"Mister OhMyGod, Crunch Crunch? Spit out whatever you're chewing and start over."
Posted on 07/06/2014 8:05:55 AM PDT by PoloSec
The Pentagon is turning to Hollywood developers to come up with body armor prototypes to protect elite U.S. forces, The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. Special Operations Command is bypassing the standard contracting system to accelerate the proposal, testing, and evaluation process.
Proposals are coming from the make-believe world that created special effects for such movies as Captain America and Iron Man, as well as experts on genuine medieval body armor. The goal is to come up — within four years — with suits that would protect special operations forces against bullets, bombs and bayonets.
-SNIP-
In May, some of those involved in the effort came together in Vermont for a day to test a prototype they've come up with so far. The partial exoskeleton proved to be far too heavy and unwieldy.
Designers say that the ultimate product is probably not going to look much like the Hollywood versions. Brian Dowling, a former special forces soldier, who is managing the effort for Revision Military in Vermont said: "Will you ever have an Iron Man? I don't know. But you'll have some greatly improved technology along the way."
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
Back to the drawing board.
Given how they make nylon (I saw them pulling strands out of solutions at the '64 World's Fair), I figured they could chemically analyze spider silk and come up with some chemical means for making it without resorting to spider-goats, but apparently not.
I have to admit, I was impressed. I guess the Army was, too. ;-)
We don’t need body armor, we need swords and we need to fight bloody. How else will violence be committed only by the few and with darn good reason?
>I heard on the radio a few days ago that they’re trying to scale up spider silk to make body armor out of.
You stay up too late at night, just like me ;-)
You’re right. I get a lot of useless information that way!
He could also be calling up to report the Blob.
He did. The technology just isn’t there yet.
They would be better off pursing the Tin Man concept.
This stands for Ballistic Electro-Reactive Process and was developed by Doctor Jon Masters, another recurring character in the McLanahan series of books. This technology essentially harnesses electricity to instantly harden whatever surface it is applied to, in this case-the fabric of a combat suit. This allows it to stop bullets or other attacks as if the suit were made of steel. The only requirement is that the item being stopped must be moving at a high rate of speed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tin_Man_(novel)
True.
Hugo the Janitor - “This thing’s just ate three school buses! Now it’s heading for the congressional building!”
Police - “So?”
There are carbon fiber reinforced aluminum plates that for the first time passed the Army’s final unpassable test.
For fun, contractors have made standard army helmets and subjected them to an M4 round at point blank range to see if it could withstand the round.
Without exception, every test is a failure, and generally there’s a big hole, and sometimes an exit hole, except the exit hole thing can be an embarrassment to the vendor.
Recently, this test was performed on a carbon fiber reinforced aluminum army helmet. The round failed to penetrate. the dent was less than 3/8 of an inch. Obviously, the wearer of the helmet would have been perhaps fatally concussed, but that isn’t the point of the test.
The test was designed to be a laugher, and it has a lore to it. This test has been passed.
Armor is getting lighter and stronger. In fact the post-test analysis of the impact point revealed that the material had become STRONGER with work. A second impact at the same point would not have penetrated either, and would have resulted in stronger material at that point.
Converting this to body armor was relatively easy, and it is available as armor. They are building it now for tanks and APC’s.
The problem with using carbon fiber as an exoskeleton is that CFR material tends to be great in one axis, and shatters in another. So, you can make it load bearing and light, but you can shatter it with a bullet from the side.
Rather than doing this, I have to believe what’s coming down the pike is a flying drone with the ability to cover ground using either legs or wheels like a spider. You can drop it through a ceiling, and it will get its bearings and help shooters evaluate what to shoot.
They’ll make them in different sizes.
How soon before they start handing it out to the police along with the Humvees, tanks, missile launchers, F-35’s and tactical nukes the police need to projectile and service us?
Hmm, contracting out improvements of armor for our troops to lib Hollyweirdos doesn’t seem well thought out.
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