Fun With: Powered Armor & Tanks

[rhoenix]

Alright, I'm fishing for others' ideas here. Then again, given the nature of the Fun With threads I've made so far, this shouldn't be a shock.

So, given a civilization that's capable of making the following sort of powered armor for their elite infantry:

This armor resembles a large, white humanoid with no neck, and a featureless headpiece with glaring eyes. This suit is completely NBC sealed, highly resistant to corrosive or high-pressure atmospheres, and able to survive a shocking amount of abuse. It also can blend into it's environment visually.

Though this armor adds approximately only a meter in height to it's wearer, it adds four hundred kilograms in weight. Even with that, the wearer will feel as if they're wearing nothing, as the suit reacts to the wearer's movements with precise reaction. It magnifies the user's strength by an average of five times - most importantly, it doesn't impede the wearer's abilities in any way, even to the point of being able to "sneak" on surfaces able to bear their weight.

Along with the magnification of strength came an increase of running speed, to an average of 65-80 kilometers per hour. The suit's jet boosters can be applied either to give the wearer 30 seconds of controlled flight, or 30 seconds of high-speed sprinting, temporarily increasing the wearer's running speed to more than 450-500 kilometers per hour. The jet boosters automatically recharge at a rate of 1 second for every ten minutes of regular use.

With such speed from the suit came a corresponding increase to the suit's armor and overall resiliency, enabling it to survive a full jet booster-assisted sprint impact against meter-thick tungsten steel relatively unscathed and will allow the wearer to move and fight on mostly unhindered, though the suit will likely require repairs when it returns to base. It's inertial compensator systems allow the fragile human within to survive such impacts without injury, though such a thing is certainly not recommended.

The skin of the suit is made of a marked improvement from what 20th century researchers termed "dragonskin," making the suit nearly impervious to small arms kinetic impact of matter at speeds below mach 8. In case of larger impacts, the suit also sports particle shielding for physical impacts, as well as EM shielding for energy weapon attacks, able to interlace with other suits to form a "phalanx" of defensive shielding, either or both particle and EM shields.

Most impressive of all is the armor's fire-control system, and the standard loadout of the suit. The usual rifle that comes with the armor is the Farshot MK-90. Capable of firing coilgun shells for normal work (using two different sorts of ammo - the AP type, and the HE type) or firing an invisible graser beam for quiet work, the Farshot has a terrifying range for both guns - 8000 kilometers typically for the coilgun, and 6000 kilometers for the graser beam, given atmospheric interference. The armor is also armed with a two-dimensional force field used as a blade, which has a range of 2 meters, and is used for melee. The fire-control system assists the wearer in tracking large numbers of enemies, accounting for high-speed movement, at long ranges, and still have shocking accuracy, averaging 85% accuracy in such conditions for a newly-trained user of this suit.

Given that most of this technology will likely be derived from being battle-tested in other forms, such as tanks, what other sorts of elements could you foresee comprising a ground force (such as tanks), and what would their designs be?

More specifically, what sort of vehicles would you design or anticipate with the above as an example? Note that these elements should be designed with the primary design goal of rapid planetary assault/siege.

Conditions:
- The coilgun technology has been proven and tested for more than a decade, and is considered very dependable and scalable technology, even appearing onboard naval ships for long-range sniping as a high-speed missle system;
- The graser technology is newer, and though very accurate, doesn't have the punch of a coilgun - it does, however, have the advantage of range and speed, being a beam weapon propagating at c.
- Fusion technology is considered a staple, and is also considered a reliable and almost free (cost-wise) source of power for most parts of this faction.
- Matter/Anti-Matter technology of both weapons-grade and fuel-grade is out of the testing stages, and is beginning to be cautiously used on space naval vessels - mostly for missles, but as power plants as well.
- "Shaped explosion" technology is used, and has been used to focus a M/AM explosion into a thin beam reliably.
- "Repulsor"/anti-gravity technology is considered reliable, and in use commercially.
- Consider the faction creating all these toys as fairly rich, and having the resources to throw at experimental equipment often.

[Starglider]

Is 'small arms' 9mm rounds? 7.62 NATO rounds? .50 BMG rounds? You need a projectile mass as well as the velocity to quantify how much punnishment the armour can take.

"Repulsor"/anti-gravity technology is considered reliable, and in use commercially. - max supported weight and power requirements needed. Does it just support or can it propel as well? If so why do you suits have jets instead of AG?

