Armor Wars

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Some of this has been covered, but I see power suits as limited in production for the following reasons:

 

1. Too expensive. Yes, tanks are pricey too, but the high tech needed for personal body armor is well beyond even that. This is also why you don't have supertanks everywhere.

2. The required materials are exceedingly rare and difficult to obtain. You simply don't have enough unobtainium in the world to build more than a couple of suits properly.

3. The suits require fine-tuning to the "pilot", so you can't easily mix and match which limits versatility, and it requires lots of pilot training. Something goes wrong and you have to overhaul the whole thing. That is putting too many eggs in one basket for the military. Alternatively, the suits are too easy to use and they don't want them being stolen by enemy soldiers or terrorists.

4. Does the army want to be responsible for one of their power suit soldiers going rogue and stealing the suit (or even getting a bad case of PTSD)? People stealing high tech and setting themselves up as supercriminals happens all the time in the comics, so you might guess that the military would be wary of giving any single soldier that kind of readily transportable firepower.

5. The inventor is a genius and the simple fact is that no one else has figured out how to do what he did, or at least as well as he did it. The inventor could have any number of reasons for not widely distributing the technology, from a concern of the technology falling into the wrong hands to simply being too busy inventing to bother with some kind of business plan to do so.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Armor Wars

 

5. The inventor is a genius and the simple fact is that no one else has figured out how to do what he did' date=' or at least as well as he did it. The inventor could have any number of reasons for not widely distributing the technology, from a concern of the technology falling into the wrong hands to simply being too busy inventing to bother with some kind of business plan to do so.[/quote']

 

Obadiah Stane: "The technology to make it work is right there! I just want you to make it smaller."

 

Hired Scientist: "That's just it, sir -- it can't be done."

 

Stane: "Tony Stark did it in a cave! Out of salvaged parts!"

 

Scientist: "Sir... I'm not Tony Stark."

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Tanker training is a few months' date=' and just about anybody can achieve it with determination and dedication. Pilot training is much more intensive and demanding and only a select few are qualified to even try, physically and mentally. Tankers are enlisted and pilots are officers. Fast track a pilot past their psych eval and you get another Ankylosaur. Fast track a tanker through and if he goes rogue the rest of the crew brings him back in line.[/quote']

 

4. Does the army want to be responsible for one of their power suit soldiers going rogue and stealing the suit (or even getting a bad case of PTSD)? People stealing high tech and setting themselves up as supercriminals happens all the time in the comics' date=' so you might guess that the military would be wary of giving any single soldier that kind of readily transportable firepower.[/quote']

 

Darn, you two beat me to the punch. This would have been my main reason for maintaining tanks over powered armor (though you can bet the military would have some of the latter as well). How many villains in the CU and comic books have gotten their battlesuits by stealing them? I can see some guns and ammo going missing from an Army base, but not too many tanks slipping through the cracks. And installing something like a remote kill switch to prevent a battlesuit theft could potentially be used by an enemy in combat, so I doubt you'd see that.

 

I'd expect psych evals for a battlesuit pilot would be even more intense than a jet pilot's evals, and those battlesuits and their pilots would be their own Special Forces unit.

[BlueCloud2k2]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Sorry Blue' date=' but I checked with the Secret Service website, and Jalkinth is 100% right about them being under homeland security, I learned something new, which is always a good thing.[/quote']

 

Well bugger. I did no know that.

[pinecone]

Re: Armor Wars

 

In the standard supers campaign' date=' anyone with only a few million dollars in disposable income could either create or hire a powersuit for his own use. In such a reality, why would the (especially the more powerful) government still use tanks that are large, cumbersome, and inefficient, especially when compared to the powersuits that could be quickly donned and transported by the infantry. I am wondering why the traditional tank is still in use in an age that has personal body suit that would be an equal to the tank in every way. The cost for both is effectively the same so that cannot be the reason and training time would actually be less for the suit so that cannot be the problem. Lets hear from Herodom assembled as for reasons why this might be the case.[/quote']

 

In my own games I go with humans often manifest a rare and thus far indetecable mutation called "Cybersensitive" without that mutation Cyberware and powersuits are as clumsy and limited as they would be without comicbook science. Primus tried power armor troops (THe "Iron Guard") and it really wasn't very good. Put the same suit on Tony Stark and zowie it's Iron man!.....

