Primitive Future Armor

According to the critique of America's Talos program we are at least three years away from powered armor becoming a possibility, so probably a decade before it becomes common in at least one military and two decades before several militaries use them.
This thread is to discuss the intermediate forms of armor that might arise between the current plate carrier and the future state of strength-augmenting smart suits with full ballistic protection. I propose:
>55-60lbs (in line with slightly heavy suits of armor and extrapolated from current UHMWPE plates)
>some models provide universal NIJ 3 protection
>some provide NIJ 3 on the limbs and 4 for the torso/head
>some provide universal NIJ 4
>most provide no inherent NBC protection
>unpowered; mechanical assistance might reduce walking burden to equivalent of 40lbs on some models
>cooling vest with 24hrs of battery time to stave off heat stress
>$20k/unit cost
>small enough to still fit in most modern IFVs without issue
Is there a military niche where such equipment would be a feasible choice, or is universal ballistic protection not worth the 40-60 pounds of gear it eats up in a modern battlefield?

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  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    None of this is true. Suits are held back by battery technology and humanity isn’t smart enough to come up with lighter, more powerful batteries

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      TALOS used solid oxide fuel cells. How can batteries hold us back if we aren't using them?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        TALOS failed. The biggest problem was power generation

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >he doesn't know
          TALOS beat the power requirements for the previous suit. Everytime a working exoskeleton is produced it's canceled using that excuse even though each new suit meets the standard demanded of the prior one. First was 6 hours, then 8, 12, and 24. Now it's 48.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Sauce?

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              The program requirements, brownoid. Learn to use the fricking internet.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                So a source doesn't exist, because that post I replied to covered a lot more than just the TALOS program requirements.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            The power requirements for infantry have been 72 hours for over a decade, now.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Provide any source, because none of the tests at Natick required that

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Just carry a generator and use combustion.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        thats too heavy for the armor though. Maybe we should give it wheels...

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Need more off road capability and a heavier suspension. Treads would work.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          hmm wheels might get stuck in the bad terrain the suits would be used in.

          Tracks might be more suitable.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            if we gave it all that stuff i think we could fit a pretty big gun on there, it'd be much more effective than just a rifle. this idea is going places, anon.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Tankettes are the future

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >laughs in a back-mounted TX-28 MicroFusion Pack outputting 60 kilowatts of power

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        its pretty weird how accurate Fallout is becoming
        back when the whole lore was made, no one was really thinking about a big war between China and the US
        and no one was thinking about how important Alaska would be (Anchorage is one of the most strategic cities in the world due to it's position in regards to global air commercial traffic)
        The last areas of oil will probably be in the Arctic as well

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          It's like Fallout, but a lot more gay and realistic without the super mutants, feral ghouls, personal butler robots in every home, a fusion powered car in every garage, a laser rifle hanging above every American bed, or actual power armor for soldiers to wear.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      This is idiotic. We've continually advanced out battery technology since the first real attempts to build exoskeletons.
      What has happened is the requirement for adoption continuously increased as battery tech improved. The inadequate battery life achieved by TALOS would have exceeded the NSRDEC ideal requirements from the late 00's
      The problem is actually that the technology is rapidly improving and everyone is concerned about being screwed by the Wait/Walk Dilemma. Nobody wants to make the exoskeleton equivalent of the Lebel and poison the well when waiting is likely to deliver a much better product.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        What actually happened was electronics got less demanding power wise and more effective per watt, electric motors got cheaper, as did carbon fibre and complex plastic manufacture. The batteries are not that much more efficient for space, though they are better per kg than older ones.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          No, that has also happened, but we've massively improved key battery chemistries over the past 30 years. Cost, volumetric and gravimetric energy densities, have improved by multiples.

