What sort of physical enhancements should an exo suit be able to perform?

Same user.

Also in terms of power - off the top of my head, goals for exoskeleton range from anywhere between 12 hours of continuous operation with batteries to 24 hours (or 48, or 72...) with some kind of fuel cell. All of this is still in the exploratory phases, but it's feasible that there will be some sort of energy storage breakthrough that makes these goals possible.

While half a day to three days may not sound like a whole lot, consider what the modern battlefield looks like. This is easily how long a soldier would expect to be on patrol, after which he's back at base and can recharge/refuel as needed.

Also keep in mind that armored fighting vehicles aren't going away, even with increases in infantry firepower (despite what some dingbats have been saying since WWI). An APC/IFV or even a smaller MRAP-sized vehicle would be able to carry extra fuel cells, and in the case of batteries would be able to recharge soldiers with its own power plant. For situations where vehicles aren't present/can't be relied on, legged pack mule robots would be able to carry such supplies, and would be smaller and easier to hide while being able to cross the same terrain as the soldier it supports (and would very easily be able to guide itself with little to no input from a soldier).

All of these are systems that are already present on the battlefield (or at least have been tested, in the case of pack mule robots). While fuel/batteries present an extra logistical burden, it's not as large as some people make it out to be. The systems that soldiers would use to carry/deliver their power are already there - it's just a matter of rolling out the power supplies that are needed to make them feasible.

I think about exoskeletons and powered armor a lot, give me an excuse and I'll talk about them all day.

Another thing to add would be it's use in disaster areas as well as being able to literally bulldoze your way through buildings.

Most urban centers don't have walls that can easily withstand a person going through them if they are determined enough. With enhanced strength you can carry breaching weapons such as axes and hammers to smash your way into buildings or clear paths as well as use them in combat if need be.

So now you have an alternate means of manuvering if one path is blocked off to you, or you can destroy the obstecle in your way.

>The physical appearance of the kind of exo suit in question would be like pic related. Armored but exposed in many areas, twenty-first century technology, and no jetpacks.

Basically, it would provide enough strength that it could be fully armoured, as partial armour is worthless - especially against the weapons that other exosuits could carry.

OP wants this.

Not to get too meta, but the answer can be shifted in one direction or another, depending on what sort of game it appears in. Broadly speaking, you've got three options:

>Exo suit is a gear choice.
Emphasis on CHOICE. Some people use an exo suit, but not all the time. This sort of game wants exo suits to have some sort of crippling disadvantage in at least some situations. If the suit lets a character throw/outrun cars then there must be a reason why that character doesn't wear it all the time. Possibly that ties into the fact that there's still a squishy human inside it, although beware the fact that 21st century technology is only going to get more drone heavy.

Impressive movement and physical enhancements, exclusive in-built weapons and other useful combat devices.

This sort of thing works in a game like Shadowrun, where the reason to not be wearing military armor all the time is the SWAT sniper that will drop your ass before the job even starts.

>Exo trooper is a class choice.

Even if the game isn't class-based, a character needs to invest heavily in being able to use an exo suit to the point that other character concepts won't be able to do so. Similarly, CHOICE means there needs to be a reason not to wear one of these, but there also needs to be room for one character to be wearing one constantly. This exo suit probably needs to be less impressive. Perhaps it's basically the same as DnD; the character who wears the heavy armor and uses heavy weapons gets about as much spotlight time as the guy with the lighter armor and weapons but with useful skills and the occasional damage spike.

Relatively minor bonuses and less exclusive gear. The exo trooper's weapons are broadly similar to what other characters use, although probably heavier and impractical when used by someone else.

...my comment seems to have run long.

>Exo Trooper is the name of the game.

Or maybe Starship Troopers if you prefer a game that actually exists. There's no limit at all to how powerful this suit can be, and you can go with the most optimistic view of near-future tech, because there's no balance issues; everyone's wearing a suit, so people who don't wear it are NPCs and not on the same level as the PCs. The tone of the game and the threat of the opposition are the most practical limits here. Why not include built-in comms between party members, since players tend to talk between themselves regardless? If the game has more to it than combat, then so should the suits.

Maximum customization, different suits for different roles, different weapons for different characters.

rheinmetall-defence.com/en/rheinmetall_defence/public_relations/themen_im_fokus/rheinmetall_hel_live_fire/

Well let me prompt you. What military impacts do you see exoskeletons having outside of ground forces?

Outside of ground forces? What do you mean exactly? Who else would use them?

One of the first things we'll see them in is logistics, so I'm sure some ship out there will have at least one for moving things around, but...

