RE: http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,188820,00.html

What an awesome thing to have created, it's been long enough in the making! Only thing I would say is that they shouldn't cover the thing with extruded aluminum or plastic, it just gives the impression that it's armored and I can fully see some poor n00blet private with a bullet in his leg "I thought it was armor plated!"

Not a good thing. Leave it open frame with sensitive components covered, or beef up the lifting capabilities, add a gyro stabilization system, and armor the thing and give us an army of Ironmans I foresee the establishment of the "1st Armored Mech Company"

starship troopers here we come

quote:

Originally posted by karlhungusjr:
starship troopers here we come

More like Blizzard's StarCraft

Nuke em all and let God decide.
Meet the new Marines. Got a "bug" problem? Just give them a call.


What all the latest Marines will be wearing.

OK I am one of the biggest fans of SIR Robert Heinlein there is
While on one hand I like the idea of being ale to make supermen or women out of combat and support personnel.
But with every advancement in technology something ultimately has to be traded off.
Like MR Scott said in one of the star trek movies "the more complicated the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the drains"

What happens when the BILLION Dollar soldier is on a LRP and his gear runs out of juice? OOPs now he/she is faced with having to strip off all of their gear and high tail it back to safety. Do they do the don’t leave anything behind that can be used trick y setting a charge to the gear, hopefully by booby trapping it to take out whoever comes by to investigate it. Or do they try and hump all of this extra gear out of the field? They already have to carry computers laser guiding equipment GPS locators’ body armor their primary and possibly secondary weapons and hopefully they have enough room and or strength to pack extra ammo.
Then they have to deal with a boat load of rules of engagement as well.
At one time all a soldier needed was dry socks good boots and a reliable weapon with as much ammo as they could hump. The rules of engagement were simple Kill everything big enough to die.
From my stand point though I would love to see this developed and perfected well enough to be used in a factory work environment I often require 10 to 20 persons to move objects around where it is absolutely impossible to do so via a fork lift or crane a couple of these could and would be 1000% safer to move the items
When the second movie Aliens’ came out I saw LT Ripply don the walking forklift with the Cat emblem on the leg I thought I got to buy one of these if they ever build a real one.
I am the same way with this exoskeleton suit make them functional reliable and I want 30 for my factory.

Power Systems! Nano-Technology... Numerous labs across the country have developed hydrogen powered wankel cycle engines that will fit inside the eye of a needle, electric motors and generators that can only be seen under a microscope. One could power each "cell" of the armor with such a unit. Further, imagine some unit powerful enough to dissipate a charge that would destroy say, a bullet when it got close to the wearer's armor. Star Troopers Indeed!

I love the idea. I urgently hope that they can overcome the power issues inherent in this and develop an "Ironman" suit. WHat a plus for the American GI!!

I honestly think we will see the first comercial or military exoskeletons looking more like Ripley's Commercial forklift one in the "Aliens" series.

I suspect we already have the power tech in place for this one. As a commercial product... charging wouldn't be that difficult. Make sense?

"You got a bug problem ma'am?" Johnny Rico, Starship Trooper - by Robert Heinlein: Where the Original Exoskeleton Suit came from.

Remember the drowning knights of old? When they fell off their horses in deep water, they couldn't get back up. So they drowned where they fell. The same thing could happen if they overload these guys with equipment, and their power supplies fail.

perhaps a small fusion pack well shielded would resolve the power requirements also allowing greater response output. also consider either an O2 filteration system or an actual tank of O2 if ever submergedor in a chemical environment.
If we are going to move towards Starship troopers, embrace the whole idea, not just its basic parts. Might also fix our citizenship issues too.
Nil *******i Carborundrum

As far as Starship Troopers goes, we need to fix the voting part before we worry about the powered armor part.

Walt

More crap to haul around and try to keep working. Try to get parts for this thing...Please! And anyone who's been there knows, there is no keeping that sand out of anything.