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Autonomous drone swarms guided by local AI launched out of 40mm tubes obviates any armor, simple as, soz

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    If you have the tech to put such a suit together, you have the tech to remove the squishy weakpoint in the center of the tootsie-pop. Humans likely won't be using armored suits en-mass ever, because we're fast becoming irrelevant in direct-fighting roles. Instead of your futurist gushing, imagine a post-WoT zoomer sitting 500 miles away in an air-conditioned trailer, sipping starcucks while zhe monitors an autonomous munition smoking sand-people. That's your future.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      what happens when blanket spectrum EM jamming makes that shit not work

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The neat thing about jammers is they're not immune to bombings. Jamming works by broadcasting, and broadcasted signals can be located. It's not a "we turn it on and leave it running to win" button. Also stops you from using equipment yourself if you're running blanket spectrum. You wanna be a little shit then you get 10 tons of MoAB correction.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >moron doesn't know about overlapping signal bands creating a false signal origin point
          >Sgt. Shaniqua drops million dollar Moab on own base hospital
          >Sheeeeeit

          Near peer both have reasons to just jam as much communications as possible and that communication jamming cannot be hurr durr just counter attacked, which punts the robots into local AI and the fact robots will kill people without direct human clearance in a futurewar. Until then you have bullshit like Ukraine, which is if anything an extension of what we've seen in middle east conflicts of alibaba package delivery drones dropping mortar shells on people and replacing artillery spotters. Those consumer electronics are going to be countered by a new generation of jamming tech and doctrine. Half the reason why such a turd world war is being prolonged is to dust off what can be accomplished by irregular forces before it's brought to bear against US/NATO/UN in a new foreign or not so foreign war.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Those consumer electronics are going to be countered by a new generation of jamming tech and doctrine.
            *are already countered. The US already saw that as the future and started moving to integrate EW capabilities at the company level in 2017 after ISIS first started using drones to drop grenades in 2016.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Blanket spectrum jamming doesn't work against frequency-hopping communications because it spreads the power out across every frequency, making the jamming thousands of times weaker against any specific frequency the enemy uses.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You'd probably have the suits adopted for the rare cases when you do really need a human on the field, but robots would probably take up most of the fighting roles.
      Also, zoomers will be in their 60s by the time this happens. So it'll be whatever comes after gen alpha.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        I can imagine high-security or sensitive details using some kind of armored suit, though the question then is if mission parameters neccesitate that kind of kit, and why are you putting a human in an area with that kind of threat level before flattening it with automunitions. Certainly, though, the logic of every infantryman resembling Starship troopers death-mechs launching nukes from a shouldermount is silly.

        As far as zoomers fighting goes, I predict the tech to accomplish this will be out in "2 weeks"

        I think it could see adoption among some mechanized infantry units, some SF missions, and some domestic policing units, but forty to sixty pounds is a lot of gear to ask your average Joe to go without in any situation where he has to sustain himself for longer than a couple hours. I will say that the fact that universal lvl3 protection provides a high level of fragmentation resistance is probably a more important feature than its impact on rifle fire.

        >[weapon] has made humanity irrelevant on the front lines!
        >all fighting in the future will be done from [whatever distance [weapon] is effective at]!
        Many such cases, and yet infantry continues to exist. Curious.

        Let me know how that goes pal. 11Bs will be doing the Roomba's job of sweeping while the Roomba is off killing hajis for less than the cost of their daily food.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      I think it could see adoption among some mechanized infantry units, some SF missions, and some domestic policing units, but forty to sixty pounds is a lot of gear to ask your average Joe to go without in any situation where he has to sustain himself for longer than a couple hours. I will say that the fact that universal lvl3 protection provides a high level of fragmentation resistance is probably a more important feature than its impact on rifle fire.

      >[weapon] has made humanity irrelevant on the front lines!
      >all fighting in the future will be done from [whatever distance [weapon] is effective at]!
      Many such cases, and yet infantry continues to exist. Curious.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Ground drones are absolute garbage at doing the things infantry is meant to though; holding ground.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >because we're fast becoming irrelevant in direct-fighting roles

      They said this about the war in Ukraine and how modern wars are mainly about tanks and planes but the war managed to turn into a WW I style long war with infantrymen in trenches. Man will never become obsolete in war even in a future with Terminator robots.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        That's Russia, though. What about a boogaloo between actually competent near-peer powers?

