I’m afraid I have to abbreviate this week, since it’s rather later than I’d imagined. But here’s a page for the week! More battlesuits, and a rather haggard-looking Major Rucker. The idea was to show the view from the insides of what my Ma once called the “tupperware lid” the heavy suit troopers wear. I’d actually imagine that this is a lot more comfortable than the light combat suits, since you don’t have the helmet strapped right to your head. But on the other hand they have that large heads-up display which would probably be tiring to wear, and you can forget about scratching yourself if you get an inconvenient itch.
But anyhow, we’re still moving forward. Many thanks for the great response last week – next week I’ll have another two-pager for you all, as the second half of this one goes out. And it’s a doozy, I promise!
Until next week, folks, be well!
Oh, ok. Rucker. This is Africa, not America. That…explains the minigun and rocket launcher, actually. I thought that was a little extreme for a rescue operation in the US.
1. I was wondering about visibility. The wrap-around screen is brilliant, but that HUD must get in the way all the freaking time. I assume when you write HUD you refer to the helmet. I’m referring to all the overlay windows.
2. From an artistic perspective, I know why you did it, but from an engineering perspective putting two screens inside the helmet, one in front of each eye, and giving the helmet a gyroscope to allow panoramic vision would probably be easier and more effective.
3. Regarding itches, I think you’d have a tough time scratching an itch in any powered armor.
4. I thought the lights and rocket launcher were on independently aimable motorized mounts in the previous panel. I find your choice of vents and a rigid connection curious. Strange place to put a vent, unless the light itself gives off a lot of heat. Also, quite frankly, those vents don’t look quite…bulletproof.
5. It would be cool if they had their insignia and rank painted on the tupperware lid.
6. It would also be cool if they didn’t have gloves, just attachments, like I thought they did. Think: jaws of life for hands. Bad-ass. Never have difficulty opening a jar lid again.
7. Normally medics go for the white and red to show that they’re unarmed, not dangerous, ie not really worth targeting. I don’t think, under any sane use of the word, someone who can carry a jaws of life and power supply with one hand and who is immune to anything short of a rocket launcher is ever effectively harmless. I mean, Christ, he could punch down a wall if he wanted to.
8. The Howlers need sand filters; unless fallout acts like volcaninc ash (quick setting concrete), I would imagine that they should be able to operate. To be fair, though, they aren’t in the deserts.
9. The heavy suits have to have awesome sensors to detect somebody moving on the far side of a ridge.
If you take a closer look at the Med suit (the left one) you can see his rank insignia painted on his glove. It’s also notable in both power suits on the previous page.
By way of answering both sets of questions myself, here goes:
1) The scenes “inside the suit” epict both what the trooper looks like and what he sees, simultaneously. The REAL “inside” of the suit headpiece is a heavily padded chunk of layered molybdenum/osmium polyalloy armor impregnated with lead and ceramics, and without the helmet looks like basically nothing. Inside the helmet is a stereoscopic display unit that is linked to a gyroscopically-balanced multilayer display that gives th wearer a full-3d 360 view of his surroundings. The mouthpiece on the left of his head is for voice communication, the two on the right are pickups for activating and manipulating the overlay screens with a series of simple voice commands. They can all be hidden at a moments notice by suing the command “CLEAR.”
2) To really see the “perspective” of the suited trooper would prevent you seeing his face, so the scene is basically an imposture, meant to show two POV’s at once.
3) There has been a lot of research into analgesic and antihistamine compounds which the UNA has tried to use to make their suits more comfortable, but so far they just have to recruit people who can tolerate the occasional itch. UNA Armored Infantry receive a lot of cognitive training from psychologists to allow them to overcome these small but maddening problems while wearing their suits. I won’t even get into the rather, er, “uncomfortable” issue of how they go to the bathroom while they’re wearing their armor. (cough*catheters*cough)
4) The lamps are high-intensity LED’s. In a “clean” environment they’d show as blue-white. In the dust, they show yellowish, somewhere in the 3500-3800 Kelvin range. The main bulk of the lamp set is a heat sink that vents heat out the back of the unit.
