Self-Propelled Pinecone/Spergscale

Formally called the Sd85 (Stridsdraekt m/85) battlesuit, it is codenamed "Satyr" by the Papal States and "Faun" by the Oumeian Department of Defense, due to its unusual, ostrich-like gait and the pilot's semi-prone seating position. Gallan troops call it the "Rovfaagel", after a popular syndicated cartoon, of which the suit resembles a character of the same name.

Designed to replace the Sd50 and Sd69 battlesuits, the former dating from before the Dorestad Incident and the latter from the mid-2060's, the most noticeable feature of the Sd85 is that it is much larger than either of those. Despite this, protection level of the Sd85 remains comparable to the older battlesuits (.60" (~15mm) armor piercing on the thorax, identical to pre-war National Police Bureau SAT Sd50s and Sd69) but the pilot is completely encased within the chest and upper legs of the suit, seated jockey-style, which reduces the necessary armored volume of the suit significantly. The Sd85 incorporates a pair of "jump jets" letting it fly across or over short obstacles for a brief period. Approximately loaded mass of the suit is 1,200 pounds, triple that of the Sd50 and -69 battlesuits, and it is capable of running at speeds up to 50 miles per hour for long periods.

Care was taken to incorporate ballistically protected ammunition storage, giving the onboard rockets and cannon rounds protection against flying artillery splinters and small arms fire, as both the Sd50 and Sd69 were found to be vulnerable to "stripping" of their armaments by sustained artillery, mortar, or machine gun fire in the Alarian War and subsequent conflicts.

A pair of active protection radars and interceptor magazines (two on each side) is mounted on the "pauldrons", along with laser-warning receivers, smoke grenade dischargers, and a sextuple canister of 3" diameter anti-personnel/anti-armor missiles. High energy density gelled propellants are used for both the rockets and jump jets, giving the missiles a range in excess of 2.5 miles, and the pilot the ability to fly for up to 15 minutes at altitudes up to 4,000 feet (do not do this you will fall to your death). Normal practice is to use the jumpjets to provide either short range mobility or to traverse obstacles (rivers, canyons, atomic craters, etc.) rather than fly though.

A wing kit has been developed for the Sd85 allowing it to be deployed from aircraft and perform a long-range (>100 kilometers) powered glide to a target zone using drop tanks. The longest range glide in an Sd85 was performed by Lieutenant Olof Jansson in 2087, when he flew 150 miles to a marked landing zone, after jumping from a Tp.48 transport aircraft at 30,000 feet, accidentally overshooting the landing area by nearly 1,500 feet. However, this jump required the use of both drop tanks and the maximum internal fuel load of the Sd85. Motive power is provided by a combination of glucose-based artificial muscle actuators and onboard hydrogen fuel cells.

A highly modified Sd85 was used for the "long range assault/strike suit" experiment in 2088: the robotic arms were removed, the missile mounting pauldrons were replaced with a pair of pods incorporating large turbine engine and fuel tanks, and a folding wing-kit replaced the back mounted jump jets. Ground effect flight on the North Arctic Ice Sheet showed that the LRA/SS could fly for nearly 50 minutes at max continuous power. Maximum operating altitude was nearly 800 feet, and the suit was able to attain a peak forward flight speed of 120 miles an hour. Rapid lateral and vertical movements were possible with thrust vectoring, thanks to the much larger size of the engines mounted in the shoulders, while good ground flight characteristics were noted due to the use of a reverse delta wing. Due to its lack of arms, the LRA/SS had to use ordinary infantry rifles, normally an Ak21 or Ak75 automatic rifle, although it could use any handheld weapon that the operator was trained with.

Six 3" diameter missile tubes were placed on the upper portion of each of the pods, with room for a dozen missiles total, while the self-defense radar was moved from the top of the pod to the waist, where the storage pods normally are. Underneath each of the pods is single a mounting point for a LW cannon/HMG, packing either 450 rounds of 1" cannon rounds or 900 rounds of .50" machine gun ammo in a linkless feed ammo drum. The laser warning receivers were moved to the upper torso area, providing similar cover arcs, albeit limited in the aft quarter. Overall loaded mass went from 1,200 pounds to nearly 1,800 pounds. The Royal Army expressed interest in the LRA/SS for special forces use.

