Asahi Tactical Armor Unit (ATAU or A2 for short) Technical
Specifications-
~------------------------------------~---------------------------------~
TAU Storage/Matience Facilities:
The TAU's Are usually maintained in a specialized powered
combination lift / maintenance rack array which weighs fully twice as much as
the TA itself and occupies three times the cubic volume. Utilizing these units, a technician can
perform routine maintenance, upgrades, or repair battlefield damage to a TAU
with relative ease. These maintenance
units were often mounted by squad (a group of five racks), generally two squads
are assigned to a single modular armored barracks building. The low, squat buildings, only a small part
of which existed above ground, are often called "mausoleums" or
"crypts" by the non-armored soldiers due not only to their design,
but also inside the suits were stored in a slightly reclining position, almost
as if they were 'dead'. Lit by various
luminescent green and red lights, the effect of visiting a funeral parlor was
only heightened.
~------------------------------------~---------------------------------~
Operation:
Entering the Asahi Tactical Armor Unit is accomplished by a
multiple segment and a split seam seal on the front. The legs and chest split
open in a clamshell-like array, allowing the user to back slowly into the suit,
insert first one leg, then the other, and finally strap into the suit.
Inserting your arms into the suit brings the suit to full online (as opposed to
both legs and torso in being a mechanic diagnostic setup level of operability).
The user sits in what is called the ‘saddle’. This was a gel and pneumatic
cushioned pelvic support for the user that cradles the center of mass and
provides the ideal position from which to operate the heavy suit. The
‘stirrups’ held the feet of the wearer, and a set of ‘chaps’ enclosed around
the thigh and shin of each leg, providing extra sensory input from the wearer
to the onboard computer. A pair of pedals is located where the user’s feet
rested, and these were used to control various degrees of motion as well as
speed and the use of the suit thrusters. Pushing one pedal down sent the suit
moving sideways rapidly in a controlled slide. Pushing the opposite pedal
stopped the motion and even sent the suit in the exact opposite direction.
Pushing both pedals down and releasing produces a limited, low-level jump
assisted by the thermal plasma enhancement system of the jump jet array.
Pushing the pedals down and holding them down produced a high altitude jump
used to cover lots of ground at once or to clear tall obstacles.
The soldier inserts their arms into special ‘sleeves’ within
the suit, which constrict to fit snugly against the arms. Both the chaps and
sleeves aid in maintaining consciousness during high-speed jump jet assisted
maneuvers as they could constrict even tighter to aid in blood pressure
management. Special sensors located at the fingertips and micro switches were
used to access various suit functions. The interface was designed to be as
intuitive as possible. The interface setup is duplicated and has an emergency
backup installed as well but the primary command interface of the ATAU relies
on simple voice commands given by the wearer.
The onboard could differentiate many short cut macros for complex
actions and the wearer could even create new macros as desired or required.
Power systems:
A self-contained super fluid reactor supplies the power for
the suit. The micro nuclear power source is fueled by one and a half liters of
processed hydrogen and deuterium in an armored environmentally controlled tank.
The Johansen style reactor is a heavy water based stellerator type reactor,
triple safety interfaces, and is incapable of ‘going critical’ or exploding like
a bomb (on Most occasions. nothing is perfect). It uses a figure 8 shaped coil
to heat hydrogen to a plasma state, and then the thermal energy is used to
generate electrical power for the suit. Damage to the containment vessel simply
purged super hot plasma and shut down the system, with a subsequent loss of
power and hydraulics. Sometimes, damage to the containment vessel vented the
plasma into the fighting compartment with expected results. There is also an
extensive battery backup and storage capacity, giving the infantryman the
ability to ‘limp’ home in an emergency, provided the home base or help wasn’t
more than twenty kilometers away and that no combat conditions would be
encountered.
Primary systems:
The strength augmentation of the suit is provided not only
by heavily filtered multi-valve compressor equipped hydraulics using fully
synthetic fluid with a very high boiling temp, but also by electronically
activated artificial myomer musculature and heavy duty reinforced servos. The
‘muscle structure’ of the ATAU works in conjunction, carefully, integrated
towards overall performance with the natural design of the human body. The
entire musculature operates through semi-logarithmic force multiplication; push
a little and you get your own strength, push a little harder, and you get
enhancement from the suit musculature. Push a lot, and the full enhancement of
the suit stepped in. An individual wearing a TA can perform some truly amazing
feats of physical strength and endurance. The suit hydraulics allowed the user
to lift twice the suit weight (about 1.5 metric tons) and to push or pull up to
twice that amount for short distances.
