Upgrades in modern combat armor?

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Gannon
This thread makes me shake my head at how un-evolved the human race is. As a species humans have the ability to transcend their warlike nature but most do not because they are caught in their outdated psychology, which forces peaceful people to into arms races and development of weapons to protect themselves from people who are less evolved ethically and psychologically. If we have proved anything, we have proved that peace and ethical evolution is more necessary then anything. Look at the technologies that wouldn't be possible if we did not have peaceful co-existance. This is not to say you stop the development of military technology, but if those resources were focused on energy production and matter control, so that there was enough for everyone. No sane person should have a reason to complain or go to war with someone else if their is abundance of energy and way to make any kind of resources.

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
You must be one of those people who wore tie die and drove the VW Vans around during the 70's.

Anyways do we have forcefields today?

This is a mindset makes me shake my head as well: Those who support peace are weak morons. I'll support what Gannon said. We call ourselves "advanced" and "civilized" as we find more efficient ways of wiping out thousands of people in an instant. Look at the Cold War. It developed into a sort of "We can kill the population of the world 10 times over, and you can only do it 8 times over. HAH!" What's the point of having enough weaponry to turn the planet into a radioactive wasteland? Who wins then?

Granted, the military does provide some useful technologies and advances. But hey, so does NASA, and they do it with the intention of expanding our knowledge of the Universe we live in, not finding more effective ways of killing people. Problem is, people are lazy. If they don't have the drive of "Research this project or else someone will kill you," then they won't bother. Why bust our butts now researching more efficient solar power technology? Or nuclear fusion generators? I mean, fossil fuels won't run out for several decades, right? Let someone else worry about it, later. Sure, we'll research it a little bit now, but what's the rush......:roll:


The whole offense vs defense is like viruses and antivirus programs. One advances, the other adapts. For fiction, there's Star Trek. Ok, you've got armor that can resist a low-level phaser hit. So you up the power of the phaser. Then comes deflector shields. Variable modulation phasers follow.

I thought maybe I had screwed up going from ft-lbs to Newton-meters,

You must have worked on the Mars Climate Orbiter project.

You know that got me thinking, what if extrmely high powered electromagnets were placed around an armored vehicle to attract bullets to less dangerous parts (away from the crew.) I can think of many caveats to this but it still intrigues me.

Then your enemy simply adapts, and uses a non-magnetic projectile. Granted, even nonmagnetic materials will be affected by a sufficiently powerful magnetic field, but that means that the armored vehicle will need extremely powerful magnets, requiring lots of power, and thus fuel, or else advanced battery technology that doesn't exist yet.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Granted, the military does provide some useful technologies and advances. But hey, so does NASA, and they do it with the intention of expanding our knowledge of the Universe we live in, not finding more effective ways of killing people. Problem is, people are lazy. If they don't have the drive of "Research this project or else someone will kill you," then they won't bother. Why bust our butts now researching more efficient solar power technology? Or nuclear fusion generators? I mean, fossil fuels won't run out for several decades, right? Let someone else worry about it, later. Sure, we'll research it a little bit now, but what's the rush......:roll:

Most of NASA's research is done with/by/in conjunction with the military. They use military facilities, specifications, moneys, and personnel to do quite a bit of their testing. The government isn't so interested in sending people to far-off places, but it allows them to use more money to fund military matters under the guise of NASA research. After all, it's not easy to convince taxpayers that a grease that costs $2000 a pound is worth it unless NASA approves as well.

 

[Gannon]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Granted, the military does provide some useful technologies and advances. But hey, so does NASA, and they do it with the intention of expanding our knowledge of the Universe we live in, not finding more effective ways of killing people. Problem is, people are lazy. If they don't have the drive of "Research this project or else someone will kill you," then they won't bother. Why bust our butts now researching more efficient solar power technology? Or nuclear fusion generators? I mean, fossil fuels won't run out for several decades, right? Let someone else worry about it, later. Sure, we'll research it a little bit now, but what's the rush......:roll:

Most of NASA's research is done with/by/in conjunction with the military. They use military facilities, specifications, moneys, and personnel to do quite a bit of their testing. The government isn't so interested in sending people to far-off places, but it allows them to use more money to fund military matters under the guise of NASA research. After all, it's not easy to convince taxpayers that a grease that costs $2000 a pound is worth it unless NASA approves as well.