The "head" of the battlesuit is capable of "craning" itself above the pauldrons to see to the sides, and rear, of the battlesuit. The "eye" is a thermal imaging hyperspectral sight, providing images in 1440p for the operator, with a range of 8 miles for detection of vehicles and 4 miles for detection of humans. The smaller lenses are visual and ultraviolet sensors, which provide warning to the operator of incoming threats. The "ears" are high gain ESM antennae, which extend down into the "cheeks" and provide full HF/DF and the ability to transmit cybernetic attack algorithms. The battlesuit, lightly loaded and at maximally erect posture, is 2.75 meters. Ordinary posture is 2.54 meters. Higher postures are used for observation above obstacles such as walls, or slow walking. A millimeter wave radar is included, giving the suit the ability to track moving targets such as trucks or tanks.

The artificial limbs of the battlesuit are ballistically rated, and resistant to small arms fire and splinter with little additional protection. As shown, applique can be applied to the limbs to improve their protection against larger threats (155mm splinter, light cannon rounds), but this reduces the flight speed and airborne range of the battlesuit considerably. Shown, the battlesuit is wearing footguards and forearm protectors, which provide protection against .30" armor piercing and .50" ball machine gun rounds, respectively.

In combat, Sd85 pilots can use the high powered jets to "dash" around at altitudes as low as a few inches off the ground, as well as being able to jump up to 10 feet in the air, giving them startling agility where terrain allows.

Standard onboard armament is 10x 3.5" multi-purpose guided missiles or 4x 5" anti-tank missiles, 8x anti-missile interceptors, 12x 2.5" smoke launchers, 4x close combat cutting torches, 1x 1"/50 automatic cannon and 900 rounds of 25mm caseless. Additional ammunition for the cannon can be carried in external mounting brackets on the legs or arms of the battlesuit. For police purposes, the battlesuit can mount rubber ball dischargers on the thighs, carry riot shields, and utilize arm-mounted less-lethal automatic shotguns.

Besides these onboard weapons, both the protector arms (thorax) and robotic limbs are substantial weapons. The robotic limbs are strong enough to dismember an adult human with relative ease and the protectors' robotic hands can crush a man's skull (provided the pressure detection safeties are turned off or poorly tuned).

The Sd85 has only seen combat action in minor colonial wars and proxy conflicts, but has proven itself a deadly opponent to most forms of conventional troops, including anti-battlesuit snipers and robotic-cybernetic armors. The Gallan Army has been keen to replace almost all infantry battalions with Sd85s, but lack of funding, much of which over the past 30 years has gone to the Aerospace Defense Command (combination of Air Defense and Celestial Commands) and Royal Navy satellite and shipbuilding budgets, serves a suitable obstacle to this. Currently only three battalions of the 513th (Lapplanders) Ranger Regiment are fully equipped with Sd85, which stands at a production number of around 420 suits total.

A tactical battalion of Sd85s comprises 130 battlesuits, with 9 platoons (13 suits), 9 cybernetic warfare suits, and 4 battle nodes (battalion and company commanders, typically a Major, rarely a LTC). Spare suits, and the 513th Operational Conversion Unit (513.TEN "Oaendligheterna"), are stored centrally at regimental level. The Royal Army, eventually, wants to expand this to include a "long range strike company" of 44 LRA/SS-derived battlesuits: 33 LRA/SS strike suits, 6 LRA/SS sensor suits, 2 LRA/SS battle node suits, and 3 LRA/SS cyberwarfare suits.

A naval version, the Sd85M (Marin; Navy) is operated by the Royal Marines' 47 Commando's Battlesuit Strike Squadron, with a total of 24 operational battlesuits. 47 Commando has a specialized battlesuit assault craft, which can carry 8 battlesuits, and deliver them at high speed (>25 knots) to a coastal zone. The Sd85M is equipped with underwater propulsion units (pump jets) as opposed to turbine engines, and has a maximum underwater speed and safe operating depth of 18 knots and 350 meters. Crush depth of the Sd85M is estimated to be around 500 meters. Armament for the Sd85M remains identical to the land forces version, with the exception of carrying a pair of Mark 242 20x110mm cannons in the arms, and a fixed forward firing pair of the same, instead of the Army Type 85 25x137mm assault cannon. Additionally, the "head" is replaced by a more animal-like, sperm whale- or dolphin-shaped head, which houses an high frequency, short range sonar.

