[HN Gopher] Royal Marines Testing Out Jet Suits [video]
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Royal Marines Testing Out Jet Suits [video]
Author : daniellenewnham
Score : 127 points
Date : 2021-05-10 13:57 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.youtube.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.youtube.com)
| jimsmart wrote:
| Gravity Industries official website
|
| https://gravity.co
|
| -- They regularly post on FB also
|
| https://www.facebook.com/takeongravity
| dmix wrote:
| I thought I saw these before.
|
| Getting s trial deal with Royal Marines is a good get.
| umvi wrote:
| Seems like these would be great for pirates (and other nefarious
| uses like smuggling, etc.) as well. Any technology that can be
| used by "good guys" can also be used by "bad guys".
| dharmab wrote:
| If you can afford this (and the extensive training offered by
| Gravity required to use it without killing yourself) you can
| afford to not be a pirate.
| nielsbot wrote:
| Or maybe you're a poor pirate who stole one.
| exdsq wrote:
| And then took the training. It's like the SAS and their
| first jump - they lost half the group.
| palijer wrote:
| It wasn't really lack of jump training that killed the
| men in Operation Squatter, it was one of the planes
| getting shot down with 15 men in it, and then fighting
| the enemy.
| bostonsre wrote:
| I wonder how quickly one would sink in one of those things.
| Definitely does not look like it would be easy to swim in.
| jackfrodo wrote:
| Good point. I would imagine/hope there's some kind of
| compressed air device that would inflate upon impact with
| water.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| This reminds me of an old WWI video where the troops are still
| coming to grips with the technology. It will be interesting to
| see how things evolve in the future.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I'd be very surprised if low flying, high velocity anti-ship
| missiles don't make this sort of moot for most cases. Modern
| militaries seem to be playing a dumb game right now where they
| aren't acknowledging the absolute horror of modern missile
| systems, and pretending these sorts of WWII style ship to ship
| battles might happen between one-another.
| djrogers wrote:
| > Modern militaries seem to be playing a dumb game right now
| where they aren't acknowledging the absolute horror of modern
| missile systems
|
| CIWS has been a thing for decades, and had progressed from
| auto cannons to lasers in the past ~5 years.
|
| This demonstration has nothing to do with ship-to-ship
| battles, and everything to do with improving options for
| boarding parties (which can be used against more than
| warships).
| bencollier49 wrote:
| "Good for you! Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today!"
| dmix wrote:
| Underrated movie. I just rewatched it last week and it was much
| more well done than I remember. Maybe because I'm watching as
| an adult, not a teen.
| moepstar wrote:
| Ok, that's on my Amazon Wishlist now...
|
| With that out of the way - could this be one of the devices that
| have been used/spotted at high altitudes by plane pilots?
| neither_color wrote:
| The lateral/transversal movements could resemble UFO
| descriptions, but that those altitude you'd probably need a
| whole life support system to keep the pilot alive.
| e12e wrote:
| I think it's unlikely - the company/team behind this tech
| appear to quite serious, with multiple government contracts in
| the works, and a focus on safety. I'd be very surprised if they
| were buzzing commercial aircraft on the US west coast. unless
| of course they've exported a few suits for testing by some
| crazy US black Ops private contractors... but again I think
| it's unlikely.
| darod wrote:
| Can someone explain the use case? Is it just to help soldiers
| board an aircraft quickly? With innovations in drone technology,
| I'd imagine it'd be more ideal to engage with the enemy with an
| autonomous or remote controlled drone. This would avoid putting a
| soldier flying's life in danger but maybe I'm missing something.
| dharmab wrote:
| Honestly? This is mostly PR for Gravity and the Royal Navy.
| Gravity gets to look cool to investors and the Navy looks cool
| to recruits.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > With innovations in drone technology, I'd imagine it'd be
| more ideal to engage with the enemy with an autonomous or
| remote controlled drone.
|
| The enemy are likely _inside_ the ship. So you would need to
| board and then go into the ship and fight. I can 't imagine a
| drone being able to do that soon.
| megablast wrote:
| And what dies the drone do then?? Threaten to explode unless
| they stop the ship?? Take over the controls??
| T-A wrote:
| You want to board a ship at sea for inspection. Currently, you
| either abseil from a hovering helicopter or drive up to the
| ship's side with a patrol boat and scale a rope ladder
| courteously provided by the ship's crew. Both approaches put
| your vehicle and everybody on it at risk: one RPG hit and
| you're out of business. Having smaller, faster targets approach
| independently, optionally from multiple directions at once, is
| obviously better.