[Haerandir]

Re: Armor Wars

 

In addition to the technical and financial barriers to widespread deployment of powered armor, there are political and cultural barriers, too. Frankly, for all the money the military spends on R&D, there's a strong conservative element in military thinking, too.

 

"So, you want us to completely discard nearly a century's worth of tactical, strategic and logistic doctrine in favor of this here whizbang-gizmo of yours? You sure it'll work under battlefield conditions? You're sure it won't malfunction every time it gets sand in its gears or someone hits it with microwave radiation? You're sure it's soldier-proof? Trust me, you give something like this to a pack of grunts, and they'll find SOME way to screw it up you've never even considered. I know tanks work. I understand tanks. You'll have to convince me that this thing isn't just better than a tank, but that it's as dependable, too."

 

Not to mention, defense contractors have billions invested in current technologies (ongoing R&D projects, existing factories, etc.), and armies of lobbyists to keep congressmen from approving budget expenditures for 'untested and potentially unreliable technology'.

 

"We'll just have to appoint a committee to explore the possiblity of writing up a proposal to investigate the potential of your prototype, Mr. Stark. We'll get in touch with you... eventually."

 

Under those conditions, if there is any technical, financial or tactical drawback to powered armor, you can be sure someone will find it and start dragging their heels over it.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Armor Wars

 

At least in the Champions Universe, I'd think the fact that the most prominent villain is a powered armor genius might give pause to mass production even if it were otherwise practical. No one wants to hear Dr. Destroyer mwah-ha-ha-ing "Fools, your control safeguards were child's play to overcome! Your USMC armored battalion is now a thousand Destroids under my command!"

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Armor Wars

 

At least in the Champions Universe' date=' I'd think the fact that the most prominent villain is a powered armor genius might give pause to mass production even if it were otherwise practical. No one wants to hear Dr. Destroyer mwah-ha-ha-ing "Fools, your control safeguards were child's play to overcome! Your USMC armored battalion is now a thousand Destroids under my command!"[/quote']

 

even thouh they may be

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: Armor Wars

 

At least in the Champions Universe' date=' I'd think the fact that the most prominent villain is a powered armor genius might give pause to mass production even if it were otherwise practical. No one wants to hear Dr. Destroyer mwah-ha-ha-ing "Fools, your control safeguards were child's play to overcome! Your USMC armored battalion is now a thousand Destroids under my command!"[/quote']

 

Or Mechanon, showing off a new 'mass effect' Advantage on its Cyberkinetic Control ability... A battalion under its command, blasting left & right... All the operators screaming "for %&^~'s sake, run for it!"

[wick]

Re: Armor Wars

 

In addition to the technical and financial barriers to widespread deployment of powered armor, there are political and cultural barriers, too. Frankly, for all the money the military spends on R&D, there's a strong conservative element in military thinking, too.

 

"So, you want us to completely discard nearly a century's worth of tactical, strategic and logistic doctrine in favor of this here whizbang-gizmo of yours? You sure it'll work under battlefield conditions? You're sure it won't malfunction every time it gets sand in its gears or someone hits it with microwave radiation? You're sure it's soldier-proof? Trust me, you give something like this to a pack of grunts, and they'll find SOME way to screw it up you've never even considered. I know tanks work. I understand tanks. You'll have to convince me that this thing isn't just better than a tank, but that it's as dependable, too."

 

Not to mention, defense contractors have billions invested in current technologies (ongoing R&D projects, existing factories, etc.), and armies of lobbyists to keep congressmen from approving budget expenditures for 'untested and potentially unreliable technology'.

 

"We'll just have to appoint a committee to explore the possiblity of writing up a proposal to investigate the potential of your prototype, Mr. Stark. We'll get in touch with you... eventually."

 

Under those conditions, if there is any technical, financial or tactical drawback to powered armor, you can be sure someone will find it and start dragging their heels over it.

 

Except that the Tech is proven by Mr. Stark when he flies around beating up villians and destroying Tanks or their equivalents without much trouble. Sometimes all that it takes is to show that an idea is not only possible but that it incredibly effective. For example, in pre-WWI many nations had invested some in Aeroplanes but they were more of a novelty and only really good for Recon purposes. It did not take long after one pilot in WW I strapped guns on his plane and hand dropped bombs on the enemy, that the world took notice of aircraft as incredibly effective combat machine and worth investing heavily in. From there aircraft inovations has improved by leaps and bounds.

