Exo Skeletons

Say that these things become wide-spread use in a military application (not just for logistical reasons, but for combat as well), what would be some fundamental changes to infantry doctrine, or the overall big picture to warfare?

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Pallets become obsolete.

    HATO would never obsolete their own wunderwaffle like that.

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    veteran's affairs becomes less clogged with people whose bodies are destroyed from years of rucking

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Oh, they'll still find a way to load you up until your body is destroyed.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        This. They'll come up with some policy to keep the exosuits off while rucking. Maybe it will be "so they don't wear out the batteries in case of combat" or they'll come up with some instruction that "you have to practice supporting your gear load without the use of an exosuit in case your exosuit breaks in combat conditions."

        Back surgery that takes place five years after discharge is a VA problem, combat effectiveness is an army prerogative, they'll prioritize the exosuit over your back 10/10. Also, the exosuit will be around after you're gone, that shit is an asset, once you leave, your back and knees are your own problem.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Do you like this song?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It will be replaced with exosuit injuries where they explode and cripple service members. After years of mangled soldiers an investigation is launched that discovers a contractor robbed the DoD of billions by supplying inferring O-rings sourced from North Korea for bottom dollar.

        Then once a new contract is awarded to retrofit all the exosuits with quality made Sri Lankan O-rings. It will cost millions and take 6 years. Meanwhile the soldiers will use the suits anyway and risk daily disfigurement because Muh Duty.

        After 8 years the exosuit refit will be complete and the DoD will hail it's victory in lowering exosuit deaths by 6% in the mean time. The suits will work flawlessly for 5 months and then be phased out for the all new bug filled "mecha exosuit project". It's higly untested but the DoD hopes that the trillions invested will mean less injuries and deaths for front line grunts. Plus it now has lasers for some reason or other.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Yeah you're not rucking 90 lbs everywhere now
        >You're rucking 240

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      My buddy is on his 4th back surgery and they're probably never going to get it right. Semper Fi

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The biggest change would be that if our technology was improved to the point that we could make honestly good exos we'd probably never bother because we could make even better robots/drones.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Checked and honestly this, robotics by then will surely be more useful and effective than exo's, sadly.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I think the exo would have a place actually. The arms race of drones will revolve in part around preventing them from having a signal. You can have some limited autonomous programing in that case but it's hard to beat a human making decisions on the ground.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I think the exo would have a place actually. The arms race of drones will revolve in part around preventing them from having a signal. You can have some limited autonomous programing in that case but it's hard to beat a human making decisions on the ground.

      furthermore, you don't want an ai that can think by itself well enough to be on par with a human soldier or better in every senario. thats a termionator scenario in the making.

      so you have semi-dumb robots that can do tnheir job when supervized and can listen to a leader on site if communication breaks down and have a power armored robot-tard-wrangler / commander on site.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        The hubris of man can be counted on to bring about its AI DOOM

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Good for that middle step between pallet and weapon., initially, followed by a fire support platform that actually works in urban settings. Getting MANPADs and ATGMs to the top of a building or a tripod mounted weapon now mounted on a bipod.

      Actual assault armor would come later. I figure an M32 grenade launcher with an 8 gauge shotgun for backup.

      Also this. Drones either suffer terribly from EWAR such as signal triangulation and jamming or are so stupid they get fooled by somersaults and cardboard boxes. Having local controllers lets you drop the amplitude for a lower profile or use the inverse square law to overpower jamming.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >what would be some fundamental changes to infantry doctrine, or the overall big picture to warfare
    Massive motor pools and maintenance corps, for every one frame multiple techs would probably be required. So you better hope that frame is good enough to be replacing the ten soldiers that are going to be needed to keep it running.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Starship troopers that shit and make everyone a tech as well. A soldier should know how to take care of their equipment.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I feel like multiple frames, multiple technicians. One guy can handle the specific needs of multiple frames, just not all the needs of a single frame.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Depending on how reliable it is it could massively simplify logistics, even if you need 10 pog greasemonkeys for each exosuit that replaces only 5 jarheads. Same way precision systems take A LOT of stuff to make, but 1 truck of Excaliburs would have the same impact as your motorpool loaded with simple artillery shells.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        That was the point, the main significant difference it would make would be a shift in who does what, and hopefully also justify its existence as a force multiplier by being as effective as the soldiers it takes out of the equation. It would be another equation into the overall problem like any other piece of military equipment.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      If suits advance enough to be worth it, why wouldn't you imagine a remotely operated service capability? Especially given a remotely operated service capability is more likely at this point.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    IFV becomes obsolete, light tanks make a comeback.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      IFV would be more needed because they need to carry the power armor
      >light tanks make a comeback
      a tank that is very easy to destroy will make a comeback

