Topic: My brother and I just saw Starship Troopers last night.
MIB
Ex-Member
posted
quote:Originally posted by Treknophyle: Pos-Def. I believe that this book introduced (I won't say invented) the concept of "powered exoskeletal armor".
It's funny you mentioned that. I have a subscription to Popular Mechanics and Popular Science and on the June 2001 issue of Popular Mechanics, on page 15, there is an article on how solders of the future would be wearing powered exoskeletal armor. Here is the article word for word.
"Anticipating that future wars will be fought in confined urban areas where it is difficult to deploy large numbers of troops, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is attempting to create exoskeletons that could turn soldiers into supermen. Unlike bionic limbs that would be sugically implanted, exoskeletons would strap on like body armor. Sensors would monitor electrical activity in the muscles to determine how the soldier wants to move a particular limb. Pistons and motors would give soldiers the power to carry heavier weapons, lift cars or punch through walls. Exoskeletons would make it possible for a soldier to literally leap over a tall building in a single bound. Troops could exit low-flying aircraft without ropes, using their steel limbs to absorb the shock. With DARPA funding, researchers at several universities are already at work refining the sensor and computer technology to put exoskeletons on tomorrow's battlefields."
-------------------- "Tragedy is when I cut my finger, Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die."-Mel Brooks
Registered: May 1999
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posted
I havent read the book, but the movie (for me) was pretty damn cool. Its the plain gory alien ass-kicking movie with guns and explosions and boobs that everyone is afraid to make these days. I love that movie alot. I think it will be one of my favorites for the rest of my life.
The guns are called Maritas and fire what seems to be a 7.62mm round. (for you non gun nuts, thats the same as the 'AK') This round has enough power to go through exoskeliton if its anything like human bone.
I really, really, like the fleet version of that gun.
posted
You mean the shorter, more compact one that Denise Richards' pilot-boy used when picking up the guys from the falling outpost?
I am very dissapointed in the Marita actually. We have viable caseless ammunition since ten years back, the only reason it hasn't become standard is because it's too expensive to manufacture and standardize, IIRC. So in the future of 'Starship Troopers', I was hoping they'd managed to build portable laser-units Akira-Style (well we have big ones mounted on 747's...) or at least machineguns with alternative ammo and 100 shots per clip. The 7.62 round is pretty good still (The finnish "Sako M92" assault rifle is the best Kalasjnikov-conversion IMO, perfect marriage btw AK47 and Colt M4A1) but the mobile infantry need both faster cyclic rates and bigger clips to fight the bugs.
Now we don't know if that test rifle we saw in the end was firing its primary ammo or just an attachable launcher, if it's the former then they have a grim gun, if it's the latter then they probably still have the old 7.62 underneath the plastic surface.
Now the 10mm caseless M41-A pulse rifle, THAT'S a gun!! There's a page dedicated to it's manufacture, with the painstakingly thorough conversion from a Thompson Commando .45 to the final result, with a mounted SPAS 12 assault shotgun posing as slug launcher.
Question about Starship Troopers: Their term "Mobile Infantry", is there any such term in real life, or did Heinlein just make it up to make it sound more advanced and formidable than the current "infantry"?
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
"Mobile infantry" would seem to be much like the concept of "armored cavalry" which is in use today. Examples would be things like the LAV-25 & the M2/M3 Bradley.
I could be dead wrong, though. I never was good at gropo stuff.
-------------------- "The French have a saying: 'mise en place'—keep everything in its fucking place!"
posted
I don't know Wes1701E. While the nudity and fx were enjoyable, I thought the plot was predictable and that the charactors where more like dumb chunkheads the marines were trying to get rid of rather than them being actual marines.
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quote: Its the plain gory alien ass-kicking movie with guns and explosions and boobs that everyone is afraid to make these days.
Buh? Do you live in some bizarre broadcast area that only gets repeats of Rashoman and Snow Falling on Cedars? Your description applies to...let me double check...99.83923% of all films made in the past ten years.
In the book, people have battle-suit that protect them from harsh environment and enable human to duke it out "mano a mano" style with the bugs. With the help of the armour, people can actually "punch through" bugs. Plus the concept of air support actually means something in the book. BTW, when they say "drop", it's not like crappy ass airship drop like the one seen in the movie, it's more like soldiers dropping from mothership in space into the atmosphere one by one like para-troopers in the modern military.
-------------------- "George Washington said, 'I cannot tell a lie.' Richard Nixon said, 'I cannot tell the truth.' Bill Clinton said, 'I cannot tell the difference.'"
-- comedian TOM SMOTHERS, from his latest stage act with brother DICK SMOTHERS.
posted
I think the propulsion sys was like really advanced "EVA" packs, if you catch my drift.
The fuel for EVA thrusters generally seem to run out rather fast, and the Mobile Infantry Soldiers of the book seemed to have enough to last them for at least a standard mission, (like five-six hours or something?) so they would have to be pretty efficient... I don't remember what kind of hardware they were packing but Heinlein made it sound nice 'n thick, grenade launchers and pulse doodaahs, I guess.
-------------------- "I'm nigh-invulnerable when I'm blasting!" Mel Gibson, X-Men
posted
I liked it and even bought the DVD the other day. It was only like $15 so I figured why not? If you don't try to look at it seriously or think too far into it and view it as a summer action flick, it's quite good.
-------------------- It takes 42 muscles in your face to frown. It only takes 4 muscles to extend your arm and smack someone upside the head.
Registered: Jan 2000
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Buh? Do you live in some bizarre broadcast area that only gets repeats of Rashoman and Snow Falling on Cedars? Your description applies to...let me double check...99.83923% of all films made in the past ten years.
Oh no, i know that a lot of movies are like that. The truth is-- starship troopers TRIED to be that brainless movie, and IMO, it worked.
posted
Nah. I got the sense that they were trying to make a serious film with the people dieing left and right, and with Rico's girlfreind getting stabbed 80 million times by a warrior bug and then slowly dieing in Rico's arms. That and the SS style uniforms.
posted
I got a sense that they were trying to be an action movie with a semi-satirical farce of the military mindset, and while a farce is a good thing sometimes, this one wasn't suitable for farcing, and fell flat.
-------------------- "The best defense is not a good offense. The best defense is a terrifyingly accurate and devastatingly powerful offense, with multiply-overlapping kill zones and time-on-target artillery strikes." -- Laurence, Archangel of the Sword
Registered: Mar 1999
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