 

Whether a Nation would invest in Power Armor is dependent on many things. The Cold War Era Russians may dabble in the Tech but it would not suit their military which is composed of a large number of "peasent" soldiers with simple weapons rather than a more elite core of well trained experts with complicated gear/state of the art weapons. Also the U.S. puts alot more value on the lives of their soldiers (often a weakness that is exploited) but this also leads to investing in tech to keep the soldier alive such as Body Armor, Up armored Humvees, MRAPS, etc... To R&D and manufacture the suits would also take advanced manufacturing facilities and some of the worlds best design teams as well as substatial capital.

[Tasha]

Re: Armor Wars

 

In the standard supers campaign' date=' anyone with only a few million dollars in disposable income could either create or hire a powersuit for his own use. In such a reality, why would the (especially the more powerful) government still use tanks that are large, cumbersome, and inefficient, especially when compared to the powersuits that could be quickly donned and transported by the infantry. I am wondering why the traditional tank is still in use in an age that has personal body suit that would be an equal to the tank in every way. The cost for both is effectively the same so that cannot be the reason and training time would actually be less for the suit so that cannot be the problem. Lets hear from Herodom assembled as for reasons why this might be the case.[/quote']

 

1) Most "Supertech" like powersuits are one off items and would take years to get to a version that could be massproduced.

 

2) Perhaps the bleeding edge technologies in such a suit make them cost more per soldier than a tank

 

3) Also many powersuits only work for that one person making them ill suited for mass production

 

4) Perhaps using strength boosting armor training isn't as easy as you think

 

5) Conservative generals don't see a need for something like a Powersuit and don't see how such troops would be an improvement over the equipment that they already have. (This has been a historic issue with new tech. Both tanks and fighting aircraft were opposed by generals who couldn't see how they fit into their vision of the armed services)

 

6) Maintenance cost. I tank is full of easy to service parts that need a standard(ish) automotive mechanic to deal with. Powered armor suits would need a highly specialized crew to deal with their miniaturized parts. Which would take a whole new service infrastructure which could push their costs way up. Also getting this new branch trained and implemented would cost a lot more than just using what they already have)

 

7) Political reasons. Perhaps certain Congressmen and Senators block procurement of the Powersuits due to the possible loss of a Tank assembly plant in their state(s). Perhaps the whole powered armor project has been demonized in the press (ie Reagan's "StarWars" Anti-Missile shield). The public could be against this "Boondoggle" of a wasteful program.

[Arkham]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Tanks can shell a location from miles away, power suits can't.

[Markdoc]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Tanks can shell a location from miles away' date=' power suits can't.[/quote']

 

Actually, tanks really aren't good at that - it's why you have artillery. In addition, given the firepower some suits have, they can shell locations from miles away.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I think the real reason is "It's the comics, stupid!" Powersuits don't replace tanks for the same reason that grav vehicles don't replace helicopters, fusion engines don't replace fossil fuels and NASA still uses the shuttle, while our heroes have orbit or interstellar-capable vehicles in their garage ... in other words, because if you made those changes, you'd be setting your stories in a science fiction world, and most people seem to want superheroes in a more or less recognisable "current world".

 

Given the huge tech advantage that powersuits typically display, none of the political reasons given are terribly plausible to me: despite the wailing of conservative generals or politicians, things that work are adopted pretty damn fast. The tank is a perfect example - most politicians were disinterested, or actively tried to block spending on the british tank program, the generals charged with deploying it openly did not want tanks .... but once they were actually tested in battle, all the major combatants fell all over themselves designing and building them. In real life, the programs that get slashed and die are ones like Reagan's Star Wars, that don't show any promise of working or which (like the DDG warships) don't offer promise to justify their cost.

 

And in comic books battlesuits have been tested and have proven their worth. To me, that means either the cost must be prohibitive (which, given how the US military spends money, means serious megabucks) or serious problems with making and using such suits.

 

There are multiple ways to do this - Iron Man 2's "Nuh uh. It's my suit and I ain't giving you the designs" works for me. The idea that to safely use a suit you have to have olympic level reflexes and massive INT works too - how many gadgeteers have you seen in game with a DEX/SPD less than 18/4? Or maybe the suit is an alien artifact, and thus impossible to duplicate, etc.

 

It's an old problem, as noted above. Forget military application for a second - Iron Man's suit has enough power to fly halfway around the world - and back - at supersonic speeds, without stopping for a refill. Just the power source alone would change our world dramatically in a few years, if it could be mass produced. As would Tony's nifty computer system: it doesn't matter if it cost millions, companies would pay for such a powerful system. In the end, you simply need to suspend disbelief on this concept.