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      IFVs are the hard counter to power armor.
      -autocannon shreds PA the same as normal infantry, no immunity to suppression
      -tracks go fast to outmaneuver them
      -carry regular infantry inside to look in buildings or holes
      -if the normals find power armor, they take cover and the IFV pops a ATGM into the room
      -HMG/autocannon proof armor nullifies big power armor guns
      -room for APS which is too big and power hungry for PA to use

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >Both carry weapons able to pop the other
        >One is smaller and can lay down.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >what is APS

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I'll take "things useless against kinetic hit to kill ATGMs" for $500, Alex

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              >aaaaaa atgms make tanks obsolete
              Straight into the trash.

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Dunking on asymmetrical opponents with heavy drone support, anything else for a long time would see it rather as a niche use-case where they are relegated to having their fat-asses shipped around by the equivalent of a bradley, dismounting with a TOW, blasting away, and scampering back to the safety of their metal bawkes.
    Most likely use-case still would remain as a drone-bearer, strapping a literal crate worth of switchblades/suicide copters onto a mobile platform will never not be useful. Any other use-case you could just do better with no suit, a guy is just as dead with 5 rounds of 5.56 as he is with 3 rounds of 12mm.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    power armor only will only make sense if you can have so much armor that guns can't damage it and it needs to move very fast

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Grunts carrying 100lbs of gear? Bah. Now they carry 500 lbs of gear!

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Do you know what power armor is?

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Do you?

  9. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How would it change anything? You're still not bulletproof. You still move at the same speed.

  10. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Depends on if the brass wants to maintain current levels of operation but with heavier weapons, or if they opt for literally mechanized light infantry with several times the operational range due to increased carrying capacity and decreased fatigue for the soldiers.

    Ukraine has shown that squads of light infantry are extremely vulnerable to drone attacks, so an exoframe would probably opt for heavier armor and advanced warning systems, with the added weight limiting operation range to roughly what unaugmented infantry manage irl, but you wouldn’t be losing whole squads to a single grenade.

  11. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Exo skeletons would never be suited for combat. A lot of combat doctrine is based around not revealing your position and trying to find the other guy's position. Why in the world would you want to make your profile even larger? Any project for exo-skeletons in combat is just a way to make easy money from the DoD for R&D.

  12. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    in terrain unfriendly to vehicles it would do wonders to improove mortar and other "technicaly man portable" artilery positioning and resupply.

    It would be quite usefull to uparmor the dudes fighting in urban areas where bullets, explosions , frags , fires and whatnot can come from any direction.

    it probably is not going to make a SPESSMARINE TERMINATOR

    Closest thing I see happening (if the powersource is made reliable and loonglasting enough) Is the SDALKER exoskeleton. makes you basically unkillable against pistols, smg, shottyes, and much more difficult (far from impossible though) to kill for assault rifles (556, 545, 762x39) , with only AP full sized calibers (308, 30 06, 762x54r and similar shit like the XM5) being able to pass through most of the armor .

    What an exoskeleton could allow a solder is a much heavyer helmet, your torso can lug around a lot of ceramic and kevlar , along with ammo, water ecc. your neck has trouble carrying nods+helmet+comtacs.

    From my own motorcycling experience, anything over 1.5 kg / 3.3 lbs puts you at a risk( although a mild one at lover weights and a serious one) of a neck stress injury. The effects of wearing a helmet all day is cumulative and eventually you will pull a muscle if you are not given proper time withouth one.

    I ride a bike every day wearing a 1.6 kg /3.5 lbs and every 5-8 months I pull a neck muscle, never happened with my old lighter helmet. But that is my experience yours may vary

  13. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >(not just for logistical reasons, but for combat as well)
    biggest thing if you can pack some good armor on them without losing too much in dexterity. From top to bottom. One of the hings I have seen from ukraine war is the human monkey is way too fragile for industrial conventional war.

