Creating a Working Prototype of Armor to Move with You

[zesban]

The difference between our muscles and this is stuff is epic in disproportion.
Please refer to the following source:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_elevator_020327-1.html

Carbon nano-tubes, nature's response to Buddy Lee's "Can't bust 'em" would be the material I'm referring to.

Also refer to the following source for applications in Electromechanical Devices:

http://www.eikos.com/articles/carbnano_routetoapp.pdf
(This was in a previous post of mine, and again I would like to point out that this is a lengthy but good article on the material.)

The idea then is a feasible power source. Sadly no one is yet interested in pursuing this technology *because* it's too similar to the natural solution.

 

[theriddler876]

blah, hmnn I don't know if someone said this before but I have no intent in reading 8 pages worth of posts, but, one the suit will be made of some kind of metal if it's going to be resistant so then you can just get a really big magnet, or if it's even remotely electrical powered you can distrupt it's function with a tazer or something. the weight wouldln't be an issue because it would sense pressure and move with you type thing, unless it's mechanisms where shut off in which case you'd be stuck

 

[FutureRNS]

you must be joking? A huge magnet. Ya ! Wonderfull . Have you heard of EMP? You drop a bomb and all batlefeeld is disabled :) But this is overkill. Power armor can be made of ceramic and plastic material with electomagnetic sheelding. But theriddler876 tree to imagine, what potencial power armor has in close combat. Enyone seen 3Dmark 2005. It would be like that :) And no one is talking about invulnerable mashine.

 

[zesban]

Additionally, not all metals react to a magnet. But yes, ceramics and polymers have shown great promise recently and may end up being the material of choice. Riddler, I would refer you to some sources on ceramic composites such as AmAlOX-68.

http://www.astromet.com/alumina-ceramic-amalox68.htm

Also, a tazer shouldn't shut down a suit that is electric powered unless you were to apply it directly to a circuit path. If the suit is properly built then the possibility of a tazer shutting down the suit would be equivocal to the tazer shutting down your car while it's running.

Now these potential problems having been addressed, that's not to say such a suit would be indestructible. An atomic bomb, or more simply, an RPG would still injure and/or kill the wearer. But, its presense on a field of combat though would allow for a sizeable increase in the effectiveness of the infantry, saving lives and providing an edge in both peacekeeping and war time operations. Then there's the industrial applications of said suit.

 

[FutureRNS]

That's what i am talking about:) Evin tanks can be destructed. And they are ... what 20-50 t. Power armor should be up to 1 t. to be productive. So as i said you could reach maximum imunity to bulets up to 50 cal. RPG would definately not only penetrate any armor of that thiknes but would destroy enyone operating power armor. But it would still be a "slising and tramping" machine. With new technology termo cameras, it could spot all infantry in 1-5 km range. So it would be extreemly dificult tu destroy one powered soldier and even harder if they would be in group. But the is a idiom in lithuania "Neskaiciuok visciuku ziema" :)

 

[lucien86]

RPG's are the real problem with anything like powered armour. War is a horrible place and real soldiers are cheap plentiful and expendable (that’s the basic military definition of what a soldier is). Powered armour makes them much stronger but has the fatal flaw that it also makes them a more tempting target (especially if it costs several million dollars for each suit).
In the end you would need 10 tons of armour to overcome RPG's and then someone would use tank type guns on you and only sci-fi technology could defend against that.
The main thing on the battlefield is not to be a target and anything that attracts bullets is a big negative. I would guess powered armour for real is at least 50 years away because of this alone.
There are many good places for power suits though, the construction industry, machine assembly, scientists, firemen, forestry workers, even nurses. (one of the real 'suits' I've seen a picture of was being developed to help nurses lift heavy patients.)


As for the sci-fi version, I love playing with things like gravity engines, ftl, teleportation etc. and I think that personal force fields probably are among the most difficult of all the technologies. Armour must absorb kinetic energy and an energy field that can stop a bullet would be on the wrong side of the E=mc^2 relation so it would need staggering amounts of energy. This problem is still easy compared to shaping the energy field and stopping the energy being dissipated though

(Creating and reinforcing a free air hologram is actually the most difficult of all the sci-fi technologies. Holograms are formed by interference patterns which require a stable diffraction substrate - and which air is not!. Even ordinary holograms are a brutally difficult technology.)

 

[zesban]

Well from what I see here it seems like the idea is that the power armor would be for the defense of the soldier, almost like making them a walking tank. I tend to disagree with this view. The reason for power armor is to increase overall combat effectiveness. The battle field is about more than who shoots who with the bigger gun.

