The future is closer than you think

>>35100752
Exoskeletons with partial hard armor.
LSATs, suppressors, and Pikes.
Quadcopters.
Fused thermal/NV, now with HUDs (you know it will be practical eventually).

What most people aren't tracking is ESM. Bistatic-style radar (separate emitters and passive receivers) for counterbattery down to the small arms level. Plus instant geolocation of radios etc.

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Elite soldiers will have power armor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKcqHaPhkkM

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Grunts will have this.

https://www.army.mil/article/184156/new_soldier_armor_weighs_less_offers_more_options

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Hopefully something like this

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Light weight 6.5mm AP battle rifles will become standard issue.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2017/08/11/7-62mm-icsr-replacing-m4-yes-brief-review-know-program/

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Special forces will use the 6.5mm ICSR, integrally suppressed carbines and PDWs, as well as some other interesting weapons.

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Strykers are already getting a lethality and tech upgrade.

Some have 30mm cannons, others have javelin missiles.

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Light weight recoilless rifles with advanced munitions.

http://soldiersystems.net/2017/09/07/us-army-leverages-foreign-comparative-testing-to-procure-m3e1-carl-gustavs/

>>35100752
>An AC130 with a complement of directed energy weapons
MUH DIK

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>>35100787
Thermal fusion is already use. Tactical Augmented Reality is right around the corner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4MmIJytGJQ

http://soldiersystems.net/2017/05/24/us-army-introducing-heads-up-display-with-tactical-augmented-reality/

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>>35101037

Higher tech smaller units, mercenaries used by corporations, low tech communications will win out.
Global corporations are gonna replace countries.

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I can't say anything about navy as I am ignorant if navy but on land and air I can speculate

The air:
Fully autonomous air superiority fighters will dominate the airspace. This is an easy mission as they must simply be tasked with with chasing down assigned targets in a given area that are detected likely well in advance. Air to ground will be handled by remote drones whenever possible to minimize both the risk to pilot and friendly troops. Multi role is a different story, as while autonomous planes are deadly automation lacks the ability to perform executive function. They can calculate risks better than any human, but they can't decide for themselves what the aims of those risks are, and to make it more confusing is flexing between air to air and air to ground. To that end, it will not be uncommon to see pairings of autonomous planes with a human piloted one. Machine learning will allow the plane to learn the patterns of its human wingman to perform actions sometimes without spoken communication. The machine learns from the human, whilst the human learns to trust machine. The human handler can then direct its partner on riskier strides or lased targets, and the autonomous plane acts as protector to the human. My best friend (materials scientist) was at a conference with air force brass that actually corroborates this theory as far out as it may seem. If we want to get really far fetched though you could have the ai if the plane relay vital statistics such as fuel, ammo, damage taken, to its handler via Chernov faces (google it) on a personalized avatar. Plane waifus are no longer anime.

As for infantry, exos are over rated. They don't make you faster, they make you faster for a given weight on your back. You are always limited to how fast are far you can hump it while naked minus the loss in dexterity from the armor and skeletons bulk/range of motion. This is fantastic for anyone in Afghanistan especially those poor mortarmen, but us only half of the picture...

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>>35104568
2/2
The other half is the soldier himself. In essence, the suite will replace the combat life saver in scope of practice. The suit. Will monitor vital signs. It will monitor capnography, temperature, and continuous 4 lead ekg. It not only will monitor urinary output, but let him piss right in the suit. It will let him drink right away too. It will keep him oxygenated and eucapnic at all times, regulate pH and maintain BGL and administer eugeroics when needed, so that the soldier can run in full ruck for MILES without needing a break. If robots can go without rest but are too stupid and inflexible to replace grunts, we will get the best of both worlds. And when the soldier eventually dies get injured the suit will automatically perform life saving functions and immediately administer fentanyl and such, to the point that the soldier might not become immediately combat ineffective after injury. This won't replace corpsman or medics, as what paramedics do had too much nuance to explain here, but it will be like an AED on roids

>>35100787
You left out sound; existing systems such as ShotSpotter could easily be integrated into a soldier's C4I suite.

>>35100860
Never even heard of this one.
264 usa
Ar12?
Anyone got a pic of an ar12?

>>35100752
>May even be scaled down for tank-based applications

Considering that the US Army is already studying the ability to make the M109A7 into a railgun platform so it can perform indirect and anti-aircraft missions, I think that's pretty possible.

>>35100752
>SR-72

Not gonna fucking happen. Why is this always in these "future war" posts?

Give me one reason to have an expensive as fuck recon plane when we have satellites.

>>35105897
The problem with says is that they are limited by resolution and by their orbits. A plane can just straight go wherever the fuck you need pictures taken

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http://soldiersystems.net/2017/09/08/elbit-systems-unveils-smartrack-a-situational-awareness-system-for-dismounted-forces-in-gps-denied-environments/

>>35105897

China is pouring lots of resources in to getting A-SAT missiles working well enough to knock down any potential enemies satellites including the US.

In wargames one of the first things China is expected to do kill as many US satellites as possible to mess up communications, GPS, etc.

God, I feel like a kid on Christmas.

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http://www.defensenews.com/land/2017/09/08/bell-helicopter-within-days-of-first-ground-runs-for-v-280-valor/