The Sd90A (Angrepp; Assault) is a distant cousin of the Sd85M, mounting a similar pilot's chassis to a larger and stronger motive frame, designed explicitly for amphibious raids. The shoulder arms are anticipated mount a combination of Navy Mark 242 20mm assault cannons (a derivative of the Sd50's 20mm assault cannon) and a pair of Bofors AK-84 84mm cannons, the latter fed by a drum magazine. So far the Sd90A remains a concept system, although the Royal Navy has stated it intent on developing a quadruped battlesuit capable of moving at speeds in excess of 60 miles an hour, which would allow the Sd90 to keep pace (just) with the Sd85.

It is alleged that a small number of LRA/SS suits are used by the Office of Special Collections' Special Duties Section 9, which is responsible for foreign/overseas direct action, technology espionage, and assassinations, with an emphasis on using cybernetically augmented soldiers.

1.A/1-513th (Lapplanders) Ranger Regiment battlesuit pilot and armor, with Arctic winter poncho.

Resembling a slightly muscled wetsuit, the Type 85 Myoelectric Feedback Suit (MEFS) is designed to read the wearer's muscle movements and translate these to a battlesuit's movements. The whole-body method is noticeably more accurate than previous generations of battlesuits, which relied solely on MEG helmets and nitrogen bubble pressure sensors to attain motor cortex and limb movement information, combined with gait training. The MEFS broadly eliminates the need for specialized gait learning, reducing training time of the battlesuit pilot (or allowing for the already expansive 50-week course to be filled with more tactical exercises, which became necessary due to the Satyr's enhanced mobility characteristics) and cost.

While designed with significant error thresholds, the MEFS is still best worn with as little interference as possible. Practically, this means that battlesuit pilots routinely shave their body hairs, with the exception of the scalp (the magnetic field generated by the MEG tactical helmet is not affected by hair) and lather themselves in sterile, electrically conductive jellies before donning the suit. The jellies act both to reduce incidental bacterial or fungal infection during long-duration wear, and provide electrical conductivity to skin that lets the MEFS read muscle signals more easily than on dry skin. Electrical filaments (copper or silver) embedded in the fabric provide additional anti-microbial properties and register muscle movement through the jelly. This is transferred to the battlesuit, which is able to translate minute electrical signals into suit movement. The sensitivity is necessarily quite high, as even with the jellies it is difficult for the deepest nerves to be detected besides magnetic field induction (which is provided by the "armor" panels worn on the Feedback Protector), but when combined when MEG it provides a highly accurate and responsive movement of the battlesuit.

Cyberbrain (formally a "hindbrain neuro-cybernetic prosthesis") augmentation is not necessary to pilot the Satyr. Although the use of a cyberbrain has shown a reduced reaction time and increased mobility of the Satyr in certain obstacle courses, such as low level flight, due to its ability to interpret muscular signals significantly faster than a MEFS suit, the advantages only appear in otherwise already highly trained pilots. Other studies have shown a decreased efficacy in cyberbrain pilots in dealing with ambiguous situations, with either delays in reaction, or exaggerated threat responses. The latter has been dealt with by equipping mechanized forces of the Royal Army with L/W-band IFF radars, which are "pinged" and when engaging targets, and a returned signal interdicts the electronic firing mechanism of the 1"/85 assault cannon of the Satyr, preventing the weapons from cycling. The low cycle time (5-10 ms) of the IFF system means it serves as equally effective a substitute for the natural neuro-skeletal-muscular regulation system ("consciousness") that cyberbrain augmented troops generally lack. The former concern has been mitigated by use of modified battle drills and realistic training, typically excluding fratricide penalties. Pilots of the Special Duties Section 9 of the Office for Special Collections are fully cyberbrained, primarily so that they can wear assault armor and battle helmets instead of MEFS suits inside the Satyr, for inevitable dismounts into close, indoor combat; as well to act as a "combat prophylactic against moral injury". Additionally, several command duty officers and cyberwarfare officers of the 513th Ranger Regiment are cyberbrained, however the latter still wear the MEFS suit due to the thermal protection and signature reduction it provides.

