US army of the future knocking on the door!!

We are starting to see more and more unmanned vehicles, and drones being used in the US armed forces these days. It struck my curiousity to find out a little bit more about what concepts might be coming out here in the future. We could be seeing the reality of robots slowly taking the place of humans here in the next 10-15 years. Many concepts that i thought about in my head, it appears are actually under study or even currently being worked on. Here is a link to some information on the US investment into the new generation of combat systems.
www.globalsecurity.org...

Here are some general questions.....feel free to add more to the thread if you feel like it:
1: What other info can you guys share about the future of military?
2: Have any great innovative ideas you would like to see?
3: How effective do you think some of these concepts could be?

Thanks!!
Carburetor

Here is another interesting link. Robot tested with a pump action shotgun!
www.newstarget.com...

I would like to see armored exoskeletons like in Starship Troopers (book) allowing the soldiers to sustain speed over 20Mph and carry more weight. They should be also buletproof with built-in night vison and IR. Such soldiers would probably not need vehicles so much (able to make 200-250 miles per 10 hours on foot) so the units would be much more transportable. Instead 1 Stryker, that can be easily destroyed, with 10 man crew you can transport 70 man (on C-130).

Also they would be very hard to kill - bulets and fragments cannot penentrate the armor, and a man is too small target for RPG or canon.

cool ideas!!! I know there are alot of people out there with creative innovative minds!!!

I just swept past a website that talked about this topic and included some cool concepts simular to the robots and guns, and ships that were seen in movies like the Terminator. It was pretty cool, i will have to back track and find that sight again.

In my opinion the smaller the weapons, or robots...........the better. They are more difficult to be shot down or tracked. They should be in large swarms. It would be quite cool if we had drone flying bombs that resembled birds or swarms of insects. Is it to far fetched???? ....actually i think i remember seing some concepts like that somewhere too!!! I will look some more!

longbow thats exactly what I see for the future instead of these Giant mechs some people think will be used in the future. They would just be huge targets for anti-tank missiles.

Something small like you described would actually be of use. I could see them as very handy for a type of shock troops in tight urban areas.

I never read the Starship Troopers (book) though just saw the movie that they had no exoskeletons

Another good thing I think of for such a design is you would have no need to even land a helicopter or fast rope them to deploy them. You could make them able to withstand a fall of 20 feet so they could just jump out when they got low.

Could you just immagine being an enemy and seeing a flock of what seem to be birds or insects flying by, just to have them swarm on you with thousands of gernade like bombs? These could wipe out an entire enemy unit at once if needed without any allied casualties.

Shadow, he was right, in the book the story is different and they got airdropped on the planet in one-man pods. And they had the exoskeletons and tactical nukes.
I see something like that coming a little farther in the future.

What I think we will see in the next generation of infantry will look eerily like Shadow's avatar.

2: Have any great innovative ideas you would like to see?

Robotech-style "Cyclones"... Personal Body Armor that can transform into a wheeled war cycle... That would rule the battlefield....

Force Fields...such as the droids had in Star Wars Episode I. No Jedi powers to save the targets...so bye bye...

Laser Pulse weapons with rechargable E-Clips...

Holograms...nothing like the enemy wasting expensive missiles on air or dirt...

Submersible aircraft carriers capable of holding numerous aircraft...think about it, the ability to position a mini-air force with complete surprise...

Quick, effective, and harmless sleep gas...great for neutralizing targets without getting the civilians...just go in and collect the sleeping bad guys, and let the sleeping citizens wake up after it's over.

Stun weapons (like Star Trek or Star Wars)...eliminate most friendly fire, and allow chance to shoot first and ask questions later...

And not surpisingly alot of these ideas are probably being studied!!

Its "Halo" "Starwars" etc that may become reality somewhat someday.
A while back, someone posted a new type of camaflouge gear that had millions of tiny cameras on it which reflected the environment from behind the bearer of the suite. The person that wore the suite with this technology basically became a ghost and blended into the back ground. IT was demonstrated by a japanese scientist in SanFransisco not too long ago. Cool Stuff!!!!

One of the exoskeleton projects:



This is without the armor, it is from UC Berkeley’s Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory. It allowed the wearer to run with 70 pound exoskeleton AND 100 pounds load "while feeling as if he were lugging a mere 5 pounds."

I would say the time, when we will see such thing is not far away. The future combat will take place in urban areas against irregular units. Also the loss of life will become more and more unacceptable. Some recent tech developments will surely help - i.e. liquid armor, land warior etc.
Few years ago I also read about some scientist, who developed "fast boots" - the man using them was able to run faster than horse for hours. And I m sure it will be soon posible to make helmet with integrated NV and IR. So there are already all components (at least as prototypes) - boots for speed, exoskeleton for lifting heavy loads, new armor, electronics. Now just make them smaller, lighter and more reliable and a soldier with firepower and mobility of a tank is here . And it's price is much lower, while flexibility is much higher (tank cannot search through the houses for example )..