| vkou wrote:
| Unless you are making a habit of inspecting ships that like
| to surprise you with RPGs fire (And what exactly is their
| plan _after_ firing that RPG at an inspection crew sent by an
| incredibly heavily armed warship?), this thing will need an
| _incredibly_ low accident /crash/technical defect/user error
| rate in order to be a net positive for adoption.
|
| Also, if you are boarding the kind of vessel that makes a
| habit of surprising naval inspectors with incredibly lethal
| application of medium-arms fire, what stops them from
| shooting you while you float in... Or are screwing around
| with getting your gear off after you land.
|
| This seems like a fun toy which is only useful in situations
| when nobody's looking to pick a fight with you.
| adolph wrote:
| Certainly the technology needs maturing but one might
| imagine that other elements could provide
| overwatch/supporting fire while the boarding party
| maneuvers. Additionally, while the video shows relatively
| long flights actual use might only replace the ladder or
| fastrope portion of boarding.
| vkou wrote:
| Does this sort of thing happen frequently enough in
| peacetime to even warrant a contract to build this?
| Again, see my question about "Who in their right mind
| opens fire on an inspection crew sent by a warship?"
|
| And during wartime, I don't see this being at all useful.
| This isn't the eighteenth century, warships no longer
| perform boarding actions against opponents that are going
| to shoot back.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Its already built. You can buy one retail:
| https://gravity.co/
|
| But yes, not really sure of the real world application of
| this in a military situation. It seems all you can do is
| fly, any effort to manipulate a weapon wearing these
| things seems like it would go poorly.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > You can buy one retail
|
| Best I can tell from the website, you can commission one
| via a "contact us with your enquiry" form but you can't
| buy one retail as such. Which is a shame because they
| look like fun.
| soneil wrote:
| We're over 10 years into dealing with piracy in & around
| the gulf of Aden. Boarding ships happens more in
| peacetime than wartime.
| megablast wrote:
| Yes. They are not perfect. Congratulations on pointing that
| out. Now evaluate all the alternatives under your perfect
| lens.
| cm2187 wrote:
| Also in this heavy fire environment, my first choice
| wouldn't be to send a slow moving guy covered with fuel
| tanks.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Walls are often a key defence against attack.
|
| These make wall defences irrelevant.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| This sure puts egg on the Trump administration's face.
| Gabriel_Martin wrote:
| I mean ladders already existed
| veddox wrote:
| We have had helicopters for a while...
| 1cvmask wrote:
| James Bond comes to life. Goldfinger was ahead of its time.
|
| https://www.bondsuits.com/007-coolest-james-bond-suit-moment...
| user-the-name wrote:
| I can not comprehend the mindset that would let someone work for
| years on building something, and then go, "I know what I want
| this to be used for: Murder!"
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| You know most of SV was built on military tech requirements and
| its not "murder" if its a navy assaulting an enemy ship.
| user-the-name wrote:
| Only in the strictest legal sense. It still involves
| intentionally killing human beings.
| wedn3sday wrote:
| Is pulling the lever in a Trolley Problem murder? Is the
| navy sniper who killed the pirate captain who was holding
| hostages at gun point a murderer? Seams like you're taking
| a moral absoluist stance in a very morally grey world, and
| remember "only sith deal in absolutes."
| user-the-name wrote:
| Star Wars is not a very good basis for a moral argument.
| Veen wrote:
| Nor is naivete. There are bad people in the world. That's
| a brute fact you have to account for in your moral
| reckoning. If you take the purist "no violence" stance,
| you're abandoning victims to their fate so you can remain
| pure. That doesn't seem moral to me.
| BiosElement wrote:
| You consider a transportation device "murder"? Interesting,
| seeing as it also can be used to do the opposite:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtvCnZqZnxc
| user-the-name wrote:
| No, I am calling what armies and navies do "murder", as they
| kill people.
| Grakel wrote:
| The US Navy is the largest peace keeping and rescue
| organization in the world. Just one aircraft carrier is a
| disaster response super hero, complete with a hospital,
| food, clean water, and tents.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Sometimes 'murder' is justified, like when you're
| protecting civilians against pirates. That's the main use-
| case I see here. Nobody in their right mind would send
| these guys against an armed vessel.
