Supposely Heinlein thought very highly of Forever War, calling it “one of the best”.
Definitely too cool. I wonder how they will make a new engine thats twice as powerful but half the size. I wouldn’t want to take the prototype into combat though…the thought of having gasoline and an internal combustion engine strapped to my back leaves me a bit cold. The fuel cell approach sounds promissing though. And this is the early stages. Maybe powered armor (or at power assisted combat troops) ISN’T so far fetched after all. 
Spoilers for Forever War to follow
I have to admit I enjoyed the book, but I was puzzled why the Earth went down hill so fast. WHY was there a population explosion? Why was there such lawlessness world wide? Why was there an energy crisis to a people who had star travel?? They could move between the stars for gods sake…moving around the solar system, with its vast natural resources was childs play. Not to mention that they could move to other star systems, with its immense natural resources. I enjoyed the relativity stuff with the soldiers aging only a bit and the people back on earth aging a lot. Thats something missing from a lot of SciFi IMO. But other parts of the story just puzzled me. Why would people go back to subsistance farming, and this be the most effective??? Its totally insane. It makes zero sense. Its like the author is describing two different races or something…the star faring race and the planet bound race. Why would they use zepplines for gods sake? They can go to the stars, but they use old style zepplines?? There were a lot of puzzling things to me.
-XT
I was going to mention this. The soldierboys used by the military in the book are exactly what some people in the thread have suggested: an armored robotic combatant remotely piloted via VR by a trained human “soldier.” Much more plausible than having an actual person strap a nuclear reactor to his back.
Im surprised that no one has mentioned Masumune Shirow’s Appleseed. There’s an amazing example of exoskeletons and combat armour that’s very well thought out. Primary use is urban warfare. More flexibility than a tank seems to be the main theme.
Damnit, rabbit, you beat me to it!
I’ve always loved the idea of powered armour, from Starship Troopers and Armor all the way up through Warhammer 40,000 and Bubblegum Crisis.
Appleseed is, IMHO, one of the more realistic depictions of the genre, owing to Shirow’s Tom Clancy-esque attention to detail.
The “Landmates,” as they are called, are large, but suitably agile. They work not by fitting over the body like a suit (as Rico describes the suits in Starship Troopers), but rather by having the operator encased in the middle body and amplifying and mimicking his movements with the mechanical joints.
Like xtisme pondered, the big problem in the practicality is just how good is this armoured fellow compared to his alternatives? Heavily armoured combat vehicles are virtually invulnerable to small arms fire and some can shrug off hits from all but the most advanced man-portable heavy weapons. The much-ballyhooed M1A1 served well in the first Gulf War against enemy tanks because it could survive hits from other vehicle-mounted weapons, much larger than those a human (even armoured) could carry.
I submit to you that, like the current research for a powered leg exoskeleton, the first and best applications are likely to be civilian; they will probably be best realized in the areas of law enforcement, construction, and search & rescue.
Policemen trained in the use of a heavily armoured suit would more than a match for any number of typical bad guys. Where the LAPD had a armoured car to facilitate resolution of shoot-outs and armed hostage situations, you could have an officer who need not fear being shot by anything short of really really illegal guns, and who could easily restrain any suspect smaller than an escaped 800 pound gorilla.*
Construction workers could lift much heavier loads than normal. Sure, you might manage something similar with careful planning, a team of labourers, and a couple of forklifts, but there’d be less back problems to worry about. Plus, imagine all the potential for built-in tools: arc welders, nail guns, and pneumatic hammers just to name a few.
I also like the possibilities for firemen. An armoured firefighter could carry large tanks of retardant foam on his back into a blaze where it would be unsafe or impossible for others to follow.
Who knows? We’ll have to see where this leads.
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- In Starship Troopers, Rico compares a suited MI trooper to a big steel gorilla, but assures the reader that if a gorilla and a Mobile Infantryman were to swap hugs, the gorilla would get the short end of the stick.