tank. If a dude in a suit is immune to small arms, a tank would probably be even more immune, and a better riot suppression platform, since you can't trip it over and bury it or something. That'd be kinda funny. Knock the power armor guy into a hole and bury him on his back under gravel. That shit is a bit hard to fight your way through. ;D

[Starglider]

If you're using powered armor to attack Space Peasents though, that's kinda silly. Just use a tank.

The problem is rooting them out of their cities without levelling said cities. Tanks are awful for this. Even in open warfare, sometimes you want to capture bunkers (mostly) intact, and sometimes you're in mountainous or jungle terrain where tanks just aren't practical.

Power Armor would need to be cheap and reliable to be used at all, and any fantastic material that provides exceptionally upgraded durability than modern metals would probably be best used on a tank. If a dude in a suit is immune to small arms, a tank would probably be even more immune, and a better riot suppression platform, since you can't trip it over and bury it or something.

This is a valid argument against mecha (one of many), but not against powered armour, because there are a lot of places where a man-sized shape can go that a tank can't.

Knock the power armor guy into a hole and bury him on his back under gravel.

Probably won't work unless you use explosives or a pit trap; power armour will be pretty heavy, meaning plenty of inertia, and it's actively stabilised by computer controls. It may actually be rather harder to knock over than a normal human (did you see the vidoes of that 'packbot' quadrupedal robot the US army was testing? it was nearly impossible to knock over).

Interesting tangent actually - I wonder if centaur-like powered armour would be at all practical. It'd certainly give you plenty of extra volume for the power plant and fuel/ammo storage. Would take some practice to learn to move in though, even with bags of computer assistance, and would have trouble in tight corridors.

[Cykeisme]

I recall that those things weren't impenetrable either.

Then again, nothing is.

However, Adrian Laguna was simply making the point that heavy infantry have historically have had their place at the top of the battlefield. We have armored vehicles now, of course, but those can't go everywhere and do everything; infantry always have their place.

As has been stated, personal protection has outclassed offensive technology in the time of medieval knights, but it also has to be said that the knights were professionals with a lifetime of martial training and field experience (in addition to the disparity in quality of available materials for weapon heads/blades, and the armor).

In a similar manner, advancement in materials (and perhaps high output-to-weight ratio servomotors, computer feedback control etc) may allow personal protection technology for the infantryman that provides adequate protection against weapons capable of striking at range.

If a dude in a suit is immune to small arms, a tank would probably be even more immune, and a better riot suppression platform, since you can't trip it over and bury it or something.

If infantry were not immune to small arms (as in reality), doesn't that make armored vehicles even more superior?

Infantry, however, are an intrinsic part of warfare. There's no reason why making them tougher would be a bad thing.

[Darth Wong]

Infantry, however, are an intrinsic part of warfare. There's no reason why making them tougher would be a bad thing.

Weight and cost come to mind. Part of the reason for the invincibly-armoured knight in medieval warfare was that he was a nobleman, and could afford (and put priority on) extremely expensive personal protection. There were no peasant knights. Today, soldiers are required in vast numbers, and are usually drawn from the lower classes rather than the upper classes.

If you imagined a future where the old social class structure was restored (we are heading in that direction today, after all) and it was socially required of wealthy people to fight for glory on the battlefield (we're certainly not heading in that direction today, but this is fantasy), I could imagine them walking around in powered exo-suits while the peasants who make up the bulk of the army have much more modest kit. The peasants would also be the ones going into buildings and tunnels while the wealthy cumbersome logistically expensive exo-suited nobility just take the glory jobs.

[Cykeisme]

On the other hand, aren't first-world nations trying to minimize casualties and turn warfare into a relatively safe endeavour for their troops? That seems to be the ideal at least, misguided or not.
Perhaps these personal exo-suits might not be economical in a no-holds-barred battle between superpowers, but what about the kind of thing that's going on in Iraq?

In this regard, is it possible for a hypothetical country, planet or space empire to have industrial production rise to the point where it can encase its troops in powered suits, but still have low enough a population that it can't afford to field large amounts of troops?
(We'd also have to assume they don't have cloning or sufficient AI tech to make clone or robot armies, unlike certain galaxies we know of :p ).

[Beowulf]

<1% of the population... Yup, that's massive numbers of troops. Few nations have troop numbers of more than 1% of the nation. North Korea is one of them. The US has 2 million troops, out of a population of over 300 million. And nowhere close to all of those troops are front line combat soldiers. In fact, less than a third of them are even in the Army or Marine Corps.

Demographically, 20+-4% of troops come from each quintile of income (methodology is based off of affluence of zipcodes troops come from, since actual income classes aren't recorded).