What is powering this suit (aneutronic fusion?) and how are you dealing with all the waste heat?

"Shaped explosion" technology is used, and has been used to focus a M/AM explosion into a thin beam reliably. - this is literally impossible without having a material or field that can almost completely reflect high-energy gamma rays, because anhiliation inherently ejects particles in random directions (but with zero net momentum for any given anhiliation event). Perfect gamma mirrors would certainly make building grasers easier but why can't it also serve as a perfect defence against them?

[rhoenix]

Is 'small arms' 9mm rounds? 7.62 NATO rounds? .50 BMG rounds? You need a projectile mass as well as the velocity to quantify how much punishment the armour can take.

Following our discussion about said topic in the chat, assume "small arms" are general-purpose machinegun rounds, weighing approximately 150 grams, being fired typically about mach 5 or 6 for the purposes of this example.

"Repulsor"/anti-gravity technology is considered reliable, and in use commercially. - max supported weight and power requirements needed. Does it just support or can it propel as well? If so why do you suits have jets instead of AG?

In this design, the jets were chosen due to the lower power requirements, and the raw speed that could be generated. The repulsor would need slightly more power, and be much quieter, but wouldn't be able to perform a raw powerdump of energy for an excess of speed, as the jets can.

I'll be doing further research on this and your other questions, so I'll keep my answers general for now until I can give a better answer.

What is powering this suit (aneutronic fusion?) and how are you dealing with all the waste heat?

For now, consider the nuclear fusion powering the suit to be handwavium. As for the waste heat issue...more handwavium, unfortunately.

"Shaped explosion" technology is used, and has been used to focus a M/AM explosion into a thin beam reliably. - this is literally impossible without having a material or field that can almost completely reflect high-energy gamma rays, because anhiliation inherently ejects particles in random directions (but with zero net momentum for any given anhiliation event). Perfect gamma mirrors would certainly make building grasers easier but why can't it also serve as a perfect defence against them?

More handwavium - for the purposes of this question, consider a variant of the EM shield used by the suit against energy attacks as used for the "shaped explosion" technology.

As I said above, I'll be doing more research on Atomic Rocket and other sites, as well as referencing my old notes to answer your fusion question, waste heat question, repulsors vs. jets question, and the "shaped explosion" question.

[Howedar]

No powered suit is going to markedly improve a wearer's running speed. Human legs don't like to go much beyond 120-130RPM. Unless you're talking about long-distance hopping, I guess. You'd be talking about, at the very least, about five meters per step.

500kpm running is of course an absurdity.

[Howedar]

500 km/hr, that is.

[defanatic]

500 km/hr, that is.

Five hundred kilometres per minute is equally, if not more so, ridiculous.

The armour is pretty huge. Adding "only" a metre of height means that an armoured soldier won't be able to fit through average sized doors without stooping alot.

[Feil]

Indeed. That's starting to get into the small mech range, really - there's no way a human could wear something that big as armor - his center of mass would be in his head, or he would walk like he was on stilts. The absolute maximum amount by which I could see armor increasing someone's height is 25-35cm.

[SirNitram]

Once we ignore the sillier bits(The running enhancement..), it becomes clear: We need spotter drones and a missile platform.

The spotter drones pick up the atrocious energy signature, and the platform unleashes missiles that lock onto it. Fire your jets? Sure.. Give the missiles a louder target.

[Feil]

EDIT: this is also a wankmobile you're describing. Maximize the ratio of effectiveness/(cost+weight) and you'll have a proper soldier's kit. Honestly, what does an infantryman need with a weapon with an eight kilometer range? That's well over the horizon at ground level. Why does a huge hulking monstrosity with a heat signature like a goddamned tank have a sniper rifle? For that matter, why does every trooper have a sniper rifle, when only a couple of them will be positioned to act as a sniper in any given situation? Why does a modern infantryman have a melee weapon? If the armor is so uber, why is he wasting space with shielding? If someone wants him to die enough to hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry, they'll hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry and he'll be dead.

[Howedar]

Har har, you should read better. 8000 kilometer range.

