Iron Man suit, from the silver screen to the battlefield
Iron Man suit, from the silver screen to the battlefield
By Larry Shaughnessy
A U.S. Special Operations soldier kicks in the door of a terrorist safe house. The bad guys open fire with AK-47s, but the bullets just bounce off the soldier as he fires back.
It’s a scene that easily could have been included in any of the hugely successful “Iron Man” movies, but the man who runs U.S. Special Forces Command, Adm. William McRaven, wants to make it reality, and soon.
McRaven gave the green light to what the Pentagon officially calls a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, but everyone refers to it colloquially as “The Iron Man suit.”
McRaven recently spoke about losing a special operator in Afghanistan. "I would like that last operator to be the last one we ever lose," he said.
“If you think of that operator at the breech point of that door, and he’s got to open that door, not knowing what’s on the other side, he’s got to be in position to be protected as soon as that door opens.”
Many of the technologies that could be incorporated into McRaven’s idea of an Iron Man suit already exist. “But they still exist separately. So they are taking them all and they are putting them together,” said former Navy SEAL Chris Heben.
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http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/05/iron-man-suit-from-the-silver-screen-to-the-battlefield/