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[Amperzand]

A ground-burst full-yield Tsar Bomba would indeed kill any bunker whose construction I've heard of, if you didn't mind it turning the mountain it was hiding under into fallout.

[Insanegame27]

Back to the oh SHIT suits mentioned earlier...


So light metal plates sandwiched between kevlar provide a small amount of frontal armor, I'm going to keep the anti-decapitation measures, but move the faceshield to the helmet. The ice axes (still getting used to calling them that XD) are strapped to their thighs, and they will be packing a dual set of knives. I'm changing 'no change in loadout at all' to 'Expected gear needed will be on the insertion vehicle' but still mainly unchanging.


Light SHIT suits will pack next-to-nothing, thinner armor and a wingsuit feature and a parachute. The Decapitation protection is also dropped. The light version will only/primarily only be used for aerobatic insertions and as such no primary weapon (SMG, Shotgun, Carbine, Etc) will be able to be carried, relying on two pistols (pretty much Glock18s) for termination of hostiles. Two soldiers will aerobatically maneuver the breaching method (explosive charge) and most of the damage would be from depressurization..


The ordinary SHIT suits feature the aforementioned armor, and have been talked about a lot.


The heavy SHIT suits are built more for the common soldier than the specialist snekky snek guys chasing the protag, and are deployed in riot control and the like when they know that quietness is not an option


There's another tier, Deathsquad SHIT suits. These suits are actually not known to the government (spoiler) and are the pinnacle of the company which produces them. The company (spoilers) is actually planning to overthrow the government with these suits. These suits are more akin to a walking tank than an all-terrain survival suit, featuring an inch of bulletproof glass visor.


So the Normal SHIT suits are primarily used cor counter-terrorism, when shit gets really real the heavies are broken out and the equivilant of the SAS is given the Deathsquad when the company begins to overthrow the government, and the protagonist is on the run from the government because he has the plans for the deathsquad suit and the government know that the plans the protagonist carries are for a superweapon


Right now I need suggestions for the actual build of the suit. The only thing I have right now is that the normal suit has the three metal plates between the kevlar.

[Grimlocke]

Hm I don't know a whole lot about modern infantry armor, but articulation in armor is a pretty good thing to have. A larger number of smaller plates would let the soldier move around a lot better, which I think is a thing they did in current-day ceramic plate jacks.

If you want to stick with just three plates, then I would say a breastplate, backplate and abdominal plate. The first two should curve all the way around the torso and over the shoulders, but everything below the ribcage would only be partially covered by the last plate.

And I've given my opinions on power armor/man-shaped tanks already, no need to rehash that

[Parsely]

You should be looking at real soldiers if you want to know what they require in order to fight in different environments.

Check out this manual about the Interceptor body armor. You'll find information about what it does and why. If you've studied this example of modern body armor, you will find that it's designed to be modified for different missions and has a lot of options for individual soldiers depending on the degree of protection they or their superiors desire. The standard stuff that AFAIK no one will allow you to not wear are the front (protects only most of your chest), back (protects only your upper back), and side plates, so 4 plates total. Soldiers are issued two deltoid plates (shoulder armor), a lower back plate, and a groin protector; these are optional. These ballistic plates are designed to protect you from rifle rounds that are hitting you in the places that you're most likely to be hit. The entire vest consists of kevlar that covers all the chinks in the ballistic vest (and there are many) and that can save you from comparatively low power projectiles (shrapnel, pistol rounds, etc.) hitting you anywhere else. In the second response to this quora question a soldier does a breakdown of the vest w/photos.

For the most part armor is a problem that has already been solved. You don't need to spend so much time thinking about armor when the ideal point with current technology has already been reached, what with the military actually starting to get pretty good at listening to what their soldiers ask for. If you want to get to the heart of practicality, find real soldiers and find out what they want, and you'll learn exactly what real soldiers need. Or at least what they think they need.

Edit: In Afghanistan some people wear the accessory protectors and others don't. Some feel it hinders their mobility too much and others are more afraid of getting wounded. In some ways it's simpler to let the soldiers make their own choices and that's exactly what the US military has done.

[Tack]

So basically unless it's a super-alloy, you're in trouble.

[Parsely]

So basically unless it's a super-alloy, you're in trouble.

Yes. That is to say, barring technological improvements, you simply can't armor a person any better than they are today without seriously hampering their ability to fight. This is known. Not to discourage asking questions and the questioning of things that are taken for granted, far from it, however people with more knowledge and more resources than you and I have discovered that these things are true. Unlike tanks, you can't just put a better engine on a person. People carrying more weight in armor in the past is not evidence to the contrary because: First of all, people have had roughly the same weight limit throughout history. For this reason, we know that the amount of armor people carry depends, not on how tough a person is (this is a relatively insignificant factor to be sure), but on the requirements of the battlefield.

Before you can speculate on what might happen next (this is if you have any desire to make plausible predictions with respect to the time frame in which you've written your story, which all of my objections and observations in this thread should be taken in this context) you need to study history first to avoid retreading old ground. More often than not, the ideas you have have been thought of before.

[Tack]

Hot damn. You better watch out Gunin, you're gonna get a rep as a naysayer.

[Egan_BW]

Unlike tanks, you can't just put a better engine on a person.

Not necessary true even today, though it would probably be expensive.

[Jimmy]

Power armour's all well and good, until the battery runs out. Then you're up shit creek without a paddle. Given we can barely make a decent electric car, we either need to wait for battery technology to advance or discover an alternative means of power to electricity.

[Tack]

Pocket fusion is cool, but a better battery is the wrong way to think about it.
We don't need to carry the power ON us, we just quantum-teleport it into the battery pack. Big-ass AI on the rear lines doing a million calculations a second so we stay juiced up.
Aw yeah. I take the 'speculative' outta 'speculative fiction'.

[Egan_BW]

Obviously it's just powered by unobtainium.

[Parsely]

Hot damn. You better watch out Gunin, you're gonna get a rep as a naysayer.

Remind me what I'm saying nay to.

Unlike tanks, you can't just put a better engine on a person.

Not necessary true even today, though it would probably be expensive.

If it's not possible today then that means it isn't possible. What you meant was: it might not be true in the future. Which I would be inclined to agree with you. I think light, weight-bearing exoskeletons are the next step in infantry combat. Not super strength or leaping tall buildings horse shit, just... Being able to carry more stuff, or the same amount of stuff but using less man-energy. I think you can't understate the importance of making an infantryman more able to travel and tote his gear without becoming exhausted.

[Egan_BW]

I was saying that it's possible now, so it's more likely that it will become practical in the future. But, of course, it's impossible to predict the future, so for all we know the cutting edge will become running around naked while throwing FTL spears at each other on the shell of a paper sphere constructed around.a.negative singularity and people will scoff at the idea that anyone ever thought that bullets could exist.

[Parsely]

I was saying that it's possible now, so it's more likely that it will become practical in the future. But, of course, it's impossible to predict the future, so for all we know the cutting edge will become running around naked while throwing FTL spears at each other on the shell of a paper sphere constructed around.a.negative singularity and people will scoff at the idea that anyone ever thought that bullets could exist.

Fair enough.

[GiglameshDespair]

Unlike tanks, you can't just put a better engine on a person.

Not necessary true even today, though it would probably be expensive.

By doing what?