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

[Ryan Thunder]

I don't think its feasible, but they probably imagine it carrying bigger versions of small arms.

Of course, this is pure conjecture based on my experience with sci-fi power armour...

[Shroom Man 777]

Purely out of curiosity, has the venerable Shroom Man here always been this... vacuous?

Not really. But yeah.

Vacuous, huh? Well I'll show you!

Yeah, the whole idea of power armour begs the question of what kind of weapons they plan to use with these things. It can't be a really big weapon for many reasons, so what would it carry in order to make its price tag worthwhile?

Some bastard hate-child of an automatic grenade launcher and a machinegun (an OICW from hell, if you may)? Or an Old Painless minigun?

If power armor is being used, meaning that really high-tech stuff is flying around, it could also have some kind of point defense system. Like those ARENA-things, or some other mechanism that shoots rockets at rockets or bullets at bullets and all points in between. These things are already being developed and fielded (which is more than can be said about any kind of power armor).

Then again, if power armor is being fielded by a whole lot of troops, insurgent snipers swapping their crummy SVDs for .50 cal anti-material sniper rounds is gonna be a bad thing. And, really, how can hulking power armors take cover from snipers? Conversely, they could sport radars and stuff that can triangulate the sniper fire.

It's like trading some of the weaknesses of infantry for some of the weaknesses of the vehicle. Would you rather be totally invulnerable to AK-47 fire and shrapnel but be a big honking target for snipers and RPGs (though not as much as even larger vehicles)? Is that worth a million dollars per soldier?

One thing's for sure, maintenance is gonna be a bitch with powered armor. Insurgents might not be able to blast a hole through that armored infantry fighting machine thing, but a prolonged war is surely gonna burn a hole through the military's pockets.

The military's probably gonna have to quit up-armoring those Humvees so they can have enough money to pay for those power armors. Logistic troops in convoys are probably gonna have to resort to putting piles of MREs and ration cans on the floors of their trucks and jeeps since the military's too busy wanking on those golden boy Powered Assholes to care about convoy and logistic peoples.

[Darth Wong]

The choppers were also flying at many hundreds of feet off the ground and moving at much higher speeds. A power-armoured trooper would be relatively easy to hit compared to a chopper, unless he's actually not significant bigger or slower than a normal infantryman: a rather wanky proposition.

Two choppers were hit in Somalia, both of them large UH-60 Blackhawks. The first one was conveniently hovering in place, 20 or 30 metres off the ground. I'm not sure whether the second one was stationary or not, but I am fairly sure it wasn't that high off the ground either.

That's the way it was portrayed in the movie Blackhawk Down. In real life, they were much higher off the ground when they got hit, and they were moving erratically in an attempt to avoid RPG fire.

[Vympel]

Not to mention that RPG strikes against helicopters were also successfully done in Afghanistan (against the Soviets), Chechnya, and Iraq right now.

Some bastard hate-child of an automatic grenade launcher and a machinegun (an OICW from hell, if you may)? Or an Old Painless minigun?

A high ROF weapon of any kind for a land warfare platform's stupid. The only reason multi-barrelled weapons are used is when the time to engage the target is short so you want to get as many rounds on target as possible quickly. It's useless and wasteful otherwise.

[Shroom Man 777]

And the real-life events of Black Hawk Down, a total of five helicopters were hit. Only two crashed in hostile territory though.

A high ROF weapon of any kind for a land warfare platform's stupid. The only reason multi-barrelled weapons are used is when the time to engage the target is short so you want to get as many rounds on target as possible quickly. It's useless and wasteful otherwise.

Then how about a bigger version of the semiautomatic grenade component of the OICW, then. In 40mm?

Fuck it, Power Armors need Bolters. A weapon with a modest ROF that shoots exploding rocket bullets (aka RPGs).

Or just a bloody M2 heavy machinegun.