| adventured wrote:
| Killing and murdering can be two different things, which is
| why we have separate words for the actions. You're
| conflating the two things as though they're always the
| same.
|
| To kill is not inherently to murder. Typically from a legal
| and moral perspective killing someone in self-defense is
| not murder, for example.
| ArnoVW wrote:
| Without making any statement of adherence from my part (on your
| perspective, or any of the below), I'll give you some possible
| alternative perspectives I can think of: -
| "this way I can help our guys protect innocent civilians"
| - "I need to sell this to to develop my baby (which I'm sure
| will ultimately benefit humanity); I'd prefer to sell this to
| Indian orphanages, too bad they have no budget or use for this"
|
| As a anside, the product has already been sold to Argentinian
| mountaineering search-and-rescue teams.
|
| To get an idea of the motivations or people in the Army, I can
| recommend "why I chose a gun", a 15 minute TED talk by a Dutch
| army officer that explains his reasoning.
| https://www.ted.com/talks/peter_van_uhm_why_i_chose_a_gun/tr...
|
| Or to give some historical perspective: Christiaan Huygens
| developed clocks for (military) naval navigation. Not because
| he was the type of gung-ho "let's kick some French ass" type of
| guy. In fact, he collaborated scientifically with French and
| English, being Dutch, even when for example France was at war
| with Holland. He just wanted to Make Something People Love
| (tm). And at the time, the only one able to foot that sort of
| R&D bill was the state. If the state had not invested huge sums
| like that, it's not at all obvious that he would have been able
| to perform his work.
| user-the-name wrote:
| If I am given the choice of making something which I will
| enjoy making, but that will be used to kill a single human
| being, and not making it, I will choose not making it every
| single time.
| armagon wrote:
| That was an excellent TedX talk. Thank you for sharing it.
| mam3 wrote:
| It's called "defense" for a reason. No strong society can exist
| without a public force.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Most of them don't think of it as murder, but (at worst) a
| dirty job that someone has to do.. and many of them think of
| themselves as performing a selfless service to their country.
| For others it's just a job, the family business, or a way out
| of a desperate situation.
|
| Of course, as with any job with the power of life and death
| over others, there'll be some sadists who enjoy hurting or
| killing, sociopaths who care about nothing but themselves, and
| those who just want power. For others it's just a fun and
| exciting adventure (or so they expect before they experience
| it).
|
| Being in an actual war and witnessing and/or participating in
| real-life violence up-close sometimes leads to massive guilt,
| PTSD, and disillusionment.. but others remain true believers
| their whole life.
|
| Those who've never participated in combat (or at least not at
| close range) nor witnessed the long-term devastating impact of
| war on its victims are some of the truest believers of all.
| spike021 wrote:
| You're probably missing the fact that there are clear scenarios
| this could be used for where for one thing murder isn't the
| priority, and for another it may not be malevolent either.
|
| i.e.
|
| * Somali (or similar) pirates hijack a freight vessel and are
| potentially holding crew hostage. So there needs to be a quick
| way to render aid/help with extraction.
|
| * As someone else up-thread mentioned, this can also be used to
| aid in SAR missions, such as in mountainous terrain.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| What do you think should be done when someone hijacks a ship
| and crew and starts threatening to kill them?
|
| I don't understand pacifists - are people willing to literally
| just lie down and be killed and let others be killed and do
| nothing and prepare to do nothing?
| seryoiupfurds wrote:
| If we simply disband the imperialist military-industrial
| complex, those people will no longer be tragically forced
| into a life of violence and we will all sing Kumbaya.
| neither_color wrote:
| The way it's demonstrated in this video looks geared towards
| search and rescue, anti-piracy, hostage situations, etc.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Out of curiosity, why did these jet suits not exist until now?
| Why not a few decades ago? What (recent) technological
| advancement(s) has only now made them possible?
|
| My first guess is improvements in batteries?
| dmix wrote:
| They provide a company history on the site why:
|
| https://gravity.co/inside-gravity/history
| slavik81 wrote:
| There have been jetpacks for decades, but historically, landing
| softly was difficult. Lots of broken legs. They had limited
| flight time and many injuries.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Those would more accurately be described as "rocket packs".
| traverseda wrote:
| Surely if you're hauling around all that fuel adding a small
| jet with an alternator can't be that difficult?
