Powered armour combat

[Firnagzen]

Hi SD.net, long time lurker, both registered and non.

I'm curious. And I wasn't able to find another topic like this one. Realistically speaking, what do you think actual powered armour combat and tactics would be like, if we can develop it past the rather clunky stages we have now? I've got some ideas, just looking for further comments.

I mean, ok. First thing is that it's armour. Duh. Depending on what grade of armour you can cram onto the powered armour, it'd negate enemy fire short of an RPG or something. Cover isn't really as much of an issue any more when your armour is conceivably tougher than any tree or rock you could hide behind, is it? Concealment is, though. Is it plausible to hide while in powered armour? I imagine so. Going prone is always useful to reduce your target profile, but then it might be hard to get up, depending on how bulky the armour is, no?

The next thing is that, well, it's powered. I can see two benefits: Mobility and load. You can carry much heavier loads, allowing for heavier man portable weapons, to the point where the limiting factor would be bulk, right? Say, you have the strength to carry 20 anti tank missiles around; doesn't mean it's practical. (Though awesome. Heh.) The other thing is mobility, assuming your power supply holds out, powered armour would allow you to travel far more effectively through harsh terrain, like dense forest (I think anyone who's ever actually been in any armed forces and had to bash through forest can relate) or desert. Just watch the marshes. I guess they'd have as much manueverability as an armoured platoon, or maybe more, considering that they don't need roads or road-ish things to get from point to point?

I don't think I've come across any marginally realistic, speculative depiction of powered armour. I mean, mostly, they've been confined to games. As iconic as the Astartes advancing and firing from the hip, before going choppy-choppy-chop is, I don't think it's very realistic. Yes, I know Warhammer 40k runs mostly on rule of cool.

Opinions?

Aside: What does RAR mean? From context, it seems to denote a topic as being a debate topic. Is it?

[Simon_Jester]

Cover remains an issue as long as you're dealing with the kind of armor we can actually imagine building. Granted the armor is harder than many forms of cover, but it makes a tremendous difference whether the round striking the armor has been slowed down passing through other objects or not.

Also, up-armoring infantry past a certain point will require technomagic power supplies; you can't really make armor that will resist .50 BMG-equivalent weapons on a human frame without it weighing a ton or more. The weight of the armor will tend to scale up faster than the weight of the weapon that can penetrate it, too... and there's no realistic way to armor against HEAT-type weapons on a human frame. Armor exists that can resist shaped charges, but it's so bulky you can't really fit it on anything other than a giant motorized box. Even bursts from ordinary automatic weapons will tend to chew up the armor and very possibly chew through plate that 'should' be immune to individual hits.

Basically, we can predict that power armor will provide minimal protection against vehicle-mounted or crew-served heavy weapons. Since those are the weapons that already do the bulk of the killing in modern infantry combat, tactics won't change as much as you might think. You still want to avoid being seen as long as possible to avoid getting artillery called in on your position. You still have to worry about keeping out of line of sight of the enemy's heavy weapons, probing for weak spots rather than pushing straight up through the middle.

Infantry will still wind up fighting in much the same way, I'd think.

[Sarevok]

Aside: What does RAR mean? From context, it seems to denote a topic as being a debate topic. Is it?

Its a forum injoke. Involving a user called Zor who used to make lots of threads asking speculative questions like what if dinosaurs could use guns or Romans gain steam engine technology. So another user called Mayabird made the comment that was something like "evilcat (me) at least tries to respond while Zor is like RAR ! HERES A HIPOTHETICLE SCENARIO FOR U!! all the time".

Now back on topic of the thread

I mean, ok. First thing is that it's armour. Duh. Depending on what grade of armour you can cram onto the powered armour, it'd negate enemy fire short of an RPG or something.

Unlikely. You overstate the level of protection power armor can provide when made with realistic materials. Anti tank rockets or grenade launchers are not necessary to destroy them because plenty of other weapons still lethal enough. HMG and anti material rifles can penetrate light armored fighting vehicles. To the point you don't achieve all around HMG protection until you start pushing 20 tons. A power armor built with real materials will not stop high caliber ammunition that can make a BMP-1 crew reconsider their attack plan.