[Sea Skimmer]

Given the likely visibility of these things and the fact that the power armour wankers are envisioning them being used much like armoured vehicles, I don't see why they wouldn't get nailed the way the Soviets did in Grozny, by people shooting volleys at them from above in the streets.

The Russians committed several regiments of tanks, without even maps of the city, or any kind of infantry, artillery or air support at all. The units had little training and suffered from awful equipment and organization following the mass disruption of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Under those circumstances any attack was going to be torn apart, the tanks had no ability to respond to a close range high elevation ambush. The weapons simply can’t elevate high enough, except for the commanders machine gun. That really doesn’t tell us anything about anything.

Anyway, Somalia was a good example of how easy it is to acquire RPGs, but it's no secret that those guys have the tactical skill of feral animals, so it seems a bit unfair to gauge the tactical effectiveness of the weapon on the basis of the Mogadishu mobs.

Mass RPG spam is typical of any battle the weapon is used in, a number of battles in Iraq in 2003 saw thousands of RPG rounds fired. It’s just not that effective a weapon round for round. You’d also need to worry about thrown and rifle launched grenades (thrown anti tank grenades kill a lot more US soldiers in Iraq then you’d ever think) besides heavier weapons.

Yeah, the whole idea of power armour begs the question of what kind of weapons they plan to use with these things. It can't be a really big weapon for many reasons, so what would it carry in order to make its price tag worthwhile?

Probably a 7.62mm medium machine gun or an OICW like weapon as the main weapon; plus a carbine as a bail out weapon for the user. Any other armament is going to depend on the threat and mission; logically these things would still be used in squads with a varied armament.

The bit with the RPGs. Doesn't the self-destruct go off ~300m. I vaguely remember reading in Black Hawk Down that AQ taught the Somali militas to mess around with the self-destruct in order to use RPGs as anti-helicopter weapons...I wonder if those helicopters would have been downed had they had NOTARs instead of tail rotors.

Maximum ballistic range is about 1,100 meters; the self destruct will function 100-200 meters before that depending on the model and warhead. The Somali’s cut down the length of the fuse so they’d explode at a much closer range then this, though as it was most damage was still from direct hits. This tactic had been adapted from the resistance in Afghanistan.

Then how about a bigger version of the semiautomatic grenade component of the OICW, then. In 40mm?

They already did that, only with a much more practical 25mm round to make the XM-25. I’d take this weapon and modify it for a larger double stack magazine and the ability to take a submachine gun or shotgun as an attachment. The HEDP round would give it a potent ability to take out other powered armor. The cartridges could also be loaded for a higher velocity, since recoil can be allowed to increase considerably.

.50cal weapons don’t make much sense unless the enemy can be expect to deploy power armor himself. Even in that case you might still go with an intermediate weapon, perhaps a selective fire rifle based around .338 or .300 Lapua Magnum, if that’s even practical (it’s a long cartridge).

[Shroom Man 777]

.50cal weapons don’t make much sense unless the enemy can be expect to deploy power armor himself. Even in that case you might still go with an intermediate weapon, perhaps a selective fire rifle based around .338 or .300 Lapua Magnum, if that’s even practical (it’s a long cartridge).

Mmmm...and you could always just use the 25mm grenade launcher on the other power armors. How effective are the AP-variants of them 25mm grenades (against armor)?

If (in this alternate hippotesticle senareo) power armor is feasible, then maybe railgun/gauss tech is also likewise developed. You could get a railgun loaded with steel spikes with the ability of variable velocity firing. For infantry, it just shoots spikes with a ROF and velocity of a normal conventional weapon, but when faced against powered armor or vehicles, it cranks up the juice and fires its steel spikes at velocities equal or higher than any .50 caliber anti-material round we've got today.

Then in the shitholes of Afghanistan or Vietnam (if in this future there's a President Richard Nixon Jr. who wants to avenge his daddy in 'Nam) our railgun-totting badass Power Armors kill Charlies by the thousands and then, as hordes and human waves of the Brown/Yellow Peril rise up to avenge their fallen comrades and die against the technological and military might of America's finest... the Armors run out of juice.