I feel like the first priority is making it fully armored, while still having almost full mobility. I don't really see a use for anything beyond that, really. MAYBE enough strength to carry around heavy weapons by yourself, but that really seems like overkill. I mean, really, after you have enough armor to become a walking tank and enough strength to move it around easily, what else do you need? People say "super strength" (let's assume more strength than it takes to move the thing around) but why? What, you're going to run up the guy shooting at you to punch him to death? I mean, the weapons are still going to be the same, the exo-suit doesn't change that. Most combat is still going to be through firefights, so why focus on improving an aspect that won't be that useful most of the time?

Basically this, a modern exosuit is highly desirable even though it's militarily useless because it provides a foundation for further technological developments.

For example, the early planes and tanks were pretty shitty, but the harder you kept pushing them the better they got.

Yes, a Karl Gustav on every soldier's back would be amazing for urban warfare.

I'd say the big niche for exoskeletons is in urban combat, where being able to carry armor to negate grenade shrapnel basically ruins existing room-clearing techniques.

Also, being able to carry a .50 means that you can just shoot through most walls, which makes clearing rooms a hell of a lot easier.

>what should an exo suit do?
Provide weight relief and stability to improve endurance, awareness, and accuracy.

Everything else is wank.

Most military weapons can shoot through interior walls without noticing them, and do a real number on exterior walls too.

That being said, if an exosuit user can carry a bigass sensor gear pack, like the antennas for a terahertz rig or backscatter analyser to see round corners, then that could take advantage of the light cover in most urban environments.
So basically: shooting dudes through solid objects and providing superior combat awareness to the squad.

Is this bait?

And if you jack off while wearing it?

...

It's a valid point: tossing trucks around and breaching obstacles is the least efficient use for the tech.
Slow-lift strength is much more effective in back lines, walls and barricades are already being breached with explosives.
The extra mobility need to be directed to armour first (why else bother?) and armament handling second (modern troops do not lack for firepower, and combined arms covers most of those shortcomings just fine).

...

I guess you could attach an exosuit squad to a tank deployment for the purpose of interdicting tow missiles somehow.

But we're already developing reactive plasma shielding to deal with directed explosions. Infancy stage, and probably impractical when finished, but I dunno.

You want to outfit army corp of engineers with power armor so they can work without getting plinked while erecting forward bases?

Well there we are.
You need armour first (to stop them getting shot) and then slow-lift strength to achieve engineering objectives. Rapid combat-ready strength need not apply.
If anything we need to invert the logic: they're agile armoured forklifts, not stronger armoured men.

I'd run that campaign.

>heat shielding / rapid cooling (deploy with copious amounts of napalm)
or
>environmental sealing (deploy with various biochemical agents)

>pneumatic drill / piston hammer / etc for making way through rubble

>drone hive (+ remote control)

>LRAD

>guy with robust generator capable of to burning anything from raw petroleum to samogonka, solar panel array (needs to be deployed stationary) and large stack of batteries / capacitors
>can power buildings and heavy machinery
>can drain power from network (if available)
>can deploy cables for makeshift electric fence
>possibly experimental railgun (one shot, long reacharge)

>guy with high yield pump, hose and large capacity tanks
>can load water, gasoline and other liquids
>stack of high-concentration chemicals
>when near body of water or functional plumbing can draw directly from there
>stocks kilometers of experimental lightweight polymer tubes, can make his own plumbing
>firefighting, non/lethal riot control (water), lethal riot control (gasoline)
>agriculture restoration, wide scale disinfection
>deploy tubes, pump with gasoline, light = literal defensive firewall
>experimental pump cannon (launch solid projectiles propelled by water stream)

>What kind of weapons would one have?

20mm or 40mm machine gun would easily be carried two handedly. I'd say dual wielding or dual attachments is pointless and a bad idea - you could have a single 20mm or 40mm cannon with a larger magazine or feed system than on your arms, and likewise even some kind of magazine fed rocket launcher vs single shot carl gustavs on your arms.

Thinking from 's post:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soltam_K6 Israeli 120mm mortar is 319 pounds. According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeleton#Military the current products allow for carrying of around 200 pounds with ease. 120mm mortar without ammo may be out of range for now but middle or late 21st century would probably be able to handle it. However that's including the base plate and bipod. Just cannon is 110 pounds. Quick glance says the standard shot for a Abrams 120mm cannon is 49 pounds.