5) “Dress” suits used for parades and public displays do have rank insignia printed on the helmet. However, in the field, it’s considered a target for snipers, and so a subdued yellow or grey insignia is placed on the gauntlet forearms. (Ulrich identified this correctly!) In combat and field service conditions, formal signs of rank and respect are forbidden for the same reason: no saluting, no openly visible marks of rank or other personally-identifiable insignia aside from personal names.
6) UNA suit designers decided that the ability to lay down and change weapons on the fly was more valuable than the ability to fire larger or more powerful weapons. The FSR decided the opposite. Thus, FSR weapons and tools are hand-augmentations, while the UNA puts remote manipulators at the ends of the suit arms and makes most of its weapons and tools handheld, for increased troop versatility.
7) In the case of a Medic, the armor he wears (or she – women are permitted in combat by all nations, including the Arab League) is more to protect him from radiation than from combat. The protective effects of his armor are therefore viewed, under the Geneva Conventions (yes, they have them in 6-Commando) as a life safety device. White, Black and Red are the official markings recognized as medical or clerical noncombatants. In the West, including CONASUR, the mark is the Red Cross on a white field. In the East, it’s the Red Caduceus on a black field. In the Arab League, it’s the Red Crescent on a white field, except in Iran, where it is the Red Lion and Sun on a black field. In spite of the additional abilites their powered armor gives them, they are expected to abide by the articles of the Convention if their suits are marked as medical or clerical, and for the most part they do.
8 ) With proper particulate filters the Howlers could extend their operating abilities, but even then, their flight time would be limited in a radioactive environment as fallout ash would soon clog even the filters, requiring landings for cleaning and decontamination.
9) All UNA and FSR suits are equipped with radar, LIDAR, Neutrino-Interferometry, Infrared, Ultraviolet, seismic and particle-motion sensors as standard. The heavy suits, because of the increased space inside, have considerably more sophisticated sensor arrays, which are extremely sensitive. They can detect motion at up to a mile, based on heat plumes, atmospheric pressure, ground vibrations, and any number of other means.
–M
I’m eternally shocked that the arab league lets women into the military! That just seems totally against what the Arab culture would do, especially without the influence of outside powers that are more liberal towards women’s rights. It will probably not affect the story in any way… but wow! I suppose anything is possible in alternate history!
Well, to be fair, I should qualify that by saying that the Arab League permits women in combat provided their country allows it. The Arab League does not mix its international units like the UNA and FSR do, so units will be composed entirely of a single nationality, even when serving in the common League Defense Force. So if a unit comes from, say, Iraq or Egypt (which do permit women in combat) you could expect to see women in it, but not if it came from, say, Saudi Arabia or Trucial Oman, (where women are limited to non-combat roles in military service). And by the way, Saudi Arabia is technically called the “United Kingdom of Hejaz and Nejd” in the 6-Commando world and is a constitutional monarchy. But I digress.
The highest proportion of women in combat, by the way, is in the Allied Forces, with CONASUR a close second. However, the FSR has a higher proportion of women in command-grade positions than any other alliance, even though they have a lower number of women in the military, percentagewise.
–M
I just love the suit design. Especially the “inside the suit” shot in the first frame.
🙂
That’s one of my favorite ones, actually. There’s a subtle “RGB Strip” overlay I put in there to enhance the effect. And the suits owe a great deal to Kow Yokoyama for their design – look up “SF3D” and you’ll see what I mean. Mine are much more maneuverable, though. And more compact.
–M
Oh, btw. You should do a 6-C Facebook page. To spread the word.
You know you aren’t the first person to tell me that. I really should, I simply haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe I will, now.
–M
Hmmm…let me try…
1. Multi-windows have been tried and used before, you “learn” to look thru waht you don’t need. It becomes second nature, fighter pilots can tell you this.
2.The gyroscopic mode works well with helicopter pilots who are for the most parts in charge of the movements of their body and helmet but I think in this situation the possibility of being knocked around would cause problemswith that. For example digging thru rubble and haveing something fall on you would knock gyroscopic controlled screens out of place.