The next thing is that, well, it's powered. I can see two benefits: Mobility and load. You can carry much heavier loads, allowing for heavier man portable weapons, to the point where the limiting factor would be bulk, right? Say, you have the strength to carry 20 anti tank missiles around; doesn't mean it's practical.

Two things.

1. There is something called ground pressure. Power armor creates lot more than tracked vehicles. Make it too heavy and it literally sink itself on softer terrain.

2. A power armor that can not enter buildings is not useful. Vehicles can already handle open terrain combat far better than any power could. Make your power armor too heavy to clear a two story house and suddenly you lost a lot of justification for such a expensive unit.

I'm curious. And I wasn't able to find another topic like this one. Realistically speaking, what do you think actual powered armour combat and tactics would be like, if we can develop it past the rather clunky stages we have now? I've got some ideas, just looking for further comments.

Nobody knows. Its like asking what role armored vehicles could fulfill in 1914 when the first tanks were still on drawing boards.

We do have many powered exoskeleton projects around the world. They are for logistics work. I imagine the first role of "powered armor" is going to be like the loader suits from Alien movies. They will serve in a non combat support role moving crates, artillery shells etc rather than being equipped to shoot at the enemy. Once the system matures in the battlefield environment then maybe we will finally start seeing proposals for powered battle armor with weapons integrated...

[Firnagzen]

Nobody knows. Its like asking what role armored vehicles could fulfill in 1914 when the first tanks were still on drawing boards.

Agreed, but it's still fun to speculate on, isn't it?

Interesting tidbit on material technology, I did not know that. Somethings I'm curious as to, then: Kevlar armour is a a cloth made of a material with a high tensile strength, backed by ceramic strike plates to absorb the actual impact of a bullet, right? It's ineffective against higher calibers because the tensile strength of the kevlar weave is limited. Wouldn't it be possible to do something similar with carbon nanotubes? I realize we can only make them in fractions of a millimeter as is. But then, it seems reasonable to say that we can make them longer, and it should only be a matter of time, yes? Would that be sufficient? I'm guessing not.

Mm. Is it realistic to make armour totally impregnable to small arms fire, at least? That would change at least some things. Though even a normal infantry section does carry, generally, a SAW or two, a grenade launcher or two, and an anti tank infantry.

[adam_grif]

Power armor infantry are still infantry. If you can mount armor that will stop RPGs on a power armor chassis, then you can mount armor significantly thicker than that on a tank chassis. Whatever weapons we are using to bust tanks in the future will always bust power armor troopers too. Now, infantry scale armor resisting 105mm shaped charges is kind of silly to begin with, but hey.

Tactics wise, they are sitting ducks in the open vs any kind of armor, so PA vs Tank is the same sort of matchup that Infantry vs Tank is anyway. The only real difference is that a PA trooper is likely carrying heavier gear, and is thus more likely to be sporting some sort of antiarmor weapon. PA vs PA is just infantry combat with bigger sticks. PA vs Infantry is where things get interesting, because a PA trooper can go everywhere an infantryman can (unless they're stupidly heavy or something), but obviously they are much tougher to put down. In a direct engagement I don't like joe blow insurgent's chances with his Kalashnikov, because those kinds of rounds are the kind of thing that PA will be good at standing up against. Don't think they're immortal though, grenades are likely going to do severe damage to the PA troopers (or outright destroy them even), and any kind of improvised explosives are in the same boat.

[Sarevok]

Power armor infantry are still infantry. If you can mount armor that will stop RPGs on a power armor chassis, then you can mount armor significantly thicker than that on a tank chassis. Whatever weapons we are using to bust tanks in the future will always bust power armor troopers too. Now, infantry scale armor resisting 105mm shaped charges is kind of silly to begin with, but hey.

Whereas power armor will remain vulnerable to insurgent RPGs the same may no longer apply to future tanks. Active protection systems are maturing fast and it looks like they are going to become standard part of tank defensive suites. Meanwhile even the piddliest vehicle mounted 20 mm autocannon is going to swiss cheese any power armor it hits. Since ATGM lobbing is going to be lot less effective in the future a Power Armors ability to inflict damage on a tank is also going to be limited.