 

cheers, Mark

[Vulcan]

Re: Armor Wars

 

In the standard supers campaign' date=' anyone with only a few million dollars in disposable income could either create or hire a powersuit for his own use. In such a reality, why would the (especially the more powerful) government still use tanks that are large, cumbersome, and inefficient, especially when compared to the powersuits that could be quickly donned and transported by the infantry. I am wondering why the traditional tank is still in use in an age that has personal body suit that would be an equal to the tank in every way. The cost for both is effectively the same so that cannot be the reason and training time would actually be less for the suit so that cannot be the problem. Lets hear from Herodom assembled as for reasons why this might be the case.[/quote']

 

I think the best example of why armor suits tend to be quite rare comes in the first Iron Man movie. Tony Stark manages to build an arc reactor out of junk in cave while being held prisoner - but Stark Industries R&D cannot duplicate it even with an example to work from.

 

It's simple. Tony Stark (and a few others) have the superpower to make impossible inventions, and make them work. Everyone else has to follow the laws of physics.

 

EDIT: And I see have been beaten to the punch, not just once, but many, many times.

[Tasha]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I think the real reason is "It's the comics, stupid!" Powersuits don't replace tanks for the same reason that grav vehicles don't replace helicopters, fusion engines don't replace fossil fuels and NASA still uses the shuttle, while our heroes have orbit or interstellar-capable vehicles in their garage ... in other words, because if you made those changes, you'd be setting your stories in a science fiction world, and most people seem to want superheroes in a more or less recognisable "current world".

 

Given the huge tech advantage that powersuits typically display, none of the political reasons given are terribly plausible to me: despite the wailing of conservative generals or politicians, things that work are adopted pretty damn fast. The tank is a perfect example - most politicians were disinterested, or actively tried to block spending on the british tank program, the generals charged with deploying it openly did not want tanks .... but once they were actually tested in battle, all the major combatants fell all over themselves designing and building them. In real life, the programs that get slashed and die are ones like Reagan's Star Wars, that don't show any promise of working or which (like the DDG warships) don't offer promise to justify their cost.

 

And in comic books battlesuits have been tested and have proven their worth. To me, that means either the cost must be prohibitive (which, given how the US military spends money, means serious megabucks) or serious problems with making and using such suits.

 

There are multiple ways to do this - Iron Man 2's "Nuh uh. It's my suit and I ain't giving you the designs" works for me. The idea that to safely use a suit you have to have olympic level reflexes and massive INT works too - how many gadgeteers have you seen in game with a DEX/SPD less than 18/4? Or maybe the suit is an alien artifact, and thus impossible to duplicate, etc.

 

It's an old problem, as noted above. Forget military application for a second - Iron Man's suit has enough power to fly halfway around the world - and back - at supersonic speeds, without stopping for a refill. Just the power source alone would change our world dramatically in a few years, if it could be mass produced. As would Tony's nifty computer system: it doesn't matter if it cost millions, companies would pay for such a powerful system. In the end, you simply need to suspend disbelief on this concept.

 

cheers, Mark

 

Between WWI and WWII having a good tank and a good strategy for using them was not valued by the Armed services. It wasn't till Germany showed the world what one could do with good tanks that the US government woke up and started to try to make a decent tank. Our first tank in WWII was the Sheridan and it was a POS, Undergunned and without a turret. Heck even the Sherman tank was hampered by our strategy using it was a infantry support weapon and not something to duel it out with other tanks. SO the original Sherman tanks were underarmored and waay undergunned. We didn't make a decent tank till way after WWII. So Politics will defiantly play a role in any defense procurement/project. To think otherwise is to ignore all of the history that suggests differently.

[Tasha]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I think the best example of why armor suits tend to be quite rare comes in the first Iron Man movie. Tony Stark manages to build an arc reactor out of junk in cave while being held prisoner - but Stark Industries R&D cannot duplicate it even with an example to work from.

 

It's simple. Tony Stark (and a few others) have the superpower to make impossible inventions, and make them work. Everyone else has to follow the laws of physics.

 

EDIT: And I see have been beaten to the punch, not just once, but many, many times.

 

The Mad Scientist effect. Where the "scientist" believes in their invention so much that the faith/belief causes their experiment/inventions to work even when they defy the laws of Physics. Someone here on the boards had a nice writeup about just such a Campaign trope.

