curious
liberty or license
my curiass armour in mount and blade with fire and sword along with a sabre and pistol is a wicked combo for sure. toss in some grenades on occasion as well.
I also dislike guns in fantasy settings.Fantasy means a different world and when medieval weapons are mixed with gun powder I feel its Earth history with magic on top.
Or D&D and "fantasy" novels screwed people perception of historical warfare.
Firearms were invented in the 12th century (blackpowder in the 9th century). Plate mail were invented in the 13th century and limited to really rich people. Both were used together in Europe until plate mail were "phased out". Guns stayed around though.
Body armor was worn all the way through the US civil war (1860s) at least. In reading about it the reason most soldiers didn't wear it was because it weighed so much given their other gear and was uncomfortable.
Its been replaced with Kevlar armor. I can't wait till we get power armor and lasers. Maybe in the next 200 years. I couldn't resit the fallout reference but in fact they are being developed. There just still in the very early stages.
We already have powered exoskeletons. There is a full body exoskeleton which is used for load-lifting and a lower-body exoskeleton used for movement-load assistance in the field. The first is actually in-use in some manufacturing evironments as a civilian version and a more advanced military version is in the works. The second is I believe still in prototype. There are a few other models out there which are equally impressive at the very least and what is shown here is only what is declassified.
I'd say it would be more likely that armored exoskeletons would appear - at least as proof of concept models - a great deal sooner than that. The power systems to make them feasible for long term field deployment could also be far closer than you might think. They can already produce exoskeletons capable of assisting a soldier carrying a heavy pack and full kit (as well as its own weight) so an exoskeleton that caries an articulated armor as well probably isn't all that far off.
Looks good but still a long way off for complete full body power armor. The laser will take a while to since right now it only fits on a destroyer military ship.
Link-http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=awsQs4ct0c4
I see they're going to be using Unity and they have decided to thrown in Linux support as a 'freebie' since Unity targets multiple platforms anyway.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/obsidian/project-eternity/posts/313192
I've mailed some of my religiously Linux friends who would only commit some dinero once they saw Linux support ;-)
No we can fit them on trucks. But really for an offensive weapon a laser makes less economic sense than even the powered armor does. It's also far easier to render useless through countermeasures than a gun is. I think its pretty unlikely that lasers will ever be attractive as primary offensive weapons for ground based infantry. Power armor will probably get made as proof of concept then be re-designed as remote operated and/or autonomous drones.