Advanced Infantry Systems
Defensive Equipment¶
Powered Armour¶
Powered Armour is a technology that has been developed in the mid to late 21st century, and entered service with several national militaries before the Beijing Incident and has since then become part of the basic kit of infantry soldiers of all nations.
In its basic design, powered armour had been developed from powered exoskeletons that were developed in the early to mid 21st century. These exoskeletons were intended to take up the weight of material carried by workers in industry, allowing them to carry higher loads without much in the way of actually straining against that weight. In military applications they were used for material transport, like large cases of ammunition or drums of fuel, but were eventually phased in for use by soldiers in the field with the advent of superconducting battery packs, allowing soldiers to carry their kit more easily over longer time frames, reducing fatigue.
Eventually, developers noted that better exoskeletons would be able to carry additional armour to protect the exoskeleton equipped soldier, as well as other systems and heavier weapons.
Powered armour can be used by soldiers that do not have a neural implant for directly interfacing with the combat information system of a given powered armour.
In the 23rd century, powered armour can be broken down in to two broad categories, personal powered armour and heavy powered armour.
Personal Powered Armour (PPA)¶
PPA is a form of powered armour that is used by common soldiers in the field, consisting of a light exoskeleton and an armour based on soft armour backed by ballistic plates, made of metal-ceramic laminates. They are integrated with a combat awareness system that allows any infantry soldier to be informed about their surroundings.
PPA includes optional NBC protective systems which can be equipped at short notice, which additionally makes many commonly used PPA systems capable of being used in lower pressure and even vacuum environments.
In standard gravitational environments (1 g), a common PPA weights up to 150 kg without the other kit of a soldier, and allows a soldier to carry up to 200 kg of kit. This includes a pair of small recon drones as well as one hand launched loitering ammunition, giving a soldier anti-armour capabilities.
The common use of PPA necessitated the development of weapons capable of defeating it as well, leading to the development of high caliber armour piercing munitions and guns, as well as high velocity magnetic projectile weapons. Grenades have dropped in usefulness due to the shrapnel protection pf PPA and are seldom carried by a soldier.
A relatively common design of PPA is the OpenStandard Personal Powered Armour.
Heavy Powered Armour (HPA)¶
HPA is a heavier version of the PPA and usually used by soldiers trained on heavy weapons. They differ largely in a higher performance exoskeleton capable of carrying up to 400 kg in addition to the 250 kg of the heavier armour and exoskeleton.
This allows HPA to be used to carry heavy squad support weapons systems as well as heavier anti-armour weaponry and even light mortars.
Powered Suits¶
Powered Suits, also colloquially known as Battle Suits or Landmates, are a technology that has been developed in the late 21st century, mostly in Japan. Initially designed my Kawasaki the first prototype Powered Suit entered its testing phase just three months before the Beijing Incident in 2087.
Designed along the lines of the Landmate powered suit from the manga and anime Appleseed, the Kawasaki design was a three and a half meter tall two legged machine which carried the pilot in the chest area, with their legs extending into the larger legs of the machine and their arms sticking out from the chest cavity, in heavy armour, allowing the pilot to control the arms of the machine.
While the design showed promise at this time, Kawasaki was asked to further develop the system, as the Chinese Civil War began. As the war intensified and threatened to spread out over Asia, the Kawasaki Powered Suits were seen as a weapon platform that could add to the protection of Japan.
Kawasaki improved on the initial design, giving it armour comparable to a light armoured vehicle and added several systems to allow it to make jumps over longer distances, to reach height of up to one hundred meters to scale buildings or rough terrain, or to be air dropped without the use of parachutes.
The systems humanoid arms, allowed the adaption of various weapon systems into a form factor that allowed easy and quick change of the weapon load of a powered suit.
The Kawasaki Powered Suits proved itself when the Chinese Civil War did finally spill out to Japan and the invasion of Okinawa by forces of the Free Republic of China, where the power suits proved their viability in urban warfare and for operations in areas where tracked and wheeled vehicles have a hard time operating, allowing the JSDF to bring heavier firepower to those areas.
In the 23rd century, powered suits are in service with every nation in various numbers, reinforcing infantry units with mobile heavy weapons. Some sowered suit systems have been specially designed to operate alongside motorised and mechanised infantry and are able to keep up with these types of transport.
All forms of powered suit require a pilot with a neural interface for optimal operation, though in an emergency a pilot without a neural interface can operate a powered suit. Though in these cases the larger arms of a powered suit are slaved to the smaller arms of the pilot as input devices.
Powered Suit systems vary in size and weight, but are commonly weighing from 4 tonnes up to 8 tonnes, depending on the armour and integrated weapon systems.
Walker¶
Walkers, also commonly known as Mecha, are bipedal or quadrupedal armoured vehicles designed to operate as the equivalent to a weapon carrier, a scout vehicle or other forms of light armoured fighting vehicle. They are usually designed for heavy or urban terrain, where they can operate better then wheeled or tracked vehicles.
However, these vehicles are considered to be specialist vehicles and are operated on low numbers by major militaries, rather then seeing a broad adaption.
Offensive Equipment¶
Helical Railgun¶
The Helical Railgun^[https://www.galacticlibrary.net/wiki/Helical_railguns] is a weapon system that accelerates a projectile, usually tungsten or tungsten carbite, using a magnetic field, to up to Mach 5.
Infantry Helical Railguns have been designed to defeat modern infantry and light vehicle armour and have been build in various calibers to allow even normal infantry to carry, though they are more often carried by heavy infantry or Powered Suits.
Compared to conventional kinetic weapons, either solid or liquid propellant, Helical Railguns have the advantage of higher exist velocities and do not run the risk of premature detonation of the propellant. However, they need specially designed projectiles and an external power supply, though the power supply is usually in the form of standard rugged military super conducting energy cells.
In addition, Helical Railgun ammunition are smaller in caliber when compared to conventional projectiles of the same kinetic energy.
Drones¶
Drones exist in many forms on the modern battle field, but two forms of drones are in common use by modern infantry, the recon drone and the loitering ammunition.
Recon Drone¶
The recon drone is a simple quad copter style drone with a set of sensors, from cameras over EM to LIDAR, and are used to scout out an enemies positions from relative safety. They are directly controlled by a their operator through a simple interface on their personal combat information system.
Recon drones are cheap to produce and avaiable in high numbers and have a high enough carrying capacity that they can be used in an offensive capability, and are usually equipped with the ability to carry a light mortar round. This mortar round can either be dropped from height, or used to directly fly into a target.
Loitering Ammunition¶
Loitering Ammunition is like a recon drone with a fixed explosive payload, usually a shaped charge, and can be easily hand launched by an infantry soldier on the battle field. Loitering Ammunition include less sensors when compared to recon drones, but sufficient ones to be able to pin point a target during their attack run.
They get their description as 'loitering', by being able to fly over the battle field for up to two hours, allowing their operator to find a target for it. They can, in a pinch, be used for recon and if no target for it has been found, be landed and collected for reuse.
Loitering drones exist as both quad copter drones, but also in winged designs.