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Gunship Tech Talk: Survival on the Battlefield of a Psychroplanet 11/1/2013 4:05:25 AM
The next in the Gunship Tech Talk series is here! In the book Gunship, the Inter Stellar Units require members of our future military to be ready for anything. This includes living in extreme environments where daily survival means not just defending against the enemy but beating the elements as well. In this edition of Gunship Tech Talk, we’ll take a look at what it takes to fight in the subzero temperatures of an ice planet.
When Reilly and crew catch orders back to the frozen hell that is Fire Base Rime it’s obvious that they are less than excited and here’s one reason why: psychroplanets have a temperature range of zero to 50 degrees Celsius so pretty cold but definitely not the coldest planets in existence. In order to not just survive but still be able to fight off enemy hoards, maintenance of people and machines is critical. If Reilly and crew got these orders today they’d probably start by turning to the special operations community for some cool high tech gear to keep warm.
The Layer 7 Protective Clothing Uniform is the latest evolution in protective clothing designed to allow U.S. special operations teams to survive in temperatures as low as negative 50 degrees below. This lightweight camouflage snowgear can be rolled up into baseball sized packable units, saving operators precious space and weight in their packs. Special mission units like the Navy Seals and Air Force Parajumpers will be able to stay warmer in the thin air and low temperatures found in places like the Hindu Kush Mountain Range of Afghanistan.
Dealing with altitude is another challenge. If you rapidly deploy a soldier to a high altitude environment you will immediately notice that their ability to perform simple tasks is decreased and in some cases they will be subject to altitude sickness, requiring them to be medevac’d to a lower altitude and treated. The good news is that these effects can be mitigated by preparing the soldier in advance by having them progressively climb to higher altitudes and spend time there to acclimate or by choosing stopping point enroute to extreme altitudes to allow the body time to acclimate. But if you are on a time crunch and you have to catch air or space travel to get to your target you may have to look at some time saving alternatives. Hypoxic training gear, chambers, and masks can all be used to get your body used to less oxygen while performing at a higher level. Respirator masks that protect your face from freezing and load bearing equipment that helps take the load off or lifts the load for you can also be a big help.
Advanced Combat Exoskeletons are the next evolutionary step for the modern soldier. Much like Iron Man’s suit, these advanced frameworks help prevent injury and relieve the weight from the human frame allowing for more effective movement and require less energy. Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) is the latest and most talked about version of combat exoskeleton undergoing testing by Special Operations Command (SOCOM). The enhanced mobility and protective technologies onboard will provide the wearer with combat armor, health monitors, communications systems, a variety of high tech sensors and onboard integrated weapon systems. To make sure the exoskeleton stays light, SOCOM is also testing out liquid body armor made from magnetorheological fluid that can transition from a fluid to a solid in milliseconds using electricity or magnetic currents to create bullet resistant plates. The Army and MIT’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies have been working on testing out flexible panels of these fluids to develop a best solution to compliment and not overweight the combat exoskeleton, ensuring that agility and range of motion are still maintained. Who knows? Magnetorheological fluid could be the next transparent aluminum…guess we’ll have to wait and see!
If you’re going to fight in the cold, you also need to make sure that your weapons don’t freeze up – literally. At 50 below zero even the slightest bit of moisture can cause your weapon’s action to freeze solid. Every time you come into a warmer area, moisture will collect on the metal. If this isn’t wiped down (remember regular gun oils will just gum up the action in the low temps so Arctic rated oils or none at all are best) and maintained, you’ll have to deal with hand to hand combat when your weapon becomes a gunsicle! Shooting has to be done methodically. If you go full auto on a cold barrel your weapon will break or malfunction. The metal becomes very brittle at low temperatures and firing it at a high rate will cause the temperature of the barrel to increase by up to 800 degrees depending on how many rounds you put down range. The hot barrel will also steam or “fog” in very cold temperatures which of course can reveal your position. Keeping snow and ice out of today’s weapons is yet another challenge. Tape over the muzzle, wrapping parts of the gun, installing dust covers to keep snow and ice out of the ejection port and chamber are all things that need to be considered. If Reilly and crew were going into battle with today’s weapons, there would definitely be a much different ending! It’s a good thing that technology has advanced in Year 2200 to include cold resistant polymers, batteries that hold up in extreme temperatures, optics and ammo that don’t fail to work in the negative digits and of course alien technology!
