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MacDill Matters: Iron Man suit out at SOCom, but new innovations still needed for commandos
A competition with an entry deadline of Feb. 15 seeks innovations in 12 areas, including artificial intelligence for psychological operations, improved human performance and undetectable video manipulation.
[...] Last week, James Smith, SOCom's acquisition executive, announced that the final product, known as the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, would not match the initial sales pitch, according Patrick Tucker writing in Defense One.
"It's not the Iron Man. I'll be the first person to tell you that," Smith told the crowd at a key D.C. special operations forum. The exoskeleton, Smith told the audience, is "not ready for prime time in a close-combat environment."
Instead, Tucker writes, the technologies developed, including lightweight body armor and situational awareness in helmet displays, will be chunked off and used elsewhere, if wanted.
(Full disclosure: I work for tampabay.com - and normally would not submit articles from the site, however, in this case I think the technologies and decisions about how to use them discussed in the articles would be of interest to the community.)
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday February 16 2019, @12:38PM
Silk armor was more useful against arrows. It wouldn't necessarily stop them, but they could enter the body without penetrating the silk, making it easier to remove them. There are anecdotal accounts of this happening with bullets - but again, only when they're going very slowly, either from an antique pocket pistol with no power, or perhaps at extreme range. More effective, perhaps, against shrapnel.
Silk was used after that - in the T40/M6/M7 "Flyers Vest" which was WWII era kit. But it wasn't just silk - it weighed nearly 15 pounds and most of that was aluminum plating. And again, it was designed more to protect against fragmentation/shrapnel (from airburst flak guns) than from direct small arms fire.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?