Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by CBG »

Scorpion wrote: However ancient the target vehicle may be, it still has more armour than any suit of powered armour can ever hope to have. Any humanoid mechanism weighting 50 tons would bog down under it's own weight. (Specific pressure issues. Happened to the Tsar tank and the Maus.)
Armor thickness and armor coverage are two different things. Even 500 tons of armor won't help if critical parts are not covered by it.
Scorpion wrote:
"The model predicted 30 percent damage to armored vehicles and tanks; however, 67 percent damage was achieved. Fragmentation from the HE rounds penetrated the armored vehicles, destroying critical components and injuring the manikin crews."
It is not specified what happened to which vehicle. It could just mean that the fragmentation penetrated the top armor of an M557.
These tests were performed with the best available dumb HE rounds on post WW2 designs with steel armor and even no fucking spall liners (except for a simple, non kevlar one in the Patton). I think that a power armor would be made from better materials and with design better than a post ww2 armored vehicle.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Batman »

How would a man in power armour having a much smaller target profile than an armoured vehicle figure into this? Unless we assume something like Terminator armour at which point realism goes out the window anyway. PA troops are not all that much larger than your ordinary grunt AND can take cover or if all else fails simply lay down. AFVs...can't.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

Batman wrote:How would a man in power armour having a much smaller target profile than an armoured vehicle figure into this? Unless we assume something like Terminator armour at which point realism goes out the window anyway. PA troops are not all that much larger than your ordinary grunt AND can take cover or if all else fails simply lay down. AFVs...can't.
M864 comes with Dual-Purpose AP/AT submunitions. If it's good enough to handle AFVs with greater armor coverage, it's good enough for PA.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Batman »

I'm not doubting modern artillery can KILL a man in any reasonably realistic power armour. I'm asking how likely it is for him to be HIT by it as he or she is bound to be a LOT smaller than an armoured vehicle.
Sorry, but nothing in that link indicated that munition was actually HOMING.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by takemeout_totheblack »

M864 is a cluster round by the looks of it. It's filled with a shit-ton of Anti-Personnel and Anti-Armor grenades to saturate an area with HEAT flavored death.

The XM982 however is an artillery shell that can correct it's own trajectory mid-flight to hit its target by way of GPS and directional fins. With good intel the XM can reliably hit within 4 meters of its target.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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takemeout_totheblack wrote:The XM982 however is an artillery shell that can correct it's own trajectory mid-flight to hit its target by way of GPS and directional fins. With good intel the XM can reliably hit within 4 meters of its target.
It's out of the development stage so the XM000 is not appropriate anymore. Also might I just suggest calling it simply 'Excalibur'? It's what all the graduates of the Fort Sill Field Artillery School call it. There's also a laser designated M712 that everyone who graduated from the school simply like to call Copperhead.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by CBG »

HEAT submunitions need direct hits. An IFV's profile from above is something like 3x6 meters.
a PA's profile would be more like 1x0,5m when standing or crouching. Guess which one is more likely to get hit. The IFV's profile is 36 times bigger. Both need one direct hit.
Not to mention that a PA would be running around much more than an average IFV, which makes GPS guidance a bit problematic, and in urban terrain, take cover in buildings, making HEAT submunitions pretty much ineffective.
And that's the whole deal. PA's would not be immune to artillery, but they would force it to use measures for destroying light AFV's, while they would keep all the advantages of being infantry, making them nasty, little, hard targets, especially in urban terrain.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Norade »

CBG wrote:HEAT submunitions need direct hits. An IFV's profile from above is something like 3x6 meters.
a PA's profile would be more like 1x0,5m when standing or crouching. Guess which one is more likely to get hit. The IFV's profile is 36 times bigger. Both need one direct hit.
Not to mention that a PA would be running around much more than an average IFV, which makes GPS guidance a bit problematic, and in urban terrain, take cover in buildings, making HEAT submunitions pretty much ineffective.
And that's the whole deal. PA's would not be immune to artillery, but they would force it to use measures for destroying light AFV's, while they would keep all the advantages of being infantry, making them nasty, little, hard targets, especially in urban terrain.
What about when you nail a chopper or IFV carrying powered armor though? They still die the same in those situations and you kill a ton more per shot with the weapon you already use for that job.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

