Thought experiment: Weapons on a mobile infantry suit

[JAG2955]

My take:

1. Air conditioning and to a much lesser extent, heat. Whoever invented this suit, assuming that it prevents swampass will get his name immortalized to the extent of John Moses Browning (PBUH). A comfortable soldier fights and thinks much better. By doing so, it will lessen the log train of H2O, food, and batteries. I'm assuming that this suit creates enough energy to run a few radios, environmental control systems, electronic counter measures, etc. Dropping the battery requirements would pay huge dividends, even if the armor suit or air conditioning never pans out. We would then truly begin to leverage our electronic capabilities and would raise any fighting force to a new level.

2. The biggest asset as mentioned above will be with communications and situational awareness.

A. Heads up display. I think that the next step in weapon evolution will be something that can be linked wirelessly to a HUD. Enabling a soldier to shoot more accurately on the move, in times of limited visibility, in awkward positions, etc, without proper stock placement, cheek weld, eye relief, bone support, etc would enable the fighting suit to do away with the requirements for a stock, traditional grip, hell, just about anything. Mount the weapon on a hard point if desired, switch to handheld if necessary. Switch between NAV, laser/close air support/Copperhead round/combat settings.

B. Integrate a rangefinder, laser target designator, video recorder, NVGS, and thermal imager into the HUD. Enable uplink to intel assets, Blue Force Tracker, internal and external chains of command, Forward Air Controller, you name it. Lase and video a target, daytime, nighttime, whatever, and your arty unit or close air support can visually see what they're looking at, fire a round, and have you lase the target while they're completing a fire mission. Battle Damage Assessments can be done almost instantaneously. Intel can use facial recognition technology to find High Value Individuals and known enemy combatants. ROEs will get stricter, but possibly more easy to follow if you're discovering a known terrorist three clicks away while he pretends to tend his crops.

C. Launchable semi-autonomous drones at the fire team level. Small ones exist at about the size of a bird that could piggyback onto a combat suit and launch to lase, record, or recon a target. Live feed back to the launcher, platoon staff, or COCs. Find a target, tag it, pop your drone, then retreat into defilade while it lases the target for an airstrike. Ensure that this system is compatible with high flying UAVs that can provide feed to any troops or target designate when the piggyback drone must recharge on it's host suit.

4. Movement and maneuver will increase tenfold if the suit could sustain 30 mph. Far less HMMWVs and MRAPs, more Mobile Infantry.

5. Weapons will likely remain the same. I don't think that we are going to ever surpass the technology we have now in internal-combustion arms. As I mentioned above, I think that we could lose or change some of the unnecessary pieces that are necessary for human hands. In two hundred years, we're still going to be seeing the Browning short-recoil action, and long and short stroke gas piston dominating, unless we invent powerguns.

Failing all that, a Y-rack mounted on the shoulders to launch nukes.

[MarkD]

You might be able to step up a bit in the power of the weapon, and increase the number of magazines/belts he could carry, but I don't see it becoming one person with the capability of a main battle tank, and certainly not bigger than that.

Certainly not before the 40MW personal plasma rifle is fielded.........

Heh!

When I was a kid, growing up in the '60s, I was told repeatedly that by 2000, we'd all have flying cars.

I still want my flying car. Every other endeavor of mankind can wait.

People routinely scare the crap out of me on NJ's highways just moving in two dimensions, I don't want to THINK about what someone could do in a flying car while simultaneously talking on the phone, changing the radio station, lighting a cigarette, eating an ice cream cone, and flipping me the bird because I blew my horn at them rather than let them hit me.

[JustinR]

Jericho: Let's say this is the basic infantry suit, so typical Army/Marine rifleman tasks.

I agree Mark, most people can't operate in two dimensions, let alone three. Thus, unless flying cars are fully automated, it will never happen. More to the point, if people maintain their flying cars like they do their cars today, it will never, EVER happen.

I agree Jag, and that's exactly the type of setup I had in mind, and I'm sure DARPA does as well. So, as Yogi said, it needs to be able to disable similar units with its primary weapon, so I'm thinking at least a belt fed 50 caliber gun, normally used semi auto but capable of automatic fire. Maybe 20mm, but your on board ammo load starts to go down. Normal infantry load is what, 6 magazines or 180 rounds? Or has that gone up?

[toad]

Well what I remember from the book is that the main thing the suit had going for it was mobility. You could jump and fly with the darn thing. In the book's initial scene of their use they were tearing up infrastructure and terrorizing the population of a city as much as anything.

[Jericho941]

Jericho: Let's say this is the basic infantry suit, so typical Army/Marine rifleman tasks.

Ah. In that case: M4/M16 family at first, then a similar rifle family better ergonomically adapted to suit mounting (that is, for reloading and clearing malfunctions while being otherwise hands-free).

Yeah, I know, that's probably not very exciting, but here's why I see it this way:

1.) We already field troops in superior body armor compared to adversaries. We haven't up-gunned based on anticipated conflicts with enemies running around in Type III armor, because most of them only have access to vastly inferior armor, if any at all. Until another country can field such suits in any appreciable numbers, there's no need to shoot through schools. Or complicate logistics.

2.) A light-recoiling gun that you can effectively boresight to the suit's optics removes a great deal of ergonomic factors in hitting what you shoot at.

3.) You could carry pretty much all the ammo you'd ever want or need.

4.) Small target.

[Vonz90]

Whatever it is, it should have a pivoting mast mounted / extendable arm so the wearer can fire effectively from a "hull down" location.

[Jered]

Who are we fighting with it? Chances are that no one else will have anything similar, so, we could probably stick with weapons comparable to what we use now. You could carry a lot more bullets, though. You're better served by carrying more beans, bullets, and band-aids instead of a bigger gun. More supplies means that you increase the endurance of your forces. How long they can stay on a mission is likely to be more critical than how big of a gun that they have.

[JustinR]

Alright, so an M4 with all the trimmings, in 5.56 or 300 BLK, with an integrated electronic optical sight that ties in with the aiming system/HUD, and the suit arm hardpoint latches over the stock and back of the receiver for stability, but can rotate the gun back out of the way for hands free manipulation, or if the suit experiences a catastrophic malfunction in the field the soldier can dismount and detach his primary weapon and carry its ammo. Could do the same with the XM25 on the other arm.

Speaking of sighting systems...
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015 ... on-system/

[Netpackrat]

Mk. 19...

[Denis]

When I was a kid, growing up in the '60s, I was told repeatedly that by 2000, we'd all have flying cars.
I still want my flying car. Every other endeavor of mankind can wait.

Jet packs. We were promised personal jetpacks................

The future is now.