Hrm, let's stick with firearms that don't need batteries then

[[R_H]]

snip

How effective are the AP-variants of them 25mm grenades (against armor)?

Around 51mm for the AP round (XM1049) Source
Doesn't give at what range this penetration was for though.

[MJ12 Commando]

Yeah, that's why predator drones have been totally useless on the battlefield ... wait.

They're useful as recon because they're relatively difficult to detect. Predators also fly a lot higher up and are capable of effectively using satellite communication as they are, you know, airborne.

Unless you plan for the drone to have a giant top-mounted drill which pokes holes in whatever buildings it has to enter, there is pretty much no way to have reliable communications save for LOS. So basically you either have wires or you have the guy overseeing the drone following a few meters behind it to keep in line of sight.

For the foreseeable future you'll need constant supervision for a drone to do all but the most basic tasks.

You're talking about HARM missiles now? If the enemy has such weaponry, they would definitely have RPGs. Why the fuck do you think a power armour would survive in that case?

Because the effective range of a RPG against a *TANK* is 150 meters. Unless you're literally waiting in the doorway to give someone a shaped-charge hug, I doubt its effectiveness against a single infantryman.

Powered exoskeletons that A) don't have the power to carry all of that heavy armour, and B) don't have the speed, flexibility or agility of a normal person. Calling them analogues to sci-fi power armour is like saying that my son's remote-controlled 4x4 toy truck is a military drone.

And we have military drones that A) don't mount weapons, and B) have zero ability to function without a single person babysitting them.

Since the whole point of this wasteful exercise is to reduce the likelihood of the human getting killed, it's still far more efficient to get the human entirely out of the suit. And it's idiotic to compare the labour of the human inside the suit to the programmer; you only need one programmer for countless drones, as opposed to one human for every single suit.

What about all the trained drone operators since they'll still need human judgement? Not only do you need more programmers and more bug-fixing time, you need the same amount of people.

And you think power armour is more feasible?

More feasible than a bunch of remote control drones that can have their communications disrupted by going into a building on a bad day? This does not even have to be asked.

Bullshit. One RPG = dead power armour pilot. Same goes for IEDs or even .50cal sniper rifles. And here you are talking about how you can't use a drone because of HARM missiles

...well, maybe if the other side had the accuracy to shoot a gnat's ass off at a thousand meters. In real life, people miss a hell of a lot more than they hit, and if it was so effective to use .50 cal sniper rifles against people we'd see that a lot more, since modern body armor already stops most common sniper rounds.

RPGs have pretty much zero effective range against single infantry-they're already marginal against people wearing modern body armor due to the inherent inaccuracy of fin-stabilized rockets. It'll take a very lucky and very skilled shooter to be able to hit a man-sized target with any semblance of reliability.

IEDs are going to be far less threatening to a guy in a bomb blast suit on steroids than they are going to be to infantry. They also are fundamentally more cost-effective than any potential counters in the first place, due to what they are. It's not as if the insurgents aren't winning a cost war oh-so-horribly in the first place.

.50 caliber sniper rifles are heavy, difficult to set up, require a fixed position, greatly reduce the user's mobility, cost a lot, and generally are total pains in the ass to use in any combat situation. They're not something you can just whip out from the middle of nowhere and shoot someone with.

Will they be threatening? Yes. Will they be some kind of magic anti-powersuit counter? Nope. Not seeing it. You might want to wonder why nobody ever uses them today even though hitting the head with a sniper bullet is quite difficult at any decent range, and modern ballistic armor is proof to level IV already.

In Somalia, the militias had something like a thousand RPGs, and they used them freely. Don't tell me that it would be particularly difficult to acquire or deploy weaponry that can kill these walking budget busters.

RPGs are pretty much a joke against people wearing flak jackets, let alone someone wearing full body powered armor. And budget busters? Maybe, but that doesn't make them ineffective. A lot of things are cost-inefficient but effective even despite that fact.