    All it takes is a random shrapnel or bullet flying around and bam, at best weeks out of service, at worst surgery followed by permanent cripple. This is even getting much more hazardous then say WW2 with the mass deployment of accurate munitions. Including those fricking drones dropping mortar and nades on your head. Now with combat strength suits that can at least take several direct hits from regular small arms/at least one nade/mortar round right next to it before plates need changing. How much would militaries benefit from units consisting of experienced combat veterans remaining operational and not getting capped by some random ricochet bullet shot by a mobnik shooting randomly over the trench line with his rifle above his head?

  14. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Assuming they get brought in (which in my opinion, will depend if they can be brought in as a cost-effective item. Most grunt-level gear is both effective and cost-efficient), you'll see the upgrading to light armor packs (such as breastplates and limb armor) to protect against small arms fire and shrapnel. Exos will allow for more standard troops to carry heavier weapons with more punching power, without dramatically increasing the cost of said weapons. It will allow the standard troopers to carry more/heavier gear and weapons.
    Specialty troops will be where you see a lot of dramatic changes. Demolition squads could be dropped behind lines with enough gear to cause some amazing havoc. Heavy weapons teams can replace light tanks for a fraction of the cost without sacrificing much in the way of stopping power. You'll see mobility playing a larger factor in wars - terrain you couldn't get gear across suddenly becomes less of a barrier when you factor in augmented humanoid movement. Humans with exos can hit harder and move farther than a person without. Better gear just makes a better warrior in the field of battle.
    As I said though, it's going to depend on the cost. If they are brought in on a budget that means an exo soldier is priced far less than what it takes to crew and support even a light tank or other vehicle of similar scope, you'll see them being adopted by first-world countries that can afford to field them in large numbers. Others will probably only have small elite members of their armies equipped with them (such as personal guards for leaders and strike /terror teams) for the added protection and raw intimidation a group of people in stompy-mecha type gear can impose on a populous.
    I do think exo armor is in our future, it just needs to be made cheaply enough that outfitting soldiers makes it cost-effective.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I'm sure it's just a proof of concept but that pic doesn't actually provide the wearer with anything

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Agreed. This is just something I found on google images that was actually real and not a Hollywood mockup or artist rendering. But it is real and functional - so it's a start in the right direction for combat frames. Probably the two things holding combat frames back is cost and an effective power supply.

  15. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    They could go further and faster than non exo grunts, carry more ammo and bigger weapons, maybe even heavier body armour, making the wearer a force multiplier? Imagine someone sprinting at you while firing a stabilised LMG or auto GL, with a couple of popup AT launchers on the back, immmune to normal small arms? Possibly used for important actions (assaulting strongpoints, bunkers, city fighting, etc) with other non exo infantry being used as a backup. There will be lots of problems to overcome though, like the cost of the suit and the extra trainung needed, when the batteries go flat, the overweight exo suit wearer gets stuck in mud or falls through a floor, or a joint in the suit breaks or malfunctions from combat damage or just mistreatment by the wearer. It wont be something you can just bung a conscript into and expect results.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >immune to normal small arms
      That sounds unlikely though. There will still be enough gaps that power armored soldiers won't wander around like tanks and it would be simple to issue out mags of AP ammo. Plus power armor won't be immune to HMGs or loitering munitions. It's better for CQB, but ironically CQB matters less in peer tier wars where any conscript with a smartphone can call a GMLRS or Excalibur onto a house.

  16. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >light infantry can carry more heavy weapons and other gear
    >mechanized infantry who already have armored vehicles to carry shit can carry more armor

  17. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Space marine armor looks less rediculous in the context of these.

  18. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    You would likely see larger caliber firearms become a little more common in order to deal with them.

    Another big side effect of power armor increasing infantry protection is that it would possibly require changes in artillery to effectively deal with them, as shrapnel would be the first thing a hardsuit would be designed to protect against.