[Vulcan]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Between WWI and WWII having a good tank and a good strategy for using them was not valued by the Armed services. It wasn't till Germany showed the world what one could do with good tanks that the US government woke up and started to try to make a decent tank. Our first tank in WWII was the Sheridan and it was a POS' date=' Undergunned and without a turret. Heck even the Sherman tank was hampered by our strategy using it was a infantry support weapon and not something to duel it out with other tanks. SO the original Sherman tanks were underarmored and waay undergunned. We didn't make a decent tank till way after WWII. So Politics will defiantly play a role in any defense procurement/project. To think otherwise is to ignore all of the history that suggests differently.[/quote']

 

That depends on how you define a decent tank.

 

The Sherman, even the late war versions with bigger guns, were still no match for the German's heavy tanks like the Tiger and Panther. On the other hand, they were more than a match for the whole Panzer series of tanks, as well as pretty much everything the Japanese came up with.

 

Even more importantly, the Sherman was easy to build and even easier to maintain by barely-trained troops. At the time, even if we could have built something equivalent to the M-1, the troops of the time wouldn't haven been able to maintain it very well. And since it was so easy to build, the US had whole armored companies go after a single Tiger whenever possible. Sure, the Tiger would crush several of them in the process, but in the end the Tiger went down.

 

The Sherman was good enough to do the job. While I would never say it was a great tank, it certainly was a decent tank.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Tech and Warfare.

 

Airplanes were pretty much worthless except for recon and shooting each other down in WW1. The bombloads they carried were too small, the guns nothing special. Brave infantry could and did shoot them down, common sense infantry took cover for a moment then went back to what they were doing.

 

WW2 saw airplanes providing good ground support and 'tactical' bombing, but not much effect strategically (in spite what the U.S. Air Farce liked to claim). But the U.S. had a excellent 'light' metal industry, and could build a lot of planes fast, so they got a lot of glory.

 

The U.S. lacked a effective 'heavy' metal industry, and so couldn't produce 'heavy' tanks. But we could produce a LOT of 'ok' medium tanks. (From 1939 to 1945, the U.S. built more Shermans that we sent to rust in the southwest desert than the rest of the world combined built tanks.) Add in the simplicity of the Sherman design, AND the high motorization of the American population (as many motor vehicles as people, no other country could say that). And the strategy used in Europe (broad front, don't let the enemy manuever, and crush them) worked for both the Eastern and Western allies. (The stratagy of the Pacific was closer to the 'blitz' concept: Marine, Engineer, Airpower: Assualt a island in air range, build new airbase, use airbase to isolate other islands in region, repeat)

 

To relate this to Champions: the 'powered armor' we see looks like high maintanance, expensive, precision equipment with good anti infantry/light armor but lacking heavy anti-armor capabilities. I picture them like the German heavy tanks (Panthers, Tigers, Royal Tigers, Maus): hard/impossible to mass produce, hard to keep running, but devastating. For a army/police force, you need more Shermans/T-34s: mass produceable, low maintainance, but lower capabilities. The stuff the Viper guys (Primus, Steelhead, you get the idea) is about right. The High Maintance/High Firepower supertanks will dominate, but will lose if enough of the low guys get around it.

(I have a sudden idea: Viper Agents running around in 150pt OIF armor, instead of the body armor/blaster rifle thing they've got going now. Breaking out the heromaker to experiment...)

[FreeDice]

Re: Armor Wars

 

Oddly enough, the latest Iron Man movie comes to mind.

[Markdoc]

Re: Armor Wars

 

That depends on how you define a decent tank.

 

The Sherman, even the late war versions with bigger guns, were still no match for the German's heavy tanks like the Tiger and Panther. On the other hand, they were more than a match for the whole Panzer series of tanks, as well as pretty much everything the Japanese came up with.

 

Even more importantly, the Sherman was easy to build and even easier to maintain by barely-trained troops. At the time, even if we could have built something equivalent to the M-1, the troops of the time wouldn't haven been able to maintain it very well. And since it was so easy to build, the US had whole armored companies go after a single Tiger whenever possible. Sure, the Tiger would crush several of them in the process, but in the end the Tiger went down.

 

The Sherman was good enough to do the job. While I would never say it was a great tank, it certainly was a decent tank.