WW2 era M1 80mm mortar just the tube is 44 pounds. 80mm light HE is 6 pounds, heavy HE is 10-15 pounds. With current weight limit of 200 pounds carried with Exosuit, let's imagine a 80mm cannon (44 pounds) and that gives you either 10 heavy HE rounds or 26 light HE.

40mm grenade weights 0.5lb, current Mk19 40mm grenade launcher (automatic) is 77 pounds without accessories. You could then carry 40mm rounds.

These sound like GI Joes

Assuming there was a power source you could mount on the suit that's not bulky or heavy enough to make it useless, and armor material you could bolt to it that would provide enough protection, an exosuit made with modern technology should be able to survive sustained fire from any standard rifle even with armor piercing ammo, it should take a .50 caliber bullet or something explosive like an RPG to penetrate. It should be strong enough to lift one end of a car, smash through most walls, carry portable fortifications (perhaps in the form of a steel riot shield sort of thing that can be set up as a wall that can be linked together), and a light machine gun for it's main weapon, but since the suit is so strong and the weapon can be firmly mounted, it could use something like an M249 with one hand and enough ammo to fire it all day, or maybe an AMR. You could also mount one or two one-shot mortar tubes on the back.

As a former Airman, men wearing forklifts would make the loading and unloading of aircraft MUCH faster and more efficient.

youtube.com/watch?v=MUU59zeuQ-8

Literally a mech, not power armor.

And that waste of time will never be anything more than a theme park or movie prop.

Finally, building something that scale without figuring out a scalable portable power source is retarded.

>building something that scale without figuring out a scalable portable power source is retarded.
I get the feeling that "because it's cool" can never be a valid enough justification for you. Some times you just gotta build the giant robot. What did we gain from the Lunar landings? Not much. Was it worth it to spend those billions of dollars? Absolutely. Doing crazy stuff for no other reason than 'because we can' is an integral part of human nature. The first guy who made a wheel must have looked like an idiot to everyone else -- until it worked.

So basically be like these assholes. More the blue one then the red one as he has a fucking plasma mortor on his back.

Regular Centurions tend to swing around what are effectively Heavy Bolters like a Space Marine Devestator.

>no justification
>uses the wheel example
Here's the disconnect. I recognize 'because its cool' as a valid reason. You seem to think there's tangible merit to it and we just haven't discovered it yet.

That's the problem. Power armor has applications, mostly in construction and logistics, mechs, do not. Never will do better what wheels already do.

>muh planes then
Were filling a war effort gap that was not exploited yet. Big robots do nothing better than legions of small robots.

They perform better than wheels in some environments, but they're generally not environments that the military is interested in.

A liquid fluoride thorium reactor, could provide relatively safe power in a relatively small package.
Has the disadvantage of contaminating the landscape if ever cracked.

>this could work
>but don't ever let it get shot at

Welp, to be honest, I'm gonna say no mobility benefits. Make that fucker slow. Next, armor that bitch up. Like walking-tank status. Finally, attach a GShG-7.62 to the arm (or one to each, if you really wanna kill stuff dead).

I realize this conflicts with your criteria, but you asked.

Run faster, longer and carry more. While in theory an exoskeleton could carry heavy weapons, it's unlikely outside of very specific instances as modern armies like to avoid the heavier stuff because it's "cruel" to use a .50 cal on infantry.

I can't see it being too useful. A large part of movement is not being detected, and that might be hard with an exoskeleton stomping through the woods. It would be a pain to keep track of. Take it off at night, clean it, guard it, keep accountability. It doesn't seem like it would be easy to repair either. And how would it be powered? What's the point when you can just brirng a truck?

I might appreciate it if you came up with some sort of localized exoskelton for something like limbs. If you could make it so that a soldier can hold his arm dead steady, I can see a benefit in marksmanship. Or maybe include some sort of self-deploying first-aid for trauma on limbs or the groin.

>What sort of physical enhancements should an exo-suit be able to perform?

Overall greater physical strength. Enough to one-handily throw people around as if they were rag dolls and enough to carry around heavy weapons.

>What kind of weapons would one have?
The kind where people would have difficulties in use without the help of another person or normally mounted on vehicles.

But here I'm a sucker for miniguns and missile launchers.

>Should exo-suits provide interesting movement abilities?
Give them jump packs or threads in the foot-ware for fast movement when not using their legs for walking or running.

>Armored but exposed in many areas
This completely defeats the purpose of the exo-suit.

It is supposed to be a robotic suit that allows you to be like Herakles/Hercules and turn you into a humanoid tank.

