How would powered suits change the fireteam/squad?

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PaladinX13

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Article and image that makes the rounds every so often (DARPAs been working on this for 3-4 years now?):
Robotic Legs [CNN]

Assuming they get suits that enhance not only foot speed and load bearing, but also the kinds of weapons that can be hip/shoulder fired... so that, theoretically, a crew served weapon could be carried and operated by and individual... how would fire teams and squads change? Or, how would you change squads?
 
I am still waiting for the powered suits the grunts used in Starship Troopers (the book, not the crappie movie). Now that's some cool ****.

GT
 
I would not change the Team/Squad/Platoon/ company.


The Terms of Engagement would have to be changed. If you are going to be able to carry war in a larger package per individual, war becomes more. No more house clearing, just trash the house. the US has to lose the PC mentality of "Go and make war but do not hurt any thing or anyone". The idea of a foot soldier is to make war a personal thing to the enemy. The concept of Starship Troopers is that the infantry are the ones who take the brunt of war and give it back to the enemy. If we are going to make our troops more powerful, with powered suits and other weapons that would follow, we have to let them be more powerful.
 
One of the coolest ideas that came out of ST the book was, if I remember, near the beginning. Soldier runs into some trouble, drops a small tac nuke, and jumpjets out of there. Jumpjet-enabled power armor would buy you personal-level placement of high explosives and the means to get clear of the kill zone.

Just hope that your enemy doesn't have power-armor as well. The experimental Valkyrie fighter/robots in Macross Plus were maneuverable enough that you end up destroying most of a city, but you coulnd't hit the other guy.
 
Another basic tenet of Starship Troopers was the fact that the troopers were being used to send a message:

"We could have just stayed in orbit and bombed you into radioactive slag, but we didn't. We can come to you. We can destroy anything we want, anytime we want, and you can't stop us. Not only that, but if there's anything you have that we don't want destroyed, we can level everything around it and leave it untouched... "

If you stop a minute and think about it, that's the first time that I can recall anybody ever proposed fighting a war that relied entirely upon the "call your shots" type of precision we're able to achieve (usually) with today's guided bombs. The book was written in-between Korea and Viet Nam, and In my opinion, Heinlein was trying to show that it was time for a shift from the "saturation bombing" type of warfare that he had been taught during his time of service to a faster, more effectively target type of warfare.

What I like most about the book is the idea that the only people who deserve the right to have a say in government are those who have served the public good for as long as the government requires...
 
Sure would make it easier to hear them coming while my squad's hiding w/ a mess of LAW's to "welcome" them to the party... :evil:

m72_06.jpg
 
Why? I think you're under the mistaken assumption that we're talking powered armor (which seems to be why so many people bring up Starship Troopers) which is different than a powered suit. For all intents and purposes, powered armor is a minature vehicle... powered suits simply enhance soldier speed and load bearing capability (and for the purpose of this question, offensive capability as well). Able to move quicker and carry heavier loads means infantry can penetrate deeper or survive longer without returning to base.

We're talking about something that looks more like this:

vert.exoskeleton.ap.jpg

than this:

ianwilliams6.jpg


Nothing more than an enhanced soldier. The basic question is whether fireteams or squads would/should shrink if one person can do a crew's job... or should more firepower be brought to bear on any given situation. And then what kind of roles or redundancies do you see for a typical squad.
 
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I'd like to contribute some ideas, but I need help.

Can someone post the existing firing team and squad setup?
 
Well said, Golgo. I'd say that this sort of technology would be less valuable on the battlefield than on the trail. i'm not sure what the off-road capabilities of this getup are, but if you could have a few "legs" hauling a truck worth of stuff through the jungle or across uneven terrain that a truck can't handle, then this would be a great logistical asset.

I guess if you got all the way up to a full powered exoskeleton, it would be incorporated into weapons rather than incorporated into the solder. As Gewehr 98 said, if you get hit with that golden BB, you're SOL as far as superlegs go. Better to incorporate the load-bearing gear into some kind of harness, like the smart guns in Aliens. Not that Vasquez couldn't have carried that thing around herself, but the mechanical bits surely made it faster and easier for the gunners to use. If it gets damaged, you've still got a viable soldier and a viable machinegun, you just have to use both a little differently.
 
The biggest advantage is going to be the amount of ammo, handgrenades ,water, food you can carry. Instead of an M16 with say 8-10 30rd clips you would be able to carry a SAW with 8-10 75 rd mags. Higher sustained rates of fire & for longer duration.
 
Yeah, the main goal of the project is to aid logistics, but assuming heavier weaponry is possible would you arm everyone with the heaviest arms? Do platoons only have a few HMGs because of weight/logistics... or is there reasons outside of it? What if every rifleman was now HMG capable?