CBG wrote:HEAT submunitions need direct hits.
No it doesn't, 31 grams of RDX does wonders, these are also AP weapons after all. These aren't dial-a-yield, they carry dozens of munitions filled with RDX, period.
CBG wrote:And that's the whole deal. PA's would not be immune to artillery, but they would force it to use measures for destroying light AFV's, while they would keep all the advantages of being infantry, making them nasty, little, hard targets, especially in urban terrain.
Except the way we deal with infantry is the same way we deal with light AFVs. What is so difficult to understand about this?
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by adam_grif »

What about when you nail a chopper or IFV carrying powered armor though? They still die the same in those situations and you kill a ton more per shot with the weapon you already use for that job.
I think Aircraft carriers should only carry WW1 bilpanes, because if they get hit, all of those expensive planes will get killed!

Look, we know it's a cost increase to field, and they make for expensive casualties. But this alone isn't a good enough reason to preclude their use. Every piece of new equipment, always more expensive than the last, has to undergo the cost-benefit analysis. This is no exception, and although what you're saying is true, the deciding factor is:

- Is it going to be worth the cost?

We don't just work out what happens if they die, we also work out what happens if they survive and get to do their thing on the battlefield, and then have to make some estimates on how likely they are to get killed. The PA makes the tradeoff of significantly increased cost for increased survivability vs small-arms and increased load-bearing capability.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

adam_grif wrote:The PA makes the tradeoff of significantly increased cost for increased survivability vs small-arms and increased load-bearing capability.
Does it? I've yet to see any numbers. Like what class of armor are we expecting Gen 1 PA to have? What kind of coverage? How much would that weigh? Is it within the realm of feasibility to make a load bearing exoskeleton to facilitate it? What kind of cooling systems do you propose? What kind of battery life can we expect? Are we including built-in optics and comms? What other electronics systems do we want?

All I've been seeing are claims that PA will revolutionize warfare. I've yet to see a realistic proposal for a 1st Generation power armor.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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Norade wrote: What about when you nail a chopper or IFV carrying powered armor though? They still die the same in those situations and you kill a ton more per shot with the weapon you already use for that job.
In the IFV case, not necessarily. Even with normal infantrymen inside they are rarely all killed. Unless you hit the IFV with some overkill weapon, most of them will just have to dismount.
General Schatten wrote: No it doesn't, 31 grams of RDX does wonders, these are also AP weapons after all.
And these AP effects might not be enough to pierce the power armor.
General Schatten wrote: Except the way we deal with infantry is the same way we deal with light AFVs. What is so difficult to understand about this?
And my point is, that fighting infantry with weapons used to deal with light AFV's would be kinda hard, as these weapons are far from being good for CQB or quickly shooting man sized targets behind cover. Not to mention how much they and their ammunition weight. Just try to imagine an ordinary infantry squad fighting another one, disadvantaged by being allowed to use only anti AFV weapons. Imagine their CQB fight. Guys with assault rifles, machineguns and HE munitions vs guys with HEAT grenade launchers, HEAT missile launchers and anti material rifles.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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adam_grif wrote:
What about when you nail a chopper or IFV carrying powered armor though? They still die the same in those situations and you kill a ton more per shot with the weapon you already use for that job.
I think Aircraft carriers should only carry WW1 bilpanes, because if they get hit, all of those expensive planes will get killed!

Look, we know it's a cost increase to field, and they make for expensive casualties. But this alone isn't a good enough reason to preclude their use. Every piece of new equipment, always more expensive than the last, has to undergo the cost-benefit analysis. This is no exception, and although what you're saying is true, the deciding factor is:

- Is it going to be worth the cost?

We don't just work out what happens if they die, we also work out what happens if they survive and get to do their thing on the battlefield, and then have to make some estimates on how likely they are to get killed. The PA makes the tradeoff of significantly increased cost for increased survivability vs small-arms and increased load-bearing capability.
The issue is that unlike a WWI plane these troops can be killed by weapons we have now in situations where they're no more effective than a normal soldier.

