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| LordShaftesbu... |
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LordShaftesbu...
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 Posted: 19:31 - 30 Sep 2010  Post subject: Raytheon XOS 2 exoskeleton video |
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| Itchy |
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Itchy
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| Posted: 19:33 - 30 Sep 2010 Post subject: |
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Pretty silly tbh.
Soldiers on the battlefield exist because they are cheap and expendable you start putting them into armoured suits and they become less cheap and less expendable.
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Itchy
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| smegballs |
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smegballs
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| Posted: 00:26 - 01 Oct 2010 Post subject: |
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GTFO with those starwars fags....
I want proper power armour not some gay stormtrooper suit!!
I don't care if its totally impractical and unwieldy its cool goddam it 
Good to see the suit didn't rip the pilot apart a la Halo storyline. |
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| LordShaftesbu... |
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LordShaftesbu...
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| Posted: 08:07 - 01 Oct 2010 Post subject: |
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| Itchy wrote: | There are lots of problems with such things, in that they are expensive and blokes with missiles can turn your hardware into junk in moments. The Israelies learnt this the hard way in Lebbanon when Hezbollah bought along anti tank missiles to the party. Tanks today weigh upwards of 70 tons and can be taken out with anti tank missiles you think infantry in suits will be even more heavily armoured?
Also with lots of moving parts you need maintainance and fuel to run them well in excess of what you need to provide the soldier on the ground. |
And yet the expense and sophistication of modern military hardware is only increasing. If these things were such showstoppers soldiers would still be running around with spears.
The Israelis in Lebanon is an outlier; you can't point to it and say it proves armoured vehicles are useless when they've been so useful everywhere else. In Iraq British Challengers and Warriors were hit again and again by RPGs and even heavier guided missiles, and yet there were very few casualties. Some vehicles took dozens of hits and were still able to function. The Lebannon only proved yet again the most basic and traditional of armoured warfare doctrines, namely you don't operate tanks without adequate infantry support - something that's been well known since WWII.
Also, don't be fooled by the hysterical way the Western media reported the conflict at the time. It was made out that the Iraelis were losing the whole time, when actually their losses were pretty light. In fact, if you look at the statistics, it only shows how useful armoured vehicles are and how effective the armour on the latest mark of Merkava is. Only 2 out of literally hundreds of tanks sent in were completely destroyed, and neither of those were by missiles - they were actually done in by massive roadside bombs. That's despite dozens of tanks being hit by missiles and RPGs.
If you have an army in which the infantry have become impervious to small arms, that makes things very difficult for an opposing force. Suddenly the enemy's soldiers all need to be equipped with wire-guided missiles or heavy machine guns if they want to counter you, something that is prohibitively expensive and logistically virtually impossible.
And when the cost of training the average special forces soldier is on the order of £2m, you want them to stay alive, don't you? |
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Itchy
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| Posted: 19:25 - 01 Oct 2010 Post subject: |
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| Doug97 wrote: | And when the cost of training the average special forces soldier is on the order of £2m, you want them to stay alive, don't you? |
Not necessarily, Iraq war 1 a band of SAS soldiers were left to die in Iraq, the government WANTED them to be wiped out to save political face but one of them survived.
Same again in argentina, the SAS were to perform a suicide mission against an enemy airfield. It was scrubbed at the last minute.
My issue is that 'kings' the battlefield seldom stay that way and I see unique problems with armoured suits, not least in maintenance cost and logistics but also the fact that I think they are even more vulberable than normal infantry.
A MBT is NOT indestructable, a lucky shot like the RPG29 can penetrate it. Like the Challenger 2 was penetrated by a lucky shot. If a 70 ton monster vehicle like that needs EVEN more armour with the add on kits for Iraq like Trophy than standard to survive hand held weapons then how much armour is the infantry man going to carry? 1-2 tons? a few hundred kilos? You then have the issue of mobility vs protection, add more armour you are less mobile and more vulnerable.
An RPG29 costs $500 for the launcher and $250 per missile and can go through 600mm of armour. If your mobile suit can be defeated by a $500 weapon... then whats the point of it?
Warfare is becoming increasing asymetric whereby gold plated weapons are no longer show stoppers. The Russians realised this in the 1960s and started developing cheap weapons to defeat incredibly expensive weapons. Things like the RPG29, or transonic anti ship missiles or anti helicopter mines.
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Frost
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| LordShaftesbu... |
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LordShaftesbu...
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| Posted: 16:34 - 09 Oct 2010 Post subject: |
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| Itchy wrote: | | Doug97 wrote: | And when the cost of training the average special forces soldier is on the order of £2m, you want them to stay alive, don't you? |
Not necessarily, Iraq war 1 a band of SAS soldiers were left to die in Iraq, the government WANTED them to be wiped out to save political face but one of them survived.
Same again in argentina, the SAS were to perform a suicide mission against an enemy airfield. It was scrubbed at the last minute.
My issue is that 'kings' the battlefield seldom stay that way and I see unique problems with armoured suits, not least in maintenance cost and logistics but also the fact that I think they are even more vulberable than normal infantry.
A MBT is NOT indestructable, a lucky shot like the RPG29 can penetrate it. Like the Challenger 2 was penetrated by a lucky shot. If a 70 ton monster vehicle like that needs EVEN more armour with the add on kits for Iraq like Trophy than standard to survive hand held weapons then how much armour is the infantry man going to carry? 1-2 tons? a few hundred kilos? You then have the issue of mobility vs protection, add more armour you are less mobile and more vulnerable.
An RPG29 costs $500 for the launcher and $250 per missile and can go through 600mm of armour. If your mobile suit can be defeated by a $500 weapon... then whats the point of it?
Warfare is becoming increasing asymetric whereby gold plated weapons are no longer show stoppers. The Russians realised this in the 1960s and started developing cheap weapons to defeat incredibly expensive weapons. Things like the RPG29, or transonic anti ship missiles or anti helicopter mines. |
But all your examples are outliers - they're not how the bulk of combat pans out. Governments wanting their elite soldiers to die, lucky shots from RPG-29s etc. etc. - it's all special pleading. I just don't see arming every soldier with an RPG-29 as well as the usual equipment being very practicable. And even then, it's not going to be that easy to hit a man in a suit when the suit is designed not to impinge his mobility. The idea is that the soldier would still be able to perform all the standard infantry tactics, darting from cover to cover, utilising covering fire etc. (something which to me seems eminently feasible from the prototype videos). Getting a hit on someone moving like that with a rocket launcher isn't going to be easy, particularly when they're hosing your position with way more firepower than a standard infantryman.
I'm not saying such suits would make it any more likely we would win in places like Iraq, but in conventional scenarios they would definitely be a force multiplier - despite the cost. Almost all modern weapons are sophisticated and expensive, it doesn't stop armed forces from wanting them.
Like any weapon they're not a panacea - there will be plenty of scenarios where they're not that useful, or where they're only useful if used in a particular way. But the fact is that there are situations where a squad of soldiers who are impervious to small arms fire and who can deploy massive amounts of firepower are going to be very potent. |
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Old Thread Alert!
The last post was made 15 years, 336 days ago. Instead of replying here, would creating a new thread be more useful? |
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