"Super-Suit" Aimed to Give Super Powers

How so, I think that people understand the implications. I am not that impressed though it is just a stronger version of a TASC suit.

How much faster could you run with 100x your normal strength? How much weight could you lift? I don't think the public will ever see this this type of technology for another 20 years.

Exoskeleton based armor is still far away and it's point is not to make the soldiers run faster, but be able to carry heavier weapons and armor. I hope the first model looks like a mech.

Systems that are going to be introduced in the near future:

- FELIN
- FIST
- IdZ
- Land Warrior

If you want to have a look at the American project:

www.natick.army.mil...

Think this is the latest design: prototype 2020

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This is my first contribution to the forums, so please bare with me

I have often entertained the thought of enhancement armor for soldiers and as many have posted here, the idea of being able to lift more / more strength, have more resilience against conventional firearms and posses the strategic advantage of an "on board" H.U.D (real-time team member position updates, munition stock control, weapons aiming assistance etc.) I have ultimately always came up to a final question, or turning point that I would like another point of view on:

- Taking into account that this type of troop enhancement has to be strong, lightweight and include certain advances in micro technology, is it not cheaper and the technology easier to develop just to improve your first or second line of crowd control / first strike such as better aviation support, "clean" bombs and long distance ordinance thus rendering the necessity of "super soldiers" unnecessary?

And another question:

- For arguments sake, lets say we have the luxury of a big budget to develop a new type of ground troop. Seeing that a lot of aviation projects are starting to be unmanned, would it not be consistent from development standpoint to rule out "human" troops altogether and explore an unmanned / automated ground troop solution? Nothing fancy, nothing "Terminatoresque", but a sort of "mini tank", that is both armor plated and riddled with heavy or precision weapons that can be remote controlled and ideal for urban warfare? The Pro's and Contra's would most obviously be economic: is it cheaper to lose some money invested in a super suit and a human life, or lose a far more expensive automated solution?

Thanks for your patience reading this reply, I hope that this point of view can be useful, discussed or discarded as appropriate



[edit on 16-2-2007 by kuantize]

For a first contribution that was excellent. It was well thought out and well expressed.

Unmanned solutions are not advanced enough to be able to do the role of infantry but I am sure it will be a future development. Currently the focus is not to turn the soldier into a armored trooper, but to provide the soldier with a better integration with other forces.

I think in the future there will be a balance between unmanned and manned systems, because if the system is fully unmanned taking out the command systems will make your whole system go down. Unless we go into the field of artificial intelligence there not much that can be done about it.

I fully agree that unmanned technology, at least to public knowledge, is at its very beginnings. Such constraints as size, movement - if the automated troop moves with tracks it is obviously not ideal for purging enemies out of a building that has a flight of stairs, although it would be an ideal candidate as a "meat shield" for human troops that follow.

Control would obviously have redundancy, delegated to leaders on the field, and leaders at a remote location. As mobile communications and bandwidth advance, perhaps these units could even be controlled from command sites in remote locations in real time.

I always imagine the following situation:

Super Soldier: A unit of enhanced ground forces penetrate an enemy territory engaging in urban warfare. While proceeding through a street, a young boy suddenly springs out. The Super Soldier can decide whether this person is a civil unit or if the young boy has a bomb or firearm with him. Good or bad, there is an instant level of human interaction that could lead to a good or bad decision that has to be made in a few seconds.

Unmanned Unit: It shoots and kills.

Although we can enhance the performance of a troop, and blend it seamlessly into the rest of a military operation it is still a troop that needs to be fed, can emotionally break down and can make mistakes. If we take into account that an unmanned solution will just do as instructed - neutralize - and forgo the thought that if someone happens to get in its way it will be taken out, but on the other hand does not get scared or will not take a bad decision depending on how it feels, which of the better "evils" would we choose?

I am sorry if I have derailed this discussion from the original topic: this is a subject that I have talked to colleagues about many times and always end up rambling on!

with the rapid advancements in nanotechnology there isnt a reason in the world why this technology shouldnt be out within 10-15 years at most. This nanotechnologist in texas has already been given a contract to build an exo skeleton by the pentagon for the United States military using this new revolutionary technology. And with this technology the soldier will be able to run much faster, jump higher, stay cooler or warmer depending on the climate, and be able to rip a car door off from its hinges. I would love to have me one of those suits.

