Upgrades in modern combat armor?

[MetalMat]

I was thinking for a while that as a species evolves, things change on both sides of the spectrum. For a strong weapon there is a stron counterweapon (armor). For instance, the response to the sword was heavier armor. For many many years now, guns have pretty much dominated on the battlefield. There is no real armor that can protect from a gun shot. Youlive from a gun shot in a heavy kevlar vest or framentation in a flak jacket, but you will still feel the impact of the shot which may knock you out of the fight.

I am wondering when body armor will be made to where the person can shrug of low caliber bullets like they are nothing (to the effect of a small pebble) even taking hits from stronger bullets and grenades and still be able to fight? I have a couple ideas of ways to improve body armor, but nothing concrete.

Oh, this is due to my interest in Warhammer 40k

 

[TuxDave]

Why focus on body armor? With some gene therapy perhaps we can start churning out fleets of super soldiers with redundant organs and a very high pain threshold.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: TuxDave
Why focus on body armor? With some gene therapy perhaps we can start churning out fleets of super soldiers with redundant organs and a very high pain threshold.

Well, sure, but that would take at least 30-40 years at our current rate of biotechnology R&D. Plus, without some serious breakthroughs in decreasing development time, you're looking at years (if not decades) to replace one of them. Ideally, you'd have super-soldiers with good armor anyway.

*Stopping* bullets isn't that hard. Ceramic composite strike plates are fairly light (up to about 6 pounds for 10x12" plates) and will prevent penetration from just about any pistol or rifle round (at least a few of them; ceramics are brittle, and will fracture after repeated impacts). However, the kinetic energy of a ballistic projectice is still considerable. At close range, you're talking 1500-3000 ft-lbs of energy (about 2000-4000 newton-meters) for an assault rifle. That's enough energy to accelerate a 100kg mass (like, say, a soldier) to 6-9 m/s (~15-20mph). Admittedly, not all of the energy is turned back into KE (some is wasted in fracturing the bullet and/or the strike plate, dispersed as heat and sound, etc.), and I have no idea how big that fraction is. But that's a *lot* of impact force, even spread over your whole torso. Low-caliber bullets (which have a much lower velocity) wouldn't be that bad, but to absorb an impact like that and not be (at the very least) knocked down, you'd have to be wearing significantly more massive armor.

 

[TuxDave]

Hmm... just a thought, but how about the idea of a rigid angular body armor. Kinda like what they have one the stealth bombers but in this case it attempts to deflect the bullet away rather than absorb it.

 

[Blackjack2000]

First of all the premise of this thread is bogus. We already have combat armor that can protect the wearer from small kinetic rounds. There will never be armor to make the hit "like nothing", and there is nothing that makes a hit from a sword "like nothing". No matter how good the armor is, the energy must be transferred to the body somehow, and if the round is big enough, it's going to knock you down. Someone I know in the Marines showed me his ceramic strike plate. It's rated for an AK-47 round at point blank range, and you wouldn't believe how light it is. The reason that troops aren't covered head to toe in the stuff is because it limits movement (also it would get extremely hot in the desert)

 

[BEL6772]

Weapons evolve just like armor does. Remember when body armor first started seeing popular use outside the military? How long was it before ammunition was developed that could defeat the armor? Next we found ways to improve the armor, then ways defeat the improved armor.

If an armor system is developed that renders people invulnerable to guns, you can bet that people will find something other than guns to go to battle with.

 

[Runamile]

As covered above, the shear amount of kinetic energy is too much to dissapate like its nothing. Now genetic engineering is an interesting angle. One can make a 500lb, 7 foot beast that can take a bullet with out armor, but I don't know how the government will get that one by the public. Then, also, they will be shot at with an assult rifle that packs a .60 cal exploding slug, thus defeating the purpose of your super warrior in withstanding machine gun fire.

 

[Gibsons]

They've made mobile armor that can withstand any caliber rifle. They're called tanks...

To get that level of protection on a human, you immobilize them with weight or encumbrance, so you need some sort of power source (internal combustion engines given current technology) to move all that armor around. To keep that in a "man-sized" package, you need is a very small incredibly amazingly efficient power source, some advances in materials, then you can look at some Starship Troopers type abilities (I mean the book, not the movie).

 

[Malak]

My question is, why are weapons developed to kill instead of simply immobilize? The biggest reason people are against war is because of death, so why continue to advance tech into new ways of killing?

 

[imported_kouch]

weapons are developed to kill cause it is easier to kill then to immobilize. Also without death, armies would not be something to be feared and war would become like a game.

due to law of conservation of energy, I don't think you can ever negate the KE effects. Maybe you can develop some deformable armor (like crumple zones in cars). As far as biotech, I think we are closer to developing a remote controlled robotic warrior (due both to technological and ethical concerns). I would think metalic soldiers would be more effective anyways in a firefight.

 

[jagec]

Originally posted by: malak
My question is, why are weapons developed to kill instead of simply immobilize? The biggest reason people are against war is because of death, so why continue to advance tech into new ways of killing?