An ATAU equipped soldier can crush brick, stone, and even light armor
plate in their armored hand, punch through a reinforced wood or cinder block
wall, kick a hole in a lightly armored unit or tear a hatch off an armored car
and throw it a city block.
The musculature of the suit is installed in Duplicate,
allowing for a high degree of damage to be taken before a TA was rendered
immobile or paralyzed. The sub processors, four of them, operating off of the
Onboard, were stepped to route muscle functions to the first available array.
Thus if the first myomer is torn in the shoulder assembly and one torn in the
forearm assembly, the sub processors would automatically reroute the request
for movement and strength augmentation to the second myomer in the shoulder
assembly and the second myomer in the forearm assembly ((note: the duplicate
myomer set of bundles is installed as a back-up system and CANNOT be used at
the same time as it would interfere, and possibly rip the overlaying myomer
causing paralysis in the appendage, this cannot be rerouted, its just how it
works)). Battlefield repairs of myomer packs and strands is possible by the
wearer alone using tools supplied with the suit but this requires for the most
part that the user un-suit to work on the damaged components. With the
integration of Fuzzy logic programming, the ATAU is now capable of compensating
for damage nearly instantly allowing the pilot a massive combat advantage over
enemy units
Armor:
Each suit is armored with many layers of composite
materials. The interior of the suit and the wearer are protected by a layer of
micro-porous anti-bacterial / anti-spall ballistic cloth. Vital equipment was
protected with individual segmented and easily replaceable modular component
armor wrapped in a Hybrid Ballistic Weave (HBW) cast. The HBW was a very strong
material, twenty times stronger than steel on average and itself a byproduct of
the molecular engineering and study of arachnid silk. Spungrown to nearly
perfect tolerance, the HBW cast proved to offer excellent protection and
resistance from low velocity fragments, most man portable rounds, and other
battlefield debris.
A weave of dedicated radiation absorbing material (DRAM) was
added to the HBW layer for further protection from background and residual
radiation. A thin layer of modular aligned high density Polymer a 2mm thick was
the last layer of defense and was applied over all other components and shrink
fit to seal any gaps. The outer armor consisted of dedicated 2cm thick HDFC
plates, which rode on a comfortable ballistic gel sandwich. The plates were
articulated for full freedom of movement without sacrificing any individual
location armor protection.
Electronics/HUD systems:
The design of the electronics of the TA is an exercise in
ergonomics. The onboard dedicated computer is non-sentient by every means of
the word, but the individual infantryman would-be hard pressed to tell the
difference. Such was the capacity to respond to the user and provide feedback
and input that most infantry take the onboard as a ‘ghost’ in the machine.
Controlling all aspects of the TAU, receiving input from over a hundred and
seventy-five dedicated sensors, the onboard computer system is one of the most
advanced of its kind. Operating with a speed of 250Ghz, using up to six
gigabytes of ROM, and having a storage capacity of 20 Terabytes, the onboard
was proofed against EMP and battlefield environmental conditions. Its armored
housing allowed it to operate under heavy battlefield conditions including
shrapnel, shock, overpressure, heat, and stress. The onboard gave the Pilot
full data handoff for a variety of sensors and sensory input. Bondings between
the onboard and the TA operator are common. Tales of infantry with damaged
suits refusing to be issued another suit unless the old onboard was pulled and
installed into the new suit are commonplace and are the studies of several
military psychiatric reports.
The HUD of the suit is updated two hundred and fifty times a
second with information from the onboard. Targets were searched for using a
variety of sensory inputs, from visual comparison, motion table review, thermal
imaging, micro pulse radar, LADAR, unit handoff signal (varied to input), and
acoustic. Each suit is fully capable of linking to any Friendly Satellites
orbiting above for updates. Most updates were broadcast wide band protected so
a blanket effect went out to all suits operating in a given area. Targets once
identified are called up from data logs and full information on the target was
available, including any recent information or damage as noted by other units.
Updates on new units were rapidly sent to the front line units and information
spread at the highest speed on the digital battlefield.