When they do hit the ground there is no reason why a battle rifle with special rounds couldn't put them down or mission kill them, they'll have a higher IR signature to detect. They also die just was well to many other things. In short all extra cost, no gain.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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CBG wrote:
Norade wrote: What about when you nail a chopper or IFV carrying powered armor though? They still die the same in those situations and you kill a ton more per shot with the weapon you already use for that job.
In the IFV case, not necessarily. Even with normal infantrymen inside they are rarely all killed. Unless you hit the IFV with some overkill weapon, most of them will just have to dismount.
Forcing the suit to waste power walking instead of getting a ride, and/or slowing them enough to get artillery or missiles on site is a win in itself.
CBG wrote:
General Schatten wrote: No it doesn't, 31 grams of RDX does wonders, these are also AP weapons after all.
And these AP effects might not be enough to pierce the power armor.
Care to show a near future armor that is on the same time scale as 1st gen PA that has the capabilities you're describing?
CBG wrote:
General Schatten wrote: Except the way we deal with infantry is the same way we deal with light AFVs. What is so difficult to understand about this?
And my point is, that fighting infantry with weapons used to deal with light AFV's would be kinda hard, as these weapons are far from being good for CQB or quickly shooting man sized targets behind cover. Not to mention how much they and their ammunition weight. Just try to imagine an ordinary infantry squad fighting another one, disadvantaged by being allowed to use only anti AFV weapons. Imagine their CQB fight. Guys with assault rifles, machineguns and HE munitions vs guys with HEAT grenade launchers, HEAT missile launchers and anti material rifles.
Except that a PA suit won't be armored as well as an AFV.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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Norade wrote:
Forcing the suit to waste power walking instead of getting a ride, and/or slowing them enough to get artillery or missiles on site is a win in itself.
Which, i think, is still much better than, well, having a bunch of dead infantrymen the enemy can count as kills already.
Norade wrote:
Care to show a near future armor that is on the same time scale as 1st gen PA that has the capabilities you're describing?
Well, a dragonskin vest can stop fragmentation from a frag grenade lying on top of it. I think that a zero distance frag grenade explosion is a good example of AP effects.
Norade wrote: Except that a PA suit won't be armored as well as an AFV.
In my opinion a PA worth spending a lot of money (more like 500k $, not 50k $) would at least have STANAG 3 coverage, which is common among light AFV's.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Norade »

CBG wrote:
Norade wrote:
Forcing the suit to waste power walking instead of getting a ride, and/or slowing them enough to get artillery or missiles on site is a win in itself.
Which, i think, is still much better than, well, having a bunch of dead infantrymen the enemy can count as kills already.
Except that as you've already said that is rarely the case. Do you have a sub hour short term memory or are you dishonest?
CBG wrote:
Norade wrote:
Care to show a near future armor that is on the same time scale as 1st gen PA that has the capabilities you're describing?
Well, a dragonskin vest can stop fragmentation from a frag grenade lying on top of it. I think that a zero distance frag grenade explosion is a good example of AP effects.
Care to prove lying on a frag is the same as AP effects that use specialized ballistics and shaped charges as well as a more powerful explosive?
CBG wrote:
Norade wrote: Except that a PA suit won't be armored as well as an AFV.
In my opinion a PA worth spending a lot of money (more like 500k $, not 50k $) would at least have STANAG 3 coverage, which is common among light AFV's.
Show how we're going to accomplish this? I'd also like to see why you think new rounds couldn't be made to defeat such armor using small arms should it be effective to do so.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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Does it? I've yet to see any numbers.
If we had numbers, we wouldn't need to speculate. They systems don't exist yet.
Like what class of armor are we expecting Gen 1 PA to have?
If the DARPA mockups are to be believed, they'll range all the way from "no additional protection" to "hardened full body NBC suit". Efficacy of armor unknown, but obviously better than what a standard infantryman can carry in the latter cases.

Image
All I've been seeing are claims that PA will revolutionize warfare.
There have been one or two people claiming that, but most of us have simply been arguing against your notion that they're useless since they can be defeated by weapons that already exist.
I've yet to see a realistic proposal for a 1st Generation power armor.
Are you expecting one? We know people are working on early concepts. There are no inherent issues with the general concepts, we know that because Powered Exoskeletons already exist:

Image

The questions are ones of engineering details, whether they can be effectively militarized and perform to the necessary standards or not.