The idea here is to assist the soldier in navigation, endurance, tactical manuevers, provide protection, etc...

An enclosed environmental suit would shield a soldier from dire environmental effects such as heat and cold or weather in general, providing an enclosed breathing system to protect against chemical and possibly biological attacks. The armor, while not standing up to heavy caliber shells or rockets and other highly explosive incendiary devices, would protect against smaller calibers and some shrapnel and other possible sources of injury. It would also assist the soldier in movement, increasing endurance and allowing for easier navigation of the battlefield, which is not a static place and takes a lot of work to get around. Taking the high ground, as it were, is easier for someone who can run or climb twice as fast or jump twice as high, especially if it takes only half the effort of a normal fit soldier to do so. This is not to mention that this soldier could carry upwards as 100 times as much weight with the same effort.

Additionally, because this suit is a powered suit it would be a natural extension to build a point to point communcation array and possibly other automated software into it. This would allow for real time updates to orders, images of the terrain and tactical field data storage and analysis software, a heads up display could even be built into the suit which could provide the soldier with all kinds of information that would benefit them greatly.

The suit could monitor a soldiers condition and position, reporting this back to a base camp, allowing them to immediately know if a soldier has been injured or is in need of assistance and locate them. This increases the likelyhood of saving that soldier's life.

A number of these benefits translate even to peacetime operations, such as relief efforts, peacekeeping, rescue, and transport operations.

The application of a suit like this is not to make the soldier a walking tank, but a versatile member of the armed forces by enhancing mobility and effectiveness. I'd like to think that not only is this a rather good idea as it can save lives, but that it is not as far off as we think. I think if it were pursued with any real effort, and by effort I mean funding research and development, it could be accomplished within a decade, not half a century. DARPA has already taken an interest in the development of exoskeletons and could use this as a basis to lead into power armor research. That's where I sit on the issue anyway.

 

[SkepticJ]

What everyone seems to be talking about is a five meter tall bipedal robot suit. This could be overkill. What would actually be useful in urban combat, jungle, mountains ect. would be about a 2.5-3 meter suit. The frame would be made of nanotube composites that are encased in several layers of titanium-tungsten alloy fabric(or metal glass alloy). The actuators would be electrical carbon nanotube muscles, which only need a little power to run. The power would be stored via a tank of adenosine triphosphate, which is used to generate electricity. A superconducting loop could be used to store power instead and in high densities. Weapons technology would be much smaller by then so the exoskeleton's advantage would be carrying supplies, running faster, tearing down walls, leaping etc. The hands and feet would be equiped with titanium claws and setae adhesive pads for scaling walls. Weapons would be metal glass bullets, mini HE rockets, entomopter and gecko grenades and would have a fleet of Roboflies swarming around a several km radius around the "mech" looking for enemies. Perhaps these flybots could inject deadly ricin poison into unwary troops as easily as a mosquito.

 

[zesban]

Well that is rather specific. A few things...

First, could we get some sources on these technologies, ie websites, textbooks, articles, etc...? Especially statistics on power usage on a nanofiber actuator and the power source you referenced. That is where my interest lies.

Second, why assume everyone here is discussing the larger suit? The 2.5 to 3 meter model is what I and a few others have been discussing all along. Actually closer to 2 to 2.5 meters.

Third, why robo-flies? Is this in and of itself inspired from a specific source? Other than Berkley's breakthrough of course.

Any answers are welcome. Thanks for the input so far!

 

[spartan]

Hey guys, first post, but I found a site that seems to have answers to some of your questions : http://www.dcr.net/~stickmak/JOHT/joht15poweredarmor.htm

Unfortunately I'm not smart enough to come up with any real ideas of my own, so I was hoping that this would inspire some of you guys, and maybe get more people to participate in the topic.

Also, for any of you that haven't already, I would definitely suggest you read the book "Armor" by John Steakley, or "Halo: The Fall Of Reach" which I believe is by Eric Nylund. Both contain some pretty awesome powered armor, especially the Halo books.

 

[SkepticJ]

Third, why robo-flies? Is this in and of itself inspired from a specific source? Other than Berkley's breakthrough of course.

Small hard to see and destroy scouts. They will be cheap so each suit could have hundreds reporting back its findings. Plus can you imagine how paranoid enemy troops would become if any fly they hear or see isn't really a fly but is going to kill them. Maybe they would wear bee keeper outfits. But a fly with a metal needle could just poke through that.