If it's exposed in many vital areas, then it's of no use since some retard kebab terrorist would gravely wound one exo-trooper with a lucky shot and then ustilize mob tactics on a weakened one or downright shoot some more bullets to make the soldier bleed out.

Then they'd simply salvage the suit for their own use.

So nope. Unless it's like Starship Troopers ones or Space Marine Terminators, then I'm not green-lighting it.

>What kind of weapons one would have

ALL
OF
IT

>Interesting movement
Since its powered then yea, somekind like enhanced jump and speed

>Exposed
Good luck at eating dust user.

Keep in mind it would be normal for a heavy weapon to be carried in pieces by multiple team members, so that 300-400 system would easily be carried by two men.

Also keep in mind that there could easily be a program to reduce the overall weight of the mortar to make it work better for exoskeleton-equipped soldiers - and that 120mm cannon rounds are NOT the same thing as 120mm mortar rounds. The rounds described on the Wiki page you linked weigh 31lbs.

A five-man mortar team would have two men carrying the cannon and three men carrying mortar rounds. Bear in mind that "200 lbs with ease" means that soldiers can and will be carrying more than that weight, but even just keeping to the 200 lbs limit a five-man team would be able to carry the cannon disassembled between two man and 20 rounds across the squad.

That is without any sort of prime mover, truck, or pack mule robot, all of it completely foot-mobile, all of it carried "with ease" over rough terrain for extended period of time. That's YUGE. 20 rounds may not sound like much, but again remember that they will be other ways to carry more ammunition, and that those 20 rounds are already able to go places they couldn't before. This is a system that can be carried by a light airborne force, which normally can't transport heavy crew-served weapons.

As to individual weapons - individuals carrying heavy machineguns and automatic grenade launchers will certainly happen. But I don't think they'll be the primary individual weapons - first of all things like 12.7mm machineguns aren't efficient for area suppression, considering all of the mass and energy you expend without expecting to hit anything. 7.62mm is preferable for infantry.

Bulk is also a concern - I don't think anybody's going to be walking around with a 20mm cannon and arm-mounted rocket launchers any time soon. A soldier with all that strapped to his body wouldn't be able to move very well and couldn't get into built-up areas.

I'm pretty sure the STALKER exoskeleton sums it up pretty well(comparing stats w/ and w/out exo)
Slight increase to carrying ability=more bulets/nades (limited by power source and available material to build the frame).
Heavy armor is way less of a handicap.(same limitation as before).
About weapons, the increase in carrying ability would makes soldiers more polyvalent(MG assistant could carry a DMR, one rifleman in the fire team could carry a shotgun for breaching...).
About movement, except the obvious advantage when punching or the ability to run through walls without that big of a risk of fracture, I wouldn't say that it'd be that munch of an advantage, if not of a disadvantage in term of agility.

cont.

They also wouldn't be able to fit through doorways - urban warfare will be a concern for a long time coming. So expect even smaller weapons - light machineguns like the M249 and 25mm or 40mm grenade launchers, things that are small enough to carry through doors and into buildings. Programs like LSAT will make LMGs even more attractive choices by cutting down bulk and weight.

For the immediate future, expect exoskeleton soldiers to carry the same weapons they always have, but with the benefit of more ammunition and less fatigue. US soldiers today are expected to carry a minimum of ~200 5.56mm rounds on their body, with more stored in any vehicle their using and frequently more carried on their person. You'll frequently hear stories of soldiers barely having enough ammunition to get through a single firefight - exoskeletons will help change that. Things like the XM25 will also help, and exoskeletons will make it conceivable to provide every soldier with a comparable weapons - image a stage in development where every soldier has an LSAT 5.56mm machinegun and a 25mm airburst grenade launcher.

Yeah, people are always surprised to hear that loading/unloading aircraft is done by hand. Like I said, these things will be in logistics before anything else, but I didn't think that this would have any drastic changes the way it might have with combat units.

Just being able to run around comfortably with armour plating that can stop .50 BMG sniper rounds is in my opinion more than enough reason to use them.

It'd supposedly help emergency services personnel do shit like run through fires or lift debris off people.

If you have the power source for a set of power armor, you can build in microwave suppression weapons as well.

These won't kill anyone, outside of rare freak accidents. But what microwave weapons ARE good for is making everyone in an area in front of you feel like all of their exposed skin (and even anything under light clothing) feel like it is literally on fire and about to melt off. Almost no actual damage is done.

This allows power armored soldiers to incapacitate small groups of people instantly and largely non-lethally (but super painfully), making it much easier to deal with insurgents hiding among civilians and even taking down armed groups such that their ability to fight back is almost zero, letting you mop them up or disarm them as you see fit.