3. Itches….comedic scenes ensue…picturs bear rubbing against a tree or in this case medic rubbing against Mike….cue side splittling laughter. 🙂
4. I’d go with cooling for the lights myself, high power arc lamps will blow without proper air circulation, my off-road lights on my truck make “mist-steam” at 65 and below.
5. I agree
6. Hmmm….I vote gloves, drop the jaws and grab is better than moveout of the way and let someone else grab, too time consuming.
7. Still… he’s non-combatant, gotta mark him, that way the snipers know who to shoot first, the CO, the radio guy and wound the medic…. sorry, but the truth hurts. We always were told don’t shoot the medic, unless he STUPIDLY picked up a weapon, then he was fair game.
8. Yes fallout ash does act like volcanic ash, with a higher concentration of organics. Remember fallout ash is incinerated trees, houses, people, animals and even concrete and steel(melted droplets cooled to microscopic beads) even sand turned to microscopic beads of glass witch would destroy any engines intake in a very short time. If thoughs rescuers don”t have internal co2 scrubbers and a supply of o2 they are screwed.
9. Sensors of that kind are available now, no I won’t describe them, go watch discovery channel or read Jane’s Defense Weekly. Secrets are still secrets untill told otherwise. 🙂
Nicely done. Liking the battle suits… 🙂
And… SURVIVORS!!! 😀
Yeah, the heavy suit is one I should have used more. But I just didn’t.
And survivors? Well, just wait til the next page!
–M
I couldn’t help but read you pondering, pondering comments. “most underdeveloped mass transit systems in a nation of underdeveloped mass transit”. I tend to disagree. I tend to think our transit systems are overdeveloped and that’s the problem. Since the 1960’s we’ve allowed the federal government to assume control of our transit systems. And the old systems have fallen into a miserable state and the systems 30 years old or less will follow suit. The problem with rail transit is that for most people it doesn’t start where you are and doesn’t always take you where you need/want to go let alone at very specific times. And I’m talking about light-rail, highspeed rail, commuter rail, streetcars, heavy rail, subways, etc. Rail transit is Obsolete. Rail freight service makes a lot of sense. I like trains………I’ve had a childhood obsession with playing with toy trains. Still I have to admit financially, it’s obsolete. It doesn’t make sense for our society to spend billions of dollars on rail. We’ve spent over 100 billion dollars on rail transit in just the last 30 years on systems like San Francisco’s BART or Washington DC’s Metro or Los Angeles metro rail. And it only accounts for a miniscule few percent of all passengers and commuters. Cities are practically spending half their transportation budgets on rail and they’ll never carry much more than that few percent even if they build a dozen more lines.
But what about New York or Chicago? Certainly the rail is cost effective there? Well, the New York City subway is the most cost efficient rail system in the country. Something to be proud of. Still……it’s very costly; they cost taxpayers huge sums of money to maintain even non city residents are paying a share for something they may never use. Their agencies are always on the verge of some fiscal turmoil or some scandals involving cost overruns. They spend 60 percent of their budget on personnel, not trains. According to article written in the New York Times, over 8000 MTA employees are making as much as 100,000 dollars plus benefits. Despite this their behind on their maintenance. They have ignored maintenance issues in favor of expanding and building additional lines under the belief they’ll draw in more riders and more riders means more fares, which should pay for it in the future. A NYC agency employee turned whistle-blower has said ”We will never have enough money to keep the system maintained”, ”Doesn’t matter how much you give us it’ll never be enough”. Because every time you give them more money, they just go out and build more instead of maintain what they already have. So if the largest, busiest passenger rail system in the country cant support itself, what hope are these smaller, less used, less funded systems gonna be like.
When people ask why the railroad business failed so many years ago, technically they didn’t….Mostly they simply prioritized freight as opposed to people. Some others did fail, they failed because they thought they were in the railroad business; they were not, they were in the transportation business (Just like Microsoft is in the software business. If they don’t offer an evolving and lucrative service every few years, we’ll stop buying it and hardware makers will simply look elsewhere) And when planes and cars outperformed trains in speed and convenience respectively, they just sunk. The freight rail survived…..There is more tonnage traveling along the rail now than there was in the 1800’s – early 1900’s. America moves four times as much freight as Western Europe as a whole.