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The big thing with future armor is exoskeletons allowing troops to carry huge loads over long distances, but massive plates that make infantry walking tanks is impractical.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      "Here's your infantry bro"

      And he still gets knee problems

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous
  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    How can anyone believe that future tech is even humanoid let alone human? Mechs, power suits, light sabers all of this shit was just fantasy, or else way too optimistic. You won’t get suits. You’ll get bombs launched by AI while you watch on a screen a million miles away.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You sound like a libshit saying garbage like
      >how will an insurrection defeat the gobberment when the latter has tanks and planes? xD
      Those drones can't hold ground. Of course, we will likely never get mechs, but power armor is two orders of magnitude more realistic. Hell, I and OP aren't even really interested in "power" armor but regular futuristic low tech armor.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        You just sound like a moron.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          You just sound like a moron.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            You just sound like a moron.

            you just sound like morons

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Infantry is very good at not being an enormous slow-moving target asking to get splattered by singular ATGMs out in the open like modern armored vehicles. Why not combine it with some of the characteristics of an armored vehicle while preserving survivability?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        out in the open infantries are the slow moving target and dies easily to artillery blast and fragments. They have to be carried by transport or else they don't have the protection and speed outside of favorable positions.

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    the biggest problem with armor and gear is it slows a solider down, a slow immobile solider is easily killed or in this case at least focused so much it becomes difficult to do anything.. which I guess is an advantage if you're working with "regular" infantry who can use YOU as a base of fire instead of like 5 guys, where a man might need to take cover from incoming rounds, you could tank everything that isn't a battle rifle cartridge, but again not getting shot is the ideal outcome...

    what the power armor is really going to need is a HUD that basically makes some of the interior of the helmet into a 'glass hull' kinda where it uses some exterior cameras to overlay the world inside the mask to increase the FOV and give the user more information, since they're gunna be cut off from like all their senses.

    OR just make the helmet like the one OG one from Halo where the entire front is just ballistic glass, then project a HUD onto that

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      If we can find a way to power a suit weight wouldn’t be an issue

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >>what the power armor is really going to need is a HUD that basically makes some of the interior of the helmet into a 'glass hull'
      Not a big deal, we already have such technology.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >where the entire front is just ballistic glass
      I'm not sure if ballistic glass is good enough for this application. In the same way that a tank's reliance on periscopes can makeit vulnerable to weapons that are incapable of penetrating its armor, the spiderwebbing that comes with ballistic glass successfully stopping a shot puts the wearer in a bind. Do they take the helmet off and become a mortal man again? Do they try to continue blind? I think that transparent ceramics (particularly alumina in this particular application) might fracture in ways that provides clarity for longer, but ultimately cameras are almost certainly the better choice.
      >in short, maybe on gen 1 units, but something I expect to be widely remedied by gen 2 and absolutely eliminated by gen 3

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        where would you put the camera? on the face? hows a camera any less fragile than glass

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Cameras can be protected and the lens doesn't have to be as big as a visor to offer the same field of view, in addition to offering a variety of visual enhancements/HUD options that the Mk.1 Human Eyeball lacks.
          Moreover, you can put multiple camera and sensor suites for redundancy/improved FoV without compromising protection.
          The ideal situation would be not getting shot in the face, but in case that does happen it could have an armored visor with sensors that can be flipped up/discarded in case the sensors get fragged and go with visual from there.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Wise words from Gigachad.

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Gravity Industries' Jet Suits are steadily progressing toward adoption

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      give these bois a light leg-exo that just helps support the weight of the jetpack, maybe have it charge when in flight and god DAMN we literally have Jet-troopers

      even without it they do fine, I just imagine using it for a while or through its full fuel span is probably really tiring

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        If you watch the video, the packs are made to be rapidly taken off and put on. You can fly in, land, and pop the unit off to proceed with your mission.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      wouldnt these floaty boys be good at taking down drones? just have them carry a whacking stick or something

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The traditional anti-drone melee weapon is a broom or a rake

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You can get one for like 45k

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Powered armor will not be viable for combat use until we have significantly better batteries or portable fusion generators. Even then, who gives a shit when air supremacy rolls everything?

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >According to the critique of America's Talos program we are at least three years away from powered armor becoming a possibility
    Of course you didn't link it like the homosexual you are.

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    sounds like a lighter version of EOD suit. It is already rare to see someone with upper arm and groin protection, so addition of thigh, shin, fore arm is going to be even less prevalent, let alone a lightweight, well tailored skeleton system to distribute the weight. And I haven't seen much nij2 full body suit like arma 3 csat or lighter than that for just small fragments.