The HUD is the portal to the battlefield for the soldier. It
provides compact yet precise and easy to use information on all current
conditions. Radiation count, direction, speed, wind speed, wind direction,
toxin count, bio toxin count, suit integrity, onboard supplies, munitions, suit
condition, user medical condition, and a host of other information. An
integrated targeting computer allows for lead calculation, projectile speed, individual
hit location targeting, and deflection. Tactical displays in both vector and
high resolution visual are available, as well as infra-red imaging, thermal
imaging, movement sensor display, micro pulse radar with selectable range bands
and an advanced communications suite with integrated IFF are all available. The
optics of the suit is liquid crystal microprocessor controlled. The special
fluid optics are configurable by the onboard to meet demand and were capable of
telescopic resolutions of 1000x2000 power, up to 1000 increments at up to 2000
power magnification with window within a window optioning. Field of view
remains constant due to microprocessor controlled and AI-defined ‘blend
rendering’. Information for the visual display was rendered based on micro
pulse feedback, and filled in from onboard data when not available. Total
resolution was 1m at 2km visual, enhanced further by any of the options such as
HRIR, thermal imaging, or tactical readouts. Voice command for the suit is
standard, but redundant control switches for the various displays were
duplicated in tactile switches located throughout the suit. Everything is set
up to be intuitive as much as possible, so that the suit became less a piece of
armor, and more like an extension of the soldier, an indispensable extension
that provided surveillance and information gathering capacity from total
concealment.
Sensors:
Sensory input and augmentation includes not only visual
redefinition of the scanned area (allowing microprocessor manipulation of
details and sensor information for razor sharp images under all conditions),
but also acoustic tracking. The enhanced acoustic sensors of the suit could
detect and identify units by the various sounds that they made. The sound of an
enemy light Tank was different in pitch and tone than a regular Tank or an APC.
Sounds detected are matched to thermal images, image overlays, true 3D models,
and a variety of other data, all in a microsecond to identify an enemy unit.
Range was determined through complex algorithms involving laser range finding,
and visual comparison through microprocessor controlled liquid optic arrays.
The liquid optic array was cryogenically cooled with the visual processor
located in the central torso, up and behind the wearer. The soldiers called the entire virtual sense
array a ‘tank’, for the first impression one got after climbing into a suit for
the first time was that they were in a fish tank looking out. Multiple arrays can be called up by voice
or auxiliary input, and stacked or resized or arranged as required by the user.
A powered high-speed motor equipped periscope style array is
located over the shoulder of the ATAU. This unit could extend a multi-sensor up
to one meter above or to the side of the suit, allowing the user to stay in
cover while looking over a hill, out of a gully, or around a corner of a
blasted building in an urban environment. It also allowed a user to look in
second story levels of buildings or stay submerged under water and maintain a
very small presence above the surface. All suit sensory input is available
through the periscope system and infantrymen quickly learn how to use this
device to their advantage. Spare periscopes are included in the armorer’s shop
at all PK service depots, and the periscope was designed to sheer off with
damage rather than absorb the damage and possibly carry damage back to the
suit. All input leads from the periscope were breakered for feedback
protection.
Jumpjets/Overthrust:
Armored screened intakes over the back of the suit sucked in
ambient air, and use part of the plasma heat exchanger to super heat this air
into over thrust usable by the battledress though dumping the superheated air
into the mixture generated a massive thermal spike readily visible on tactical
target acquisition sensors. The ceramic material of the fan blades was proof
against the high wash temp for extended periods of time but general practice
was not to use the over thrust potential unless necessary as it allowed the
enemy sensors a huge advantage when scanning for targets thermally. The
microbursts of thrust provided by the jump jet array could be applied to each
side individually, at angles, and even straight down, allowing the wearer to
generate ‘jumps’ of up to 50 meters at a time.
Most Pilots learn that short, low, quick ‘bounces’ were the way to
cross-terrain quickly. Fights between
ATAU's are often a balance between maneuvering, jumps, and sideways jumps.