Comparitively, 16 million troops were mobilized for WWII by the US out of a population of about 132 million.

[Covenant]

Well, the point I was making with Tank vs. Armor was based on an assumption that any variety of powerpack able to move heaps of articulated metal around properly is going to be large itself. If we can eventually create suits of effective armor that are basically no different than a man in Full Plate, that would be very effective.

But a lot of the powered armor design theoreticals call for large hardiman style articlations, or at least Starship Troopers-esque mobile infantry armor. In which case they wouldn't be able to go down a Viet Cong tunnel or into a home or anything, since they'd be 8 feet tall, three tons, and would crush any door or stairway they entered in. It would also make it a lot more feasible to have stupid deadfall traps, like a 2x4 floor that wouldn't support a powersuit but which your Al Qaeda operatives could run across quite easily.

For powersuits to be an effective compliment to the role infantry plays nowadays, the suits need to be extremely form-fitting. I'd have no issues saying such a device would be way better than an unarmored dude--I've just got some question about if that's feasible. Your powersuited guy might end up weighing as much as a jeep.

[Lord Pounder]

Then we've got some armchair warriors declaring with all certainty that melee combat is useless, including some backpedalling from "melee is totally useless" to "soldiers are trained primarily with firearms, not melee".
Where do all these ideas come from?

However, you can easily use a pistol at that distance, making it a matter of point-and-click rather than swinging

Ah, right.

Oh please. Any halfwit can see a pistol's easier to use even within grappling range. It has nothing to do with my experience playing video games, which would actually lead me to conclude that the opposite is the case.

In a best case senario a pistol has what, 12 bullets? Do you have any idea how long it's take to eject an empty cartridge, grab a new one from where ever you stored it, load it and cock the gun?

[Ryan Thunder]

Then we've got some armchair warriors declaring with all certainty that melee combat is useless, including some backpedalling from "melee is totally useless" to "soldiers are trained primarily with firearms, not melee".
Where do all these ideas come from?
Ah, right.

Oh please. Any halfwit can see a pistol's easier to use even within grappling range. It has nothing to do with my experience playing video games, which would actually lead me to conclude that the opposite is the case.

In a best case senario a pistol has what, 12 bullets? Do you have any idea how long it's take to eject an empty cartridge, grab a new one from where ever you stored it, load it and cock the gun?

Damnit... of all the things I could forget about...

Aren't there some with more than that, though? I seem to remember hearing about pistols with 15-18 or so, but I guess it doesn't make that much difference...

Anyways, I suppose you could carry a few of them. But yeah, ammunition constraints, even so.

[Darth Wong]

On the other hand, aren't first-world nations trying to minimize casualties and turn warfare into a relatively safe endeavour for their troops? That seems to be the ideal at least, misguided or not.
Perhaps these personal exo-suits might not be economical in a no-holds-barred battle between superpowers, but what about the kind of thing that's going on in Iraq?

In this regard, is it possible for a hypothetical country, planet or space empire to have industrial production rise to the point where it can encase its troops in powered suits, but still have low enough a population that it can't afford to field large amounts of troops?
(We'd also have to assume they don't have cloning or sufficient AI tech to make clone or robot armies, unlike certain galaxies we know of :p ).

I don't think you understand. An army composed of power-suited soldiers is going to be wildly impractical for many reasons, and the very idea of pushing for such a return to the Roman Legion of all-in-one troops is not only archaic but is also ignorant of the whole concept of combined-arms warfare. It would be outrageously wasteful and expensive to manufacture armoured power suits which offer anywhere near as much protection as a half-decent armoured vehicle, and such suits would be totally inappropriate for certain kinds of infantry duty. The only reason to use them would be some kind of social condition, as I mentioned before, where wealth and social customs combine to make an impractical solution preferable to a practical one.

[MJ12 Commando]

Why would anyone build superheavy powered armor? It defeats the point of power armor. Space Marine Armor, MJOLNIR, I am not seeing a point when the guy wearing this stuff would just fall through the floor if they move too abruptly. (perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but that can be a real concern if your stuff is too heavy).

We've already reached a plateau in infantry-portable firepower WRT rifles and non-recoilless weapons, but body armor is still improving in terms of durability and capability. The new variant of Interceptor weighs a kilo less and provides superior protection, just as an example.

I'm not sure on the precise weight, but protection against level IV threats for a full body suit of armor should, assuming use of modern technologies, will probably come in around the "pop culture" weight of full plate armor. This is already within the limit of a fit man to move around in, although I doubt he'd want to for any stretch of time. This, furthermore, excludes any use of next-generation, potentially viable armor developments.