[Shroom Man 777]

For the foreseeable future you'll need constant supervision for a drone to do all but the most basic tasks.

And for the foreseeable future, no one is going to be fielding any powered armor.

Basically you're comparing the capabilities of a modern drone (bomb disposal, or those SWORDS which are basically M-16s on Tamiya wheels) to a fictitious RAR hippotesticle alternatesenareo RAR Powered Armor.

It's basically like pitting a real-life German tank from WWII to someone's vague preconception of a mecha, like a Gundam.

Or H.G. Wells: That "tank" is never going to be the way to the future! Their primitive treads can barely get them across trenches, why, the Tripod would never have that disadvantagement! And these...airplanes? How can the Wright Brothers possibly conceive of a concoction that will stop my Sky Chariot!

When technology is advanced enough to provide an infantryman with a million dollar suit composed of hydraulically-articulate superarmor making him impervious to small arms fire and everything up to and including things that go boom, like something straight out of a sci-fi, don't you think tech will also be up to a point where a drone's friggin walkie talkie will allow its operators to control the thing despite the presence of a cloudy sky and a roof over its head?

Because the effective range of a RPG against a *TANK* is 150 meters. Unless you're literally waiting in the doorway to give someone a shaped-charge hug, I doubt its effectiveness against a single infantryman.

Look at the size of that thing. An insurgent would need some kind of milti-million dollar power armor to lift that huge ass rocket up, put it in some kind of harpoon gun, and shoot it at our Goliath Drones!

And we have military drones that A) don't mount weapons, and B) have zero ability to function without a single person babysitting them.

Which system is currently being fielded in the battlefield with success?

What about all the trained drone operators since they'll still need human judgement? Not only do you need more programmers and more bug-fixing time, you need the same amount of people.

If the drone explodes, its parents are not gonna cry, nor are they gonna end up becoming disgruntled when the US government uses its death for political purposes despite the cause of death being a covered-up friendly fire incident.

And a remote controlled gun-on-a-wheel isn't gonna burn a million dollar hole.

More feasible than a bunch of remote control drones that can have their communications disrupted by going into a building on a bad day? This does not even have to be asked.

Yeah, I mean, drones suck. How can anyone ever possibly imagine the inconceivable and momentous technological feat of creating this great and advanced radio transmitter that won't be impeded by clouds or rain.

Instead, let's equip our soldiers with million-dollar suits of perfectly plausible science fiction armor with hydraulics. From the future. From R&D projects that haven't even begun yet. It makes me hard. Sci-fi.

And here you are talking about how you can't use a drone because of HARM missiles

But Wong! Um...uhh...err...! The insurgents won't be able to hit our hulking powered armored contraptions with RPGs or IEDs or ECGs or SATs or whatever hellish weapons they can pull out of Acronym Hell. No, instead they'll be able to fire thousands and thousands of F-14 mountedHARM missiles at our drones!

And see, because our drones are simply guns with wheels on them, they'll have a significantly more bigger target profile than hulking power armors!

And see, because drones are gonna be cheaper than million-dollar-per-man power armor and less maintenance extensive, an army can never field more drones than our fictional battlefield power armor whose rudimentary design hasn't even been combat tested or even fielded yet.

Only a few soldiers can possibly use the inaffordable Power Armor and even if the insurgents have RPGs up the wazoo, we will triumph!

Only thousands of low-maintenance and disposable drones can be fielded, and even if the insurgents can't carry those motherfucking HUGE HARM missiles that don't even come in manportable variants...drones will doom us all!

Because making a million dollar super technologically bad ass Powered Armor is easy and cheap and affordable compared to making some kind of remote control that can burn through clouds and roofs.

[MJ12 Commando]

And for the foreseeable future, no one is going to be fielding any powered armor.

Basically you're comparing the capabilities of a modern drone (bomb disposal, or those SWORDS which are basically M-16s on Tamiya wheels) to a fictitious RAR hippotesticle alternatesenareo RAR Powered Armor.