Because if you don't un-immobalize them in time, you might as well kill them. This means that you either have to develop a weapon whose effects fade over time (which means the enemy will come back and keep fighting), or one which has to be used manually to "unfreeze" enemy soldiers. That means a lot of people involved in going back through the battlefield and finding everyone who was immobilized, and if the battle is longer than a few days someone will have to feed them somehow...it's just much, MUCH more expensive than just killing them. If you spend an equal amount of money on killing them, you can get a lot MORE of them. Guess which numbers matter most the military...

 

[Geniere]

Body armor, like the ?Knights of Old?, will soon be outmoded. Armed robots are already being deployed in Iraq.

 

[Sahakiel]

Originally posted by: jagec

Originally posted by: malak
My question is, why are weapons developed to kill instead of simply immobilize? The biggest reason people are against war is because of death, so why continue to advance tech into new ways of killing?

Because if you don't un-immobalize them in time, you might as well kill them. This means that you either have to develop a weapon whose effects fade over time (which means the enemy will come back and keep fighting), or one which has to be used manually to "unfreeze" enemy soldiers. That means a lot of people involved in going back through the battlefield and finding everyone who was immobilized, and if the battle is longer than a few days someone will have to feed them somehow...it's just much, MUCH more expensive than just killing them. If you spend an equal amount of money on killing them, you can get a lot MORE of them. Guess which numbers matter most the military...

actually, killing just happens to be easier. disabling targets requires precision. outright destruction has less constraints. just point in the general direction and shoot rather than staying still and taking careful aim.
modern warfare is increasingly leaning towards disabling enemy soldiers/vehicles/weapons rather than destroying them. not only is the technology more readily available, but also the fact that forcing the enemy to repair vehicles/weapons is more costly to the enemy and achieves similar results in combat. hospitalizing the enemy provides a constant drain on enemy resources while removing enemy soldiers from the battlefield.

 

[imported_kouch]

Originally posted by: Geniere
Body armor, like the ?Knights of Old?, will soon be outmoded. Armed robots are already being deployed in Iraq.

If that is meant to be a joke about our troops, I do not aprreciate it:|

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: Geniere
Body armor, like the ?Knights of Old?, will soon be outmoded. Armed robots are already being deployed in Iraq.

I assume you mean like the Predater<sp?> drones and the little remote controlled robots that can be used to recon bunkers and the like.

Actually deploying robot troops that would replace rank and file humans in combat is still so far fetched I can't believe it's getting brought up. More remote controlled vehicles maybe in the relatively near future. But robot "grunts" still solely live in sci-fi and will for a long time.


Lethal

 

[klaviernista]

Originally posted by: malak
My question is, why are weapons developed to kill instead of simply immobilize? The biggest reason people are against war is because of death, so why continue to advance tech into new ways of killing?

simple, because humans have been killing each other since we evolved, and probably before then too.

Also, I recently read something about a polymer that rapidly (nanoseconds) hardens when exposed to a point source impact (i.e. a pencil type, doctor blade, or bullet). Its supposedly very light weight. I think it might have potential for next gen body armor. I mean think about it, when that stuff hardens it would act as a heat sink, converting the kinetci energy of the bullet into heat which it distributed across the sheet.

I don't think it would be effective for maching gun fire though, as the stuff doesn;t swtich back to liquid for very quickly. So one shot to a specific area would be ok, but a second shot in that same area too quickly and it would probably shatter. I'll see if I can post the link to it.

 

[klaviernista]

Originally posted by: kouch

Originally posted by: Geniere
Body armor, like the ?Knights of Old?, will soon be outmoded. Armed robots are already being deployed in Iraq.

If that is meant to be a joke about our troops, I do not aprreciate it:|

Dude I think he was referring to the armed UAV's used in Iraq right now, i.e. the predator UAV. Take a chill pill.

 

[skyking]

Originally posted by: Matthias99

Originally posted by: TuxDave
Why focus on body armor? With some gene therapy perhaps we can start churning out fleets of super soldiers with redundant organs and a very high pain threshold.

Well, sure, but that would take at least 30-40 years at our current rate of biotechnology R&amp;D. Plus, without some serious breakthroughs in decreasing development time, you're looking at years (if not decades) to replace one of them. Ideally, you'd have super-soldiers with good armor anyway.

*Stopping* bullets isn't that hard. Ceramic composite strike plates are fairly light (up to about 6 pounds for 10x12" plates) and will prevent penetration from just about any pistol or rifle round (at least a few of them; ceramics are brittle, and will fracture after repeated impacts). However, the kinetic energy of a ballistic projectice is still considerable. At close range, you're talking 1500-3000 ft-lbs of energy (about 2000-4000 newton-meters) for an assault rifle. That's enough energy to accelerate a 100kg mass (like, say, a soldier) to 6-9 m/s (~15-20mph). Admittedly, not all of the energy is turned back into KE (some is wasted in fracturing the bullet and/or the strike plate, dispersed as heat and sound, etc.), and I have no idea how big that fraction is. But that's a *lot* of impact force, even spread over your whole torso. Low-caliber bullets (which have a much lower velocity) wouldn't be that bad, but to absorb an impact like that and not be (at the very least) knocked down, you'd have to be wearing significantly more massive armor.

