Just when you think you’ve heard it all comes news that Russia is in the midst of hosting a military biathalon – an Olympics for tankers – complete with gold covered combat vehicles for the winners. More information can be found here:
http://www.rt.com/news/169084-tank-biathlon-winners-gold/
Thirteen nations are competing including the Chinese, who are using their own vehicles to participate.
If you believe the Russian media, then their soldiers may soon be amped up with exoskeletons, capable of hurling boulders at enemy combatants should they run out of ammunition. Think “Iron-Man” or “Avatar” and you may have a clearer indication as to where this could be headed. According to Russia Today, “a Russian defense contractor says it will be able to mass produce mind-controlled combat exoskeletons for Russian soldiers in five years. The devices would allow the troops to run faster, jump higher and lift weights beyond human capacity.
“I think in about five years we will have a neuro-interface to control exoskeletons and prosthetics through the brain’s electric impulses,” Aleksandr Kulish, the head of the medical equipment development and manufacturing department of Russia’s United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation, told TASS news agency.
The new system could increase the wearer’s strength and endurance manyfold, allowing soldiers to make tremendous leaps, lift and throw objects they normally could not, as well as carrying up to 300 kilograms of equipment.
An exoskeleton is essentially a ‘wearable robot’, an external skeleton-like structure that follows the shape of the wearer’s body and partially encases it. It has joints and other mechanisms allowing it to repeat and strengthen the body’s natural movements.”
While its true that “exoskeletons are being developed worldwide. Apart from military use, they could have numerous civilian implementations. Medical skeletons could assist the movement of injured, disabled, or overtly obese patients, while construction workers could benefit from the ability to lift greater loads,” the usage of these types of systems are still likely years away, and its questionable if this will help or perhaps hinder a soldier in battle.
According to an F-35 test pilot, the F-35 isn’t a capable dogfighter, unable to turn or climb quick enough to keep up with a fictitious adversary. The single engine, fifth generation joint strike fighter is currently being deployed across several services, including the Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, replacing a number of aging weapons platforms.
“The F-35 was at a distinct energy disadvantage,” the unnamed pilot wrote in a scathing five-page brief that War Is Boring has obtained. The brief is unclassified but is labeled “for official use only.”
The test pilot’s report is the latest evidence of fundamental problems with the design of the F-35 — which, at a total program cost of more than a trillion dollars, is history’s most expensive weapon.
The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps — not to mention the air forces and navies of more than a dozen U.S. allies — are counting on the Lockheed Martin-made JSF to replace many if not most of their current fighter jets.
The Pentagon counters that the F-35 wasn’t designed for close-in knife fights that form the essence of a one-on-one dogfight. They claim that because of its advance avionics, stealth, and other characteristics, the plane was actually designed for stand-off combat, in which the aircraft would take out a target from a distance of several miles. Frankly, this was the same logic that was put forward when the F-4 Phantom II was introduced in the Vietnam Conflict, as many argued that the days of the dogfight was over in favor of advanced missile technology. The result proved so disastrous that the F-4 eventually had to be configured to carry a gun pod below the fuselage so it could deal with enemy aircraft should its missiles fail, which oftentimes proved the case.