So it seems like power armor that we can envision with present technology is going to be a specialized anti infantry unit that dominates conventional soldiers with bulletproof armor and heavy weapons. Expecting them to be vehicle killers seem to be rather too optimistic.

[adam_grif]

Well they might be able to resist the coax MG's (well, maybe not the .50 cals but...), and they will be able to carry heavier stuff. Although a rocket launcher fired from a PA is no better than a rocket launcher fired from a regular soldier, the increased loads may mean that every fireteam gets some kind of organic AT weaponry, or something like that. But the Heinlein vision of PA making tanks obsolete is definitely not something that's going to be happening.

[Sarevok]

Well they might be able to resist the coax MG's (well, maybe not the .50 cals but...), and they will be able to carry heavier stuff. Although a rocket launcher fired from a PA is no better than a rocket launcher fired from a regular soldier, the increased loads may mean that every fireteam gets some kind of organic AT weaponry, or something like that. But the Heinlein vision of PA making tanks obsolete is definitely not something that's going to be happening.

To be fair to Heinlein's novel focused raiding parties dropped from spaceships rather than massive planetary invasions. Even with magitech propelled dropships it is not easy to get 60 ton tanks to surface of a planet and back to space again. PA seems uniquely suited for the kind of uber airborne forces mentality some real world military planners have too. They can bring the firepower of a small vehicle in large numbers while still remaining air transportable.

[Lord of the Abyss]

An advantage of power armor I recall being given in the past by some researcher is that a great deal of modern casualties come from relatively low powered indiscriminate fire. Shrapnel, unaimed rifle fire and the like. Realistically you can't make armor that can take a direct hit from a heavy weapon, but armor tough enough that you need to either actually hit it directly or use really heavy weapons would greatly increase survivability.

Another advantage is increased carrying capacity; one of the common problems that I always hear coming from the various "future soldier" projects is that the resulting equipment is just too heavy for soldiers to carry and still function.

2. A power armor that can not enter buildings is not useful. Vehicles can already handle open terrain combat far better than any power could. Make your power armor too heavy to clear a two story house and suddenly you lost a lot of justification for such a expensive unit.

For this reason I've wondered if power armored soldiers will be selected for their small stature. A smaller person can wear a proportionately heavier, bulkier set of armor while still being smaller & lighter in absolute terms than some 6 foot plus guy. If a 5' 2" woman wears armor that makes her a foot taller, she can still go through a door without ducking. And of course since the armor is doing the work her relatively low personal strength doesn't matter.

That does lead to the amusing scenario where the power armored troops are regarded as wimpier, more effeminate than the rest of the army; the opposite from the usual power armor portrayal in fiction. "Power armor? That's for girls!"

[jollyreaper]

There was a thread concerning it over here.

http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=145222

You have to ask yourself what scale of power armor you're thinking of, is it Aliens powerloader, starship troopers, or the Iron Man suit? Iron Man is pure magictech. There's no possible explanation for the power source, force beams, how it can fly. And assuming you licked all the problems involved in putting one of those together, the spin-off technologies would render the rest of society utterly transformed.

My contention in that thread is that if you were going to genetically engineer soldiers for combat armor, you wouldn't want two meter-high 800lb space marines, you'd want a horse-racing jockey. It was pointed out the g-forces involved in armor combat would still require a massively fit individual but we're talking about a pint-sized Bruce Lee rather than the Incredible Hulk. Opinion was sharply divided in this regard.

My own thinking is that "manned combat armor" will end up going the way of the manned fighter. The only reason why there's a person in there is because you can't or don't trust the machine to run it. An infantryman exists to point his rifle in a useful direction and fire it when necessary. If the rifle could do everything itself he wouldn't be necessary. The officers are there to make sure the infantrymen are behaving in a useful manner. If those guns were automated, now you've cut the manpower requirements of an infantry platoon to a handful, basically the LT and section leaders who tell the drones where to shoot. The drones are more durable and expendable than humans.

Depending on how good the coms and telepresence are, the humans could be pulled further and further back from the front lines.

