Powersuits
Raytheon, the company behind many military innovations has invested heavily into the creation of what they’ve called the SARCOS suit. The suit is robotic exoskeleton to amplify a person’s strength and endurance. The intention is allow warriors to carry heavier loads and do work that currently requires several troops to be done by just one. It’s actually less interesting than you think.
However, you know as well as I do that someone is going to have the idea of making that dude a heavy machine-gunner, carrying a weapon far too heavy for a normal human today. Of course, when you do that, you’re going to run into the problem of armor, but it makes a person stronger so you could just put armor on it and…
Ironman
Okay, not quite Ironman, but beginning around 2014 a lot of rumors began circulating about plans to invest in the creation of a fully armored suit for future soldiers currently in development by DARPA and led by one of our high ranking Special Forces commanders.
This was known at the time as TALOS (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit) and video information about the project featured a fully armored soldier Kool-Aid Manning through a door with angry insurgences waiting to pelt him with bullets that just bounced off without doing any harm whatsoever. They didn’t give him a gun, so I imagine the next part would be especially brutal, but that’s not my circus nor my monkeys.
That’s why when Barack Obama literally said in February of 2014 that we were building Ironman, people laughed. Then all this stuff started coming out people were like, “Dude, are we really building Ironman?” Looks like it. Not much has come out since those early rumors, so no guarantees this wasn’t just a well planned military misinformation troll that only players of Skyrim got, but let’s face it, this is cool. Like I said though, not exactly Ironman. You can’t really make them fly because… oh wait…
And they’ll fly.
WIRED[1] put out an article some time ago about the military developing wingsuits that allow soldiers to do fly from very, very far away by jumping out of planes and gliding down to their intended targets. This is an evolution of the HALO (high altitude – low opening) drops currently performed by US Military personnel except through in that they won’t be going down the whole time, but more sideways. Okay, yeah, so this sort of like Buzz Lightyear “falling with style” sort of flying, but this will be a remarkable new means to get the best warfighters to the fight faster than ever before.
Given all this, the only real limitations on getting those super soldiers to the fight will be how high up you can get them…
Space Marines!
Okay, so we aren’t talking the Warhammer kind of Space Marines (CHARGE!) but Halo’s ODST (Orbital Drop Shock Troops) are totally going to be a thing. These were troops stationed in orbiting space stations that, in a moment of crisis, could be dropped from their bods anywhere on a planet’s surface. It was a great way to get the force’s best fighters literally anywhere on the planet in a matter of minutes.
And yes, talk of militarized space forces has already been in the works for a while. Speculation is that by 2060 there will almost certainly be geosynchronous military space stations in orbit. President Trump has also hinted at the need to create a Space Force in the near future and part of that will be include a rapid response unit of warfighters stationed high above waiting to drop down at a moment’s notice. And they better be called Space Marines.
Rod of God
While we are in space, you know what would be cool? A tungsten telephone pole falling out the sky with the force of nuke. You might have heard about SALT II, basically states that you can’t use nukes in space, but it doesn’t say anything about giant falling objects. That’s exactly what Project Thor was all about, outlining in a 2003 USAF report the possibility of delivering a series of “kinetic bombardment weapons” from the size of a telephone to a crowbar, then launching the thing down to earth, where gravity would do most of the heavy lifting. When the weapon reaches its target, it will be moving at something around 9 kilometers per second and deliver an impact approximately 11.5 tons of TNT or even the yield of a tactical nuke. Even better, the system could go from launch to target in only a few minutes, cutting the time of traditional ICBMs down by more than half and without the launch detection.
So bring your hard hat and beware of falling objects.
Drones
Duh. Drones are going to be a thing, but just how much of a thing is something that most people don’t really understand. There will never be a day where humans are completely written out of warfare. Mark Zuckerberg just commented today that algorithms are really good at detecting a nipple, but pretty bad at detecting hate speech. Google it. He really did. That said, the future won’t be any different. Even with a swarm of little murder bots, it won’t do to have one shoot everybody who flashes the camera while, “I bomb them now,” goes by without a nanosecond of thought.
That said, the soldier of the future will be augmented by a swarm around them, serving as eyes, ears, and arms like warfighters have never before. Imagine you’re sitting there in your supersuit, wondering where to go next. You think to yourself, “I wonder what is on the side of that wall.” In moments, an image of an infrared camera of something floating off miles away tells you exactly who and what is behind that wall.
“Whoa! That’s a lot of bombs! Yeah, that guy needs a missile to the face.” and BOOM! from some other direction… a facemissile hotter and faster than a pizza delivery guy who works on commission.
Also, there will a giant robotic pack mule that carries all your backpacks. Yeah, that image above is a real thing. It’s called the Big Dog and it’s literally made to carry backpacks. Not kidding one bit. And yeah, someone is going to stick a gun on it.
Tanks will fly
Yeah tanks really will look like this. Granted, that’s not really a tank anymore, but the role of tanks will evolve so much that they will become lighter and faster, and eventually take flight. The heavy hitting bringer of destruction on the battlefield with whom all enemies hear and quiver in fear won’t be the slow moving thundering death gun from the ground, but an assault gunship with more firepower than grandma’s bowels after a second helping of refried beans.
The Marine Corps is already beginning this transition by building a variant of the MV-22 Osprey, which is a tilt-rotor transport into a full blown gunship. For those who don’t know, tilt-rotors take off, land, and hover like a helicopter and but fly like a plane. This gives it the maneuverability and range, and a ton of towing capacity for lots and lots of really big guns and ammunition.
All that to say that very soon, something like this is going to be the single most terrifying thing some people will ever see.
Hypersonic
Speaking of fast, the future is going to be fast, like… ridiculously fast. A few years ago the military tested a series of hypersonic platforms with the attempt of getting a guided plane, yeah we’re still calling it a plane, from the US mainland to Hawaii in seconds.
Whether we are talking about cruise missiles that Spaceballs Ludicrous Speed or a vehicle that can carry a warhead at Mach 5, both are very, very… very hard to shoot down with traditional missile defense technologies built around the assumption that a missile will fall (ballistically). The math was already trying to hit a bullet with another bullet, but now that bullet might also be coming in sideways.
On the upside, when Judgement Day comes, at least it will be fast.
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