Heavy Power-Armour (HPA) - 'When personal armour meets a UGVs weaponry'

[DiDiT]

I was just flicking though all the old suggestions about armour types and such when I came up with this:

The HPA, A huge suit of powered personnel armour capable of turning even the weakest of troopers into basically walking tanks that are able to use weaponry that would normally break a man's back just trying to pick up, let alone fire. The down side being, something like this would be INSANELY expensive, having to use antimatter to fuel its engines, not to mention the fact highly experimental and some what fragile.
 

I was thinking something like this:

Sir, Our research into powered armour and antimatter has come up with a new interesting research idea: Heavy Powered Battle Suits.

We stumbled across this idea while looking into larger powered suits, and, while originally we only intended to to retrofit our current armour designs to handle heavy alien weaponry with ease, it dawned on us that the same suit design could easily carry heavier human weaponry like the ones fitted to our UGVs and still fire them accurately. I'm sure that my team and I will be more than able create a larger suit to the ones we already have that are capable of carrying UGV weaponry while still remaining these suits much smaller and more manoeuvrable. We've already sketched out possible designs for a tri-laser module and a Grenade launcher for the suit as well as looking into modifying a particle cannon and a plasma blaster for the suit.

But, sir, there are two problem with this design, and the first is an all too well known one, antimatter. The suit would be fuelled on the stuff, using approximately half a gramme per dispatch. The second issue is armour, Armour would be considerable less than that on a UGV due to its size, the suit wouldn't be able to take much of a beating without field repairs and considering it's fuelled on antimatter, should it's fuel-tanks damaged, the chance of an explosion are high.

These things considered, sir, the prospect of creating something that's a cross between a armoured suit and tank has somewhat excited my team and, if possible, we would like the time and funding to look into this further, not to mention the fact that with a suit like this on the field, I think we could finally go toe-to-toe with the aliens in a fire-fight and WIN, and That's an opportunity we cant afford to miss.  

--Cdr. Navarre

Phew, Typing all that wore me out, Is it any good?




Edit: I too so long writing that, I must have got sloppy. Fixed some spelling errors.

[Legendman3]

8D

[val]

Well, if we're going mecha here, i've a couple weapon and support systems to consider, both for human HPAs and alien mechs.

Human
GUA 65 30mm autocannon
Basically an up scaled battle rifle carried and operated by HPA "hands".  Uses banana clips for flexibility; being able to switch out, say, HE ammo to SABOT easily would be a boon in battle.

M25 automatic gattling.
Another hand carried one, this one using either normal rifle ammo or .50 slugs.  Very high rpm.

"Angel Wings" Grenade Bombardment System
An array of six belt fed 25mm grenade launchers mounted on the shoulders.  Inactive, they splay out and back like an angel's wings. When activated, the grenades swing up and foward, let loose a volley, then swing back down to inactive position.

Magnetic shield
This requires research.  An advanced electromagnet system creates a fluctuating field extending out to a meter.  Plasma weapons diffuse upon entering the field and other weapons have bullet trajectories randomly warped going inside, through, or out of the field. The HPA is temporary shut down during shielding.

Both
CQC program
Available to both HPA and alien mechs from the get-go.  It's a program that, when activated, allows the mech to use it's limbs and legs as a weapon system.

Plasma lance/ monomocular swords
Upgrades to the CQC program.  Plasma lances(arm mounted bars of plasma) or monomolecular swords( up scaled arm mounted monomolecular knifes) are incorporated into the program.

Alien
Plasma cannon
A up scaled plasma rifle mounted on the arm. Probably has splash damage.

AM rocket pod.
A pod of down scaled antimatter missiles also mounted on the arm. Devastating against UVGs.

"Bleeding Devil" Personal Defence System
The mech floods an area around it with plasma, dealing plasma damage to all in the vicinity.

Jumppack
Antimatter from the engine is briefly rerouted to a rocket on the back, causing the mech to "jump" over obstacles.  Uses up all the remaining TUs.


Of cross maybe some people may want to switch around the weapons on both sides.


 

[Hertzila]

Seems... pointless. Besides the INSANELY HUUUUGGEEEE AM cost, why not just field UGVs instead? Why bother making humans into UGVs when actual UGVs exist and humans should instead use their smaller frame and agility to their advantage (while using the best armour, of course). Heavy hand-held weapons already have their weight negated when wearing better powered armour, completely obsoleting this. And couple all this with bad armour ratings (while carrying half a gram/nuke of AM in its tanks) and I don't think this would ever be fielded.
While mecha suit might be awesome, awesome but impractical stuff is for those science fantasy TV-series and the space marine games. UFO:AI woks best because it's military realism approach and that only inlcudes practical solutions, awesome or not.

Simply, doesn't fit the setting IMO and provides no notable gameplay improvements.


PS. Yes, I am a troper.

[val]

All terrain mean anything to you?  Which mechs are, thanks to legs.

Plus, they don't need to be that huge.  An enlarged nanocomposite suit would be pushing it, but I think it would still count.

[O01eg]

Mecha would be interest if alien can also have own mecha.

[val]

Exactly why I included alien mech equipment.

[Hertzila]

I still don't get what's the point with mechs, especially if they do have an AM price tag. What are they suppposed to do that an UGV or a normal heavy armour doesn't (IIRC we do have hovering UGVs, so all-terrain capability is a moot point)?

Why would aliens do it either? They have bloodspiders so it's obvious they don't need a driver/pilot when controlling ground units and again they could just use UGVs/robots, with multiple legs if you need a more scifi solution.

[val]

1.Hovering UVGs are actually vulnerable.  Remember, they're flying, giving aliens a shot from across the map cause they can't take cover.
2.Organic intelligence tends to be more flexible than machine intelligence.  NOTE: next AI overhaul should reflect on this(i.e. aliens make choices more randomly than 'bots).

[Hertzila]

1. When they're flying in the air, sure, but what if they're hovering 20cm (~8'') above the ground?
2. UGVs are controlled by human operators. They're simply in the base rather than in the field.
@NOTE: Bloodspider is intergrated into the hivemind (IIRC) so effectively it's just as much under control as the biological aliens are.

[Quester]

Instead of super armour, what about using some sort of susppention system on the weapon, to make it even more more portable.   I mean this far in the future it would not be out of the realm of belivablity to think that these systems could be added to powered armour, as a type of add on, like headgear is.

[CheeseshireCat]

2.Organic intelligence tends to be more flexible than machine intelligence.

Ummm... How to put it... Bullshit?

[Hertzila]

Ummm... How to put it... Bullshit?

I'd say he's right but what he's pretty much saying is like "a rifle is better than a pistol since rifles can penetrate body armor" (completely missing the point of pistols as backups, something rifles are too large for).

Simply put, humans (we haven't met any other biological sapient things so I'm not jumping into conclusions) have the capability to make devious and long-reaching plots, tactics and strategies and also modify them in the field when necessary better than robots. On the other hand, robots are better at executing them, are much more easily made and don't confer a huge loss if they're destroyed. -> Why we invented UGVs as a hybrid. Human controlled from a safe location, robotic assistance to controls and losing them only means a material loss. [/OffT]

Instead of super armour, what about using some sort of susppention system on the weapon, to make it even more more portable.   I mean this far in the future it would not be out of the realm of belivablity to think that these systems could be added to powered armour, as a type of add on, like headgear is.

If strength is ever going to actually play a factor with items, I think armors are going to handle that. Something to the headgear slot for that would also be strange IMO.

[Quester]

The idea was meant to be like an add-on, something that equips to the body. the headgear thing was an example.  It could clip onto the belt or even in the backpack.