The Big Four. People who are disabled, too old, too young, too poor (or otherwise unable to drive) have long been the major users of public transit. Planners attempts to attract middle-class commuters out of their autos by building expensive rail projects have often simply hurt transit-dependent people as fares increase and service is cut back in order to pay for rail construction. It’s the vehicular equivalent to Gentrification (in which development of urban areas led to financially ousting the lower income natives in favor of the yuppies). But instead of building high-cost, high-capacity rail lines, planners should focus on designing transit systems to serve urban areas. That means using low-capacity jitneys, shuttle vans, and demand-responsive transit systems. It also means de-monopolizing public transit, opening the door for private providers of transportation services who might be able to do so cheaper.
The new revolution is gonna be driverless cars and roads payed for out of user fees, the way the Interstate Highway system was. While that may be a few years away, there are things to do to reduce traffic. One is traffic signal coordination which gives greater priority to higher capacity lanes and roads. It’s not as glamorous as rail because it’s an unseen solution but it can reduce traffic congestion by as much as 20 to 30 pecent. A vast majority of the nations traffic signals are not properly coordinated. Another thing we can do is turn otherwise poorly used HOV lanes into HOT lanes which charge tolls depending on levels of congestion so single occupant drivers can take advantage of low density roads. Gas taxes are largely used to pay for roads. The federal gasoline tax raised $25 billion on gasoline in 2006. The tax was last raised in 1993, and is not indexed to inflation. The federal gas tax has experienced a cumulative loss in purchasing power of 33 percent since 1993. Ultimately gas taxes are going to be an obsolete way to finance roads because they don’t adjust for inflation. I envision voluntary user fees will probably be a innovative way to build and operate roads in the future with an array of private firms competing to build and run them. Like those E-Z pass sensors that go on your windshield or license plate scanners that charge you on a per mile basis. The Interstate highway system was built on a pay-as-you-go basis: no borrowing in anticipation of future federal gas tax revenues. This introduced feedback into the system: if people didn’t drive, there was no money to build roads. That’s why it took longer than expected to complete the systems: not because people didn’t drive on the interstates–they drove on them like crazy–but because neither Congress nor the states indexed gas taxes to inflation the roads began to suffer. Rail advocates want to do without feedback. They want to spend billions of dollars before one wheel turns. If no one rides the trains, they’ll call them a success anyway, or say we just need to “complete the system” to get people to start riding. The Interstate Highway System extends 47,000 miles. After adjusting for inflation, cost less than $450 billion (less than $10 million a mile or about $2 million per lane mile) and truly connected people in all of the contiguous 48 states. The average American travels 4,000 miles per year on the interstates. And, contrary to what many rail advocates claim, the interstates were 100 percent paid for out of user fees in the form of gas taxes, tire taxes and tolls, etc. There’s no reason to think state highways couldn’t be paid for like that too. At least then people will get exactly what they pay for and use it.
I think you mistook my offhanded comment for a sigh in favor of more big-government spending on mass transit, and let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. The reason our mass transit systems are underdeveloped are because they were de-privatized and placed under aggressive state control which ignored basic market principles in favor of coercive tax-based funding and price controls which led inevitably to shortages and general public decay. The result is very clearly visible on the Metro-North Railroad, which I use routinely, and which is not only badly maintained and overcrowded, but also overpriced and burdened by a shiftless bureaucracy which controls it at enormous waste to the taxpayers who fund it, whether they use it or not, as well as to the riders who fund it AGAIN, by purchasing their bloated fares. By placing mass transportation systems under state control, which by the way was one of the basic planks of both Marxist and Populist socialism, the result was to produce a system that could not stand up the the possibility of change or failure, and thus was preserved at ever-increasing cost, despite the evident waste and inefficiency involved. The entire rail network in this country was built by private enterprise, and then seized by the state for “the common good.” I don’t think rail is necessarily dead as a means of transportation, but its overregulation and monopolization under the guise of “protecting” it is stifling whatever positive change it could ever experience.
–M