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[Lagslayer]

You can't choose what the enemy is going to attack you with. Defenses need to be generalized because they are purely reactionary, and this can be expensive when you have to account for dozens of different attack types. This is why plate-mail suits died out: they were actually quite effective against arrows and bullets, but they were very costly to make. It's much easier to pick something their armor does not work well against and use that.

[Duke 2.0]

Explosive weapons also defy any attempt at making armor as the force would travel through the armor and hurt the wearer. These pressure waves can only be defeated by either having enough distance from it to diffuse apart or have an airtight seal all around that won't deform to it.

Actually, beating explosions is possible, there are many blast-proof vehicles. Problem is that those kinds of armor are pretty bad against penetrating weapons, so as body armor it's going to fail against a rifle and as tank armor it will fail against sabot rounds.

Vehicles can be made to resist explosions but no personal armor would be developed to do the same. The blast proof vehicles are outlined in the specific ways you can counter an explosion, a rigid shell with no direct openings to the outside.

And Aqizzar has the magic ability to respond when the correct ritual is done. I am still tracing the exact order of events needed to summon him.

[Max White]

Cuts to pentagon spending have been deplorable.

[Heron TSG]

4.) Anti RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) systems. A la Aegis or phalanx fire for small group use.

How about a forcefield? Totally happening.

[Lagslayer]

Cuts to pentagon spending have been deplorable.

That is the most awesome tank ever. This is even more epic than that super ship the Nazis never built.

[Nikov]

Generally when speaking of military tactics or technology, people do what they do for good reason because bad ideas get weeded out very quickly.

[Strife26]

Because all the fancy stuff in the world isn't as good as a pair of boots that's observant, has decent armor, knows combat life-saving, and can shoot reflexively after he's made positive ID.


Of course, the army is continually working on all of that stuff, in fact, I'd strongly argue that the focus is on defensive technologies, rather than offensive ones, just because we are (pretty much forced to) in a reactive mind-set right now. MRAP's are continually being improved (opsec opsec opsec), we've got all sorts of things to try to stop ourselves from getting blown up by IED's (opsec opsec opsec), I've had new and improved armor plates installed in my body armor in the last three months (royal pain dealing with registering all the new serial numbers, by the way). Beating an RPG is more of a matter of gunners being aware and providing 360 security.

Offensively, there isn't really that much new technology. M240's and M4's. Neither are especially new nor are they relatively expensive.


I'd also put forward that armor always eventually beats weaponry, before weaponry manages to catch up again, not the other way around. Of course, my technical job title is "Heavy armor crewman"

[Bdthemag]

4.) Anti RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade) systems. A la Aegis or phalanx fire for small group use.

How about a forcefield? Totally happening.

So I guess that proves that the US military is secretly training jedi's.

[Phmcw]

Generally when speaking of military tactics or technology, people do what they do for good reason because bad ideas get weeded out very quickly.

Say that to the French (and Belgians)
The bad idea were weeded all right, but it took a bit of time x).

Reminders : they both focused on static defense, completely overlooking air issue (the Belgian fort had only three AA machinegun by fort), and "didn't" believe in tank.

Bad idea get weeded, yes, but only in the course of a war (a real one might I add, the efficiency of a weapon against badly organized militia is not representative of how it would far in a modern total war.)

[Strife26]

Yeah, I'll leave this whopping (publicly available) document here, should anyone want to understand what the military's priorities really are right now.

http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm3-24fd.pdf

[jester]

Generally when speaking of military tactics or technology, people do what they do for good reason because bad ideas get weeded out very quickly.

Yeah, usually by the next war.  If that document is real then it shows this fairly well  (first lines, gotta be depressing for the boots on the ground): 
'This manual is designed to fill a doctrinal gap. It has been 20 years since the U.S. Army published a manual devoted to counterinsurgency operations, and 25 since the Marine Corps published its last such manual'.

It also comes back to the fact that a soldier with a reliable gun like an AK only needs water, food and ammo to be at least semi combat effective, only water in the short term and water and food should be scavangeable in worst case scen.  Weapons too in a combat area.
  Mech man on the other hand needs a team of engis, probably university trained, fuel, specialized ammo + water and food, similar for laser tanks and the like.
 Other thing is no matter how good the armor, you cant have everybody in it all the time, and it would only defend from traditional (shooting/exploding) weps.  Attacking/poisoning the food/water/getting the local hoes to spread around alot of VD will still be a problem

  Personally id say a stealth suit would be something id rather have on the battlefield

[eerr]

For most every defense, there is a cheaper and quicker offense :/

Thus offense is your best defense, because defense means you are the one getting shot at.

[jester]

Castles were the biggest thing in the military for 100s of years until gunpowder.  There have been times where defense has trumped offence

[Lord Shonus]

That was much more the result of a stagnant and military anemic Europe than the strength of fortification. Besides the fact that any defense of a castle requires offensive weaponry and/or tactics (siege engines of your own to disrupt enemy artillery and break up columns of ladder troops, sending out raiding parties under cover of night to harass and torment the enemy, or sallying forth with your own troops to drive the enemy back), and that massive, fixed fortifications like castles are vulnerable to economic attack and lack the ability to project control; Muslim military capability proved quite effacious at reducing such fortifications, with the notable exception of the agressively defended Constantinople.

[Strife26]

Defense wins for awhile, then weaponry and tactics catch up. Then defensive capability gets better, and the next line of weapons are so heavy, they're defensive. So defensive wins for awhile. Then the weapons get faster, and offense wins. So on and so forth.


Machine guns -> Trench warfare
Tanks, planes, tactics improve
No more (less, but you know) trench warfare

Of course, that's because tanks and planes are good at surviving machine gun fire, so it's kinda defensive at the same time.