I thought everyone was talking about a five or more meter "mech". That's what I think would be overkill in cities. It'd be to big to go through doors.

 

[SkepticJ]

First, could we get some sources on these technologies, ie websites, textbooks, articles, etc...? Especially statistics on power usage on a nanofiber actuator and the power source you referenced. That is where my interest lies.

ATP is what biological cells run off of. It's an efficient storer of energy. I don't know how well it'd work for generating electrical power. I was just throwing out something for someone to play with.

Nanotube muscles are hard to find data on also. But I can tell you that so far they've been able to make ones that contract at twice the speed human muscle can and with one hundred times the force. Our little mech trooper could pick up and throw a car. http://www.pa.msu.edu/cmp/csc/NANOTUBE-99/abstracts/77.html <--this is really old.

Another possible improvement to an exoskeleton design would be to have one or several small roller blade like wheels on the knee pads so one could get through short spaces without the knees rubbing and slowing the trooper down.

 

[zesban]

I was aware of the stats on nanofiber muscles, check out the link in one of my posts higher up on this board if you want a really in depth study of carbon nanofiber. The link is the one regarding electromechanics, though the article covers much more than that. As far as the biologically inspired power source, I'm going to have to do more research into this, but it sounds very promising. Thanks for some new ideas. I just wish I knew what kind of power draw a nanofiber muscle system requires, especially to operate in the capacity we're looking at.

The wheels on the knees would be a good idea, got any on waste processing? I think a resevoir for hydration would be a good idea, with as much physical activity as the wearer will be performing. And the suit should also have a way to deal with sweat, lest the wearer chafe like the dickens, heh... Climate control within it would be a fantastic feature!

 

[SkepticJ]

The wheels on the knees would be a good idea, got any on waste processing? I think a resevoir for hydration would be a good idea, with as much physical activity as the wearer will be performing. And the suit should also have a way to deal with sweat, lest the wearer chafe like the dickens, heh... Climate control within it would be a fantastic feature!

They might just wear diapers like astronauts do. Maybe they'd have shoulder straps though, for the really heavy days.

I think about a three to five Liter version of one of these would be sufficient. Plus another 2-3 liter one filled with a thick Gatoraid-like liquid food.

The trooper should wear liquid cooled undies like astronauts wear on spacewalks to keep them cool. In Arctic cold conditions the underware has hot liquid flowing through the tubes.

http://www.foresight.org/Nanomedicine/Respirocytes1.html#Sec1 in their blood stream could be useful when the trooper needs to go underwater.

The suit should have filters capable of dealing with chemical and biological agents as well as filtering air from fires and cooling the air so it doesn't burn the trooper's lungs. Perhaps a compressed air supply that lasts 60+min. The gas could be compressed in tens of millions of respirocytes in a tank on the back or sides of the legs or somewhere. The purpose of doing this is one large tank couldn't be shot and go off like a bomb. Some hypothetical enemy weapon would have to be able to break millions of micron sized tanks. Are gains of sand destroyed when a barrel of it is shot or bombed?

 

[zesban]

The Gatoraid idea is a good one as you'd need more then water when that active.

As for the Respirocytes, I haven't heard about these either. And regarding the grains of sand question, I can't really say I've studied the forensics of such a scenario.

Most of these features that have been brought up are great, but what I'm really concerned with right now is the idea of a working suit. A prototype. Additional features are tertiary concerns, relegated to the end product design. Crawl before you walk and all that jazz.

I'm still trying to find specs on the power usage of nanofiber actuators and a power source compact enough to integrate into such a suit. Then there's the question of control and feedback. What kind of drive mechanism are we talking about here? Sensors responding to input and controlling the suit electronically, mechanical systems built right into the structure, some third option? Man is it hard to crawl...

 

[spartan]

You can't beat good old h20 when it comes to hydration, although it would be good to add some electrolytes and maybe some extra calories. As for the power usage of the nanotube muscles, the only thing I've seen said that a finished product shouldn't take more than 1-4v to activate, other than that I don't know much about it. Anyone have any good sites to find out more about them? Also, has anyone here looked into that ring-carbon armor mentioned in the site I posted earlier? I can't seem to find out much about it. I don't have too much information to contribute, but I'll throw in whatever I can when things start to get slow around here.

 

[SkepticJ]

Not much to add but a link to the http://www.liquidmetal.com/index/ I talked about a few posts back. It should make great armor piercing bullets because like depleted uranium rounds it's self sharpening as it goes through the target.