Are you sure about your energy figures? Where does the energy come from?
I figure that energy has to act against the fellow holding the gun, and even moreso. The bullet is at it's maximum velocity as it exits the barrel.

 

[ReiAyanami]

Raytheon was already working on something of an anti-bullet system. basically a laser mounted tank shoots and vaporizes incoming bullets, the problem so far is energy requirements (MASSIVE). to top it off acoustics analysis can tell the soldier almost exactly where the bullets are being fired from so they can respond.

but i can imagine the escalation:
1) lasers shoot down bullets
2) so enemies use lasers instead of bullets
3) so our troops wears mirrored armor
4) so enemy throws rocks...

 

[ReiAyanami]

i think the pentagon made a policy a year or two ago that said 20% of ground forces must be fully robotic (no man operators) within the next 10-20 years and they were working on unmanned humvees

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
i think the pentagon made a policy a year or two ago that said 20% of ground forces must be fully robotic (no man operators) within the next 10-20 years and they were working on unmanned humvees

Do you have anything to back that up 'cause that sounds like a really short time frame. By "ground forces" do you mean troops or vehicles? And by "no man operators" do you mean no one in the drivers seat or no human controlling the thing (i.e. it is 100% controlled by AI). I could maybe see air power having 1/5 of their planes be unmaned, but unmanned ground vehicles is a bigger problem to tackle.


Lethal

 

[Geniere]

Originally posted by: kouch

Originally posted by: Geniere
Body armor, like the ?Knights of Old?, will soon be outmoded. Armed robots are already being deployed in Iraq.

If that is meant to be a joke about our troops, I do not aprreciate it:|

Quite the contrary, I have only the greatest respect and admiration for those who protect my grandchildren and the American way of life. Without these heroes and past heroes, where would we be?

http://usmilitary.about.com/b/a/130388.htm

Armed Robots Marching Into Combat?
Soldiers may have armed robots as battle buddies by early next year. The Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System, or SWORDS, will be joining Stryker Brigade Soldiers in Iraq when it finishes final testing in the near future. Different weapons can be interchanged on the system ? the M16, the 240, 249 or 50-caliber machine guns, or the M202 ?A1 with a 6mm rocket launcher. Soldiers operate the SWORDS by remote control, from up to 1,000 meters away.

 

[klaviernista]

Originally posted by: ReiAyanami
Raytheon was already working on something of an anti-bullet system. basically a laser mounted tank shoots and vaporizes incoming bullets, the problem so far is energy requirements (MASSIVE). to top it off acoustics analysis can tell the soldier almost exactly where the bullets are being fired from so they can respond.

Couple thoughts on this:
1) The targeting and tracking system for a tank based anti-ballistic system would have to be ridiculous to be effective. The targeting/tracking system for this is well well beyond most if not all current systems (the system would have to track hundred of tiny fast moving objects with sufficient precision to direct the laser directly onto them). This is obviously a big problem. This could be offset by making the beamwidth of the laser large (i.e. feet), but then you run into problems with #2

2) Energy delivery: Not only must the targeting and tracking system be sufficient to track incoming bullets and direct a laser onto them, it must do so with sufficient time for the laser to impart enough energy to either vaporize the incoming round or partially melt it, thereby changing its trajectory by changing the aerodynamics of the round. Seeing as how bullets fly quite fast, the radiant power of the laser would have to be huge. Further, if you expand the beamwidth of the laser to help out with the tracking sytem, then energy in the laser beam is (generally) more diffuse, meaning less energy is imparted to a target by the laser. I.e. imagiune this O is representive of the beamwidth of a laser. This . is be a bullet. Obviously, if a large beamwidth laser is used only a portion of the beam actually shines on the bullet, thus, less energy is imparted to the bullet.

ONly thing I heard similar to this is the airborne laser missile defense system. The chemical laser used in that system required a 747 to carry it and could only be fired once or twice before the plane had to land to replenish the laser system. Check it out HERE

As for the acoustic positioning system, that is much more plausible I think. At least for current or near future applications.

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: skyking
Are you sure about your energy figures? Where does the energy come from?
I figure that energy has to act against the fellow holding the gun, and even moreso. The bullet is at it's maximum velocity as it exits the barrel.

You're right; I think I screwed up somewhere with conservation of energy/momentum. I'll try to give this another shot later, with more complete calculations posted.

 

[skyking]

Yeah, it did not seem right. Really, the energy dissapation is not the huge problem. Otherwise soldiers would be flying all about when they open up full auto
Of course, the acceleration takes place over a few milliseconds as the gasses expand, makeng that push a more gentle shove than the downrange impact on an immovable surface would be.
You'd need a thicker substrate than the current armor, one that will also decellerate the round over X number of milliseconds. It needs to do that, and do it repeatedly. That sounds way too heavy to be of practical use.
?=.5M<V squared>
Mass of a nato 5.56 is ~3.56 grams
Mass of a nato 7.62 is ~9.5 grams