I see this being useful for self-rescue on sinking ships and getting into firing positions far in advance of enemy contact. I don't see much merit in actual combat, a lot of its benefits are negated by it constantly screaming at 150db.
moron, jetpacks have been cooking for half a century. Bell had a working one in the 60s, when I was a kid there were ducted fan ones being prototyped and when I was in highschool there were always vids of the martin jetpack on discovery channel.
Main area it seems to be having relevance is boarding actions for coast guard. Let's you get boots on board the vessel much faster than needing to park alongside and climb a ladder. Could be essential in some operations to prevent destruction of evidence or scuttling of the ship.
In the future, could possibly see special forces teams deploy from helos/vtol using these rather than fast roping. Would give the advantage that the carrier vehicle can stay moving over target, no need to hover or land to deploy troops.
In almost any scenario tho, the jet suit is only for getting from point A to B quickly, and it's gotta be easy to remove so you can quickly attain a fighting stance or cover.
>it's gotta be easy to remove so you can quickly attain a fighting stance
IIf they can figure out a way to free up the arms and allow for some kind of control mechanism that doesn't require them to take their hands off of a weapon you'd have a platform you could probably take into combat or, at the very least, increase their combat capability so now a Coast guard down and have a rifle trained on whatever drug runners he's flying over and can hold them down until the rhib shows up.
>If they can figure out a way to free up the arms
This is the main problem that needs to be solved. You control your vertical speed with the angle of your arms, point down to ascend, out to the side to descend. You can't have a quick disconnect or a holster or whatever because you have to wait for the jets to spool down before you can let go of the controls/discard them without them flying around uncontrollably. You can't mount a weapon to the gauntlets because the thrust would make it impossible to aim. Having your maneuvering engines on your arms is what makes it so stable and intuitive to fly, moving them to some other mount and changing the way you control it would massively complicate the design.
IIf they can figure out a way to free up the arms and allow for some kind of control mechanism that doesn't require them to take their hands off of a weapon you'd have a platform you could probably take into combat or, at the very least, increase their combat capability so now a Coast guard down and have a rifle trained on whatever drug runners he's flying over and can hold them down until the rhib shows up.
The biggest military applications I can see for these things is if you're on the ground with a gun and need to get to higher ground really quickly, perhaps on top of buildings for example so you can ambush enemies from the upper floors. Other than that though, there's no real advantages to using these over UAVs, since UAVs are way less of a liability. But god damn if those aren't cool as fuck
it can be used to increase mobility of some infantry - being able to hop on building or survive it folding beneath you... but actual fighting platform? drone will be 80 -100 kg lighter for same capabilities and without huge squishy target to shoot at...
It's the sort of thing that could be very useful for mountain infantry; it would turn a (dangerous and energetic) full days trek across mountainous terrain into a scenic 20 minute flight. As everyone has pointed out you'd ditch the jet before engaging the enemy though. Even if it does happen at some point in the future we're a long way from jet-pack shooting the enemy while dancing through the sky.
There's a similar unit that was being trialled by UK Mountain Rescue services (where getting up a mountain in a few minutes compared to a few hours could be the difference between life and death) and while it wasn't exactly the top of the Himalayas they managed pretty well with it.
Has the war in Ukraine changed anyone's perception of these things? I used to firmly be in the mindset that they were pretty useless and just served to turn troops to expensive clay pigeons, but some of the recent trench footage has caused some doubt in my mind. You see footage of troops in dugouts and bunkers sheltering from artillery essentially blind, then taking several minutes to get in position for an infantry foot assault from the enemy. I imagine that if the infantry assault could be make individually air mobile, you could have troops attacking while the enemy is still waiting to see if more shells are incoming.
Of course you could use mechanized troops, but the pervasive nature of AT weapons is concerning.
Couldn't you get the same effect by having the assault on the trenches lead by a mechanised element? Russia can barely give every man they conscript a rifle at this point - do you really think they've got ATGMs to burn?
I doubt these things are gonna find their way into trench warfare. Russia's only been stuck in trench warefare because they couldn't establish air dominance. Why the fuck would you spend time and money on getting your soldiers flying for trench warfare when you could be pouring that shit into establishing air dominance?
It's safe to assume soldiers using this shit are gonna have air support and not be pinned by artillery.
You need to think about these things as an alternative to helicopters and drones in niche situations for the dominant force in asymmetrical warfare.