 

[dragonpowered]

this is my first post and id like to keep it short. you guys have had a great many good ideas but has anyone considered what kind of support structures you would use. also what kinds of people would be able to pilot it?

 

[zesban]

In regards to the pilot question, I would offer the following idea. The suit should be designed to be modules that are selected for different body types and sizes for at least the limbs, torso, and head. Further, the parts would be designed to be slightly loose and then have a system to more "form-fit" the pilot. Maybe an inflatable inner layer on the suit.

As for support structures, I'm not sure what you mean. For instance, are you speaking of mechanical support for the suit, battlefield support for the pilot, or financial support for the development? Or something else entirely?

To the others, I haven't had much of a chance to do any further research on a power source or to even check out the metal glass link skeptic posted. Sounds like some cool stuff though.

Edit: LOL! I just checked out the glass metal link and it's liquid metal! I've been posting links to these guys for a month now on here! That's great that we came to the same conclusion! A buddy of mine pointed out the low melting point of the stuff though, so we've been looking at AmAlOx for armor and such, check out my previous link about it. As a projectile this might be nice though, its melting in mid flight could have an interesting effect.

 

[SkepticJ]

Maybe an inflatable inner layer on the suit.

That'd make the trooper into a human arm floaty. They might need to be able to dive underwater(Green Berets, Navy Seals etc.)

 

[spartan]

I'm sure the immense weight of the armor would outweight the buoyancy of the inflatable layer, and it could also be inflated with something like gel instead of air. The gel layer could be heated or cooled as climate control and would insulate against heat from fire and weapon impacts from outside.

 

[FutureRNS]

Originally Posted by SkepticJ
Small hard to see and destroy scouts. They will be cheap so each suit could have hundreds reporting back its findings. Plus can you imagine how paranoid enemy troops would become if any fly they hear or see isn't really a fly but is going to kill them. Maybe they would wear bee keeper outfits. But a fly with a metal needle could just poke through that.



If you would think about this more close, you would understand that you really don't need a power armor for this. Any portable instalation would be suficiant. You can launch tens of thousand of these thing into the battlefield. And what the heck you would use toxic material? Don't you think that using sedative would be better than killing everyone? It doesn't matter that they would be your enemy, still first task of advanced worfare is saving lives in both sides.
About the size of power armor, as allready said it should be up to 2.5m. More and you get a tank (like in a joke "Rushan government is building a new sport car. What will they make a tank or a plane?"). And about the alloy "AmAlOx" it's as good as we can get for now. Who knows what will be in 3-5 years. But I would want to know, what is posibilities of force field. Don't you think that by the time this project will be compliete, force field technology will be developed enough to use it? But I imagne that this won't help with power issue:)
But as I see, we all agree that power armor won't be in production without 3-6 years. Well the power armor we talk about. USA army is almost completed the "Scorpion suit" project. I couldn't wind link to this, I really don't have the time, but maybe someone does? Most of us had to hear of it. It the basic of power armor. It's a combat suit, with enchanted strenght and agility. It has modern injury treatment system, and many more that could help a soldier. But it hasn't got an armor.

 

[zesban]

Well the idea of the inflatable inner layer would be to make the suit form fitting. The idea of using a gel in it and then using that as part of the temperature control system is awesome!

I'm wondering, anyone out there know of any good clear substance that could be used as the face plate, or would a screen inside the helmet be preferrable? Ideas, thoughts, comments?

 

[spartan]

I was thinking about that, and I came to the conclusion that we don't have any materials that are completely transparent that can still stop bullets, and those that do seem to crack and turn white when hit. The best option I think would be to have a very small camera on one side of the helmet, and a small nightvision/infrared camera on the other side. The soldier would have a small screen on the inside of the helmet to view, and where the faceplate would normally be, is instead covered in metal. This might seem like overkill, since the likelihood of being shot directly in the faceplate is pretty slim, but it wouldn't be too much more difficult. I imagine the soldiers wearing these won't be your ordinary, run of the mill troops. I think something like this would be more effective as a unit all its own, that operates in small squads of five or six. The suits and training to use them would be too costly to put directly on the battlefield, and it wouldn't necessarily be any more effective there than a normal soldier. It could however be used for specific operations, such as infiltrating an al qaeda encampment and capturing osama bin laden. That's if he's even really still alive.

 

[SkepticJ]

Lexan polycarbonate resin is the best transparent bullet stopper I know of. AK-47 rounds might still punch through though. Same stuff the Apollo launch helments were made of.