Incorrect. I'm comparing the capabilities of a near-future drone (one with limited autonomy and independent capability of acting, with autonomous engagement capability about as good as the X-45) to a near future suit of power armor that is, if anything, fairly conservative.

If I wanted a RAR hippotestical suit of armor, I'd be talking a lot less conservatively.

It's basically like pitting a real-life German tank from WWII to someone's vague preconception of a mecha, like a Gundam.

No, it's pitting a hypothetical future tank with a hypothetical future mech.

When technology is advanced enough to provide an infantryman with a million dollar suit composed of hydraulically-articulate superarmor making him impervious to small arms fire and everything up to and including things that go boom, like something straight out of a sci-fi, don't you think tech will also be up to a point where a drone's friggin walkie talkie will allow its operators to control the thing despite the presence of a cloudy sky and a roof over its head?

The former is an engineering problem. The latter can be solved one of two ways-by either handwaving, or having a transmitter powerful enough to fry small furry animals and make a shoot me sign.

Because the effective range of a RPG against a *TANK* is 150 meters. Unless you're literally waiting in the doorway to give someone a shaped-charge hug, I doubt its effectiveness against a single infantryman.

Look at the size of that thing. An insurgent would need some kind of milti-million dollar power armor to lift that huge ass rocket up, put it in some kind of harpoon gun, and shoot it at our Goliath Drones!

Which system is currently being fielded in the battlefield with success?

Red herring.

If the drone explodes, its parents are not gonna cry, nor are they gonna end up becoming disgruntled when the US government uses its death for political purposes despite the cause of death being a covered-up friendly fire incident.

And if the drone accidentally kills someone, it's obviously a conspiracy since machines don't make mistakes. The PR sword cuts both ways.

And a remote controlled gun-on-a-wheel isn't gonna burn a million dollar hole.

It also has zero use as an infantry replacement. An infantry supplement, yes, but not a replacement. A power armored soldier can replace infantry, since it *is* an infantryman in a funky suit.

And gun-on-wheels are not mutually exclusive with power armor. This isn't some kind of RTS where you have a tree that gives you power armor and a tree that gives you drones-there's an obvious overlap. I expect an army which fields power armored infantry to support them with drones, because, as many mentioned, drones are more expendable.

This is essentially what DARPA wants for the next generation soldier-power armored guy with drone support.

Yeah, I mean, drones suck. How can anyone ever possibly imagine the inconceivable and momentous technological feat of creating this great and advanced radio transmitter that won't be impeded by clouds or rain.

Clouds and rain are easy. BUILDINGS are much harder. You will notice I never argued that UCAVs were even remotely useless, and my argument hinges on the fact that a drone needs human supervision and cannot be human-supervised in most important areas without essentially trailing a giant cable back outside, which can be disrupted by any guy wielding a bolt cutter.

Modern wireless has an effective range of about 20-30 meters. This is in an environment where nobody is shooting at you and there is nothing further to disrupt your transmissions. To have a viable remote drone, you need real-time video and audio, and you need to be able to put out enough juice that the guy way back safe in home base can see it... or you might as well just use that money to field some more guys in flak jackets wielding M-16s.

All modern drones are either controlled by people in the field, or are flying so LOS is fairly irrelevant.

But Wong! Um...uhh...err...! The insurgents won't be able to hit our hulking powered armored contraptions with RPGs or IEDs or ECGs or SATs or whatever hellish weapons they can pull out of Acronym Hell. No, instead they'll be able to fire thousands and thousands of F-14 mountedHARM missiles at our drones!

Why would you fire a missile of that sort against drones, when you have a big, obvious, expensive, electronics-filled target called a "control center" that you can shoot it at to shut all those drones down in an actual fight?

And the HARM example was not for insurgents, but rather a relatively well equipped enemy army.