But PaladinVC brings up the point... if your suit goes FUBAR would you want your weapon system to still be single man usable/portable? That would mean outfitting them with arms lighter than what their suits are capable of.

I guess the reason I ask the question this way is I am wondering how much of the current squad structure is based on weight limits and weapon systems. If everyone could carry everything without penalty, would we still necessarily have designated grenadiers, mortar teams, etc.?
 
I could see the powered legs being heavily (20-40 lbs) armored against landmines and small arms fire...

I'd love to see them on soldiers within a decade, and I think I will.
 
Who is carrying the spare batteries?

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but I don't see any information about the power source. How much of the carrying capacity is going to be taken up by the weight of the gizmo itself and the fuel/batteries for it?

I'm not opposed to new technology as such, but I'm always a bit sceptical. New wonderful shiny kit rarely makes a soldier less dependent on logistics, rather the opposite.
 
Here's the thing; infantry is CHEAP, plentiful, and versatile. If a system like this can be miniaturized and hardened to be useful, great! But here're some things to consider:

Will robo-legs impede manuverability? Your soldiers need to be able to hit the dirt on the fly, crawl through ditches, run up and down stairs, jump over obstacles, clamor in and out of vehicles, etc.

If not, it has to be quick-releasable, so the troopers can drop it in the event of an ambush (split-seconds count, too).

What kind of power source? This is VERY important. It has to be reliable and the fuel can't weigh too much.

In any case I don't expect these types of things will be super common very soon. You can probably buy a vehicle for the same price as the robo legs; while the robo-legs trooper can go places vehicles can't, a Humvee can carry a whole squad.

Interesting to see what comes of this. I'd like to see powered armor as per the latter picture, too. Again, not a replacement for good-ol' infantry, but it'd certainly have its uses...
 
From their press release on the official site (additional images, articles, etc.):

Power Source

Every effort was made to ensure that the U.C. Berkeley exoskeleton is energetically autonomous and is field re-fuelable. A significant challenge in the design of the lower extremity exoskeleton was the development of a power supply and actuation system that would satisfy its power and energy requirements for a long mission. The Berkeley exoskeleton uses a state-of–the-art small hybrid power source, which delivers hydraulic power for locomotion and electrical power for the exoskeleton computer. Work on the exoskeleton project on-going, with the focus turning to the miniaturization of exoskeleton components, the development of a smaller, quieter and more powerful power source and a faster and more intelligent controller.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a bit of doublespeak and hype, but it's obvious they're not blind to the power issues either. Anyways, the original question wasn't so much about the pragmatism of these in the near future, but how- when implimented- they will affect infantry philosophy.

Roughly, your options are:
Increase defense - adding armor
Increase offense - adding weapons
Increase survival - adding supplies
Increase speed - add nothing
Increase all - increase all to lesser degrees

Edit: If you want to guesstimate fuel weight... look at the image. From the articles, we're told that the machine weighs 100 lbs and the pack weighs 70 lbs (and, according to users, the whole rig feels like it's only 5 lbs once active). So, looking at the image, shave off the weight of the 70 lbs pack and guess how much the legs weigh... subtract from 100 and you've got- roughly- the power source weight.
 
Well, it'd probably depend on the mission of the squad. An assault squad going on an attack would probably stock up on weapons and armor. A long-ranged patrol would want more supplies. Troopers patrolling a hostile area would probably go for more armor and less supplies. A recon guy would probably go light, opting for speed.
 
imagine what would happen if those got on the black market. one person could wear full body armor plus the weapon of his choice and still be able to carry a huge bag full of money from the local bank. times that by a few guys, throw in an armored getaway car, and you could rob banks all day long. local cops and swat teams probably wont be able to afford stuff like that anytime soon so their effectiveness goes down the drain.
 
The legs look good on a guy standing straight up, but how easy will it be to fall on your back or face and then try to get up again quickly? It would lookk to me like all the extra packed weight along with the weight of the robotic legs would work seriously against the soldier then.
 
I was thinking about that. If that guy hits the deck face first, he'll have that 200-lb. pack, which was previously supported by steel girders, slamming into the back of his rib cage. Ouch.
 
And it's arm strength rather than leg strength that gets you out of that prone position so you can stand up.
 
Well, the question assumes the system is functional, which means powered arms as well. Regarding a 200 lbs pack crushing one's ribs... well I guess that means this suit would require a semi-rigid/segmented armor around the chest. This would transfer the weight/shock to the front of his armor rather than his poor ribs. There would likely need to be something at the chest anyways to support the arms part of the exoskeleton anyways.
 
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