Adding batteries and a lightweight exoskeleton and whatnot to support it, I'm fairly sure a half-realistic suit of power armor would not be large enough or mass enough to be usable as an armored vehicle, nor would you want something of that level of protection, because then it becomes RPG bait and you're screwed. Rather, you build something about as large as an infantryman, so you don't have to worry about vehicle grade threats.

But that's just me. In my opinion all the armor in the world is completely useless if you can't make any use of it-and if you armor a powersuit enough to stop vehicle weaponry, you might as well make it 20 meters tall, give it a skirt and giant ceramic-plastic breasts, and paint it pink-the practicality of a powersuit that weighs 2 tons is very limited.

A practical powersuit is one that can go more or less where any normal soldier can go and NOT FALL THROUGH THE FLOOR. :p

[Ford Prefect]

Why would anyone build superheavy powered armor?

To make space for the jet pack, of course.

[MJ12 Commando]

To make space for the jet pack, of course.

Would this jet pack have retractable wings with chainsaw missile feathers on it? Only then would I support such an endeavor.

[Sea Skimmer]

Do you conclude it's nothing but fantasy since defensive technology could never outpace offensive technology enough that a full suit of armour is plausible?

Plate armor did not become common until about 1400, and full suits of plate armor even later then that. By this point the matchlock was already in use and could put a ball through even the chest plates. The result was full plate armor in fact had a very short life on the battlefield, and soon only the torso protection was retained since it could still stop glancing hits. Full plate was not the result of any advantage of defensive technology; it was the result of knights spending literal fortunes on personal protection. They wanted any advantage they could get, however slight. The life of a knight was very short; typically they didn’t live past 25.

In a best case senario a pistol has what, 12 bullets? Do you have any idea how long it's take to eject an empty cartridge, grab a new one from where ever you stored it, load it and cock the gun?

Best case, you can build a belt fed pistol if you want, a company actually offers belt fed M1911s. More realistically Glock offers 31 round magazines for most of its products and 15 rounds is a very common standard for semi automatics.

Based on your description of ‘loading a cartridge’ I suspect you have no idea what you are talking about, because even revolvers can have all cylinders reloaded at once with a speed loader. If you need to reload a pistol in action, then you’ve clearly got multiple attackers to deal with and some damn melee weapons probably would have gotten you killed already. I suggest you bring an FN Minimi light machine gun to avoid this situation, and four or five spare 200 round belts. That is a completely realistic load for a solider, and while the gun can’t take a bayonet it is more then heavy enough to smash someone’s skull.



As for powered armor, it has its place alongside conventional armored vehicles. However whatever materials technology and especially the power system you might develop to make such armor feasible would also apply to AFV design. You could either design lighter and much smaller vehicles with the same armor and firepower, or take existing designs and add more ammo and armor. Combat aircraft would also benefit, and all and all no military budget is going to be able to fund everything, powered suits may be a poor investment.

A huge problem with powered armor is going to be keeping down overall weight, bulk and ground pressure to the point that the mobility of the solider is not impaired. This is especially an issue in urban areas; contrary to what’s normally assumed bulky armor powered suits would probably work very poorly inside of buildings. Realistically you’ll never get much protection for such a suit without very excessive weight.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Why would anyone build superheavy powered armor? It defeats the point of power armor. Space Marine Armor, MJOLNIR, I am not seeing a point when the guy wearing this stuff would just fall through the floor if they move too abruptly. (perhaps I'm exaggerating a bit, but that can be a real concern if your stuff is too heavy).

Well, what about in space or other low gravity environments ?

[Zixinus]

Here is an important question: take a bio-space suit like that of Dr.Newman's development (http://www.marssociety.org.au/marsskin.php). It inhibits movement within reasonable attributes. As far as power-suits go, it has some basics, as it has its own air and most likely its own power source. So, for a basic mesh, it might be good. For the moment, lets assume that strength augmentation and exoskeleton is unnecessary.

Now, realistically, how feasible is it to make it combat-grade? Plates? A layer of special gel that hardens when given very high ? What else?

[MJ12 Commando]

Well, what about in space or other low gravity environments ?

In that case your limit becomes how much mass you can lug around.

Remember, it costs quite a bit to lug around even a single kilogram-and if your super armored soldiers can be disabled by spinning the colony at 1 G or thereabouts you're probably screwed.

Also, bulk: all that armor adds to bulk, makes the suit harder to control, etcetera etcetera.

In most cases you'll be a lot better off with a tank and a few platoons of lighter power armor than 2-3 platoons of really heavy stuff.