From: cdc@sequent.com (Dennis Collver)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: power armor (what I would want)
Message-ID: 1991Aug5.222438.21079@cbnews.cb.att.com
Date: 5 Aug 91 22:24:38 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.cb.att.com (william.a.thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
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Approved: military@att.att.com

From: Dennis Collver

As a scout, the things I'd want to see is the chameleon application for body armor. The biggest threat to a scout is the Thermal imagers that you find on most MBT's today as well as vehicles with Anti Armor systems. Thermal imagers can pick up a feild mouse up to a klick away and you can actually recognize specific people a 100 meters or more away. A tankers favorite trick is to watch an infantry squad try to sneak up on him while he plays possum, then opens up with his oax. If we can blend thermally with the terrain, that would be critical.

The NBC aspect with a small air conditioning unit would be extremely useful as well as communications head gear. To push it to extremes you can add night vision or IR and sound amplification. The actual body armor, it should withstand small arms fire, not much more. Your looking mostly for general shrapnel protection, the weight is the problem here.

If you went to the trouble to build a helmet for all this, you might want heads up displays for magnetic azimuths and the cute little device that can give you your exact grid coordinates. A range finder may also be useful.

As I said, as a scout, those are the things I'd find useful.

Dennis Collver 2/159 inf(m)


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