Here is a quick excerpt from Gunship on the ice planets. Want more? Get your copy today from iTunes, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Vook today!
Two young sergeants walked by her, shouldering rifles and pulling on snow gear for the evening watch. Reilly didn’t envy them that job. She had stood security duty many long, cold nights on this planet, peering through the snow and ice as she paced to keep warm. At least the light was constant. The ice planets were part of a trinary solar system, so they never got completely dark. Instead, they tended to vary in shades of gray as the planet rotated. Morning was bright gray. Evening was more of a smoke gray or a stormy gray, depending on the wind and snow.
Reilly could hear the wind, even though she was underground in a bunker. It made a continuous whine that reverberated through the thick slab ceiling as she entered the gunship’s side hatch and headed up towards her room. The whine became a howl, accompanying the dread she felt towards her next task. She reluctantly tossed her gear aside and made her way over to the wall across from her bunk.
On the bookshelf sat an older log book, dirty and smudged, coated in salt from sweat and no few tears. Reilly took it down with even measures of love and hate for the memories it held. She opened it carefully and shifted through the pages and her old notes. It was all here. The first day she arrived as a young lieutenant until day 467 when a gunship finally pulled her and what was left of her team out of the frozen hell that still occupied her nightmares. The aliens had been relentless once they had figured out the gunship raiding parties had been launching from the nearby planets. Every day, sometimes multiple times in a day, her team would come under fire on patrol as they were ambushed or snipers sought to pick them off. Storm days were the worst. Visibility was less than a foot, and attacks came with very little warning. A routine patrol could go downhill fast as humans struggled to outmaneuver aliens who could see and breathe in the planet’s thin, cold atmosphere. One minute you were all walking, the next half the platoon was laid out dead, hacked to bits by alien weapons as the monsters lunged out of the snow banks to kill whoever was left.
Reilly had learned her lessons well. She had the scars to prove it. Others were not as lucky. Thirteen good men and women she lost in the first six months. Even with careful planning and all the luck in the world, if it was your time, then that was it. The battles were harsh and bloody for both sides. By the time they finally pulled out, the aliens had been forced to retreat, thanks in no small part to Commander Zain’s bold strategies. Rime was a place of bad memories for all of them. Ty had lost a full platoon to an assassin, barely surviving the encounter himself. Chang had been a sergeant then, training the troops in ground combat and leading some of the more technical mission in the field. Every day he had to watch the ranks thin, as their losses climbed when the aliens tried for a final push to gain the mountain and then the bunkers. To be back here again was like being forced into an old nightmare, except this time there were new faces. Reilly knew she would be seeing them in her dreams. She saw all of them after they died, as if they were reluctant to leave, as if they wanted an explanation for why it had to be them.
In her mind, she recalled each patrol entry. The first attack was still the worst. The sleet was driving sideways and she could barely make out the shadowy soldier trudging up the hill in front of her. Then suddenly she felt a gush of air as the white stuff billowed up in front of her, blinding her briefly. She froze, waiting for the soldier behind her to run into her. Finally, when someone did, it wasn’t the sergeant who had been following her. The silence was torturous and they didn’t dare to breathe, even though the full-face-mask re-breathers hid the sounds under the blackened rubber and goggles. The click of fire selectors being turned to burst or auto sounded like loud pops. As she turned, scanning through the sleet, a shiny object flew away from her, drawing her attention for just a second. Before she could react, the sergeant had thrown her back and jumped on the grenade at her feet. Everything turned pink, and then the aliens were on them and amongst them. The silence broke under the sounds of explosions and gunfire and screams from both sides. When it was over, they gathered up the bodies they could find and made their way back to the bunkers. And then they went back to do it again the next day and the day after that until all the attacks and deaths and fear and hate blended together into one never-ending way of life. Reilly had hated it, and more than that, she had hated that she loved it too. The rush she felt every time she survived was only matched by her hatred of the enemy and her desire to kill more of them to avenge those she had lost. It became an addiction, a vicious cycle that was impossible to break until the day they finally let them leave. Then they all had to learn how to live again. Until the next war zone or the next battle was thrust upon them.