[Feil]

So you can shoot down orbiting satellites with your duty weapon, eh? Not bad. Not bad at all.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

EDIT: this is also a wankmobile you're describing. Maximize the ratio of effectiveness/(cost+weight) and you'll have a proper soldier's kit. Honestly, what does an infantryman need with a weapon with an eight kilometer range? That's well over the horizon at ground level. Why does a huge hulking monstrosity with a heat signature like a goddamned tank have a sniper rifle? For that matter, why does every trooper have a sniper rifle, when only a couple of them will be positioned to act as a sniper in any given situation? Why does a modern infantryman have a melee weapon? If the armor is so uber, why is he wasting space with shielding? If someone wants him to die enough to hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry, they'll hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry and he'll be dead.

Actually, there are some infantry anti-tank missiles that have a range of up to 8km. So there is somewhat a need for such weapons. All you need is a spotter.

And some armies still train infantry to use bayonets for the reason of close quarter fighting which happened a fair bit during WWII.

[fgalkin2]

I take it this is a Pax Swiss Guard armor and weapon, and with the added benefit of several liters of semen produced by autofellatio.

Also, wouldn't a graser not work in atmosphere?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Adrian Laguna]

I take it this is a Pax Swiss Guard armor and weapon, and with the added benefit of several liters of semen produced by autofellatio.

Also, wouldn't a graser not work in atmosphere?

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

It would work, but it would be like a giant tracer back to the shooter as it ionizes all the air in its path. It's effective range would suck in comparison to other lasers, however this would only be a concern in very open terrain.

IR lasers are best for atmosphere.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I'm rereading that... I stopped the first time due to absurdity around the rocket-boosted running speed bit...

For that matter, as these are 'jets' what does to suit use for propellant? Over-pressured ambient atmosphere? Since they 'recharge' I'd have to assume so.

Thank god a paragraph later you mentioned inertial stabilizers...

Shielding... and enough energy mastery to make effectively a monomolecular force blade...


Christ, I gotta agree, this suit... What the hell are they fighting that would make this GI kit as opposed to overkill Spec.Ops?... Things better damn well be approaching demi-god to require that much to take down.

Also, you're not going to be doing much sneaking at 2.5m (nine feet) tall weighing a good 600kilo's minimum. No matter how quietly ya can stomp those boots.

[Ford Prefect]

More specifically, what sort of vehicles would you design or anticipate with the above as an example? Note that these elements should be designed with the primary design goal of rapid planetary assault/siege.

I was going to say 'indirect fire', but the fact is that if you're doing planetary assult, you should have orbital assets that can do it for you.

[Sea Skimmer]

The running speed alone rules out the thing being worn like a suit of armor, it would have to be a mecha with a pilot sitting in a cockpit completely inside the chest. Otherwise the muscles, ligaments and tendons on your body would be ripped right off the bone as the suit move your limbs for you.

Course if you can make this thing, then you can also build a 3 inch long hypersonic guided missile with a laser initiated fusion warhead shaped charge that has a variable yield from 5 pounds to 50 megatons TNT equivalent.

[rhoenix]

Good responses so far, and I can see where I went overboard with certain things. Many of the "wank" parts would have to be stripped off (i.e. the jet-boosted running, and the range of the guns) for this to work as a spec-ops suit that doesn't simply resemble masturbation. Admittedly though, I used my limited knowledge of Warhammer 40k Space Marines as a small inspiration. Consider this now more similar to the Ghost's suit from the Terran faction in Starcraft.

In any case, fully dedicating the jets to only short flight would make more sense than boosting the running speed additionally - looking further, the only way that boosting the running speed to that degree could be accomplished is - well, with outright handwavium. Temporal effects, or something of the sort.

No powered suit is going to markedly improve a wearer's running speed. Human legs don't like to go much beyond 120-130RPM. Unless you're talking about long-distance hopping, I guess. You'd be talking about, at the very least, about five meters per step.

The leaping per step is what I was envisioning. Minus the jet-boosted running, the running speed should be a more manageable 45-50kph.

...That's starting to get into the small mech range, really - there's no way a human could wear something that big as armor - his center of mass would be in his head, or he would walk like he was on stilts. The absolute maximum amount by which I could see armor increasing someone's height is 25-35cm.

This also makes sense - consider the armor to add at most 5-8 centimeters. Given the scale of what we're discussing, I would consider this plausible.

Feil, your next post had several questions - I'll answer them one at a time.

Honestly, what does an infantryman need with a weapon with an eight kilometer range? That's well over the horizon at ground level.