>Has the war in Ukraine changed anyone's perception of these things
Not really. Ukraine is a fucking trench war on the level of the Iran Iraq war. Nothing really groundbreaking about this war except for the realization that everyone now has drones. > I imagine that if the infantry assault could be make individually air mobile, you could have troops attacking while the enemy is still waiting to see if more shells are incoming.
No. They'd just get shot out of the air after the enemy clued into their use.
This shit will be great for seizing ships or oil rigs. And for lower intensity urban combat you could have teams clear buildings from the top down, rather than the bottom up. This is great because grenades tend to bounce downstairs, not up.
But for regular two dimensional warfare, it has basically no application.
Shove yourself to the top of a building. Jump up a cliff. Tell rivers, trees, or rough terrain in general to go fuck itself.
Generally getting an advantageous position from which to do operator things.
We've already seen in the last year that soldiers are completely blind to threats above them so jump suits that let you land on top of enemies will be incredibly effective
Why not make it a little bigger so you can fit even more people on it, would have the added benefit of having more room for fuel giving it much longer range as well.
>Why not make it a little bigger so you can fit even more people on it, would have the added benefit of having more room for fuel giving it much longer range as well.
Because then everyone dies to a single MANPAD
>Instead you want everyone to die to a single machine gun burst?
If you're in range of a machine gun, you already did better than the helicopter. So yes. That would be preferable.
If they can get the things to where either tandem flights are possible or you can have a free arm while flying, or just provide drone support, then that'd cover landings against machine gun fire and from there they're fine.
One could be dragged around by an ATV, the other can not
Some kind of drone Helo that can be remotely controlled or autonomous as needed. Has weapons and the capacity to move a small team of individuals with a second one on hand to move/drop gear as needed.
Even smaller.
Literally just to hop over natural terrain person by person.
>ATV towed drone to ferry a squad over a single natural obstacle one at a time >Can only be used once in either direction because you have to leave the ATV back where you launched from.
Some kind of drone Helo that can be remotely controlled or autonomous as needed. Has weapons and the capacity to move a small team of individuals with a second one on hand to move/drop gear as needed.
The tech is still raw. Let it keep cooking for a few decades.
I see this being useful for self-rescue on sinking ships and getting into firing positions far in advance of enemy contact. I don't see much merit in actual combat, a lot of its benefits are negated by it constantly screaming at 150db.
moron, jetpacks have been cooking for half a century. Bell had a working one in the 60s, when I was a kid there were ducted fan ones being prototyped and when I was in highschool there were always vids of the martin jetpack on discovery channel.
>self-rescue on sinking ships
Are you dumb.
Main area it seems to be having relevance is boarding actions for coast guard. Let's you get boots on board the vessel much faster than needing to park alongside and climb a ladder. Could be essential in some operations to prevent destruction of evidence or scuttling of the ship.
In the future, could possibly see special forces teams deploy from helos/vtol using these rather than fast roping. Would give the advantage that the carrier vehicle can stay moving over target, no need to hover or land to deploy troops.
In almost any scenario tho, the jet suit is only for getting from point A to B quickly, and it's gotta be easy to remove so you can quickly attain a fighting stance or cover.
>it's gotta be easy to remove so you can quickly attain a fighting stance
>If they can figure out a way to free up the arms
This is the main problem that needs to be solved. You control your vertical speed with the angle of your arms, point down to ascend, out to the side to descend. You can't have a quick disconnect or a holster or whatever because you have to wait for the jets to spool down before you can let go of the controls/discard them without them flying around uncontrollably. You can't mount a weapon to the gauntlets because the thrust would make it impossible to aim. Having your maneuvering engines on your arms is what makes it so stable and intuitive to fly, moving them to some other mount and changing the way you control it would massively complicate the design.
Boost recruitment for zoomies than love iron man.
No cap
IIf they can figure out a way to free up the arms and allow for some kind of control mechanism that doesn't require them to take their hands off of a weapon you'd have a platform you could probably take into combat or, at the very least, increase their combat capability so now a Coast guard down and have a rifle trained on whatever drug runners he's flying over and can hold them down until the rhib shows up.
The biggest military applications I can see for these things is if you're on the ground with a gun and need to get to higher ground really quickly, perhaps on top of buildings for example so you can ambush enemies from the upper floors. Other than that though, there's no real advantages to using these over UAVs, since UAVs are way less of a liability. But god damn if those aren't cool as fuck
it can be used to increase mobility of some infantry - being able to hop on building or survive it folding beneath you... but actual fighting platform? drone will be 80 -100 kg lighter for same capabilities and without huge squishy target to shoot at...
anti-piracy
It's the sort of thing that could be very useful for mountain infantry; it would turn a (dangerous and energetic) full days trek across mountainous terrain into a scenic 20 minute flight. As everyone has pointed out you'd ditch the jet before engaging the enemy though. Even if it does happen at some point in the future we're a long way from jet-pack shooting the enemy while dancing through the sky.
