In 2054, UN Peacekeepers, backed by a NEMA quick reaction force, came under attack by terrorists at the recently refurbished Panama Canal. The terrorist front, arguably an ecological terrorist organization with heavy funding, possessed two Ugandan Hyena class power armors, smuggled in on a cargo ship passing through the canal locks. The power armors were supported by an infantry platoon possessing anti-aircraft rockets and anti-tank rockets, as well as Congolese Mkuki railguns (A knockoff of the M-31 SAMAS rail gun). SAMAS armors possessed by the NEMA QRF took heavy casualties from the anti-aircraft missiles, which were all shoulder fired.
After a four hour fire fight, during which the UN Peacekeepers took heavy casualties, the Hyenas were destroyed, as were the Earth Warriors terrorists, and the post battlefield analysis was performed.
The UN Peacekeepers had been devestated by heavy, long range fire, which shredded their body armor, as well as sniper fire from chemical explosive weapons, which were used to target exposed body parts. The UN badly needed an upgrade, and NEMA was asked to hold an armor test in Crete in the summer of 2055.
A Spanish military production company produced a highly effected armor called Cáscara Tortuga (Later nicknamed White Turtle) that performed with excellent effectiveness, and in 2056 the armor began being mass produced at the company's facilities in Spain, Angola, Mali, Lithuania, Canada, the United States, Great Britian, Peru, Bolivia, and Mexico. For the less industrialized nations, Sistemas Integrados De la Armadura (Integrated Armor Systems LLC) received grants and low interest loans to build factories in those nations to further improve the nation's economy.
In 2057 the Bushman armor series (Then known as the White Turtle, or the BAS-21) was delivered to UN armories, and UN Peacekeepers were issued this armor. The armored performed with excellence for nearly 30 years before IAS went under after a major scandal, and the UN switched to a different armor.
The armor is hard shelled, designed to prevent foliage and debris from catching on the armor and hindering the wearer, as well as providing superior protection from rail gun rounds, APDS munitions, and AP rockets. The armor has slight mobility issues, making it somewhat awkward to bend at the waist, but the joints are well built, allowing excellent protection at normally weak joints. However, between 2065 and 2068 there was a problem with the elbow joints leaking the nanofluidic ballistic gel, reducing the protection to the elbows, which would definitely degrade and cause the joint polymers to become brittle after a few months in storage. The hard shell is designed to be laser ablative, providing protection from the massive energy transfer by allowing small sections and thin layers of the armor to shatter away when struck by energy weapons, as well as deflect kinetic energy strikes. The armor's outer layer is impregnated with tiny solar power collectors no bigger than the head of a pin scattered through the suit to absorb power for the armor from the sun. In the event of an energy weapon hit, the micro-fuses blew to keep the energy imparted to the armor from effecting the suits power storage systems.
Beneath the hard polyceramic shell lies a nano-fluidic ballistic gel, designed to absorb and redirect kinetic energy that penetrates the ballistic shell. The nano-fluidic layer is held beneath a flexible mesh-impregnated soft plastic, which makes up the joint protection system. Below the nanofluidic layer is another hard laminate plate system, a shock dampening layer, the environmental layer, an electronics layer sandwiched between a pair of anti-kinetic transfer nano-fluidic layer, then the internal pressure sleeve.
The armor's internal environmental systems regulate the internal oxygen content by monitoring the wearer's blood O2 saturation, as well as other biometric measurements. Unlike many armors of the time, the Bushman/Turtle armor always kept a sealed environment, only permitting filtered air-flow to the occupant, in order to maximize protection of the wearer from environmental hazards. The internal environmental systems (produced by KLS on subcontract to IAS) will immediately flush the armor if any NBCR danger is detected, and the detection system is extremely sensitive. In some cases, heavy synthetic fuel fumes will cause the armor to alert the wearer that a chemical attack is underway and seal the suit. The suit uses multiple high pressure canisters to store 14 hours of air within the suit, and the filtration system is able to filter out most chemical weapons (with the exception of the caustic anti-filtration agents), as well as most biological hazards. The waste collection disks last up to 5 days, 3 days if the wearer is suffering from intestinal disorders such as dystentary, and the disks can be cleaned in the field by trained personnel. In addition, the filtering system filters can be replaced quickly and easily by a trained operator. Emergency filter replacement can be accomplished by twisting and removing the two helmet filters, and can be accomplished in less than 25 seconds by a trained operator, allowing the wearer to conduct extended operations in an chemical or biological hazard area.
The suit is rated for extreme arctic conditions, as well as desert operations, showing little to no degradation in system performance or protection in temperatures between -75 F and 450 F (-60C to 232 C), showing only nanofluidic temperature degradation for roughly 25 degrees either way above those limits. Additionally the suits are equipped with mechanical gills, as well as underwater maneuvering systems, allowing the armor to dive to a depth of 1,150 feet safely (some tests showed as high as 1,750 feet, but wearer survival is somewhat unreliable) and operate for up to 72 hours underwater without degradation of armor systems. Additionally the armor's HUD automatically compensates for underwater operations, heat distortion, or up to severe weather conditions, thanks to advanced visual spectrum enhancement algorithms.
The boots have excellent grip, as well as built in, retractable, ice/climbing treads, allowing the wearer to climb up poles, trees, and keep their footing on normally treacherous surfaces. The gloves have retractable climbing spikes (less than 0.25" long) to further enable the wearer to climb quickly and easily.