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The bear suit is better

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      this guy killed himself by driving head on into a oil tanker at 120 mph in a little tiny pickup truck
      pretty sad

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >OP specifies a discussion on unpowered, 55-60lb armored suits that can fit in IFVs
    >illiterate midwits start b***hing about power supply and suggesting "why not just make a tank"
    Shit thread as expected. Let's look at what soldiers carry now and see what they could reasonably give up. Pic rel is from https://web.archive.org/web/20190706075100/https://www.gao.gov/assets/690/684514.pdf and identifies loads in the sub-120lb region for the people who do most of the maneuvering (everyone who's armed with a normal rifle). These loads are designed for "immediate combat operations plus additional equipment such as food, water, and additional ammunition to sustain operations (until resupply is available)."
    We'll use the Army TL load of 109lbs and assume the unpowered suit takes up the role of primary personal protective equipment. That means that at baseline we've got
    >109lbs total - 27lbs armor = 82lbs of other gear
    And armored we're at
    >109lbs total - 60lbs armor = 49lbs of other gear
    For a worst case reduction of 33lbs of carried weight. Thirty-three pounds is a lot of shit. But we see from the graph that there ARE fighting men that carry more- assistance machine gunners and javelin gunners carry 30+ lbs more than their riflemen do as is. I think it's reasonable to say that, while this concept might not become ubiquitous equipment for riflemen, there's room for it to be adopted somewhere.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      every squad should have a pack donkey to carry supplies

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Could there be a niche in a "forward drone controller" included at the squad level? It looks like rapid coordination of drone operations is going to be part of the future of ground warfare, and there's nobody with an OODA loop shorter than the guy getting shot at. It's okay that he's carrying less gear- there's no reason why the squad necessarily has to carry and launch the drones he controls. And you want him to be as hardened as possible, because he's emitting all the damn time and you're at a serious disadvantage as soon as he dies.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      That's already a lot of weight. I'd rather see modern materials applied to making a soldier's kit as light as possible and relying on the outer shells of the survivability onion. Forget fancy armor, give me a 30lb combat load and thermal camo oversuits.

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    We are not a decade away from Warhammer 40k.
    We are about to have a massive atlantis/tartaria type mudflood/plasma event reset. Pay attention

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >three years

  15. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Exposed wiring
    Hope it's not important.

  16. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Powered armor will not be viable for combat use until we have significantly better batteries or portable fusion generators.
    >None of this is true. Suits are held back by battery technology and humanity isn’t smart enough to come up with lighter, more powerful batteries
    in a back-mounted TX-28 MicroFusion Pack outputting 60 kilowatts of power
    AAAAAAAA WHY DO npcs THINK THE ONLY THING THAT EXISTS ARE BATTERIES AND FRICKING FUSION
    IT'S CALLED A FUEL CELL WE'VE BEEN USING THEM SINCE I DON'T FRICKING KNOW I'M PRETTY SURE THERE WERE SOME ON FRICKING APOLLO
    STOP BEING A b***h

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Or you know, a hybrid gas turbine system. Compact power with endurance, plus the option to run for a short time on batteries for the element of surprise.

  17. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    OP just wanted to spam some shitty AI power armour prompt pic, I think others already suggested banning this as this is such low effort you will get the board flooded with /sdg/ schizo mental fap.

    As for OP question, won't happen, sadly West investors have become obsessed with investing in non-capital-intensive pajeet software projects such as the app used to make that image instead of truly beneficial technologies for the entirety of the planet such as ARC reactors (no one would give a shit about fossil economy if we had those), it shows what we already knew about venture capitalists, they fricking hate the middle class and the poor, just like socialists, but they dont even bother to pretend otherwise.

  18. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Passive load bearing suits will be the next big thing very soon. Will allow SF and recon types to carry more stuff to be independent and more capable on their for a longer time, or put on a (relative) ton of armour for cqc situations. Not mechanized or powered in any way, just clever use of support structures to help evenly distribute and balance loads to areas where the body can best handle them.

  19. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >$20k/unit cost
    Might be the most unbelievable part of this, deysu.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Unbelievable? For standardized pieces of hot-formed plastic produced en masse? How?
      >inb4 custom tailoring
      The US Army publishes one of the largest anthropometric databases in the world. They have the most data on the measurements of the human body, and such measurements could easily yield standardized plates that conform to each soldier without having to redo all the work of making each uniquely.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >They have the most data on the measurements of the human body
        Is their penis size database public?

  20. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    How the frick are you going to scratch your back?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Built in automated back-scrubber built into the suit

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        How the frick are you going to scratch your back?

        Master Chief's armor could jerk him off

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