|
| Sometimes things just take a while. We could have had
| inexpensive desktop 3D printers decades ago.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| I'm sorely disappointed that thus far, 3d printing hasn't
| been the commercial revolution that was hoped for. It was,
| and remains, little more than a hobbyists toy with little
| benefit to the general public. The manufacturing side of
| things may have found uses for 3d printing, but i'm doubtful
| if even that is the case.
| tpmx wrote:
| FDM 3d printing was invented in 1989. The patent expired in
| 2009.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._Scott_Crump
| opwieurposiu wrote:
| Microturbines for the radio control aircraft market. These are
| single stage centrifugal turbines with relatively low
| efficiency but high power to weight.
|
| https://minijets.org/en/0-100
| holoduke wrote:
| Is this a jet powered engine or electric ducked fans? Cannot find
| it.
| bserge wrote:
| Zero chance it's electric.
| harveywi wrote:
| There are ducked fans. During flight, the pilot adjusts the
| canards to adjust angle of aquack.
| scrumper wrote:
| These suits (Gravity Jetsuits) were on sale in Selfridges in
| London for 340,000 GBP a few years ago. I had no idea they were
| so far out of the prototype stage. Astonishing. There's a racing
| series, you can book experience flights in them (if you don't
| have half a million dollars for your own), and now apparently you
| can also fight pirates.
| mooktakim wrote:
| It might be better to have a chair you sit on and use a joystick
| to maneuver instead of your arms. Let software manage the flight
| and stabilisation.
| bserge wrote:
| You could surround that chair with some armor. Maybe add a few
| guns and a bigger fuel tank, too. Add a more efficient air
| propulsion system like some sort of propeller and a bigger
| engine at that point for maximum performance.
|
| Just joking heh, I actually think it would be better to make it
| autonomous or remote controlled. I don't see why a drone can't
| drop on the ship and set up a ladder in a similar manner, while
| being lighter.
| bigtones wrote:
| If you fall in the water strapped into a chair you will drown.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| You'd drown strapped into the shown equipment too. Getting
| out of a chair is probably easier.
| kylegordon wrote:
| Given that they primarily fly over water for safety and how
| quickly he can remove his hands from the arm mounted units,
| I think it would be remiss of them not to have considered a
| quick release mechanism for the rest of the suit.
| cs702 wrote:
| The closest thing I've seen yet to a flying Iron Man suit, in
| real life.
|
| The video shows royal marines flying off moving boats, and
| landing on other moving boats, in open water.
|
| Amazing.
| cryptonector wrote:
| That's pretty cool, but the serviceperson doing the boarding has
| both hands fully occupied and might get shot at with no way to
| fire back.
| dharmab wrote:
| Usually you would have someone else on a boat or helicopter
| with a gun to cover the boarders.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| ... When a warship is sending a party to board you, shooting at
| them is a very good way of ending up sunk.
|
| People have a very wrong idea of the situation where this would
| be used. The warship that sends the boarding party is going to
| have an overwhelming firepower advantage over anything they
| intend to board. They could sink the ship and kill everyone on
| board in less than a minute if they wanted to. The point is, in
| peacetime that's not a line they are going to cross unless the
| idiots start shooting first. A lot of the job of navies is
| basically acting as the sea cops, harassing wayward freighters
| and fishing ships into obeying whatever laws they are currently
| breaking. It's quite common for, say, Chinese ships to just try
| and leave fast enough that it's impossible to board them,
| trusting that the Naval vessel accosting them is not willing to
| start a shooting war. This adds another option for boarding
| such vessels.
| FredPret wrote:
| Unless the pirate ship has hostages on board, then you might
| have to board it while shooting. Not a job I envy
| ModernMech wrote:
| What about shoulder-mounted autonomous weapons?
| sideshowb wrote:
| Alternatively a remote pilot
| djrogers wrote:
| The same is true for a marine climbing a boarding ladder, net,
| or rope, or fast roping down from a helicopter (which would
| also be vulnerable to gunfire). This is an alternative to some
| of those options.
| simonh wrote:
| Exactly, this is an option for covert entry, or access to a
| location hard to reach any other way. If someone is shooting
| at you during infiltration, something has already gone
| horribly wrong and the whole thing is blown anyway.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Nothing about this is covert. The jetsuit is really quite
| staggeringly loud.
| genericone wrote:
| Are there jets on the backpack as well? As a lightweight person
| doing ring workouts, I can already tell you that just holding
| yourself upright is tough for most people to start with. Heavier
| people have a way harder time on rings, so I'm imagining holding
| the fuel and equipment while doing a dynamic ring workout, and I
| can't imagine doing it without a jet on the backpack, always
| gimbaled downwards.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yes there is.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Most of the thrust is indeed coming from jets on the backpack.
| As far as I can tell, the hand thrusters are used mostly for
| balance. So like leaning forward a bit while standing and
| supporting yourself by grabbing a railing.
| gooseyard wrote:
| my first thought was that this seems like the sort of thing
| that looks like it would be incredibly fun until my arms tired
| and went limp after gaining some altitude and I plummeted to my
| death. Now a jetpack exoskeleton on the other hand...