My thinking is that power armor will ultimately prove to be a romantic but obsolete concept analogous to the ram. Ramming was a grand tactic in the days of galleys and rowed ships. It fell out of favor in the age of sail. Steam power combined with the ironclads along with the relatively weak guns of the late 19th century created a condition where battleships might not be able to destroy their opponents with gunfire and might be reduced to ramming. It's a romantic notion and people had their arguments back and forth over it. Ships were built with rams and we might well have seen the tactic employed if there were a large war. None was offered and guns improved to the point where admirals felt comfortable in being able to destroy their targets by gunfire. As I recall, the very last case of ramming occurring in combat was WWII where there were a few instances of enemy subs forced to the surface and rammed by destroyers. Very spur of the moment things. There was one case of a U-boat stubbornly refusing to break in half when struck and the Germans tried boarding the ramming destroyer. The captain had to sound the alarm for repelling boarders and the book said that was something that hadn't happened on a USN ship in over a hundred years, not even sure if the last time was in the Civil War.

[Sarevok]

I don't think power armor is going to result in more women in frontline combat roles. Consider the fact that many tank designs already require their crews to be small people. IIRC many Russian tankers are less than 5'4'' in height. Yet despite favoring smaller stature people few women sign up to become tankers. Life as a power armor operator is going to be much worse than a tanker however. Whereas tanks crews often walk way from a destroyed vehicle few PA soldiers will survive being shot with HEAT rounds or massive armor piercing bullets without horrific injuries. PA duty is going to be very dangerous and nasty and for much the same reason you don't see many women in armored forces you wont see that many wearing powered armor in combat.

[jollyreaper]

I don't think power armor is going to result in more women in frontline combat roles. Many tank designs already require their crews to be small people. IIRC many Russian tankers are less than 5'4'' in height. Life as a power armor operator is going to be much worse than a tanker however. Whereas tanks crews often walk way from a destroyed shot few PA soldiers will survive being shot with HEAT rounds or massive armor piercing bullets without horrific injuries. PA duty is going to be very dangerous and nasty and for much the same reason you don't see many women in armored forces you wont see that many wearing powered armor in combat.

The Russians made extensive use of women on the frontlines in WWII, everything from hazardous nominally non-combat roles up to field phone line repairs to snipers to fighter pilots. I'm guessing they pulled women back from that sort of thing after the war, maybe because they wanted to protect women or maybe because men didn't want them taking all the glory billets. Being a fighter pilot when nobody's shooting at you is a pretty sweet gig.

[Imperial528]

I'd imagine that powered armor would be used with heavy weapon crews, since if you can have one guy lug around the equipment and ammunition for a mounted/tripod machine gun or anti-tank rifle, then that's a free guy who can grab a rifle and shoot. Bonus points if the armor makes it easier for the wielder of the MG to reload.

Although, I'd like to ask, are we differentiating between powered armor and exoskeletons? Since I always thought of them as similar but different. (Powered armor to me is similar to modern infantry armor, but with servo assistance motors to allow heavier equipment to be carried, along with armor plating or more Kevlar. While I see an exoskeleton as being more like a human-shaped IFV.)

Personally, for combat roles, I see powered armor being very specialized. To take the MG example from my first paragraph, if the armor suit can do the reloading for the wielder, hold larger ammunition belts, and provide extra protection, then it is essentially a mobile, easily set-up MG position. Just have the guy hunker down behind some cover, set up, and you have a heavily armored, heavily armed position that only requires one man. I can also imagine one made for IED or mine disposal, or made for hazardous environments, e.g.: fire, gas, radiation, anthrax.

[Sarevok]

Although, I'd like to ask, are we differentiating between powered armor and exoskeletons?

To be semantically correct exoskeletons exist and are nearing operational use. The SARCOS is quite advanced at this stage and it seems the Lockheed Martin HULC is being tested in Afghanistan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1CeBOWm67A

Powered armor seem to imply something different - an exoskeleton with guns and weapons. That is not yet under development. I suspect powered armor will appear after exoskeleton technology matures and the military feels its now time to put armor and heavy weapons around a exoskeleton.

