   Armies of the future
  Maybe I'm wrong putting this here, but I think it's the closest.What you think the armies of the future will look like?This has a lot of repercussion in Sci-fi wargames, and a lot of Sci-fi fans like scientific and technological plausibility.So what will soldiers wear? What will they carry? What will they drive, cruise and fly?   
  I guess it depends on the wars of the future.Are we talking about a WW3 clash of super-powers, or the current crop of genocidal dictators supressing communities, communal millitias opposing governments, hi-tech peacekeepers suppressing millitias, etc..Ground forces are developing more towards active defense systems:  - "force fields" that detonate rockets before they strike the armour.  - "explosive armour" that explodes outwards, pushing back against the inwards explosion.  - threat-detection sensors linked to concealment or interception devices.  - better and better camoflague....and robotics:  - lots more autonomous vehicles ("go whistle the hummer for me!")  - legged pack-animal robots  - exoskeltons for soldiers to increase carrying ability.   ;  I meant any future setting.About exoskeletons:first of all, they already exist http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_exoskeletonsecondIMO the strength of the soldiers wont be mechanically increased, it would more likely be safe(or unsafe for despotic countries) steroids and ligther stuff to carry. But it seems most people just like the exoskeletons.   ;  sidenote: Unsave steroids and other pharmaceutica are not exclusive to despotic countries. Every modern army provides soldiers with some uppers that keep them awake for days. And that is never good for anyones health ;)edit: Btw.;Quote:Original post by klefebzI meant any future setting.1 year, 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years?Quote:About exoskeletons: first of all, they already existAll of the tech I posted already exists - I was just using it as an example of the direction things are heading in, so you can extrapolate that development.   ;  um. All of this sounds like halo. With there high tech cars and weapons.   ;Quote:Original post by klefebzWhat you think the armies of the future will look like?My personal view is that the armies of the future won't exist, at least not as we currently perceive them. We are already at the point where a single man with a suitcase-sized nuclear/chemical/biological weapon is enough to destroy a major city - the idea of pitched battles between tanks/ships/planes/infantry is woefully obsolete.What will matter in the future is intelligence/counter-intelligence - no matter how much raw firepower you can field, it is all for nothing if you can't find the one guy with the suitcase in a crowded airport terminal.It is a bleak view, I admit - the worst of cold war cloak and dagger, combined with the harsh modern realities of suicide bombers and deadly bio-toxins [looksaround]   ;  I don't think we'll ever see forcefields, at least as we think of them. It's simply not feasible from an engineering point of view.I think that future warfare will be mostly about intelligence gathering and analysis. The hard part is finding and attacking your targets without collateral damage.Space combat will be nothing at all like fiction. Assuming that space combat even exists, which is unlikely, there will be no such thing as fighters, bombers, or even battles at all. The main problem is that in space, it's basically impossible to dodge or block any attack. What you've got is the Cold War MAD turns up to eleven.Any engine that can travel through space at reasonable speeds would exert enough power to devastate an entire planet, so everybody who counts has a supernuke in their hands.;Quote:Original post by swiftcoderQuote:Original post by klefebzWhat you think the armies of the future will look like?My personal view is that the armies of the future won't exist, at least not as we currently perceive them. We are already at the point where a single man with a suitcase-sized nuclear/chemical/biological weapon is enough to destroy a major city - the idea of pitched battles between tanks/ships/planes/infantry is woefully obsolete.What will matter in the future is intelligence/counter-intelligence - no matter how much raw firepower you can field, it is all for nothing if you can't find the one guy with the suitcase in a crowded airport terminal.It is a bleak view, I admit - the worst of cold war cloak and dagger, combined with the harsh modern realities of suicide bombers and deadly bio-toxins [looksaround]Not everyone are terrorists. If you obliterate all the enemy cities then, what is left for conquest? Capture is much easier, faster and cheaper than building. All wars revolve around getting resourses, food, land, oil, whatever, if you nuke it all, and the people who lives nearby, then, how are you gonna get it?   ;Quote:Original post by klefebzNot everyone are terrorists. If you obliterate all the enemy cities then, what is left for conquest? Capture is much easier, faster and cheaper than building. All wars revolve around getting resourses, food, land, oil, whatever, if you nuke it all, and the people who lives nearby, then, how are you gonna get it?The resources aren't in the cities - they used to be, but they haven't been for some time. Food is produced in rural areas, oil is drilled in desert/oceans/artic-wasteland. Manufacturing used to be centred in the cities, but modernisation moved factories into remote areas - land is cheaper and it reduces noise/pollution in the cities.Mostly all the cities have these days is massive population, and the brain trust - neither of which I want as a conqueror, as both compete with my interests (resources and authority, respectively).Besides, not necessary to obliterate the cities, bio-weapon with engineered time limit decimates the population while leaving the infrastructure relatively intact - all ready to move my excess population in as the new workforce.Keep in mind that population pressure is one of the largest (and fastest growing) problems we face in the near future - massive civilian casualties not a problem from that viewpoint...   