If BattleArmor is Infantry

[Goose]

Every once in a while, I wonder if battlesuits can look up …

Please Pontificate™

[Daryk]

EVERYONE should look up now and then.

[idea weenie]

Secondary cameras on the top of the helmet, with smaller displays above the main overlay?  So when the wearer tilts their head far enough back the internal display removes the stuff at the top of the HUD and replaces it with what the higher cameras see.

I.e. a normal usage HUD might be:
- Top row of data (i.e. compass, armor status)
- Main data (i.e. enemies, ranges, terrain in front)
- Bottom row of data (information about the ground you are stepping on, ammo count?)

But when the wearer tilts their head back far enough, the top and middle of the display swap:
- Main data (i.e. enemies, ranges, terrain in front)
- Top row of data (i.e. compass, armor status)
- Bottom row of data (information about the ground you are stepping on, ammo count?)

In the case a Battle Armor's head won't rotate back far enough, the internal layout of the helmet is where the change is made.  Of course the wearer's head still has to be protected/padded frfom impacts so that will be a fun bit of engineering.


A second option is a relatively cheap suit that the wearer can turn their head left and right, move their eyes up and down, but has to roll onto their side in order to look up (i.e. they lie on their left side and turn their head to look to the right).


A third option is they have a video feed from their gun or some other sensor and use that to look with.



Of course this can vary from design to design.  Essentially the less armor there is protecting the neck of the Battlearmor, the more flexible it will be and the more likely the wearer can just look up.  Aka whatever TPTB or the writer decides.

[AlphaMirage]

I think cameras are likely the answer. I am sure that engineering enough flexibility into a suit so it can belly crawl would be extremely difficult. Battle Armor probably has four main components (helmet, upper body, lower body, pack) linked by couplings but each is probably pretty stiff as you have a built in myomer actuated exoskeleton providing support and strength. Enough flexibility to do some relatively simple CQB if necessary and aim your weapons but more likely engineered to withstand jump jet, recoil from your weapons, and impacts from hostile fire without killing their operator. Maybe PA(L)s could be flexible enough to do that if well designed but I think hugging the ground is a quadruped specialty.

[DevianID]

Since BA have 360 situational awareness/firing arcs, they must be flexible enough to do this at the very least.  Also, they fight into and from buildings and versus mechs which are taller then them, so even standing they must be flexible enough to aim up at the mech in close contact to shoot it.  They may do a mix of glance up and arch the back to bring those body mounted weapons into arc.

[Calimehter]

I voted "no", but mostly because I don't think most BA suits will have the neck flexibility that normal infantry will have or "look up" in the same way that belly-crawling infantry will. Instead I think it will be a lot more like Mechs (i.e. a limited tilt-back combined with some sensor feedback of some kind on a HUD).

YMMV with different suits, of course.  A Kanazuchi suit is going to work this out a bit differently than a PAL suit will.