[PainRack]

Dale brown Tin Men ?

Power armour appears to be used by commandoes to guide in bombers as well as provide a level of protection/mobility/stealth that tanks would not have.

[Sarevok]

Stealth I can get (man in power armor is smaller than a tank afterall and can go prone). But superior mobility and protection to 50+ ton monsters in a mansized package ?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Stealth I can get (man in power armor is smaller than a tank afterall and can go prone). But superior mobility and protection to 50+ ton monsters in a mansized package ?

I don't see the "superior protection" thing either. But as far as mobility goes, i wouldn't even try to compare the two, they are simply too different. The tank is going to be faster and able to smash over-and-through things that would hamper or stop power armor. But the tank isn't going to be climbing any three foot wide stairways, either.

[Sky Captain]

My guess is power armor would be most useful where vehicles can't go - securing buildings and similar places or where terrain is too broken for vehicles. If power armor can be made small arms resistant it would offer huge advantage over your typical AK47 vielding insurgent. Also it would better resist shrapnel from nearby IED. When penetrated PA user would probably have less severe injuries because bullet would have expanded part of its energy by penetrating armor.
If PA can be produced cheaply enough a riot police might got it because it would protect from thrown rocks, molotv coctails and also have psychological impact.

[Master_Baerne]

psychological impact

This. As has been ambly demonstrated by people more fully-versed in military reality than I (Simon, why do you know everything?), any reasonably realistic power armor will not elevate infantry to vehicle-level firepower or individual survivability. What it will do, at least for the first few countries to deploy it, is scare the crap out of whoever's unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end.

Modern warfare is largely asymetrical; a world war that leaves enough of a world to fight a proper ground war over is staggeringly unlikely. However, for pacifying insurgencies? Nothing better. The ability to get off the road, never mind the ability to duck, will make IED and RPG attacks vastly more survivable for power-armored troops, and assault rifle rounds should be well within the armor's capacity to handle. Nothing's more discouraging than complete failure against the enemy's grunts.

[Rabid]

As far as I like the idea of Powered Armor (I really love it), my guess is that, with their rise, you'll see the enemy simply beginning to use heavier caliber rounds (Like what you can see in the Salvation War, where the Demons/Angels are nearly immune to most small arms rounds).

Cue a successor of the Ak-47 using 12.7x99mm instead of 7.62x39mm, and the generalization of Anti-Material sniper rifles and the like. Or an emphasis on grenade launchers.


My vision of the powered armor, so far, is an exterior exo-skeleton frame holding the soldier, who wear an integral kevlar suit with ceramic plates where possible. If the exo-skeleton fail, the soldier can still easily detach himself from the frame (by removing some straps) and wear the 50-60 kg of his armor by himself plus the weight of his equipment, in order to move to safety (optionally, you can make it so he can also easily detach the armor around his legs and arms, leaving only torso armor, so he can remove something like half the weight and gain some mobility).
An important feature of a PA would be Recoil Compensation and Targeting Help, I think... That would really help with Machineguns and Grenade Launchers.

[lordofchange13]

Just to clarify : are you talking about mass effect sized power Armour, or mini gundum suits? Also is this 50 years in the future or 500? both would yield very different strengths and limitation of materials and power supply

[Sea Skimmer]

The biggest advantage of powered armor would be it is fully sealed with a powered filtered blower for air. That means massively greater resistance to chemical, biological and radiological weapons, even advanced dusty ones which will beat current MOPP suits, as well as conventional and nuclear air blasts and thermal pulses. Some recent research (many rats killed to learn this) has shown that normal bullet proof vests, even ones which are only soft armor, no hard plates, already provide major protection against blast tramua and can greatly reduce brain injury. So a fully sealed helmet is going to make a huge difference vs. blast. This would be very useful against IEDs, and also against artillery and bombing. This would be all the more so on the defensive; since a guy in a power suit ought to be able to dig and build heavy fortifications very easily and quickly. So he's going to be one hell of a bitch to kill with indirect fire weapons.