If you'd like to know more, do searches for BLEEX, SARCOS XOS (Raytheon), HAL-5 (manufactured by the awesomely named Cyberdine) and HULC (Lockheed Martin)
What kind of cooling systems do you propose?
I don't propose anything, because I'm not an engineer.
What kind of battery life can we expect?
Rehashing earlier answers, 24 hours continuous operation was the minimum standard DARPA would accept. Feasibility unknown, but we know that they at least felt it a reasonable medium-term goal.
Are we including built-in optics and comms?
Basically every "soldier of the future" concept does, so it's a safe bet.


When they do hit the ground there is no reason why a battle rifle with special rounds couldn't put them down or mission kill them, they'll have a higher IR signature to detect. They also die just was well to many other things. In short all extra cost, no gain.
Last I checked Battle Rifles with APDS ammunition weren't standard kit for 3rd world Guerilla outfits. Are you saying shrugging off Kalishnikov fires isn't useful? Are you saying that being able to have soldiers experience markedly less fatigue while carrying significantly heavier kits isn't useful?

Until we get real stats, we can't say whether it's going to be a valuable thing or not.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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When they do hit the ground there is no reason why a battle rifle with special rounds couldn't put them down or mission kill them, they'll have a higher IR signature to detect. They also die just was well to many other things. In short all extra cost, no gain.
Last I checked Battle Rifles with APDS ammunition weren't standard kit for 3rd world Guerilla outfits. Are you saying shrugging off Kalishnikov fires isn't useful? Are you saying that being able to have soldiers experience markedly less fatigue while carrying significantly heavier kits isn't useful?

Until we get real stats, we can't say whether it's going to be a valuable thing or not.
I never said they wouldn't be useful there, but the terrorists are nothing if not adaptable and any realistic not super heavy PA suit will be weak to things already being used. I would even go so far as to say a standard AK-47 could still mission kill a suit by hitting weak spots. Even unskilled soldiers will learn to aim at certain spots eventually.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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Norade wrote: Except that as you've already said that is rarely the case. Do you have a sub hour short term memory or are you dishonest?
I said they are rarely ALL dead. But there are some dead and\or wounded, which makes the squad significantly less effective.
Norade wrote:
Care to prove lying on a frag is the same as AP effects that use specialized ballistics and shaped charges as well as a more powerful explosive?
No one is preferring shaped charges over frag munitions for AP effects. If they gave better AP effects, all frag grenades and munitions would be considered obsolete.
Norade wrote: Show how we're going to accomplish this? I'd also like to see why you think new rounds couldn't be made to defeat such armor using small arms should it be effective to do so.
STANAG 3 = 7.62AP resistance. There are small arms that can defeat such armor already. They are called anti material rifles. And no sane person would want to use one in CQB.
Such protection would be given by, for example, something like 8-10mm titanium plate.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

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CBG wrote:And my point is, that fighting infantry with weapons used to deal with light AFV's would be kinda hard, as these weapons are far from being good for CQB or quickly shooting man sized targets behind cover. Not to mention how much they and their ammunition weight. Just try to imagine an ordinary infantry squad fighting another one, disadvantaged by being allowed to use only anti AFV weapons. Imagine their CQB fight. Guys with assault rifles, machineguns and HE munitions vs guys with HEAT grenade launchers, HEAT missile launchers and anti material rifles.
First of all, you are not going to get Level 3 Armor on a first generation suit. Level 1 full body coverage, if you can figure out how to keep it powered and cooled. Current Level 2 armor weighs 150lb without a rucksack, there's a reason it's only in use with EOD and SWAT who only have to use it for short periods of time. This would simply means the battle rifle comes back to the fore and more .308 Winchester lines are converted to produce armor piercing 7.62 NATO rounds. So yes, guys with assault rifles, machineguns, and HE munitions will remain a credible threat.