  19. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    If you had this technology and it was cheap enough to give infantry it would make strapping enough armor to be functionally immune to small arms and shrapnel trivial. If they have low battery life they're only useful for extreme force concentration or some kind of semi-static position (sometimes there are places you just absolutely cannot afford to move or lose).
    Basically you'd have something on the level of an IFV that can take cover and go prone etc.
    If they have extreme battery life they'd be super useful in long range maneuvering, men could walk further with more equipment and be injured less. Faster and longer maneuvers means victory.

  20. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    so let me get this straight. you're going to field exos so you can field bigger ordanance but you don't want to pay extra for armor to protect you from small arms fire cuz its 'too expensive'??

  21. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    STRAP IT TO A HEMI!
    DEM DIESEL FUMES MAN!
    IT'LL POWER ANYTHING!

  22. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    It need a hemi! strap them boston dynamics queer shit to it and mount dem big guns boys!

  23. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Well, I'm moronic so the first thing that comes to mind is that your average infantryman is gonna carry a lot more armor due to the added strength and mobility afforded by the exosuit. Combat load is also going up, think about your average GI with a 8 magazine combat load for the M7.

  24. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    God only knows what DARPA has actually developed. Everyone talks about the NSA, the CIA, NASA. Frick all that. I want to be a fly on the wall at DARPA. I guarantee they have made this shit for real at some point. It probably was not worthwhile but you just know they did.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      >60% body surface area covered by XSAPI
      >20% by soft armor
      >20% uncovered
      >over 12 hours of energy using a fuel cell
      Cancelled for not lasting 48 hours of combat.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Actually now that I think about it, they made one they showed off that used wires and pulleys.

        https://biodesign.seas.harvard.edu/soft-exosuits
        They also were working on a muscle suit with fibers that can contract instead of this wire and pulley stuff they're showing on TV. Apparently that shit got scrubbed off the net though.

        Yeah I can't find anything on the artificial muscle fiber but it would have been similar to this pneumatic one in set-up.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Sauce? That's pretty impressive if true.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          The TALOS program. IVAS was a spinoff.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >bottom right
            >that suit
            Ngl, first impression of it makes me think it's some Halloween getup. At least until the user picks someone up and chucks them through the wall. Then a change of shorts is in order.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              That's not the suit. That's the armor you wear over the suit. In a sense, it has nothing to do with the suit except that the suit makes you strong enough to wear it.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Point still stands that it looks like something from super sentai/power rangers. Just seems silly at a glance.

              • 1 year ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah.

                Do you like this song?

                To be clear I don't "like" the song myself but I've listened to it a bunch of times. It hits pretty hard.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            It's true, just search, DARPA, Havard and Talos.
            Those key words should get you to the suit.

            It's better than this idiotic thing at least.

            Although, if you paired an exosuit with it and the right software you probably could get something going but I have no idea how you would develop that level of software, It'd be a multi-billion dollar program probably.

            I know about TALOS, I've just never seen anything about the specs of what actually got demonstrated before the project ended and got broken up into other projects.

            • 1 year ago
              Anonymous

              Okay, well if you find anything about the artificial muscle fiber post it in a new thread tomorrow or something, please. It definitely exists and they were definitely wanting to use it for a suit. Think like some nylon webbing but it contracts with a small electrical current.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          It's true, just search, DARPA, Havard and Talos.
          Those key words should get you to the suit.

          It's better than this idiotic thing at least.

          Although, if you paired an exosuit with it and the right software you probably could get something going but I have no idea how you would develop that level of software, It'd be a multi-billion dollar program probably.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Actually now that I think about it, they made one they showed off that used wires and pulleys.

      https://biodesign.seas.harvard.edu/soft-exosuits
      They also were working on a muscle suit with fibers that can contract instead of this wire and pulley stuff they're showing on TV. Apparently that shit got scrubbed off the net though.

  25. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    I think TALOS right now is nothing more than a concept.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      It passed the prototype stage.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah, but these are just the optics, I'm more interested in the exoskeleton itself.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Well not him but I posted you links and key words to research. The take away is that the military is working on them quietly in the background. They're pairing with colleges to do so and they'll actually be soft suits. Picture a jumpsuit you can put on filled with contracting fibers that enhance your strength and prevent over extensions of joints. I'm talking very Marvel Universe shit and DARPA has whatever they've accomplished military-wise squirreled away from prying eyes.

  26. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    The Ma Duce becomes standard issue

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