Given the speeds that the coilgun would fire, I envisioned the projectile travelling a fair distance. Given that the armor is also supposed to fly for short distances, the eight (reduced from the more absurd 8000) km range makes sense.

Why does a huge hulking monstrosity with a heat signature like a goddamned tank have a sniper rifle? For that matter, why does every trooper have a sniper rifle, when only a couple of them will be positioned to act as a sniper in any given situation?

My thought was that with the coilgun firing a projectile at approximately Mach 12, the impact would cause a somewhat impressive explosion due to kinetic impact. The graser was intended for much more precise work.

Why does a modern infantryman have a melee weapon?

This was an addition to the (absurd) running speed above. Consider the melee weapon removed.

If the armor is so uber, why is he wasting space with shielding? If someone wants him to die enough to hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry, they'll hit him with dedicated antiarmor weaponry and he'll be dead.

The particle shielding and EM shielding were intended to be used in a "phalanx" fashion, wherein the shields of each unit would overlap one another for an advance, thereby protecting a group of soldiers in these suits better than the shields for one individually.

For that matter, as these are 'jets' what does to suit use for propellant? Over-pressured ambient atmosphere? Since they 'recharge' I'd have to assume so.

That's what I had envisioned - extracting oxygen and/or hydrogen.

More specifically, what sort of vehicles would you design or anticipate with the above as an example? Note that these elements should be designed with the primary design goal of rapid planetary assault/siege.

I was going to say 'indirect fire', but the fact is that if you're doing planetary assult, you should have orbital assets that can do it for you.

Well, I meant more as tank designs given this technology, as well as other vehicles that seem complementary.

Course if you can make this thing, then you can also build a 3 inch long hypersonic guided missile with a laser initiated fusion warhead shaped charge that has a variable yield from 5 pounds to 50 megatons TNT equivalent.

I was going to get into that in this discussion next - what sort of shells would you envision the coilgun using?


Thank all of you for your responses so far. Consider the following revisions to the above description for the armor, then:

- 45-50kph running speed (no jet-boosted running)
- no jet-boosted running
- flight is at maximum thrust 500kph, with a duration of 30 seconds, with the same recharge time. Consider it using repulsor technology as well, instead of jets.
- armor adds 5-6cm in height, not half a meter. Added weight is about 10 kg for the suit, another 8kg for the gun. Fully loaded, with extra ammo, approximately 25kg of extra weight.
- weapon's range for both coilgun & graser is about 8km
- the armor is capable of "phalanx" shield interlinking.

If those revisions are satisfactory to those who've posted, then I can note them.

Beyond this, with this current design (mark II - now with less wank!), what sort of specifications would you expect to see on support vehicles (such as tanks), and what variety of support vehicles would you expect to see?

[Starglider]

- flight is at maximum thrust 500kph, with a duration of 30 seconds, with the same recharge time.

Note that if the jets can produce a 1g acceleration or decceleration in addition to supporting the weight of the user against gravity (pretty good performance for such a small engine), it will take 14 seconds to accelerate to 500kph and another 14 seconds to deccelerate to a stop again. You average speed over a 30 second dash would be 266kph.

weapon's range for both coilgun & graser is about 8km

Note that the intensity of a >1MeV gamma ray beam is halved by 1cm of lead, 6cm of concrete, 9cm of dirt or about 7km of air (disregarding plasma tube effects). And when I say 'the intensity of the beam is halved', I mean 'half the beam energy is dumped into that stretch of material'. Firing an intense gamma beam at ground level will also create a weak electromagnetic pulse and mild X-ray irradiation of everything close to the beam (due to compton scattering).

For now, consider the nuclear fusion powering the suit to be handwavium. As for the waste heat issue...more handwavium, unfortunately.

You can handwave power but it takes near-literal magic (i.e. light, compact neutrino radiators) to handwave waste heat - and even in the later case, if the enemy has any way of detecting neutrinos (likely, with this level of magic-tech) your signature will still be awful. When infantry can't hide and the weapon yields are high enough to render most forms of cover useless, that takes away a major reason to have them on open battlefields at all.

[rhoenix]

Note that if the jets can produce a 1g acceleration or decceleration in addition to supporting the weight of the user against gravity (pretty good performance for such a small engine), it will take 14 seconds to accelerate to 500kph and another 14 seconds to deccelerate to a stop again. You average speed over a 30 second dash would be 266kph.

