"robocops" on tomorrows battlefield?

[Satchel 0]

The soldier of the future could be able to leap buildings, heal his own wounds, deflect bullets and become invisible.

These are just some of the futuristic plans of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology which has been selected by the US army to create the battlefield equivalent of Robocop.

The $50m research centre will be known as the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN).

Among the goals of the newly-created ISN will be gadgets that can heal soldiers, uniforms that are nearly invisible and clothing that can become a rigid cast when a soldier breaks his or her leg.

Imagine the psychological impact upon a foe when encountering squads of seemingly invincible warriors

An exoskeleton could be developed to provide protection from bullets, transform into a medical cast and even activate an offensive weapon.

Shoes with built-in power packs could release bursts of energy to endow the soldier with super-strength and agility.

With a nod to the durability of medieval armour, the institute will also develop a futuristic light-weight chain mail, made up of molecular materials.

The soldier of the future will not only be protected, but present a greater threat to the enemy said director of the ISN Professor Ned Thomas.

Robo-soldier could terrify the enemy.

"Imagine the psychological impact upon a foe when encountering squads of seemingly invincible warriors, protected by armour and endowed with superhuman capabilities, such as the ability to leap over 20-foot walls," he said.

The ISN will be staffed by 150 people, including 35 MIT professors, 80 graduate students as well as specialists from the army.

The research group will focus on six key areas:

threat detection

threat neutralisation such as bullet-proof clothing

concealment

enhanced human performance,

real-time automated medical treatment

reducing the weight of equipment from today's 145-pound loads to the 45 pounds carried by Roman soldiers

MIT already has a history of helping out the army in times of war.

During World War II, large-scale research at MIT's Radiation Laboratory was devoted to the rapid development of microwave radar.

The lab designed almost half of the radar deployed in World War II, created over 100 different radar systems, and constructed $1.5 billion worth of radar.

And at the time of the Cold War, the university developed guidance systems for missiles.

Many of the technologies being developed at MIT for the soldier of the future will not be available for at least a decade.

source:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_1908000/1908729.stm

Looks like war is going Unreal Tournament in the future

[scout 0]

i always say DONT MIX CHAMPANGE AND VODKA!

hehehe.

geeeeeezzzzzzz. that sounds like the psy-warfare the US army developed during the cold war.

a decade? i'd say more then a century

[Renagade 0]

dammit i want a mech the size of a skyscraper not stuff for thr grunts unless i could get hold of it too

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

One EMP blast over the battlefield, and its back to Vietnam or earlier.

Besides: the more technology you employ, the more possibilities you have to counter-act that technology.

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Satchel @ April 13 2002,01:39)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">uniforms that are nearly invisible<span id='postcolor'>

What does see-through clothing have to do with anything

I actually understand what it really means. Another but very important point is cost. If each of these solidiers cost X million. The project will not go very far.

[scout 0]

as they say: the more its sophisticated the higher probability for a breakdown!

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ April 13 2002,03:03)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">as they say: the more its sophisticated the higher probability for a breakdown!<span id='postcolor'>

Wouldn't it be less likely to breakdown cause it's so sophisticated?

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (second_draw @ April 13 2002,03:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">3--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ April 13 2002,033)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">as they say: the more its sophisticated the higher probability for a breakdown!<span id='postcolor'>

Wouldn't it be less likely to breakdown cause it's so sophisticated?<span id='postcolor'>

An EMP blast over London in the 30's would cause less collateral damage to business and the going on's of London as an EMP blast today.

Get it?

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ex-RoNiN @ April 13 2002,03:19)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (second_draw @ April 13 2002,03:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ April 13 2002,03<!--emo&)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">as they say: the more its sophisticated the higher probability for a breakdown!<span id='postcolor'>

Wouldn't it be less likely to breakdown cause it's so sophisticated?<span id='postcolor'>

An EMP blast over London in the 30's would cause less collateral damage to business and the going on's of London as an EMP blast today.

Get it?<span id='postcolor'>

But why would you want to EMP blast London?

Yeah, i get it.

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Ex-RoNiN @ April 13 2002,03:19)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">An EMP blast over London in the 30's would cause less collateral damage to business and the going on's of London as an EMP blast today.<span id='postcolor'>

Actually, A similar analogy could be made to cost. These super machines & soldiers will cost a packet, no question about it.

[scout 0]

well........cost is fluid though.

in '40s the cost of a 1g uranium was astronomical because there were produced only few grams in a year, where in the '70 it was quite abundant, so the cost issue is realy a matter of technology development no?

[Gaswell 1]

A "super soldier gear" will serve to make the US soldier seem even more inexpendable than their enemies. I certainly appreciate the morale/effectiveness impact on enemies by a super-soldier as envisioned here, but what happens when a squad of super-soldiers is taken down in an ambush?

