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Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 16:22:03 :
In Reply to: It's definitely battery powered posted by 48PW on Wednesday, March 11, 2009 at 16:03:34 :
I can almost imagine guerrilla fighters laughing their asses off watching these "high-tech" soldiers and then having fun leading them just out of battery range or picking them off while their hydraulic actuators are jammed with dirt or their microprocessors crash. There is no battery in the world that will provide as steady and reliable a source of power, for its size, as a stomach attached to a muscle, and even the best batteries cannot be recharged any faster than they are discharged. "Touching the charging pad" would be more like hanging on for dear life waiting 5 minutes for it to charge so you can go fight for another 5 minutes.
For most of the history of warfare, the military planners back in their offices have been trying to hang more and more gear on their soldiers, while the soldiers have been trying to ditch most of it. There are a lot of gadgets that probably look really neat in a power-point presentation in the Pentagon, but in a real battle, mobility trumps pretty much everything except an excellent rifle and ammo.
As for picking up 100 lbs with ease, I've known quite a few guys who could do that all day long. A few years ago there was a kid here who I met while he was going around pushing everybody's stuck cars out of the snow. I asked him what his name was and he said, "Brian. But my friends call me 'Ox'. I like to push." I hired him to unload 10,000 lbs of tire chains out of my truck and stack them in the basement. I'd drop a big tractor chain on each shoulder and he'd tote them right down there. It's amazing what a low-tech device like a strong set of muscles can do.
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