Project Grizzly Armor For Military Use

Posted January 15th 2007 8:33PM

Richard

Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise has finally revealed his latest suit of full body armor. "After two years and $15,000 in the lab out back of his house in North Bay, designing and building a practical, lightweight and affordable shell to stave off bullets, explosives, knives and clubs. He calls it the Trojan and describes it as the "first ballistic, full exoskeleton body suit of armor."

This is not the first suit or armor to come out of Hurtubise�s laboratory, over the last 20 years he has been cranking out prototype exoskeletons as part of an ongoing Project Grizzly research experiment intended to protect their wearer from full on grizzly bear attacks.



This new suit has a wider range of motion and is significantly lighter than its predecessors weighing only 40lbs. "The whole suit -- which draws design inspiration from Star Wars, RoboCop, Batman and video games -- is made from high-impact plastic lined with ceramic bullet protection over ballistic foam."

During tests "the suit has stood up to bullets from high-powered weapons, including an elephant gun. The suit was empty during the ballistics tests, but he's more than ready to put it on and face live fire."

"Its many features include compartments for emergency morphine and salt, a knife and emergency light. Built into the forearms are a small recording device, a pepper-spray gun and a detachable transponder that can be swallowed in case of trouble.

Dangling between the legs, that would be a clock.

In the helmet, there's a solar-powered fresh-air system and a drinking tube attached to a canteen in the small of the back. A laser pointer mounted in the middle of the forehead is ready to point to snipers, while LED lights frame the face."

All of that and more at a projected price of only $2,000 per-suit.

This suit, like all things developed by Troy Hurtubise, is very exciting and if the claims made about its capabilities are accurate it will likely find employment in some form on the battlefield of the future - where it rightfully belongs.

Source - The Hamilton Spectator

Affordable

Posted January 15th 2007 11:37PM

Starrimari

All those years of work, all those features, and it is projected to only cost $2000? That is crazy. Pretty awesome suit, though.

Posted January 17th 2007 3:57PM

GeneralPimp

Yeah, it is pretty awesome. I took a look around at some other videos of his demonstrations, and if it is the real deal we are looking at some serious breakthroughs in protective technology. I notice that in his suit he used a lot of styling which seems to serve a more aesthetic function than a practical one. Should it go into something like mass production it would probably be made in a plain camoflage color and have less fancy trim.

Should something like this come into use in our military it could change the whole way we fight war, since with all this protection troops will be able to go into situations where before it would have been suicide. Only potential difficulties would be manufacturing suits for different sizes of people. I also don't feel too comfortable about having the major joints still exposed, if you get hit there your limb is useless.

Posted January 17th 2007 4:22PM

MDude

Well hopefully, if troops don't have to worry about taking damage so much, they won't have to use as much lethal force to protect themselves.

Posted January 19th 2007 1:47PM

GeneralPimp

Dude, in war, the objective is to defeat the enemy, and to do that you keep killing the enemy until the survivors surrender. Our soldiers have absolutely no obligation whatsoever to minimize the casualties of enemy soldiers or terrorists. If they don't want to be killed, they can always surrender, but if they continue shooting at our soldiers with the intent to kill them, they deserve to die.