(Super) Soldier

[Rossum]

Random thought regarding power armor: What if the armor could be made to act as decoys for real soldiers?

Basically, if you have all those suits of powered armor to outfit your troops then have a few decoy models set up so you can park them at guard posts with sensors relaying info to your base or fill them with explosives and march them towards places you think is full of enemy combatants. If most of your soldiers are wearing armor that turns them into faceless mooks then go ahead and get some empty armor to fill out your ranks and give you the illusion of greater numbers. The decoy suits could be cheaper versions of the regular ones that can't be used as actual suits but have similar components to cannibalize in an emergency.

Giving the illusion of greater numbers could provide some decent tactical advantage in situations (I recall that in many wars people would set up whole fake army bases for the enemy to attack while the real ones are disguised as something else). It can demoralize and distract the enemy while possibly providing encouragement to people on your side (though it could be freaky if some soldiers start mistaking the empty drones for fellow soldiers or visa versa).

Another thing for super soldiers would be the ability to eventually reintegrate them back into civilian life if that ever becomes possible. If you're going to make a huge clone army it might be worthwhile to make some of them female so when your grand galactic army retires you don't have billions of super strong, well-toned guys in uniform suddenly stealing everyones girlfriends. Or legalize gay marriage or something.

If I ever make a huge clone army I'd make the majority of them female (and add some genetic diversity). After we beat the enemy and my super soldiers have a chance to enter the civilian sector I expect the universe to suddenly get slightly sexier instead of just angrier.

As for the need for food and medicine for the army, perhaps add genetically modified goats to the distributed supplies? Instead of engineering your soldiers to eat grass or foliage then have super goats eat grass and convert it all into milk or something. Or have portable replicators convert biological matter into MREs. Should be cheaper and faster to make a device that makes food than to engineer all your soldiers so eat grass.

[Simon_Jester]

The argument for decoy suits of unmanned power armor is identical to the argument for combat drones that have the same protection and firepower as real soldiers, plus whatever you can cram into the space inside the armor the soldier would normally occupy...

[Ahriman238]

I'd say start with quick reflexes and ggood hand-eye coordination. Aim is largely something taught, but if you can shave time off that process, or go through the whole drill and come out with a soldier who can aim quicker and more accurately than the other guy, you absolutely should. Besides, quicker reflexes means a quicker response even to threats like artillery fire.

After that pain tolerance, or something to make them bleed out slower would be nice. I like the idea of something like the Astartes Larramen cells, that can harden and clot only when they encounter atmosphere. Resistance to disease is good.

It will probably always be more economic and survivable to issue body armor then to GE an armored carapace for your troops, but it's an option.

After that, I'm thinking we'd really need to focus on perception. Better awareness of the enviroment can be a huge advantage, so if we can boost the senses some without terrible tradeoffs we can go for that.

In a similar vein, the brain. Even the clone troopers had their grey matter tinkered with to increase their learning capabilities and allow extreme loyalty conditioning. Something like the OA Su "increased multitask. increased focus" could be extremely useful. Perhaps something that accelerates brain activity in a crisis, allowing the supersoldier to react as quickly with careful deliberation as other men can with reflexes alone?

I'd consider those the basic necessities. That isn't counting the exotic and usually universe-dependent things that have come up in this thread.

[Purple]

The argument for decoy suits of unmanned power armor is identical to the argument for combat drones that have the same protection and firepower as real soldiers, plus whatever you can cram into the space inside the armor the soldier would normally occupy...

Not really. I have read some interesting articles on how the Russians in WW2 faked entire tank battalions and motor rifle formations by using inflatable decoys, trucks with canvas models on top and even dirt piles painted to look like a tank. A completely fake suit of armor made out of cheap plastic and cloth with just the minimum robotics to make it bob around a bit or maybe walk in a small circle could do miracles in terms of fooling observers for a trivial cost. Add to that the fact that future armor will be designed to mask the soldiers IR signature and add some minimum heating to the inside of the unit and you are set. It's the exact same thing as making an inflatable tank with an inflatable tank commander on top and than gluing a real cigarette to his mouth.

You could quite literally spawn battalions and divisions out of thin air. And you could do it for a minuscule fraction of the cost of deploying a formation of combat capable robots.

See this: http://z4.invisionfree.com/NSDraftroom/ ... opic=10502