what is the real future soldier weapon?

[huws]

what is the Future Soldier Weapon System?please give explanation .-------------asked by the Future Soldier Weapon Design Expert

 

[TexasRifleman]

The Democrats have this one in mind when they take office. They have been working on it for years.

Here's President Hillary addressing the troops.



You didn't really want this to be a serious discussion did you?

 

[huws]

I didn't really want this to be a serious discussion

 

[ozwyn]

Well.. I think most of the ideas we have in our head as to what it should be won't happen.

figure most solider weapon systems are based on:
1) the last war (which would be the current insurgency conflict)
2) best guess on the next war

Most of the stuff on the drawing board seems to have been thought up ion response to the 1991-2 gulf war. Lots of high tech bits designed to be extra smart, extra fancy and oh-so-slick for coordinating battlefield information.

In other words, a lot of stuff which may be prone to failure with current generation electronics, and of mixed-to-no value in a situation with a lot of close urban fights, ambushes, suicide attacks with a eye on budget concerns.

I would argue that for the kid of fighting this current war entails, the rifle may not be the first or even fifth item on the list of tools to upgrade. Development dollars are better spent in more practical (lightweight, effective) personal body armor, more improvements in first aid technologies, threat identification capabilties(any technology that can identifiy an insurgent from a civilian effectively would be pure gold right now), etc.

that's my wild guess.

 

[orangelo]

Do a search for Project Manager Soldier Weapons. They are the eggheads of the Dept of Defense and they work with manufacturers to design/build all kinds of neat gear.

There's talk about a powered exoskeleton/armor for US soldiers that would also increase their strength. Enough to carry 250 lbs of gear along with a man-portable version of the XM307 25mm cannon.

Here's a small pdf article from Small Arms Review on PMSW.
http://www.smallarmsreview.com/pdf/GIguns.pdf

These guys at JSSAP are working on a lightweight replacement for the old M60 and M249 light MGs.
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2003smallarms/spieg.ppt
The new design will make use of lightweight materials like titanium and may use caseless or polymer cased ammunition to reduce weight.
http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2004arms/session6/spiegel.ppt

Who needs spies any more when the DoD puts all this good stuff on the internet?

 

[ozwyn]

I am still abit skeptical on the exoskeleton idea and some of the titanium ideas.

One, titanium is so much lighter than steel you end up with more recoil and therefore less control over a weapon on full auto. Its not that new and not really that sensible a choice of material to work in either, particularly given some of the manufacturing issues known to occur with the stuff.

Two, if the government doesn't want to spend 1500 a soldier for current tech body armor, why would it invest 100k+ per soldier in a effective exoskeleton system? (not to mention maintenance issues, repair costs, and the price of battlefield system failures)

three, caseless ammunition has been tried a few times and dropped a few times for a number of reasons. (cost, sensitivity to hostile conditions, etc)

Unless there is a revolutionary breakthrough in both the technology itself and economical manufacturing in military scale, I think those are all dead ends.

 

[Steamship Trooper]

Based on my recent expereince, the next soldiers weapon will be digitized, weigh about 100 lbs (90 of it battery), Microsoft compatible, and will enable the REMFs to turn off the Joe's weapon when the integral camera doesn't show the ROE compatible image

The soldiers weapon in the war after that will probably be a sharp rock on a stick...

 

[up_onus]

something electronic

rail guns? lasers? microwaves? in the distant, or even not so distant future, i see all 3...

 

[Phil DeGraves]

Considering the PC Police & Politicians, the only weapon we wil have is a Arab/English dictionary with the phrase "Why can't we all just get along?" Oh yeah, and the words to Kum By Ya in Arabic.

 

[trainwreck100]

Personally, I don't like the idea of having any electronics on board like many of the ones on Discovery's FutureWeapons do. Think about how often computers freeze up, think about how often a 1911 freezes up. Which one do you want to walk around the wall with? Seems to me that the AR's with grenade launchers worked very well, and the Garand even better, so why not leave it like it is?

Greg

 

[Ric]

the future soldiers weapons will be the same as todays and the past wars, a well trained soldier with a clear mind and a weapon he knows how to use.

 

[romma]

At The Rate We Are Going At

Arm the military with "throw pillows"... We don't want to fight wars to win anyways.

 

[AJ Dual]

Atonomous mini-robot swarms that sniff out the ammonia in human sweat, 98.6 body-temp IR emissions etc. perhaps they'll have image or speech recognition abilites to recognize enemy uniforms, language and weapons. They'd jump out of the shadows and explode right under your helmet. These would be rollers, crawlers, and flyers the size of rats and birds, maybe smaller.