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| as also seen previously on Verge article:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27059616
| daniellenewnham wrote:
| More about the inventor/founder's story here - we discuss his
| background, his time in the Marines and why he built the jet pack
|
| https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/richard-browning/id155...
| foxyv wrote:
| So, they have mastered jet arms, now they just need gun legs!
| nielsbot wrote:
| Ever play Downwell? The character flies and shoots using
| gunboots: https://downwellgame.com
| kleiba wrote:
| If that's not the coolest thing you've ever seen, I don't know
| what is...
| [deleted]
| sgt101 wrote:
| How many drones armed with a munition that could sink a power
| boat does the Royal Navy now field?
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtvCnZqZnxc
|
| Same device being using in a training exercise by a civilian
| mountain rescue team in the UK.
| Someone1234 wrote:
| I suppose it could be useful, but not being able to evacuate
| someone certainly limits what it can do. In the video they
| still needed a helicopter for the actual _rescue_ part.
|
| For search drones are cheaper, scale better, and are safer for
| mountain rescue staff. This may make sense for whatever cross-
| section exists for remote mobile first aid where a helicopter
| is unavailable, and you roughly know where they are (due to
| limited fuel and the risk of the jetpack itself getting
| stranded).
|
| If it can be expanded to hold two people this could be
| incredible for rescue.
| dharmab wrote:
| It is very common for SAR to send EMTs in on foot to start
| initial stabilization and lifesaving procedures before a
| helicopter or ambulance is able to arrive. Check out these
| old SAR reports- they're mostly on-foot, not by ambulance.
| https://www.nps.gov/zion/blogs/sarblog.htm
|
| You wouldn't use this for evac- you wouldn't be able to
| stabilize a neck or spine with this.
| kylegordon wrote:
| I believe it's being targeted at rapid medical response.
|
| In the same way paramedics arrive on a motorbike or in a car,
| prior to the ambulance and subsequent patient transport.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Very cool. But I can't help thinking they would be siting ducks
| if there was armed resistance on that vessel...
| jessriedel wrote:
| Besides what others have said (this has to be compared to next-
| best options, fire suppression can come from someone besides
| the jetpack flyer), it would be possible to mount a gun firing
| over the shoulder/head that would be controlled by head
| movement, rather than hand movement. This is already done in
| Apache helicopters, which allows the pilot to fire on targets
| while leaving his hands free to fly the aircraft.
|
| > One of the revolutionary features of the Apache was its
| helmet mounted display, the Integrated Helmet and Display
| Sighting System (IHADSS);[51][52] among its capabilities,
| either the pilot or gunner can slave the helicopter's 30 mm
| automatic M230 Chain Gun to their helmet, making the gun track
| head movements to point where they look.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_AH-64_Apache#Avionics_a...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMQp6o0Hm7o
|
| I have heard it described as "like having guns firing out of
| your eyeballs".
| thedrbrian wrote:
| And it would weigh a hell of a lot more than the safety
| margin on the "jet pack"
| jessriedel wrote:
| To be clear, I'm not talking about putting the gun from the
| Apache on the jetpack, just the helmet and a small arm
| (e.g., something with a caliber like a handgun). You could
| be right that that would weigh too much, but that's not at
| all clear to me.
| lallysingh wrote:
| From the video the lander was already carrying a pistol.
| plouffy wrote:
| Not to mention that the recoil would be very difficult to
| control.
| jessriedel wrote:
| Do you think handgun recoil would be hard to control? Not
| clear to me.
| praveenperera wrote:
| Not if they had a remotely controlled turret attached as well!
| TheAdamAndChe wrote:
| Shooting a moving target is actually extremely difficult,
| especially if you are using a rifle instead of a shotgun. You
| can also see one of the soldiers drawing and aiming a handgun
| after landing, so they aren't completely without firepower.