This project is a nice idea but I doubt it will amount to much.

Just another piece of equipment that will become useless after the battery dies or gets shot up.

While I consider myself a techno-phile and am enthused by the advances of protective equipment for my former brothers-in-arms, I cannot help but wonder why we continue to gear up the troops with so much crap.

Humankind has milllinea of history waging warfare with only the basic necessities. His uniform, his weapon and some food.
This is the very stuff the insurgents are using to kick our butts in Iraq and Afganistan. It is what the NVA used to kick our butts in Vietnam.
When will we learn that bigger is not always better. More complex is NEVER better.
Warfare is best left in its simplest form. Soldier to Soldier.


James Mielke

I agree with the soldier to soldier method, but I want as much techno-edge and armor between myself and those damned IED's as physically possible. As a dismount walking the streets of ramadi, I made damned sure our 113's were 5 seconds or less behind or in front of us, if the ****e hit the fan, it wasn't going to be my sorry ass hanging out in the wind.

Given the choice between walking with my ballistic vest on and kevlar, or a walking mech suit, I'll take the mech suit. Even with fried hydraulics, I'm gonna survive a bit longer behind armor than I will without. And how many insurgents do you know who can kidnap a 2,000 pound suit of armor? They sure as hell won't be taking it without anyone noticing.

I say we just upsize it, and go with full-tilt "mobile suits".... similar to what you see in games like Front Mission.

I will be the first one to sign up for this new MOS. I've played Mechwarrior games, since I was a kid... I've been waiting my whole life, for this.

Me too, I always had visions of what the beaches of normandy would've looked like, if the boats pulled up and there was dead silence except the sound of the waves lapping and the "bzzzzzzz kshhhhhh" of pneumatics adjusting to counter balance the wave motion, the the doors drop down and 300 mechs started walking onto the beach through water that only reached up to their knees.....the germans would've **** themselves!

The insurgents would probably do the same if a mech was walking down the street, and if they didn't, the return volley from dual wielded mini-guns would change their minds in a hurry or spread their minds across the walls.

I suspect this will be like the jet pack, never getting out of R&D because of power limitations. The idea of nano generators runs into the problem that they can only power mano machines. The "well shielded" nuclear option runs into multiple problems, not least of whichis the weight and bulk of the shielding. There are also the issues of security of radioactive components, size of reactor and its contol system, and ccst.
Carry on the research, by all means, but I suspect that if this ever gets deployed it will be to replace forklifts at forward supply points. The real solution is two fold, lighter materials for everything from pack frames to boots, and command emphasis on reducing unnecessary items in the pack load. A special issue is the number of battery powered items and the weight and life of the batteries. Just replacing the old D cell angle head flashlight with the AA version represents close to a pound saved from the combination of the light and a spare set of batteries. An LED light eliminates the need for spare batteries entirely. The WW I/WW II stadard load with heavier materials was about 45-50 pounds. We need to set that as the goal and not accept loads greater than 75 pounds.

"The WW I/WW II stadard load with heavier materials was about 45-50 pounds. We need to set that as the goal and not accept loads greater than 75 pounds."

I always wondered about that--why were we able to keep a load of canvas, leather, wood, and tin cans lighter than a load of modern materials? I'm not military, just curious--what accounts for the difference? Is the additional load worth it to you guys or would you trade it all for what our grandfathers carried at half the weight?

quote:

Originally posted by karlhungusjr:
starship troopers here we come

Don't you mean Mech Warrior? I don't remember any suit like that in that movie.

quote:

Originally posted by NickBrand:

quote:

Originally posted by karlhungusjr:
starship troopers here we come

Don't you mean Mech Warrior? I don't remember any suit like that in that movie.

In Starship Troopers the book they had suits that were capable of jumping extreme heights, monitoring vitals, and giving a massive amount of situational awareness to the wearer.

The book is 10x better than those crappy movies.