HULC teel Afganistani

[kaur3]

TAMPA, Florida — Dial down the god-awful soundtrack and try to ignore the choppy camera work, but re-watch Lockheed Martin’s promo video depicting its two-year-old Human Universal Load Carrier exoskeleton. Because inside of the year, an improved version of this combat exoskeleton could be headed to Afghanistan for combat trials. That’s right: cyborg soldiers might, might just be months away from becoming a front-line reality.

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In September the Army will take the improved exoskeleton out for field tests in the United States. If all goes well and Lockheed can get the required safety certifications, HULC will head to a deployed location for a front-line trial. (These days “deployed” almost always means Afghanistan.) That won’t leave HULC much time for testing in a combat environment, as regular U.S. forces are accelerating their withdrawal after 11 years of war.

But Special Forces are slated to remain in Afghanistan for years to come. If they adopt the exoskeletons, we could be seeing (one-sided) cyborg combat on a growing scale in the near future.

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/05 ... ghanistan/