I think Osama will have long ago bought the opium farm by the time exoskeltons hit the battlefield. I'd really like humans to grow out of fighting with each other. I'm mostly interested that not will we use them, but could. I hope nuclear fusion bombs are never used to destroy cities of people, but I'm glad they exist. Why do I want weapons research then you ask? Spinoffs. You never know where they will come from. The technology made for military exoskeletons could be used to create space suits for leaping over boulders on Mars. The nanites developed to reduce a building to elemental goo could build a home. Nuclear fusion bombs are the only thing we have to deflect SMALL asteriods incoming with only a few years notice. If they are to big(and to big isn't that big) then we're still screwed.

 

[zesban]

I'm along the same line of thinking regarding the helmet, as it would probably be better to use the camera and screen method. As for leveraging this technology as only a Special Forces unit, I see it as being that way in the beginning but eventually I'd like to see every soldier outfitted like this. A suit like this will increase the efficiency of the infantry exponentially as it will reduce work for them, increase durability, mobility, communication, and protect them far better than they are now. It will be expensive to manufacture them at first, which is why I see them as probably being relegated to the Special Forces role you describe, but cost for manufacturing will drop as more equipment is made available to do so, techniques improve, and the technology progresses. I see this suit as the future of the armed forces personally.

 

[zesban]

Regarding bigger asteroids Skeptic, why not use those nanites again? In fact, use them for all the asteroids, then take those materials and use them to build/fuel stuff. I still think you're placing these technologies too far off in the future, but then again Osama could be killed in a couple years as well. I am an eternal technological optimist. That Lexan stuff is pretty cool, but I imagine a suit like this would have the cameras and be using them anyway, so why not just go the full monty on protecting the head and fully armor it? It is noble to wish for peace, and I agree, it would be nice. I'm not sure if humans would be capable, although they've surprised me before.

 

[SkepticJ]

Regarding bigger asteroids Skeptic, why not use those nanites again? In fact, use them for all the asteroids, then take those materials and use them to build/fuel stuff. I still think you're placing these technologies too far off in the future, but then again Osama could be killed in a couple years as well. I am an eternal technological optimist. That Lexan stuff is pretty cool, but I imagine a suit like this would have the cameras and be using them anyway, so why not just go the full monty on protecting the head and fully armor it? It is noble to wish for peace, and I agree, it would be nice. I'm not sure if humans would be capable, although they've surprised me before.

One thing that everyone should learn and you probably already know is that nanotech cannot and will not be alchemy. They will only be able to make things from the elements avalable. Only have iron, iron oxide and magnesium in the asteroid? That's all you can build then. Compounds using those elements. Without oxygen you're not going to have burning fuel etc. Maybe the nanotech could make the native elements on the asteriod into a huge mass driver to push it out of the way of the earth. Years of advance notice and technology decades in the future would be needed though. I'm an optimist to, that's really the only outlook worth having because if you're in a bad condition and don't think there is any possibility for improvement then what's the point of living? Enough about asteroids, the kind of nanotechnology you and I are talking about is at least twenty years in the future. Osama isn't a young guy, lives a hard life running from troops and living in caves. How long do you think he'll survive?

 

[zesban]

Well I think the power armor we're talking about is a 5 to 10 year project, if it is pursued. That's my opinion though.

As far as building something out of the materials from these asteroids, I don't mean right there. I mean send out a craft to break them down into their core elements, harvest them, and then return them to Earth or somewhere in a controlled manner.

Basically a craft goes out, launches a nano-probe filled with the little critters at the asteroid, they break down the asteroid and bring the materials back to the ship, say on an electro-magnetic beam. The ship then returns with new materials that we can combine with existing materials to make what we want. Nanotechnology like that is closer to the 20-year mark you describe, or that's what I think anyway. Again, that's only if it's actually pursued.

Sadly neither of these technologies are getting the attention they deserve yet. Oh well. Imagine the armor we can develop for this suit when nanotechnology is available!

 

[spartan]

Imagine an armored suit coated in a layer of nanobots, when a bullet hits the suit the nanobots immediately break it down into atoms before it can hit the person inside. Not sure if they could possibly do it that fast, but it would be pretty cool.

 

[zesban]

That would be cool! I'm imagining self repairing power-armor that also can repair the human inside. Of course by this point we may not even need to involve humans in war, but I'm not sure if that will ever truly be the case. Regardless, I'd first like to see a suit made. As far as the HUD goes, some interesting existing technology can be seen here:

http://www.microopticalcorp.com/Products/HomePage.html

Some very cool stuff there too!