Anyone else in heavy armor or specially designed clothing will be fine, but that makes them easily immediately identifiable as enemies for your other weapons.

It won;t make you any friends, though. People will associate you with indiscriminate blinding pain.

>Wrist mounted guns for actual combat
This meme's gotta die someday. Shoot a gun once in your life and maybe you'll begin to develop an idea of just how hilariously unwieldy that would be. There's a reason guns are shaped the way they are rather than being, say, Star Trek style flashlight garage openers.

>There's a reason guns are shaped the way they are rather than being, say, Star Trek style flashlight garage openers.
Because we don't have portable energy weapons yet?

If you can run around in an powered exo-skeleton, you can put goddamn wrist-autocannons that fire 120mm shells on your exoskeleton, because FUCK YOUR WRIST AIN'T DOIN' ANY WORK NIGGUH!

That's not the reason, you idiot. The reason is that you wouldn't be able to aim at anything. Learn how to ergonomics before talking shit.

Why would you need to aim when using an exoskeleton?

Just fucking stick some AR shite on the exoskeleton, and a camera onto your gun. Problem solved.

The soldier won't need to aim precisely, because the CSGO aimbot will do the exact aiming for the soldier.

I can see why you say that but let me say this much. More armor would be nice especially for an urban combat but give the poor fucker a gun. Even an arm mounted m249 with a healthy amount of ammo to feed it turns a dude that is just walking around into a mobile hard point for people to get behind and lay suppressing fire down. or as talked about upthread going full on guncannon and having teams of infantry with back mounted mortar and ammo carriers get into position in spots that normally would be very difficult to deliver heavier hits from. Hell I can even see it being useful as a more mobile platform for weapons such as Law's and Tows as they provide the ability to carry weight more easily and can provide a useful and mobile anti-tank/anti-vehicle role. Beyond that exos would defintely be a supply sergants best friend able to move heavy loads easily and mitigating the need for bulky equipment like forklifts. I can even see them being useful for throwing together fortifications such as moving jersy barriers and prepping firing positions by shoving normally impossible to move rubble out of the way.

No, this would not work. You very clearly do not understand, on a very basic, physical level, how aiming works. Explaining it to you will not help because you are acting under some essential misconceptions you seem completely unwilling to even consider. Believe whatever. Someone will be there to laugh when you keep missing the target twenty feet away with your wrist gun.

Aiming in real life is a mechanical, bodily process in which forces are exercised on objects in various directions. It's not fucking CoD, you do not point and click. You could have the best sight in the world showing the enemy clear as day right in front of your eyes but it is physically difficult to AIM using your WRIST when compared to holding a gun against your shoulder.

i mean the answer would be to have it hand held but I doubt the range of motion would even then allow for precise aiming. Really shoulder mounts would be the best if you can mitigate hearing loss. but Im of the mind any weapon strapped to a suit if gonna be for suppression or will be targeting something big enough aim-assist actually might be viable such as a vehicle.

>What kind of weapons would one have?
Pile-bunkers.

You do not seem to understand how a mechanical skeleton works.

You're not moving. The skeleton is moving. You are just inside it along for the ride.

Irrelevant. Your body no longer does shit inside an exo skeleton, except for moving in ways the exo skeleton forces it to move.

>enemy too afraid to shoot your mecha because they want to live on the land later on
best kind of shield imo.

Like the Holtzmann shields in Dune.

>if you shoot me with that laser I might explode in a nuclear explosion
>or maybe you explode in a nuclear explosion
>perhaps we both explode in a nuclear explosion

And then everyone had knife fights.

For a modern suit like youtube.com/watch?v=v9Wbj1-pZcQ ?

The enhancement to not break ankles, tear tendons, or throw out backs on mountainous patrols; so that patrols can last longer, go farther, and move quicker with worrying about injury and carrying their buddy back to base over 10 kilometers of mountainside. Plus, tiring out when hiking with a rucksack at about 20% of the rate.
The enhancement to cover 50% of the body with rifle-proof armor instead of 20%; resulting in fewer deaths from stray bullets (but roughly the same amount from major weapons like RPGs and machine guns).
Weapons...the ability for everyone to carry a rocket (so that active defenses and tanks aren't as scary), and have two GPMGs per squad instead of two per platoon (which triples the firepower that does the actual killing, unlike rifles).

>COD: The Post

>all this argument about arm-mounted weapons
just use sub-arms like on The O or the Edge of Tomorrow suits