I fear that this may make the US soldier even more vulnerable towards media attacks during wartime. It is too much to ask of the GI Joe to be able to out-fight local troops across the globe.

[red oct 2]

in the cold war the soviets spent millions of dollars in research to make psychic soldiers, serriously who needs guns when you cand pick up a tank w/ your mind and drop it on a enemy soldier taking a dump in a out house?

but anyway the US is in fact trying to creat cyborg like machines along w/ japan. if you ever watched the movie "Red Plannet" w/ Val Kilmer, than you probaly remember that robot called "AAMY" it was a cyborg that belong to the US marines of the future, it was pretty cool, it didnt have guns but had a big ass swiss army knife on its hands, they were kinda like tallons, and this thing would have a flying drone fly off its back to do reconisence, the machine was capable of paralizing the enemy mentally with fear. when it was on the move, it ran around on four legs and then walk up on 2 legs. there was something similar to this in a Sci fi comedy called "space truckers" it was pretty funny movie for anybody who would care to see it

[Renagade 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (second_draw @ April 13 2002,03:14)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">3--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ April 13 2002,033)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">as they say: the more its sophisticated the higher probability for a breakdown!<span id='postcolor'>

Wouldn't it be less likely to breakdown cause it's so sophisticated?<span id='postcolor'>

i think what he means is K.I.S.S,keep it simple,stupid.

the less chance things have to go wrong ,the less things WILL go wrong.

[§nake 0]

I bet the world will create some type of camo that features millions of tiny cameras and actually works as a invisible camo. Robot wars though... scary thought... specially if they got so smart the pitbull turns on it's owner.

[scout 0]

dont worry snake. we're not even close to understand how our brain works.

so no R2D2's here!

[second_draw 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (scout @ April 13 2002,06:27)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">dont worry snake. we're not even close to understand how our brain works.<span id='postcolor'>

IMO, Humans will eventually make AI by learning how our brain or a rodents brain works and implict the understanding

[Aculaud 0]

It'd be pointless to make artificial soldiers to fight for us. We would just be littering a hell of a lot as the outcome. How would we even fight? Bomb the factories where all the robots are being made with our stealth bombers that are AI controled, but get picked up by their AI controled "Anti-Stealth" radar, and taken down by their AI controled ion cannon, only to have our AI controlled Super computer retaliate by nuking them to kingdom come, and . . . . . . . .You ge tthe idea. No matter what scheme you hatch, there always has to be the brains behind it. Those brains will always be human. Want to foil the plan? Kill the brain. Its been said already. one battlefield sized EMP blast, and its back to 5.56-ers and pine-apples.

[USSoldier11B 0]

What I need as a soldier to be combat effective:

Rifle*

Bullets*

Food*

Water*

Copenhagen

Compass

Map

Air & Artillery support

*essentials

[Aculaud 0]

I'll second that!

What i need to be an effective soldier (hypathetical based on all my gaming experience).

-High powered rifle with equally powerful scope

-ammo

-Desert Eagle .50 sidearm

-ammo for that

-binocular\laser range finder

-some form of easily deployed high explosive

-A reliable GPS interface and tracking system of some sort

-A fast way out of where ever i am, should i need it.

[Satchel 0]

It will be a long time before fully autonomuous machines can be employed i guess, on the other hand nanotechnology "enhanced" soldiers aren´t that far off, basically human soldiers whose combat efficiancy is multiplied with aid of technology.

Would be interesting to know to what extent Landwarrior technology has been used in Afghanistan, it´s performance and efficiancy to get an idea if a wired grunt is practicable on the field.

[scout 0]

hey aculaud, you 4got something else: someone to carry it all for you!

[IceFire 0]

I do not like the idea of all this technology.

I plan on joining the services and do not want anything to do with "landwarrior".

I would rather just learn to be efficient with a rifle, grenades and some food. Or learning to eat animals!

But I think relying on technology is a bad thing. They can't get our damn home PC's to work half the time. What the hell are you gonna do when your robosuit runs out of batteries in some combat situation. What if water gets in it or any number of things.

[Aculaud 0]

I cant wait to see the look on some future soldiers face when his suit says "This program has preformed an illegal operation and will be shut down". And then you click on the details and it says "Your suit caused an invalid page fault at........."

LOL

[ralphwiggum 6]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Aculaud @ April 13 2002,21:10)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I cant wait to see the look on some future soldiers face when his suit says "This program has preformed an illegal operation and will be shut down". And then you click on the details and it says "Your suit caused an invalid page fault at........."

LOL <span id='postcolor'>

that's what happens when you use windows and other MS products for a long time.