And see, because our drones are simply guns with wheels on them, they'll have a significantly more bigger target profile than hulking power armors!

And see, because drones are gonna be cheaper than million-dollar-per-man power armor and less maintenance extensive, an army can never field more drones than our fictional battlefield power armor whose rudimentary design hasn't even been combat tested or even fielded yet.

Man what? I never said a drone would be an easier target, or that they wouldn't be cheaper if you only consider the drone itself. What I said is that you have to have some extremely expensive and reliable transmissions technology and you have to have it somewhere in the field, and that is a major point of failure, as well as a major problem.

Again, no infantry replacement drone has also been fielded-what we have now are radio controlled gun platforms on tracks that need a controller within fairly close proximity of the weapon itself to use. So no, your infantry drones have NOT been fielded yet.

And if DARPA believes power armor is viable enough to do serious research on, I would like some proof that near-future power armor is either impossible or obviously less efficient than drone technology.

Only a few soldiers can possibly use the inaffordable Power Armor and even if the insurgents have RPGs up the wazoo, we will triumph!

Given that less armored, less sensor-equipped, less heavily armed soldiers are triumphing against insurgents with RPGs up the wazoo already, I don't see how giving a soldier better mobility, survivability, sensors, and firepower is going to change this.

Only thousands of low-maintenance and disposable drones can be fielded, and even if the insurgents can't carry those motherfucking HUGE HARM missiles that don't even come in manportable variants...drones will doom us all!

...yeah, way to completely miss the point that a HARM missile costs less than the hundred million dollar drone control trailer full of very expensive electronics.

Because making a million dollar super technologically bad ass Powered Armor is easy and cheap and affordable compared to making some kind of remote control that can burn through clouds and roofs.

...when you factor in that you need real-time, relatively high resolution video? Yes. The best wireless connections today are basically only really capable of transmitting high-resolution real-time video and audio across a hundred feet. Inverse square law is a bitch.

[MJ12 Commando]

Argh, apparently you can't edit your posts, so I'll have to elaborate on that.

The system "fielded with success" is a very cheap, disposable, recon drone that has to be remote controlled by a guy in the field. It is not an infantry replacement of any sort. They are not intended to be infantry replacements.

The other systems fielded have similar qualities-remote controlled by someone in the combat area. This is about as similar to a actual combat drone that can work well enough that it can replace a guy in a metal suit as BLEEX is to our hypothetical power armor.

DARPA also seems to be spending about as much on R&D on power armor as it is on drones-this is not counting things that overlap, like gracefully failing computer systems and miniaturized power generators and artificial muscle or whatnot-just on the two technologies themselves. I'd give precise figures but there are 445 pages of budget in the source I'm going by and unless I'm paid for it I am not going to read my way through it all.

I know DARPA spends on silly things too, but the two are pretty much the biggest long-term projects they're actually concerned about and spending decent amounts of money on.

It'll take a bit to convince me that power armor is somehow totally useless. In most sci-fi? Sure, I agree, they should use drones instead unless you really want an actual person there. But in real life, power armor is probably going to be at least as useful, in the near future, as a remote controlled robot with a gun on it, if for completely different reasons.

[Shroom Man 777]

Damn. Well. Hrm. Uh. Okay.

Personally, I'm actually a fan of powered armor. But I don't think it's ever gonna be that widespread. The stuff's expensive, it's gonna be a specialized tool rather than a really prolific thing. It's all gonna be infantry supplement, when we're dealing with an insurgency.

Anyway, by the time any viable Power Armor gets developed, Drone technology is gonna be more mature - so it's the Armors that have to play catchup

And:

And if the drone accidentally kills someone, it's obviously a conspiracy since machines don't make mistakes. The PR sword cuts both ways.

If it's not an American who's dead, then it doesn't matter. To America.

[MJ12 Commando]

Well, what power armor should be thought of in the near future is a dedicated urban combat vehicle. Obviously power armor is going to be pretty much useless for its cost in an open field battle.