When you add psychoactive drugs, bio-weapons, destructive nano-robots and other nasties that could be delivered into your body by such devices, the victims of the simple exploders would be the lucky ones...

Think hand-grenades and mines (and worse) that go looking for you…

Of course there will be swarms of anti-robot-robots. And maybe even anti-anti-robot-robot-robots...

If humans will still even dare occupy such a battlefield, the exoskeletal armor combat suit sounds like a good idea to me, no matter how expensive it is.

 

[knuckles]

Think about how often computers freeze up

Keep in mind that the code that would run on such a device would be highly specialized and not prone to 'freezing' like a Windows PC. It's kind of like the opposition 'fly-by-wire' was met with by most veteran pilots when it first came out. No one wanted a computer between them and the flight surface. Now many of the planes we fly on daily basis have fly-by-wire.

 

[huws]

Ric
Senior Member



Join Date: 03-15-04
Location: Northern Indiana
Posts: 351 the future soldiers weapons will be the same as todays and the past wars, a well trained soldier with a clear mind and a weapon he knows how to use.
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You cannot lead in moderation

there are very large difference .

 

[huws]

Well future guns are "secure", "invisible' , and "perfect'

 

[MrZ]

One, titanium is so much lighter than steel you end up with more recoil and therefore less control over a weapon on full auto.

Lighter machine guns are EXACTLY what we need, and it irritates me to no end that we will spend MILLIONS of dollars on one aircraft, but we won't spend the cash to develop a light weight machine gun. Machine guns used for sustained fire (like the 240) and as automatic rifles (249) are generally fired from either bipod or tripod, so recoil management wouldn't be so bad if they were lighter. Individual weapons (M4) are generally used in the semi mode simply because outside of close quarters, automatic fire is a waste of ammo for anything but suppresion...and suppressive fires are best left to our 249's and 240's.

Two, if the government doesn't want to spend 1500 a soldier for current tech body armor, why would it invest 100k+ per soldier in a effective exoskeleton system?

You wouldn't HAVE to equip every soldier with an exoskeleton in order for them to be effective. 3 per rifle platoon would make me happy, and I would put them to good use.


HERE IS THE TRUTH concerning the future of American warfare!!!

"...the next soldiers weapon will be digitized, weigh about 100 lbs (90 of it battery), Microsoft compatible, and will enable the REMFs to turn off the Joe's weapon when the integral camera doesn't show the ROE compatible image

It's a damn shame too...

I was looking through an army times magazine at the barber shop (which, by the way, is a P.O.S. rag I wouldn't use to line a bird cage with) and saw some idiots great idea about a future individual weapon system. It had all kinds of stupid crap you DON'T need and a CAMERA was one of them. Soooo, in the future, if this goes into production, not only will our troops be killed because of ridiculous ROE, but they will also be killed because they know EVERY shot will be reviewed by some sorry arse lawyer which will make them hesitate. Hesitation gets you killed in a fight...

In my opinion, the weapon of the future will not be projectile based, but energy based. This will, in turn, make armor obsolete, which will allow soldiers more freedom of movement until they come up with some other heavy armor to stop the energy based weapons...and the circle will complete itself again.

 

[tellner]

At the rate we're going we won't need weapons. The kill-crazed kooks who run the government will just murder everyone who talks funny or looks vaguely brown and we will all be at peace.

 

[Autolycus]

I think most future wars will be fought in predominatly urban areas with insurgency groups and not many uniformed personnel. I suspect that military training will start to gear up the following types of training.

1) Close Quarters Combat (SWAT style tactics)
2) Prisoner Detention
3) Small Unit Tactics
4) First Aid
5) Urban Fighting
6) FIghting from a vehicle
7) Police Style Patrols and training
8) Weapons familiarization (Pistol, Shotgun, and SMG will become more commonly issued weapons)
9) Explosives Detection will probably be a much sought after skill and more common I would assume.

The equipment will start to take a more urban style role...