Ballistic protection is a tricky subject. Yes, you need 15-20 ton AFVs to resist heavy machine guns. But said AFVs are also made out of steel or aluminum which is cheap material with good multi hit resistance, also they hold more then one man. For a power suit we are accepting absurdly high costs out of hand, and like a normal bullet proof vest we can accept only stopping a few bullets before the armor is broken. This might even go as far as some kind of small scale reactive (note not all reactive armor is explosive) armor scaled to damage .50cal bullet. A great many materials are in the works which may help this process out. However such material may not work well for the suit structure and sealing, which would cost more weight, so the optimal material to make the suit out of may not be the best armor pound for pound.

As far as I can tell armor is in service which can stop heavy machine guns at useful ranges with about 20lb a square foot. Stuff is supposed to be coming which is much better. So a sane weight suit may be able to have some protection; like the torso, against threats in the .50cal range. However this is assuming some stand off range; .50cal sabot at 50ft range is going to go through a lot. But one would assume the sensors, datalinks and firepower of a suit would allow the users to very rapidly suppress enemy crew served weapons. Even a .50cal rifle is a crew served weapon if you want to carry it in the field; normally you in fact have a three man team for each rifle in the US Army and Marines, which is more then then a Javelin ATGM team. Even two men is way worse then one man per weapon. Of course an enemy might just field combat robots to make up the difference.

[Serafina]

Some fictional powered armor (e.g. Space Marine power armor) uses ablative armor layers which are meant to protect against heavy attacks.
It's nice to know that this would make sense in real life, too.

[The Dark]

I don't think power armor is going to result in more women in frontline combat roles. Consider the fact that many tank designs already require their crews to be small people. IIRC many Russian tankers are less than 5'4'' in height.

In the early 80s, Soviet tank crews were required to be less than 1.65 meters tall (5'5"), with every observed T-64/72 crew in being under 1.6 meters. I don't want to rehash the arguments we had in the previous thread, but I believe we'll end up with a compromise - PA troops who are smaller will require smaller suits, but you'll also want soldiers large enough and strong enough to fight effectively outside the suits, in case of running out of power or being attacked while out of the suits.

Cue a successor of the Ak-47 using 12.7x99mm instead of 7.62x39mm, and the generalization of Anti-Material sniper rifles and the like. Or an emphasis on grenade launchers.

Those will be more difficult for use by the (relatively) low-trained forces that insurgents use. One key factor in the AK's ubiquity is that it's incredibly easy to use, with a relatively low recoil. The 12.7x99 won't be easily used on automatic, and anti-materiel rifles require extensive training (particularly with range estimation) to use effectively. Such a change would essentially go back from the current post-WWII idea of suppressing the enemy with automatic fire to the pre-WWII idea of aimed rifle fire. I'm also somewhat dubious about grenade launchers being very effective on anything other than a direct hit - if the PA is able to resist an automatic rifle's bullet, shrapnel will probably do relatively little. It will depend on how much concussive force affects the pilot, which will depend on how close the round is; again, aimed fire, which is not the hallmark of the (typical) insurgent.

To be semantically correct exoskeletons exist and are nearing operational use. The SARCOS is quite advanced at this stage and it seems the Lockheed Martin HULC is being tested in Afghanistan.

The last I heard, HULC wasn't ready for field testing yet (and that's an old video) - I think that's from prototype testing here stateside, and Mr. Ni is using Afghanistan as an explanation of why it's useful. From having been around a HULC, I can tell you that they're very noisy, require huge heat sinks, and still need some more work on programming those mind-reading microprocessors. SARCOS, on the other hand, is still a tethered system relying on off-board power - whereas HULC carries batteries for power, SARCOS relies on a cable carrying power. There's also Cyberdyne's HAL system in Japan, which is a medical exoskeleton (similar to the Berkley Bionics exoskeleton that forms the basis for HULC) that is entering clinical trials.

[Coyote]

The Russians made extensive use of women on the frontlines in WWII... I'm guessing they pulled women back from that sort of thing after the war, maybe because they wanted to protect women or maybe because men didn't want them taking all the glory billets.

I always guessed that, after absorbing 30 million dead, someone felt they needed all the functioning uteruses as they could get back where it was safe...