Research is research, you could figure out a lot of the same stuff the military does without having to design weapons to kill people. i.e. scientists realized you could use the power of the atom for nuclear power plants before they even invented the atom bomb.

You can see the applications and goals to work towards long before the research is finished. People who think all technological advancement comes from having the most most destructive toys is simply naive. Ultimately technology comes from solving problems not from intent.

Any research in development focused towards a particular goal will provide benefits. It's the people working on R&D that make it possible not because of the projects intent (i.e. to develop advanced technologies to kill people).

 

[Pr0metheus]

They would upgrade armor but then the soldiers would have to carry it they have to find a way to either

use really lite armor

or

an exo skeletal type thing with motors to assist in movement so they could use stronger armor.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Gannon
Research is research, you could figure out a lot of the same stuff the military does without having to design weapons to kill people. i.e. scientists realized you could use the power of the atom for nuclear power plants before they even invented the atom bomb.

You can see the applications and goals to work towards long before the research is finished. People who think all technological advancement comes from having the most most destructive toys is simply naive. Ultimately technology comes from solving problems not from intent.

Any research in development focused towards a particular goal will provide benefits. It's the people working on R&D that make it possible not because of the projects intent (i.e. to develop advanced technologies to kill people).

Yes, anything *could* be figured out, but *would* it have been? I think we're arguing the same point here, but I'm simply acknowledging that the military is a method for funneling more dollars into research that benefits everyone. The research I'm doing now is a perfect example. It's funded by the VA, but has no military applications (development of artificial human eye lens). Our lab's budget is negligible relative to the VA's budget, so we can do research in this area under the umbrella of military funding despite the lack of military applications. This is somewhat ironic because when I actually did military research, we had to go to non-government sources for our research funding.

 

[NarcoticHobo]

They are developing cybernetic suits, which would answer these problems. They would compensate for lack of mobility by having hydraulics, and for heat problems with a life support systems (basically A/C for your suit). Basically, the guys who made HALO based their suits off of what these will be like. Oh and in the far far future they will have "invisibility", a technology that has been somewhat developed now, although it takes a large immobile setup.

 

[gabemcg]

I skimmed the whole thread briefly, and diddnt see any posts on this subjecet, I suppose it's slightly off topic, but a reliable source ( to me at least) in the Marine Corps, has already participated in field testing of active camaflauge. The final iteration of which will consist of thousands upon thousands of woven fiber optic cables capable of transmiting and displaying imageing, embedded in a cloak (think harry potter) and a helmet, that renders an unmoving soilder or scout virtually invisible, and a moving soilder extremely hard to spot, unless you know where to look.

Apparently the helmet is their only working prototype. it contains a HUD that can display images from any region of the fiber optic grid. So, for instance, a soilder can have a real-time feed from the back of his helmet, send to the front (think rear view camera in a car). Or a commander can have a second "window" showing the POV of any of his soilders via an encrypted wireless "squad network"

My "source" was a scout sniper with the Marines in the most recent gulf war, and did extensive work with delta force teams, and thus was given some form of top secret clearance.

He says that the cloak is the harder part to develop, most likely because it would have to allow for mobility, and thus compute alot of different angle algorithms in realtime

It seems to me, that the capablility of your armor is kindof a non issue if the enemey doesnt know where you are

 

[LethalWolfe]

Originally posted by: NarcoticHobo
They are developing cybernetic suits, which would answer these problems. They would compensate for lack of mobility by having hydraulics, and for heat problems with a life support systems (basically A/C for your suit). Basically, the guys who made HALO based their suits off of what these will be like. Oh and in the far far future they will have "invisibility", a technology that has been somewhat developed now, although it takes a large immobile setup.

They'll fix these problems and create many more. Reliability is top priority in the field. The more complicated something is the more it will break down. Murphey's law. Elite units *might* get some really cool whiz-bang toys (I could see snipers getting "active camo" in the future to replace they guille<sp?> suits), but even after the elite units get to goods it will be years before it becomes standard issue (if ever). Never forget that military's are supplied by the lowest bidder.


Lethal

 

[IlllI]

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

you mean like in terminator?