But in most recent wars urban combat has played a major role-if you give an infantryman trained for urban warfare more armor, a better weapon, and do so with little loss of mobility, you've stacked the deck massively in your own favor.

Also: Assuming they can get BLEEX to move at human-level speed it can already carry 60 kg of weight for extended periods of time. Power armor tech is being developed piecemeal, rather than in a whole like drones are, but a lot of it's there.

[Ryan Thunder]

Also: Assuming they can get BLEEX to move at human-level speed it can already carry 60 kg of weight for extended periods of time.

So can a Marine...

[brianeyci]

I'm not going to get into this power armor bullshit, but it seems to me some people are not looking at the bigger picture. If the United States was to field power armor (and it would probably be the United States let's face it) wouldn't the rest of the world's arms be more potent as well?

Instead of weakass RPG's the US would be facing the latest generation of RPG's. I would expect Metal Storm in the hands of terrorists before the US had working power armor, and if they don't have potent power armor then what is the point if it can't stop current generation stuff?

What kind of achievement is it if there's a power armor that can stop an AK-74, from 1976?

[Sea Skimmer]

Around 51mm for the AP round (XM1049) Source
Doesn't give at what range this penetration was for though.

51mm is the requirement in the specifications, which happens to be the same as the requirement for the existing 40mm HEDP grenade; so it’s going to be a real technological challenge to equal that with a much smaller 25mm round. However even 25-30mm penetration of steel should be ample against power armor with a realistic level of armoring. Range doesn’t matter, only striking angle, as it uses a shaped charge rather then kinetic energy to defeat armor.

Mmmm...and you could always just use the 25mm grenade launcher on the other power armors. How effective are the AP-variants of them 25mm grenades (against armor)?

25mm grenades would be effective all right, but the accuracy isn’t the best thing ever, and they are much heavier and bulkier then rifle and machine gun ammo. That’s why you’d prefer a .50cal or 14.5x114mm rifle if you specifically chose a weapon for taking out other armored suits.

As for EM weapons, making one of those compact, light and above all reliable enough for use even by a powered armor solider would be incredibly difficult. It may one day be possible, but yeah, not needing batteries is good, but in fact you’d need capacitors which could explode easily if hit by enemy fire. I’d fully expect we’ll be able to build the power armor suit first.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'm not going to get into this power armor bullshit, but it seems to me some people are not looking at the bigger picture. If the United States was to field power armor (and it would probably be the United States let's face it) wouldn't the rest of the world's arms be more potent as well?

The US has numerous times fielded high tech highly expensive weapons which only a handful of other nations ever matched, and only then after delays of up to a decade. Some of the latest gadgets like the F-22 don’t even have competition in development yet. I don’t see any reason why it would be any different with powered armor suits costing a million dollars or more. How many nations can build the latest robotics equipment to start with?

Instead of weakass RPG's the US would be facing the latest generation of RPG's.

Why? Why does the US buying power armor suits mean people all over the world suddenly have the latest RPGs? The insurgents in Iraq could REALLY use the RPG-29 because then they’d be able to take out US tanks anywhere except the front turret armor, and yet they do not have that weapon. They usually don’t even have modern warheads for the RPG-7s they’ve already got. The basic RPG is 1940s technology, so is the AK-47. Most of the world is always going to be stuck with weapons like that.

I would expect Metal Storm in the hands of terrorists before the US had working power armor, and if they don't have potent power armor then what is the point if it can't stop current generation stuff?

Metal Storm is irrelevant and no more threat then any other gun of the same caliber, and it seems you really don’t comprehend much of anything if you can’t see the advantage of being proof against small arms and fragmentation.

What kind of achievement is it if there's a power armor that can stop an AK-74, from 1976?

Total protection against an AK-74 as a fucking huge advance. That is more of an advance in one step then all personal armor technology in-between, because for all modern body armor can do it simply can’t protect more then the torso without absurd penalties in weight and freedom of movement. A 155mm shell will kill men over a 30 meter radius; an armor suit proof only against 7.62 rifle rounds would already cut that radius down to less then 10 meters. Do you understand what just that alone would do to reduce casualties?