The suit is constructed from a semi-permeable, graphene, outer shell material, which compresses against the body and provides structural strength to the inner layers. When operated with a feedback protector the MEFS can provide limited muscular strength enhancement in the lower legs. Beneath this layer is a water permeable pressure sensor layer, which provides information to the battlesuit on the position of the body and contains thin film wires to provide heating and data transfer, and the final layer is the anti-microbial/conductive layer which incorporates metal filaments to read muscle movements and provide an electrical/temperature connection to the skin. The last layer, only present on ground forces MEFS, is constructed of merino wool primarily, with filaments woven in, to wick sweat and provide warmth. For the Royal Navy's 47 Commando, the final layer is neoprene and provides greater insulation after submersion in water. Ceramic heatsinks, positioned on the ventral neck, within knee- and armpits, and under the groin, provide additional heat capacity for the suit.

In Arctic climes, the suit can provide heating up to 100 degrees Celsius* for the soldier, keeping him warm in temperatures as low as -20 degrees Celsius when worn with a standard tanksuit and temperate weather combat boots. This direct electric heating thus obviates the need for much of the bulky layers of the cold weather system ("marshmallow suit"). An ultracapacitor worn on the waist of the suit provides heating for the torso and phalanges at a moderate 65 C for as long as 36 hours continuously. In tropical climates the suit can work "in reverse" to provide cooling and moisture wicking, and its semi-permeable nature allows water vapor to be removed and either condensed on the outside of the suit or recycled through the suit's ultracapacitor electrolysis cell (if one is connected), depending on the ambient humidity.

The MEFS is often worn in conjunction with a Type 85 Feedback Protector, a derivative of the Gallan Mechatronics SF/4048 industrial lifter exoskeleton, which provides small arms fire protection against calibers as large as .365" Brantman sniper cartridge over the torso. The Feedback Protector allows the pilot to move at a walking speed for nearly two days with a hip pack fuel cell. The Royal Army has expressed interest in a photosynthetic system capable of cracking in-situ water sources to increase the duration of operation of the Feedback Protector indefinitely, potentially allowing downed battlesuit pilots to extract themselves from combat zones by walking towards friendly lines, but so far this has led to little in the way of field use prototypes. Finally, the Type 85 is equipped with self-inflating flotation bladders around the neck, giving the pilot some ability to survive on water. The Feedback Protector is generally colored in regimental patterns, with multispectral ponchos in arctic white, olive drab, or desert yellow being available. This specific pilot is wearing a Feedback Protector incorporating the Northern Lion of the Lapplanders Regiment, as well as the auburn and gold colors, which are the same as the Sapmi Nation, a constituent petty kingdom of Gallia. An arctic white poncho is draped around his shoulder, with the obverse of the poncho being international orange for aviation observation. The multispectral poncho serves as his primary defense against wind chill and observation. Aluminum bronze, utilized for its corrosion and oxidation resistance, marks the connector ports, exoskeletal helmet mount, and metallized retaining clasps of the protector, and is incorporated into a semi-decorative "gold" collar, which serves as the primary mounting point of the tactical helmet, and itself is typical of Saami clothing.

Similar to the Type 88 Special Purpose Suit, the MEFS can be used to provide thermal and hyperspectral camouflage for a pilot. When combined with a Feedback Protector's dual-color thermal camera (to measure ambient ground temperature), the net effect is an order of magnitude less detection range than previous generations of passive, hyperspectral netting. For self-defense, the pilot carries a slung Type 77 Personal Defense Weapon (Kulsprutpistol (Kpist77) m/77) which gives him a meager ability to defend himself against small animals and curious civilians using the .222" Autocarbine cartridge. The carbine has a 48 round magazine the basic load is 240 rounds of .222". The Feedback Protector has four waist pockets for .265" magazines. Lastly, the helmet worn by battlesuit pilots provides MEG data, visual feeds from the battlesuit sensors, and ballistic spall/impact protection for the pilot.

Due to the unique grooming requirements of wearing the MEFS and the idiosyncrasies of battlesuit piloting (more stringent height and mass requirements, and greater required cardiovascular endurance), the type of officer attracted to the job is generally lighter and leaner in build than conventional infantrymen, resembling a marathon swimmer or triathlete (~10-12% total body fat) more than a rugby player (15-20% TBF), and both are substantially fitter than most rear-area troops (=>20-25% TBF).

Better size comparison here.

*Fahrenheit.

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