| Chances are good that they could also strap a bullpup rifle or
| subcompact machine gun on their chest during flight.
|
| Also if significant resistance is expected, there are always
| torpedoes.
| hervature wrote:
| A moving target only gets bigger if it is moving directly
| towards you. At some point, the jetpack has to start moving
| towards a landing.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Shooting a target that moves at a constant speed isn't hard
| even with a rifle, at least not at these ranges.
|
| A more interesting use for these would be if they can be used
| as an arrested landing system for arial insertion at that
| point you essentially get drop troopers.
|
| This is a nice proof of concept but i doubt this would go
| through a sufficient risk reduction to be useful in an actual
| combat situation anytime soon.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| I think you need to compare it to the existing alternatives
| when boarding which are essentially a boat + ladder (fixed or
| grapple style) or a very large helicopter hovering above a
| static limited location (e.g a wide open space away from
| wires). Once people starting going down the rope, the helo is
| pretty much committed (albeit with covering fire most likely).
| Whatever happens, usually that process only then gets you on
| one place, e.g one level. Smarter defenders often make that
| harder for people assaulting - locating sentries, using barbed
| wire to block those places etc. You then have to fight, often
| through openish ground until you get to the first breaching
| points on that same level. Everyone is usually coming from the
| one location, for example where the ladder or helo rope is and
| doing it one by one. So it might take 30-60 seconds at least to
| get everyone onto the ship.
|
| It would be much quicker to board and harder to defend if an
| assault team could land basically anywhere on the ship
| simultaneously. All of a sudden you have people assaulting from
| front, rear, sides, top and then downwards etc etc. You are
| suddenly trying to defend from 10 different assaulting
| positions. Plus the noise and signature of the jet packs will
| probably be lower than that of a helicopter, so a chance for
| more surprise. Anywhere with a small enough gap for the jet
| pack to land.
|
| I assume also in future they will make the transition to
| fighting a lot faster, such as some kind of quick release
| mechanism to drop the jetpack stuff off you and get into the
| fight.
|
| Also another side benefit is that you can use your jetpack to
| get back off the ship. That might not be the case if it's too
| tricky for the helo or assault boat to recover you.
| arethuza wrote:
| There already seems to be some kind of quick release
| mechanism - they can attach the arm mounted components to the
| backpack pretty quickly - you can see it when the chap with
| the ladder lands at about 2 mins into the video.
| TMWNN wrote:
| >It would be much quicker to board and harder to defend if an
| assault team could land basically anywhere on the ship
| simultaneously. All of a sudden you have people assaulting
| from front, rear, sides, top and then downwards etc etc.
|
| Yes; see 3:45, when three people in jetsuits arrive at once.
|
| In a situation where boarding is urgent, each additional
| arrival increases the chance that someone will succeed in
| getting a ladder down.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| The existing alternative is to fast rope off a helicopter.
| Jetpacks afford you the ability to land in multiple locations
| but guys in the air are going to be very vulnerable without
| the helicopter crew to cover them.
|
| Other than being cheaper than a helicopter I don't see how
| this changes much if the defense is at least semi-competent.
| fredophile wrote:
| A helicopter being stationary enough for people to fast
| rope out of it is also vulnerable. I don't see why they
| couldn't still have the helicopter providing fire support
| while they approach with the jetpacks.
| mgolawala wrote:
| Also imagine a boarding like this occurring at night.
| Sure night vision goggles are ubiquitous at this point,
| but it is still going to be a smaller/stealthier approach
| compared to a helicopter.
|
| Also boardings can be done safely in far more situations,
| much further out to sea. You can carry a few of these on
| pretty much any patrol boat, a helicopter needs a take
| off/landing site and has an operating distance.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Sometimes being smaller and more manoeuvrable is better
| than being better protected but larger and less
| manoeuvrable.
| Mauricebranagh wrote:
| I assume this is for stealthy / assaults eg pop up at the last
| minute where you also have other assets that can suppress the
| target.
|
| And assaulting via a small boat is going to be a larger target
| and slower and harder
| _joel wrote:
| This is intended for situations where you'd be rapelling down
| from a helicopter, so it's no different, in fact possibly
| safer. During these boarding events there will be a lot of
| other munitions pointed at the vessel in target.
| JabavuAdams wrote:
| Considering how many times Boba Fett or his ancestors got killed
| by one shot or hit to the jetpack ...
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