Not sure it's rated for high altitude flight tbh anon, but I'm sure it could be modified.
There's a similar unit that was being trialled by UK Mountain Rescue services (where getting up a mountain in a few minutes compared to a few hours could be the difference between life and death) and while it wasn't exactly the top of the Himalayas they managed pretty well with it.
Has the war in Ukraine changed anyone's perception of these things? I used to firmly be in the mindset that they were pretty useless and just served to turn troops to expensive clay pigeons, but some of the recent trench footage has caused some doubt in my mind. You see footage of troops in dugouts and bunkers sheltering from artillery essentially blind, then taking several minutes to get in position for an infantry foot assault from the enemy. I imagine that if the infantry assault could be make individually air mobile, you could have troops attacking while the enemy is still waiting to see if more shells are incoming.
Of course you could use mechanized troops, but the pervasive nature of AT weapons is concerning.
Couldn't you get the same effect by having the assault on the trenches lead by a mechanised element? Russia can barely give every man they conscript a rifle at this point - do you really think they've got ATGMs to burn?
I doubt these things are gonna find their way into trench warfare. Russia's only been stuck in trench warefare because they couldn't establish air dominance. Why the fuck would you spend time and money on getting your soldiers flying for trench warfare when you could be pouring that shit into establishing air dominance?
It's safe to assume soldiers using this shit are gonna have air support and not be pinned by artillery.
You need to think about these things as an alternative to helicopters and drones in niche situations for the dominant force in asymmetrical warfare.
>Has the war in Ukraine changed anyone's perception of these things
Not really. Ukraine is a fucking trench war on the level of the Iran Iraq war. Nothing really groundbreaking about this war except for the realization that everyone now has drones.
> I imagine that if the infantry assault could be make individually air mobile, you could have troops attacking while the enemy is still waiting to see if more shells are incoming.
No. They'd just get shot out of the air after the enemy clued into their use.
This shit will be great for seizing ships or oil rigs. And for lower intensity urban combat you could have teams clear buildings from the top down, rather than the bottom up. This is great because grenades tend to bounce downstairs, not up.
But for regular two dimensional warfare, it has basically no application.
>I imagine that if the infantry assault could be make individually air mobile
I keep getting flashbacks to the Starship Troopers book with the jetpack mobile infantry that bounce around dropping bombs everywhere.
Shove yourself to the top of a building. Jump up a cliff. Tell rivers, trees, or rough terrain in general to go fuck itself.
Generally getting an advantageous position from which to do operator things.
None. The whole idea is retarded until ai can control it.
We've already seen in the last year that soldiers are completely blind to threats above them so jump suits that let you land on top of enemies will be incredibly effective
imagine shooting down a grunt with a stinger
Imagine shooting down a grunt with a Stugna-P
you can jump on the enemy positions and chop them into pieces with your chainsword
zero. it's a toy. if it had any practical use whatsoever we'd already have them, this has been possible and not hard for like 40 years now
A dozen men patrolling the streets and two of those jumping from roof to roof.
Its a recruiting tool for the next generation of zogbots.
Why are you even asking?
I was thinking how a bigger drone could be used to ferry a small recon/infiltration team over a river one guy at a time
Why not make it a little bigger so you can fit even more people on it, would have the added benefit of having more room for fuel giving it much longer range as well.
>Why not make it a little bigger so you can fit even more people on it, would have the added benefit of having more room for fuel giving it much longer range as well.
Because then everyone dies to a single MANPAD
Instead you want everyone to die to a single machine gun burst?
>Instead you want everyone to die to a single machine gun burst?
If you're in range of a machine gun, you already did better than the helicopter. So yes. That would be preferable.
If they can get the things to where either tandem flights are possible or you can have a free arm while flying, or just provide drone support, then that'd cover landings against machine gun fire and from there they're fine.
One could be dragged around by an ATV, the other can not
Even smaller.
Literally just to hop over natural terrain person by person.
>ATV towed drone to ferry a squad over a single natural obstacle one at a time
>Can only be used once in either direction because you have to leave the ATV back where you launched from.
Some kind of drone Helo that can be remotely controlled or autonomous as needed. Has weapons and the capacity to move a small team of individuals with a second one on hand to move/drop gear as needed.