Case Study: Armored Combat Suit Of The Future

Major Thomas Ward, 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment

Location: Classified Facility between Dongfanghongcun, China and Khabarovsk, Russia, The Eastern Block, 2141 CE

SATELLITE STATUS . . . CONNECTING . . . CONNECTING . . . FAILURE

SECONDARY SUBROUTINE INITIATING . . . SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL

SIGNAL ACQUIRED . . . REROUTING . . . CWS GERALD FORD . . . CONNECTING . . . CONNECTING . . . SUCCESSFUL CONNECTION

Major Thomas Ward didn’t even notice the connection as a flurry of bullets turned the concrete above his head into tiny shrapnel missiles. He ducked low and ran while using what was left of the steel-reinforced wall as cover. It was a difficult task for a man six and a half feet tall and weighing nearly three hundred pounds with his
They’d dropped with the latest and greatest gear the most ingenious minds in the United States of America had to offer. The Armored Combat Suit of the Future was an integrated network of information sharing components that collected data and gave the soldier the information he needed to make tactical decisions. The three main parts were the M18 dual-action combat rifle, the two-tier body armor, and the helmet’s heads up display (HUD). The helmet protected the soldier from low-caliber impacts and the HUD filtered the information to the soldier and gave them
There were two parts to protect the soldier from the growing threats of modern warfare. The first part was a ballistic weave that was capable of stopping objects traveling at formidable velocities. It still stung like a bitch to get shot, but it was better than having a round blow a chunk of your guts out an exit wound. The second tier was a layer of laminate plating to protect against energy blasts. The idea of the design was deflecting and dispersion of those particles. The plates were flexible enough to take the shockwave of hits to the ballistic weave above it, but they couldn’t take a direct hit without cracking, which was why there was a layer of weaving both below and above the plates. In total, the armor vest weighed around thirty-five pounds. Elbow and knee pads of the same materials added a little more to the total, but Ward wasn’t complaining. He’d taken more than one hit from the enemy and nothing had penetrated.

The last piece of the next-generation war fighting equipment was the M18. The dual-action rifle was a double barrel. One barrel fired Commonwealth-standard 7.62 rounds. Rumor what that they were working on upgrading to electromagnetically-propelled rounds – like the ones used by the warships – but the technology hadn’t been miniaturized yet. Any soldier you asked was fine with their current armament. They’d rather have something a little outdated that they could trust than something new and