I suggest those of you who are interested in high TL military hardware
subscribe to the newsgroup sci.military, if you haven't done so already.
There's a discussion going on about powered armour - battledress to you.
Summary so far:
Pros:
Gives protection against small-arms fire and shrapnel
High-tech sensors make the soldier more aware of the surroundings
Allows the soldier to carry heavier weapons
Cons:
Very expensive to issue to general infantry
Difficult to maintain
Difficult to train the soldiers to use it properly, as well
as perform field-level maintenance on it
New weapons will be developed to counter it
May restrict the soldier's mobility
There are also various concepts of what powered armour would actually be,
varying from an armoured NBC suit with additional sensors (like MT Combat
Armour), to a one-man tank, to the huge monsters favoured by Japanese
cartoons.
- - --
"Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott
Adrian Hurt | JANET: [email removed]
UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian | ARPA: [email removed]