[MJ12 Commando]

So can a Marine...

Well, when we start installing the ability to wear other marines in our own marines, give me a memo, okay?

[Ryan Thunder]

What? They regularly go running with that kind of weight in packs, do they not?

[Beowulf]

I think packs are only up to about 75 lbs.

[MJ12 Commando]

What? They regularly go running with that kind of weight in packs, do they not?

The total weight of all the gear they issue an infantryman IIRC 45 or so kg. This is slightly less than 60 kg and much less than 60 kg that feels like 2 kg due to the exoskeleton you're wearing.

[Ryan Thunder]

I think packs are only up to about 75 lbs.

Shit, I must've confused the units.

My bad...

[brianeyci]

I don’t see any reason why it would be any different with powered armor suits costing a million dollars or more.

Well robotics has civilian applications to start with. It's not like power armor would be a military endeavour only unless it was developed with the kind of devotion and dedication a Manhattan Project was. It will likely be civilians who develop the technology, and it will probably be adapted to military purposes, not the other way around. It will be slow, gradual development.

You are basically saying third world shitholes will never have the money to afford anything but the most basic arms. I can't object to that, but there's no reason why the "basic" level has to stay the same forever. Eventually the rest of the world will get more advanced, whether you like it or not. Depending on your economy to be always strong enough to afford these wonder weapons is not good defense policy when the American economy is going into the shitter.

The insurgents in Iraq could REALLY use the RPG-29 because then they’d be able to take out US tanks anywhere except the front turret armor, and yet they do not have that weapon.

I thought they did have that weapon, at least according to Bush and some of the other "advanced" weapons that are trickling into Iraq from the news. Are all those news reports bullshit?

Regardless, the development of military weapons is not linear. Fourth generation can annihilate first generation, but if we keep going down the line the tenth generation won't do the same to the fifth generation, for example. At some point the cost and complexity is too enormous and mathematics will come into play. Superior numbers of slightly inferior equipment will eventually defeat technologically superior equipment. At some point diminishing returns kicks in.

I'm not saying that the US should refuse to be the most technologically advanced. I'm just pointing out that the rest of the world advances, probably to a point where Powered Armor isn't worth it. Maybe F-22's are.

Metal Storm is irrelevant and no more threat then any other gun of the same caliber, and it seems you really don’t comprehend much of anything if you can’t see the advantage of being proof against small arms and fragmentation.

Who says Metal Storm is a threat? My point of Metal Storm was about technology proliferation, you know, the whole point of my post, which you should know about the China fiasco. Who says it's even possible to stop firepower to the point it's worth it? That was the question I was asking, which wasn't very clear so I apologize.

That is more of an advance in one step then all personal armor technology in-between, because for all modern body armor can do it simply can’t protect more then the torso without absurd penalties in weight and freedom of movement.

Man, I thought we were working under the assumption that power armor would have absurd penalties in weight and freedom of movement.

Do you understand what just that alone would do to reduce casualties?

The insurgents or whoever the US military is fighting will use different weapons. This isn't like Star Trek where the Federation is stuck using phasers on the Borg. If it really is the way you imagine it... tell me, be honest, you know more about weapons than me: how much money and innovation would it take to penetrate one of your Golden Boys powered armor? Just how do you imagine these guys getting used?

You may have a point if technology is so advanced like the F-22 that nobody else stands a chance, but do you really think powered armor would get to that point? What part of a combined arms team would power armor replace or enhance, and why not just demolish the house or try not to engage in house-to-house fighting instead? And if you got another idea other than clearing houses or maybe bombs (but why not use bomb robot) I'm listening.

[Zixinus]

What about power armour's little brother, armoured suit, a suit of relatively light composites that are heavier then normal soldier's protection gear but still offer improved protection?