[edit on 093131p://5703pm by semperfoo]

Artificial muscle like this is the way to go IMHO as compared to Motors,hydraulics etc.. Artificial muscle has the potential to be a much quieter tech and important part of any infantry system, And its very nature matches the human body better (heck we already got the perfect blueprint)

The main problem seems for either tech is a suits power source. I mean look at the battery on the Land warrior which after 2 billion dollars R&D only has a 12 hour battery life. The energy demand of the land warrior system is nothing compared to a suit that would be 100 times stronger then a human. We need some new highly compact and powerful power source to make these practical.

Otherwise I can only see this used in something like a SWAT type situation (if a police budget could pay for it). When you get down to it most SWAT raids are over with in minutes even seconds after a team decides to go in. In such cases hours of battery life is over kill. It would also allow SWAT Personal to wear near invincible levels of full body armour for anything they are likely to encounter.

Yeah, I can certainly see this as being used in a SWAT type of scenario... I personally think though, that all of this is cause for some grave concern. As much as we would like to be upbeat about such technologies, I can see a full range of negative effects and impacts that this may have on the common folk. So...

I agree SpeakerofTruth we have to be wary of how any technology can be used for good or evil. Much like the gun which has been praised and denounced, served hero and villain alike it carries with it moral responsibility.

In the case of such suits we are talking about here I believe cost is going to be a major hindrance for criminals or even cops to get there hands on such tech. Its likely such suits would be multi-million dollar systems (after billions of R&D) perhaps even on par with current high ticket defense items like fighter jets if things like 100x strength, optical camo, carbon nanotube armour reality.

If such is the case such tech will only be in the hands of wealthy nations and even then likely in small numbers for SF. Pretty much the countries we already trust with nuclear weapons with a few exceptions.

ok, ok, ok
it looks like im gunna have to be the one to ask the question thats on everybodies mind but no-one have been game to ask:

When you put on one of those super power suits you can see chicks walking around in the nude right... don't tell me clark kent wasn't a perv please.....

There's a guy who already made a prototype exoskeleton (and is still developing upon) which allows you to do ''superhuman stuff''.

And the japanese of course, they too have robots, don't know about exoskeletons though.

In other words, this is sort of outdated, and well. yeah.

And as for "stealth", the japanese already have it incorporated into jackets.
The last version i've seen ALMOST makes you disappear completely.

[edit on 11/3/07 by -0mega-]

The technology that we're talking about is atleast around 10 years from now. Its not outdated... It will make japans "stealth jackets" look like childs play. Nanotechnology is still very raw in terms of what they can do with it now.

Invisibility suits aren't as far fetched as one may think. Flexible LCD technology is just about available. + Camera? = Invisible suit.

A ultra powerful suit sounds like a lie. Thinking about laws of physics, how does a fiber absorb all that energy? Or in super human powers, how does so much energy enhance one's ability? It sounds too fictional.

The announcement is outdated.
The technology is not.
But it's not like they've JUST begun suddenly developing anything.

And as for how to achieve ''super power".
I'd see it as for example, pistons that apply pressure to make you jump higher?

Guys i hate to burst your bubble, but carbon nano-tubes are just that, very very small tubes of carbon, graphite rolled in a cylinder, apart from being able to "grow" them they could be used to shrink the good old PN junction a bit, and perhaps as a drug delivery method or a kind of reinforcement of a material, like some sort of polymer chain mail material, like armour. But i do not see how they can turn a suit of the things into a "super suit" people just hear words like nano technology and get carried away......................

Having a camelion suit is not out of the question as far as camoflage goes and incorporating display technology into fabric will achieve this i believe but this is not an invisibility cloak as it would be practically impossible to model and reproduce light coming from every direction and at best you might be able to achieve Very rough "invisibility only in one direction and even that is doubtful with this technique.

It is much more likely that full invisibility will be achieved with applications involving exotic physics like bending light around certain areas or slightly shifting people into higher dimensional octives......