Alright, how about for 1.5g, or 2g acceleration? If those are too overboard, 1g acceleration is fine, as is are the figures you presented above.

However, given the above limits of this particular scenario and tech, I'm thinking of removing the jets (as this is supposed to be a Spec. Ops. suit, after all), and replacing them with the repulsors, above. In this case, the 1g acceleration is fine; I could perhaps justify to myself going as high as 1.5g, but not above that.

Note that the intensity of a >1MeV gamma ray beam is halved by 1cm of lead, 6cm of concrete, 9cm of dirt or about 7km of air (disregarding plasma tube effects). And when I say 'the intensity of the beam is halved', I mean 'half the beam energy is dumped into that stretch of material'. Firing an intense gamma beam at ground level will also create a weak electromagnetic pulse and mild X-ray irradiation of everything close to the beam (due to compton scattering).

If the radiation would dissipate with relative ease, I see no harm in this. O the other hand, what would be the effects of an x-ray laser instead?

For now, consider the nuclear fusion powering the suit to be handwavium. As for the waste heat issue...more handwavium, unfortunately.

You can handwave power but it takes near-literal magic (i.e. light, compact neutrino radiators) to handwave waste heat - and even in the later case, if the enemy has any way of detecting neutrinos (likely, with this level of magic-tech) your signature will still be awful. When infantry can't hide and the weapon yields are high enough to render most forms of cover useless, that takes away a major reason to have them on open battlefields at all.

Another excellent point. My second option, instead of having an actual fusion plant within the suit (and since it's much smaller, I doubt I could justify there being room for it), is to have efficient batteries within the suit that require charging. Can you see any issues with using batteries to power the suit (and activate the gun)?

Thank you for your response - this suit is taking shape much better than before.

Once the suit is satisfactory, I'll work on designing the tank, troop carrier, and atmospheric denial craft.

[Feil]

I'll see your phalanx of billion dollar man-mountains and raise you a single company of modern day nuclear artillery, or one guy with a guided missile launcher from your superultramegaubertech universe.

[rhoenix]

I'll see your phalanx of billion dollar man-mountains and raise you a single company of modern day nuclear artillery, or one guy with a guided missile launcher from your superultramegaubertech universe.

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

Did you read my responses to your earlier points, and see how the idea has been refined since then?

[Howedar]

He doesn't have to. The idea is still absurd.

[rhoenix]

He doesn't have to. The idea is still absurd.

Would you care to point out what you consider "absurd" about the revised concept, and why?

[Starglider]

Alright, how about for 1.5g, or 2g acceleration?

Even with computer control, accelerations like this are going to make it difficult to select a site and land properly. If these jets are used regularly the accident rate will be horrendous.

Furthermore you're proposing over a tonne of thrust out of a couple of tiny nozzles. The jet blast is going to be extreme (i.e. a major hazard and location giveaway even without the thermal and noise signature), and unless you're using some sort of unobtanium to do this with non-thermal thrusters the exhaust is going to be extremely hot and likely set anything around the takeoff or landing sites on fire.

and replacing them with the repulsors, above.

Which are handwavium, but you still have to power them and high speeds still run into the 'landing safely' challenge.

If the radiation would dissipate with relative ease, I see no harm in this.

Yes, it's just X-rays, it doesn't linger.

O the other hand, what would be the effects of an x-ray laser instead?

There would be less scattering and it would be at a lower frequency (i.e. UV). Using X-rays means you get less armour/cover penetration (closer to the surface deposit visual spectrum lasers have with the usual problems that entails). At low energies x-rays would be better for anti-personnel work, but energies sufficient to kill another power-armoured trooper this is a non-issue. Gamma rays intense enough to melt armour will give anyone who gets a mild dose (e.g. a grazing hit, or shot through cover that absorbs most of the beam) radiation sickness, unless your EM shielding can stop that.

Can you see any issues with using batteries to power the suit (and activate the gun)?

Only that there is little difference between a super-high-energy-density battery and an explosive. Any sort of ion-based system (i.e. anything like current battery chemistries or supercapacitors) is quite likely to short out and release all of its stored energy in one spectacular blast if seriously damaged. You might be better off with some sort of magic power transmission system, powering the suits from reactors in nearby APCs.