 

[SkepticJ]

I don't think that taking a bullet apart before it hits would be possible. A rifle bullet travels at Mach 2 or greater. Imagine the speed that the tiny machines would have to travel around in the suit's skin to take it apart in time. Think of the friction that would be generated by them moving at tens of times the speed of sound around in the suit's skin. The heat generated would destroy them I think. A suit that can repair itself to like new afterwards, sure. Nanotech still has to obey the physical laws of the universe remember, no magic.

 

[spartan]

I'm talking about a layer made purely out of nanobots, they wouldn't have to move anywhere.

 

[Ghetalion]

Keep the targets in mind, gentlemen...

The purpose and target of a powered suit would not be for conventional military application. We have more then enough of a variety of mechanized forces for nations to obliterate each other with that the only way to force the change was to up the defense procedures of biological components to the degree of manipulating quantum flucuations around them to alter the 'direction' of force-carring bosons.

However, modern war will not turn out to be the all-out national military industrial engine ferver it was in the early 20th century. In all reality, in Huntingtonian fashion, modern war will be a clash of civilizations. We will have our ideological/ethnic/religious/economical reasons for conflict that will heavily polarize certain regions of the world and will force kin cultures into making a decision about that conflict. This changes the battlefield of warfare entirely, from the traditional far away terrains to the macroscopic level of urban landscape.

The Cold War brought us a limited assurance that national-level industial complexes may never again compete head to head directly. Instead, they will fight via proxy. The Soviet Union did its share of proxy rearmament to most of Asia by producing 80 million AK-47 (and deriviatve) models during it's 50 year empire. The weapon was designed to simple to manufacture, intuiative to use, minimal part usage for repairs/cleaning, and durability so that poorly educated peasent classes could become of equal an force multiplication level of capitalist/industial armed forces. It worked wonderfully. However, these 80 million weapons remain in circulation in addition to RPG, mortar, and other light projectile explosives that could spell impending doom on a mechanized army in a heavily urbanized environment. (Review the Battle of Berlin for a disturbing example of civilian defensive mobilization and simple projectile explosives against heavily mechanized forces) These weapons are the hallmark of any political/religious terrorist because of their sheer abundance (yay Communism!) and simplicity. These are the weapons that we will be encountering on the battlefield because the flashpoints of civilization clashes will not be in the supraeconomic titans who have the most to lose in an all-out conflaguration of military powers, but of those who continue to ensure an unrestainable volume political instability for one reason or another. These political factions do not have the means to produce their own weapons, thus, tap into the nearly inexhaustable market of Cold War Soviet Arms with whatever funds they can raise. (Just as pro-Democratic forces in the 1950s tapped into the nearly inexhaustable market of Post-WW2 Western Weapons)

Thus, our prime enemy on the new battlefield of modern war will be the 7.62x39 mm round, the RPG-7's PG-7VL, PG-7VR, and TBG-7V rounds, and the British 81 mm mortar. The question is: Do we have the technology to defend against these weapons?

Yes. These weapons contain limitations that will not be upgradable by the third-world nations that rely on them. Once the technology is developed to stop them, third-world nations will not be able to redesign these weapons capabilities en masse and thus, any armor developed would provide long-term defensive capability to infantry units during civilizational conflicts. These civilization conflicts will attract the attention of kin cultures of nations who have higher economic influence which, in turn, the third-world nations will receive money, weapons, and training from these civilizations. However, technological adaptability against technological targets will be much slower since 1.) these industrial nations are not attacking each other 2.) these industrial nations are not within communication/hierarchial command of third-world military units 3.) any adaptibility against future technology will have to become increasingly complex (reducing the number of third-world units that can deploy such weapons) and expensive (reducing incentive to even give these weapons to third-world units) when compared to classical projectile weaponry. Thus, creating an armor that renders Cold War Communist weapons inefficient should be the top priority of Western military forces.

The carbon nanotube flexion/plamsa containment powe source combination appears to show the most promise.

 

[SkepticJ]

I'm talking about a layer made purely out of nanobots, they wouldn't have to move anywhere.

What's going to happen to the kinetic energy of the bullet's lead atoms? The bullet is traveling at Mach 2 which means so are the atoms that make it up. I think you're making it more complicated than it has to be. Just have a weave of titanium and threads made of nanotubes to stop the bullets like aramid(Kevlar) does, but stronger. If any damage occurs then the diminutive machines come into repair the fibers and clean out the blob of lead.