Next, you seem to think this is going to be used in CQB, that is possibly the worst place for it since in modern urban combat you need flexibility that kind of armor doesn't offer. Any power armor with the ability to comfortably allow the occupant to wear armor able to stop .30 caliber AP rounds, keep the occupant cool, and have any semblance of power it's going to have to be big. I'm talking, I can no longer fit through normal sized doors big.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Ritterin Sophia »

adam_grif wrote:If we had numbers, we wouldn't need to speculate. They systems don't exist yet.
You can still fucking give some type of expectations.
If the DARPA mockups are to be believed, they'll range all the way from "no additional protection" to "hardened full body NBC suit". Efficacy of armor unknown, but obviously better than what a standard infantryman can carry in the latter cases.
And what are the feasibility of these armors?
There have been one or two people claiming that, but most of us have simply been arguing against your notion that they're useless since they can be defeated by weapons that already exist.
That's a strawman on your part, what I have said is they won't change the way armies operate in any major way. Like the people suggesting it would now require dedicated anti-tank weapons to deal with.
Are you expecting one? We know people are working on early concepts. There are no inherent issues with the general concepts, we know that because Powered Exoskeletons already exist:
So does rail launched nuclear ICBMs. All the problems of a silo and an SLBM together with none of the benefits.
The questions are ones of engineering details, whether they can be effectively militarized and perform to the necessary standards or not.
Which is a claim, I've yet to see quantified.
I don't propose anything, because I'm not an engineer.
One would think that if no solution exists to this problem, and grunts dying of heat stroke is a problem, then that's a strike against the feasibility. It may be that equipping everyone with Power Armor is as futile as attempting to armor every 16th Century soldier in full plate.
Rehashing earlier answers, 24 hours continuous operation was the minimum standard DARPA would accept. Feasibility unknown, but we know that they at least felt it a reasonable medium-term goal.
I don't think a day is reasonable in a pitch conventional battle zone.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by CBG »

General Schatten wrote:
First of all, you are not going to get Level 3 Armor on a first generation suit. Level 1 full body coverage, if you can figure out how to keep it powered and cooled. Current Level 2 armor weighs 150lb without a rucksack, there's a reason it's only in use with EOD and SWAT who only have to use it for short periods of time. This would simply means the battle rifle comes back to the fore and more .308 Winchester lines are converted to produce armor piercing 7.62 NATO rounds. So yes, guys with assault rifles, machineguns, and HE munitions will remain a credible threat.
Current level 2 armor has to be lifted by the wearer's strength. Being powered will make it's weigth a smaller concern than in today's armors.
General Schatten wrote:
Next, you seem to think this is going to be used in CQB, that is possibly the worst place for it since in modern urban combat you need flexibility that kind of armor doesn't offer. Any power armor with the ability to comfortably allow the occupant to wear armor able to stop .30 caliber AP rounds, keep the occupant cool, and have any semblance of power it's going to have to be big. I'm talking, I can no longer fit through normal sized doors big.
If you take my 8mm titanium plate figure, and 3 square meter surface area (2 square meter is average human body surface area, so i give 50% more for the armor)
you get 108 kg of titanium. Let's double that to include the PA's structure and systems. We get about 220 kg. Add a 80 kg soldier. You get 300 kg. That's similar to a heavy sumo warrior. These guys can walk, fight, and fit through door frames, while having much lower average density than the armor\soldier combination. So, i think that such armor could fit through an average door frame.
With a remote controlled PA-like robot, it gets even better.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Scorpion »

Batman wrote:I'm not doubting modern artillery can KILL a man in any reasonably realistic power armour. I'm asking how likely it is for him to be HIT by it as he or she is bound to be a LOT smaller than an armoured vehicle.
If we follow that line of reasoning, then infantry should be invulnerable to artillery, since they're so small compared to an AFV, how can artillery ever hope to hit 'em?

Fragmentation rounds don't do point damage, they do area damage.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by Scorpion »

CBG wrote:Well, a dragonskin vest can stop fragmentation from a frag grenade lying on top of it. I think that a zero distance frag grenade explosion is a good example of AP effects.
What? We're talking about artillery here! A M67 grenade has 184 grams of explosive. A M795 dumb 155mm fragmentation shell has 11 Kilos.
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Re: Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

Post by CBG »

It survived something that must be called a direct hit with 184 grams of explosive. Abouth half of the explosion energy had to be caught by a part of the vest. How close must these 11 kilo explode to deliver at least the same amount of energy and fragments to the same area? How does this range compare to radius of lethality against normal infantry?
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