The US Military Catch-All Thread

[TheWombat]

If the thrust from the arms is temporarily unnecessary or you can shut it off without plummeting to your death, I suppose lasers would work, as there is no recoil. But, yeah, not likely.

[Timex]

Just the idea of trying to hit something with a precision weapon, while you are flying around on a jetpack, kind of makes it pointless. You would miss anything you were aiming at.

[jpinard]

@Dejin

The big problem I noticed is your arms are encased in control rockets, which means there’s no easy or quick way to access weapons.

They need to put rocket launchers in the arms lol.

[Tortilla]

Why would one arm a jump pack suit for a soldier? I mean I realize that the chainsword is traditional in these cases, but putting aside bad sci-fi precedents it doesn’t make a lot of sense. If the concern is the soldier being shot at, use regular old drones to provide cover. The whole point of an elaborate jump pack to transport a human around is that a human is needed to do something at the destination that a drone can’t do. Something involving hands or taking prisoners or whatnot. If the situation just called for a hovering platform that can shoot at people, a drone would be simpler.

[KevinC]

@Timex

Just the idea of trying to hit something with a precision weapon, while you are flying around on a jetpack, kind of makes it pointless. You would miss anything you were aiming at.

Pfff. As a vet of Planetside 2 and other shooters, I completely disagree with this.

[Timex]

Tony stark did this in a cave, with a box of scraps!

[ShivaX]

@Tortilla

The whole point of an elaborate jump pack to transport a human around is that a human is needed to do something at the destination that a drone can’t do. Something involving hands or taking prisoners or whatnot. If the situation just called for a hovering platform that can shoot at people, a drone would be simpler.

Drones can’t really go below decks and, say, rescue hostages or the like.

[Tortilla]

@ShivaX

Drones can’t really go below decks and, say, rescue hostages or the like.

Right, that’s an example of what I was talking about in terms of some situations needing a soldier and not a drone. In that circumstances, if the action is in the interior of the vessel being boarded, then the soldier can take off the flight suit and just pull out a conventional firearm. I can totally see the point of arming the soldier, just not the point of arming the flight suit.

[TheWombat]

Yeah, there’s no need really for built-in weapons when we have drones. More useful by far would be some form of armor or other ballistic protection, visual/sensor feeds, maybe medical gear that could be deployed on landing, etc.

[Thrag]

This is what you need.

This Predator-Style, Shoulder-Mounted Nerf Blaster Uses a Raspberry Pi to...

[Calelari]

@KevinC

As a vet of Planetside 2

Papa Vanu has entered the chat.

[Mark_Weston]

@TheWombat

I do think this has a lot of possible uses for the police and military forces, especially in say coast guard or search and rescue type operations, if not directly in combat ops. Depending on how noisy it is, I suppose it could be of use in sneaky-sneaky type raids or something, but generally, simpler is better, and ropes and grapples are generally a sure bet.

I think the fact that it’s labelled a “boarding exercise” is a bit of a clue here. Boarding isn’t a combat scenario; it happens as part of customs / law-enforcement / sanctions enforcement and similar missions. So if an uncooperative civilian vessel refuses to heave-to, you might have another option beyond opening fire (which in general would be outside Rules of Engagement anyway).

[Menzo]

Yeah, this is a reasonable use-case, especially if they make the whole get up easier to put on and take off. Suit up, fly quickly to the other boat, remove the suit, equip your weapon, and search the ship. Then head back up top after the traditional boarding crew arrives, suit up again, and fly back.

[Timex]

@Thrag

This is what you need.

An interesting thing is how the guy at one point says, “Well, you couldn’t really use this in theater because it’s too slow for tracking something with a real weapon.”

Which reminded me of the insane CIWS system, which totally does work.

Phalanx CIWS

I remember talking to a guy in the Navy about the CIWS, and recall his explanation of how it doesn’t simply shoot the target and blow it up. That wouldn’t be good enough, because then you’d have all the schrapnel and wreckage from the target still coming at the ship.

The CIWS is designed to actually push the target away… with bullets. It shoots the target, and then shoots all the wreckage, and just keeps shooting until there’s nothing bigger than a quarter, effectively stopping the target from getting closer to you.

It’s a totally nuts gun.

[sillhouette]

Yeah, but CIWS isn’t designed to id and shoot the pirate who steps out the door 2 meters away before he can shoot back. That’s why you need a second marine mounted on the back of the flying suit for covering fire.

[JMR]

@Thrag

This is what you need.

[John_Doyle]

Fun fact: The CIWS sounds just like a big zipper when it fires. It tracks the target and then ZIIIIIIPPPP.

[legowarrior]

That doesn’t look like a Glitterboy, so it’s an automatic fail in my book.

[pyrhic]

damnit, i want one of those to get to work.

So im curious how it works - i noticed that the pilot was never far off the ground and makes me wonder if it needs a surface to repel against(if that’s the right terminology)? I’d like to see him go over a forest…

[Thrag]

No ground effect necessary, but there’s a two minute run time so for safety they tend to stay close to the ground.

This interview has a bunch of info.

Flying like Iron Man: Up Close with Richard Browning's Gravity Jet Suit!