BTW Heinlein was really a visionary, not only because of exoskeletons, but he was the first one who introduced the concept of highly trained, armed, and motivated single soldier (that means something like special unit) into the literature. Until then the writers celebrated "mass human/soldier".

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Some of the most incredible stuff is happening at the nano level - like fully integrated bio-mechanical nanobots. ...Kinda drifts into illegal bioweapons and replaces human soldiers tho....



The New Military: Microbots

The New Military: Robots with Human DNA

Bug Bomb

Super Microbes Eat Radioactive Waste

Sprayable Infrared-Detecting Plastics Show Promise as Energy Source

Fly-eating robot powers itself



.

sweet!!!
I could see this being extremely benefitial in large scale invasion where mobility and reaction is tempered do to large amounts of weight on a soldiers muscles. It will allow a soldier to carry more tools and useful weapons. Heavier body protection!!!! Excellent idea !! hopefully it will be customizable to wear if it malfunctioned it can quickly be removed so the soldier is not hindered.

Originally posted by Mr Carburetor
And not surpisingly alot of these ideas are probably being studied!!

Its "Halo" "Starwars" etc that may become reality somewhat someday.
A while back, someone posted a new type of camaflouge gear that had millions of tiny cameras on it which reflected the environment from behind the bearer of the suite. The person that wore the suite with this technology basically became a ghost and blended into the back ground. IT was demonstrated by a japanese scientist in SanFransisco not too long ago. Cool Stuff!!!!

Here is the link to the cloaking device invented by a japanese scientist not too long ago. He demonstrated the technology in San Fran.
news.bbc.co.uk...

Susumu Tachi's stealth jacket is the same basic concept that DARPA is working on. The Goverment was even in a way inspired to work on this tech thanks to the movie Predator.

Tachi's work proves the basic concept works. Well worth throwing some DOD dollars at IMO.

One thing I think that will be used alot in future military systems is Carbon Nanotubes. This stuff might be 50-100x stronger then steel, able to withstand heat like diamond and able to conduct electricity like copper. It can change the way we build everything tanks, planes,body armour.

[edit on 17-2-2005 by ShadowXIX]

Thanks for the feed back shadow!
I read a little bit about this concept coming from the predator movie.

The way this cloak is working at present i can see it being effective militarily for snipers or at longer range. However at close range it is easy for the eye to spot. Hopefully they add some thermal technology to it to where it can block heat, making it undetectable to infra-red.
And what about motion sensors?
Can you imaging stealth technology in a suite?

[edit on 17-2-2005 by Mr Carburetor]

Great point Mr Carburetor Thermal signature reduction for the individual soldier is a important factor in stealth and it will only be more so in the future. They are indeed working on just that as well

They have already found ways to reduce the signature by 30%-50%. The technical challenge entailed integrating signature reducing materials/ technologies into a textile substrate while maintaining basic fabric characteristics (durability, flexibility, breathability, etc.) and other soldier’s operational capabilities.

I think they hope to go even higher in the future when they go beyond the land warrior system.

Not sure about motion sensors, I dont really know of many military systems that use that. So I dont know how concerned they are with it. Would be a great way to break into banks if you could figure a way around that though.

Soficrow, have you ever read Prey by Michael Crichton? Swarms of Nanobots killing anything they come across, and very difficult to destroy.

Originally posted by ShadowXIX
Not sure about motion sensors, I dont really know of many military systems that use that. So I dont know how concerned they are with it. Would be a great way to break into banks if you could figure a way around that though.

My main thoughts on steath to motion sensors would be in regards to infilration of primary targets without detection. Like a building where a primary enemy weapon is located. Or maybe to nab primary suspects. It could be used to gain top secret information from the enemy without destroying a building or damaging the main objective. I imagine high security buildings could have motion sensing equipment like this. It would be great if the cloaking suite could somehow have a feature to be undetectable to sensors or lasers. How i don't know, but seems possible.

Originally posted by Gazrok

Submersible aircraft carriers capable of holding numerous aircraft...think about it, the ability to position a mini-air force with complete surprise...

This was tried by the Japanese (and maybe some others during WWII) is also being looked at again by a number of navies but is still quite a way off.

yeah the sub could hold 3 aircraft i believe.

personally i always liked the idea of the battle being decided by the soldiers skill. There is way too many things that could go wrong with nano tech also. I k now this may sound absurd to most people but i find no honor in sending a bunch of exploding robots to wipe out an enemy.