1) Carbine type weapon or even an SMG for some units (M4, MP5)
2) Shotguns for door breaching will become a more issue weapon
3)*Pistols will go up to a larger caliber (.40 or .45) due to the ability to holster and for prisoner retention.*
4) Handcuffs will become a more issue item for prisoner extractions and arrests.
5) Body Armor will become a more importantly issue item. (It is now but I mean larger emphasis will be placed on getting it out to military personnel right away).
6) Flashlights and radios will become a much more common item. By radios I mean they will probably become more of a throat mike type of device.
7) Some sort of handheld explosives detection equipment will probably be issued or developed then issued.
8) Explosive Detection Dogs (like Police K9s) will become a much more seen item in the miltary.
9) Some sort of Armored Personnel Carrier will become the modern standard. I think the tanks and artillery will become less prevailant. (No offense to artillery men or tankers).

I believe the emphasis will be more on Urban Warfare and police actions. My thoughts are meant to reflect this.

Patrols of city blocks will become the norm as it seems to be in Iraq (through my observations). I suspect that soldiers will be taught more about the local language and customs so they can make informants and friends easier. The equipment will become lighterweight and more bang for your buck. I belive that mil personnel want lighter gear and the gear to do more. Lighter armor that protects them better. It seems like common sense but common sense aint so common.

I have never had the honor of serving my country in the military. All of these are my own observations on what the military may look like in the next 10-15 years.

 

[Autolycus]

Forgot to add that robots will probably be a lot more common the battlefield. I suspect that anything which removes the actual human from danger on the battlefield will become more common. I hope so at least.

ETA- Not that I want to start the war with the machines that the Terminator films talked about. More along the lines of Maximum Overdrive.

 

[GRIFFIN1]

Phase Plasma Rifle with a 40 watt range

 

[Kaeto]

BOLO combat unit. With a quarter sun fusion powerplant and 10 megatonne per second firepower.

 

[CannonFodder]

Glitterboys!

 

[DRZinn]

1) Close Quarters Combat (SWAT style tactics)
2) Prisoner Detention
3) Small Unit Tactics
4) First Aid
5) Urban Fighting
6) FIghting from a vehicle
7) Police Style Patrols and training
8) Weapons familiarization (Pistol, Shotgun, and SMG will become more commonly issued weapons)
9) Explosives Detection will probably be a much sought after skill and more common I would assume.

1-5 have been taught for quite a while, but you're probably right that that's where the emphasis will shift to. Fighting from a vehicle is easily taught: don't. You use it to get out of Dodge or you get out of it and seek cover, then you're back to other tactics. I'm not sure what you mean by "police-style" patrols, but I would love to see (and in Iraq right now they probably are seeing) a lot more familiarization with enemy and specialized weapons systems.

1) Carbine type weapon or even an SMG for some units (M4, MP5)
2) Shotguns for door breaching will become a more issue weapon
3)*Pistols will go up to a larger caliber (.40 or .45) due to the ability to holster and for prisoner retention.*
4) Handcuffs will become a more issue item for prisoner extractions and arrests.
5) Body Armor will become a more importantly issue item. (It is now but I mean larger emphasis will be placed on getting it out to military personnel right away).
6) Flashlights and radios will become a much more common item. By radios I mean they will probably become more of a throat mike type of device.
7) Some sort of handheld explosives detection equipment will probably be issued or developed then issued.
8) Explosive Detection Dogs (like Police K9s) will become a much more seen item in the miltary.
9) Some sort of Armored Personnel Carrier will become the modern standard. I think the tanks and artillery will become less prevailant. (No offense to artillery men or tankers).

1-3: Quite right. Handcuffs will not be issued, but flexcuffs already are. Every person there already has body armor, and to my knowledge every one has it before they go. I know every Marine has it even if they don't go. Flashlights and radios are already becoming more common. Flashlights less so, because IR illuminators are a better choice, but every Marine fireteam leader and above has a radio, most with a headset.

Handheld explosive detectors already exist, but I don't know how well they work. I don't know about dogs, but you're right about the APC's, too.

I believe the emphasis will be more on Urban Warfare and police actions. My thoughts are meant to reflect this.

Yup.

I suspect that soldiers will be taught more about the local language and customs so they can make informants and friends easier. The equipment will become lighterweight and more bang for your buck.

Already happening. In fact, every Marine officer graduating The Basic School will now be responsible for one of 17(?) "micro-regions" in the world, charged with learning the culture and language of that region. And in my short time over there less than three years ago I saw improvements in equipment from the time I arrived until the time I left. I'd love to get my hands on some of what they've got now!

 

[hqmhqm]

There was a great comment I read about the idea of little miniature mobile robots. Someone said that one of them coming at you with carrying a hand grenade was humorous, but two dozen of them coming at you was not funny at all.