 

It's also important to remember that the design cycle for a tank - from any nation in that era - was 2+ years. So the Sherman went into production in 1941, based on the lessons observed in the battles of Poland and France - when the German "Heavy tank" was the Pzkw III! Most of the German armoured forces in those campaigns were Pzkw I and II light tanks. The Sherman was more than a match for any of those. The Germans, however, had already started upgrading their forces, and their answer (the Pzkw IV) was a fair match for the Sherman. However, they met the T-34 in 1940 and by 1942, their answers (in the form of the Tiger and Panther series) were rolling off the line. The Pershing was designed in response to the Sherman's problems with these tanks - and it started rolling off the lines a couple of years later. Essentially, every generation of tanks was built to beat the opposing tanks of the generation before: it was merely the production lag that saw Shermans facing off against Tigers

 

The problem wasn't that US troops could not have maintained and run a more complex tank: UK tankers routinely did so and US crews who used UK-designed weaponry had no problem maintaining it. US military personnel also had no problem managing much more sophisticated equipment. There was, I assure you, nothing in the design specs to suggest that the tank should be "dumbed down". The Sherman was built the way it was, because it was the best the US could produce - at the time. The Pershing was a far better (and more sophisticated) tank because a couple of years later that was the best that could be produced - at the time.

 

Even the piddly little tanks that Tasha mentioned (not the Sheridan - that was a postwar medium tank armed with a weird hybrid gun, but I guess she meant the Stuart) were the best that could be produced at the time. Back then, US military strategy was based on the defence of the Western Hemisphere - which meant a strong navy and a relatively small and weak army, with what armoured capacity existed being strictly infantry support. It was assumed (correctly, at the time) that no enemy existed that could land armoured forces in the US. It wasn't that better weapons existed that weren't being put into production - it was that the US had no official plans to have armoured divisions at all. As a result, they had no significant armour production capacity (No lie: in 1940, when the Wehrmacht struck west the US army had only 28 modern tanks - 18 medium and 10 light. Belgium had 5 times as many, plus some heavies!) Of course, once the Germans demonstrated what armoured divisions could do ... everybody started building them, just as everybody would put battlesuits into production, once they had demonstrated what they could do .... if they possibly could. That was the point I was making: politics only plays a significant role for weapons systems when their potential is doubtful. Nothing changes minds like success.

 

cheers, Mark

[JmOz]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I have a PRIMUS avenger in my game who has done the light power armor thing. 15/15 Armor, 25" Flight, 75 Active point Offencive MP, lots of minor powers

[wick]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I already plan on implementing some low cost battle suits for use by special agents when dealing with Supers. They are called A.P.E suites ( Armored Personnel Exoskeleton if I recall) also dubbed the APE because it kinda resembles a big gorrilla in Shape. Boost to STR, Armor, and heavy weapons, and some limited flight/leap capabilities in the form of jump jets. maybe give them a variable pool so they can be loaded out with particular weapons or abilities for a given situation. At only about the cost of an F-18 too there will not exactly be hordes of these suits.

[Nevelon]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I'm badly miss-remberbing the quote, but something like "Our Tigers are worth 10 of your Shermans, unfortunately you always seem to have 11 of them"

 

Sometimes quantity can trump quality. If a powersuit cost so much that you could buy a few attack helicopters and a half dozen light tanks for the same cost, and those conventional forces and throw enough firepower at the 'suit to snuff it, why bother with fancy armor? Yes, there will be situation where you want the suit, but that's what superheros a/o special forces are for, not "generic" military troops.

[Jhamin]

Re: Armor Wars

 

I find that as with anything that requires suspension of Disbelief, it is better to just ignore the issue rather than try to justify it. Justifications invite people to examine them.

 

As others have pointed out, in the Iron Man movie Stark built a functional suit of Power Armor in a cave with scraps while Stark Industries couldn't get one to work when they had funding and a prototype to reverse-engineer. Stark meanwhile went on to build two more *vastly* improved revisions of the suit in his (admittedly pretty tricked out) basement by himself.

 

Mad scientist effect? Mutant power? Cosmic Key radiation? Doesn't matter. It works. And once the suit is built, Iron Man II shows us Rhodey can put it on and use it just as well as Stark while Hammer Industries has just as much luck building knockoffs as Stane's R&D crew did in the first movie.

 

This is *really* a "either live with the genre conventions or change genres" type of a question. There is a lot of Anime that show us that an "everyone with the $$ has power armor" world is very workable. These just aren't superhero stories.