From: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Re: Powered Body Armor
Date: 16 Nov 92 21:31:44 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin TX

In article <Uf0bywu00iV4029adc@andrew.cmu.edu> js43+@andrew.cmu.edu (James William Stepanek) writes:
]There was an article in the latest Discover magazine on the subject of
]powered suits for various uses. They mentioned that the armed forces

What issue number? I haven't found any new issues and the last one focused 
mainly on disease transmission between continents. Just in time for Columbus
Day.

]have been trying at this for ~30 yrs. They also say that there is still
]interest in the field. There have been discussions of this subject in
].sci.military, but they tend to throw out anything remotely off what
]they consider pure military science. I therefore think this could be a
]good place for a discussion of the concepts , their
]implementation,tactics and doctrine surrounding said devices. 

Try rec.arts.anime too :)

Seriously, I think this a good thing to discuss since developments in things
like exoskeletons and life support and portable heavy weapons makes PA more
and more likely. I think it's still a decade or so off, but why wait to 
discuss tactics/strategy? :)

]    I personally think the powere armor with strength augmentation would
]have a few limitations in the present day but is not unworkable( then
]again so does dod considering they are still researching it) and would
]be best used in special forces type units. This would be justified on
]the basis that these suits would cost a pretty penny, but then again so
]does training for a SEAL/SAS/SF ect and the possibility of magnifying
]the effectiveness on such soldiers could have great effect. Say you want

I think you are right on this aspect. I think that PArmor will remain expensive
as the technology improves, though. It may get cheap enough that you can outfit
batallions of marines or ranger type troops with them but it will be awhile
before regular infantry are going to be assigned these. At least I hope so;
else it would ruin a story I'm making up for alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo. :)

]Noriega( old example , but what the hell), you drop a few of these into
]Panama City into where he can be best localized, and then proceed to
]scare people (considering strength augmentation scare should be a mild
]word) into revealing his location. Also these would be great for hostage
]rescue. Both the rescuers would be safe (within reason) and they could
]possible interpose themselves as shield for the hostages. Also deep

I don't know about this. Unless you are talking about *light* powered armor,
those suits may be too clunky to sneak in on terrorists for hostage rescue.
You would still need agile infiltrators, maybe using suits that are built for
suppressing IR and vislight but little armor/strength to successfully sneak
up on people. The stealth models would probably be more like tight-fitting 
space suits than high-tech knight's garb (see Madox-01, ask about it in raa.)
The more heavily armored suits could be in position to move in fast to secure 
the area when the infiltrators free the hostages, though.

]strike penetration of fixed strategic assets would be greatly
]facilitated by these devices. City fighting would also bee a good use,
]considering that they would act as very small light tanks, and be
](hopefully) proof from sniper fire.

If you could drop them from orbit (a la _Starship Troopers_) I'd see the
utility in strategic drops. Maybe via stealth transport, etc. I wouldn't 
depend on them sneaking behind enemy lines, though. Until a fusion reactor
becomes small enough for PArmor, these things won't be able to have much range.

Just adding things you haven't mentioned to enhance my thoughts.

On city fighting: these things would be death to tanks in the streets. The
equivalent of a light tank moving with most of the mobility of PBIs would
make them deadly to tanks restricted in movement by rubble, etc. Snipers
would probably not have the weapons to deal with these.. unless they were
using PArmor too! Another strike against tanks would be that their anti-
personnel weapons would be useless against PArmor, forcing them to waste
main gun ammo on overkilling them w/anti-tank rounds. Of course, tanks might
start carrying medium-caliber weapons to deal w/PArmored infantry, but I have
no idea on this.


-- 
Patrick Chester            |----------------------------------------------------
wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu |"The earth is too fragile a basket in which to keep
Politically Incorrect      |  all your eggs." Robert A. Heinlein
Future Lunar Colonist      |"The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us
#^%$!! Militarist          |  are going to the stars." Anonymous
(Of the Sun Tzu mentality) |----------------------------------------------------
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