Jumps are coordinated initially by the user, monitored by the onboard, and
final landing is handled by a joint effort, with the suit onboard and gyro
working to aid the wearer in ‘setting her down’. The entire wearer ‘brace’ is
mounted on shock absorbing cylinders and webbing, so that the suit took almost
all of the G-shock of landing and impact. Extensive use of ballistic gelatin
bladders, air bags, and powered restraint harnesses kept the wearer from being
thrown around during a hard landing. Damage, nearby explosions, nukes, etc. can
cause the gyro to lose its lock and the suit may ‘tumble’ in flight. The flash
of a TAU equipped soldier making a jump, even a small one, was very visible on
thermal imaging and infrared sensors (the entire suit Is braced against severe
impacts (from all directions), in order to protect against damage to the pilot)
The SLICS is a complex system of squad level LOS and
indirect networking among the high performance tactical computers. The Squad Net integrated each TAU equipped
soldier into an operational unit and doctrine solution that was greater than
the sum of its individual parts.
Utilizing SLICS, an entire squad of TAU equipped soldiers’ functions as
one greater effective unit, instead of as many lesser effective individual
units. What one soldier knew or could
see, sense, smell, detect, the entire squad knew equally well. All information from one suit or soldier was
instantly available to every other member of the squad. Hand off of munitions
is done flawlessly between individual soldiers, and with the squad dedicated
tactical drones. Entire squad level
coordination of point defense against indirect fire munitions and TAC missiles
was coordinated through each suit's microprocessors, giving instant information
to the entire squad. SLICS also worked
to integrate the EMS of the squad into one homogenous source, working to blend
the squad into the background and 'phase' it out of enemy targeting systems
reach. Suit emissions were carefully
monitored by the SLICS and individuals were electro magnetically 'bled'
selectively to match their backgrounds at a constant rate, monitored both
locally by the individual suits which 'buddy checked' each other several
hundred times a second, to the remote tactical drones which did 'removed' views
of the squad to make sure that no EMS spikes were readily visible to the
enemy. Target reference and engagement;
target spotting, and integration into the mass of data, which became the norm. The entire squad works flawlessly and
seamlessly as one mobile unit, pooling resources and operating on a squad level
instead of an individual level, as had been the case before SLICS. Efficiency goes up dramatically, as combat
losses decrease.
Primary Weapon systems available to TA Units:
-Thompson T4D 3cm Squad Support Weapon Systems (SSWS)-
Support at the squad level was provided by the big, semi-portable Thompson T4D
spread bore gel-injected pseudorecoiless mass repeater. The Thompson T4D is officially classified
as a 'support' weapon providing both area and point cover fire, but its
additional ability to easily defeat unarmored to moderately armored vehicles at
close range is legendary. T4Ds were
designed with two dedicated tactical microprocessors operating in tandem with
the tactical onboard of the suit the weapon was assigned to, in turn
coordinating joint T4D operation seamlessly into the whole of the SLICS
system. The T4D was designed to operate
in tandem with another T4D unit in order to achieve optimal field performance.
Three hot swap hardware ports are incorporated into the
design of the T4D system, with the 30% lighter and 28% deadlier T4E system, The
hot swap ports allowed additional modules and enhancement / battle packs to be
installed on the fly, or changed out as required by mission protocols. Typical packs included the C45 Barris
Enhanced Intel / Recon (BEIR) pack (same as carried by position One of the
standard squad), an ECM / ECCM blister pack which enhanced the operation of the
T4D user and the squad as a whole, and a host of other packs. A very aggressive ECM and ECCM blister pack
was introduced for use with the T4E systems (incompatible with the T4Ds due to
port and hardware configuration differences) that greatly enhanced the PLIEADS
system and the sub processed T4E network.
The cassette that fed the T4D was helical in design and
loaded along the underside of the weapon, to the rear third, holding 90
three-centimeter caliber rounds. The
3cm caliber rounds were 'caseless' in only the strictest sense of the word,
because the T4 family was operated on the Gel injection pseudo recoilless
principle using a series of computer controlled injectors to deliver a small
supply of X4HE gel propellant into the action of the weapon (the detonated
using a small electric primer), the amount is determined by several criteria;
range to target, target armor capacity, target hit location, target speed,
target facing, and direct or indirect fire mode. The tougher or farther away the target was, the more gel
propellant is required and the greater the recoil. Velocity is variable
depending on what was required and could range from an easy overhand indirect
launch / toss to an atmosphere scorching eight klicks per second. Range of the T4 family is phenomenal, almost
3000 meters at full velocity.
Ammunition was designed to be switched rapidly and up to
three helical cassettes could be stored in a rotary array, allowing the firer
to choose ammunition types on the fly.
Generally a mixture of: high explosive, high explosive anti-personnel,
and flechette anti-personnel.