The suit possesses both active and passive electronic battlefield defense systems. The polyceramic plating is design to deflect and scatter radar pulses, and even overcome millimetric phased radar array signals. While a radar operator may know something is out there, they will be unable to lock in on the wearer. The armor's environmental system mixes waste gases with ambient local gasses in order to prevent chemical signature targeting, and in addition the system produces no chemical signature when under full internal environmental lockdown. Additionally the white surfacing used by UN Peacekeepers was a flat color, rather than glossy, preventing glare reflection. Active systems consist of ECM systems designed to disrupt target system sensor, missile locks, and radar jamming, with an effective ECCM suite built by the Korean electronics manufacturer Futuretek, that was often able to overcome inferior enemy ECM.
The environmental tubing was double walled, providing self-sealing ability to the internal heating cooling systems. The internal neoprene sleeve is designed to protect the wearer from high G shocks, as well as weapon impacts, and to keep the suit snug around the wearer, and prevent chafing, as well as "wicking" away of skin excretions (read: sweat), so that the could be filtered and put into the internal water supply. The suit also possesses umbilical connectors to allow the suit to be attached to outside environmental/waste processing equipment, as well data-jack ports to allow VR control on advanced combat vehicles.
The internal water supply, which also gathers the moisture from the surrounding air as well as purifying liquid waste, can last for up to 14 days without external moisture collection, and near-unlimited water in average humidity areas. Additionally, the suit contains nutrient paste for the wearer to eat, as well as vitamin injections, allowing the wearer to survive up to 45 days inside the suit using only the nutrient paste and vitamin injections without suffering from malnutrition or gastro-intestinal atrophy.
Across the abdomen is the bio-medical system, providing emergency battlefield medical aid to the wearer. The computer monitors the wearer's biometric data, and there are two IRMMS kits within the system, as well as an RMK and an advanced medical computer. The computer can diagnose broken bones, burns, bruising, internal injuries, and the like, immediately overseeing RMK and nanite medical attention. Should the wearer suffer a spinal injury, the suit will automatically go into "traction mode" which extends the arms and legs into a rough X, that flattens the spine and protects it. In addition to standard medical procedures, restricted codes can be typed into the forearm data plate in order to inject the wearer with drugs such as painkillers, amphetimines, and the like. However, these codes were only possessed by covert operations forces or medical personnel. Finally, trained medical personnel could interface with the nantire and microbot medical systems in order to perform operations beyond the scope of the medical computer without removing the wearer from the armor. The nanite cradle can be "recharged" by application of new nanites by medical personnel.
Across the shoulders are the tactical battlefield network system electronics, the advanced environmental systems, and the EC(C)M system. This allows the soldier to "tag" friendly, neutral, civilian, and enemy units on their HUD map, as well as transmit data across the BaTN, accept incoming data, and utilize interlocking EC(C)M data between multiple suits, often allowing several suits to overcome enemy ECM/ECCM systems that were stronger signal than the suits.
Along the forearms and biceps are two picatinny rails, allowing mission essential equipment to be attached to the armor's arms, and there are 8 rails across the back to allow the addition of electronic combat suites, backpack weapon systems, etc. On the outer thighs is another set of rails, allowing for further equipment attachment. This rail system allows the wearer to be issued mission oriented equipment, and allows the armor to be modified for covert operations or heavy infantry roles. The forearms also have data-ports, allowing weapon data-systems to be interlinked with the suits internal combat computer. The system has standard small arms dataplugs as well as vehicle and robot combat data links ports.
A 75 decibel loudspeaker system is built into the upper right shoulder pad, and is normally kept within the armor to avoid damage. However, the loudspeaker can be deployed in less than 15 seconds via internal systems, and does not significantly lower the armor's protection. The speaker can either be used by the wearer, or used to broadcast verbal input from the radio communications.
The upper left shoulder has a built in optical link the size of a small box of matches that is normally recessed into the shoulder. It can be deployed in approximately 20 seconds to allow the armor's wearer to look behind them, to the side, ect. The camera is shock dampened and contains passive and active nightvision molycircs. The camera burst feeds the information gathered every 5-20 seconds, the compressed burst containing the video footage of the entire time. This usually returns to a mobile command post, for overview by gathered officers, mission commanders, and allows instant advice, mission objective alterations, or commands to be fed to the troops in the field. However, since signal triangulation is a big part of the digital battlefield (some missiles can home in on continuous radio signals) the feature can be disabled, and the information be gathered afterwards from the built in Battle-ROM storage WORM (Write Once-Read Many) crystal storage array located in the left rear shoulder area of the back. The crystal storage matrix can be pulled from armor in less than a minute, allowing retrieval of battlefield data. However inputting incorrect codes into the armor's secruity system results in the data in the crystal matrix being scrambled and partially erased, making data recovery difficult. In addition, the wearer of the armor can use the feed from the camera, displayed on the HUD instead of the view through the helmet's camera systems, if the external camera systems have been disabled somehow.
The visual images are gathered by the two helmet cameras, which use thermographic, IR, UV, VIR, standard visual range, passive and active nightvision systems. This information can be shown on the HUD in a singular mode, or as a multiple mode composite image. If the wearer possess an ultrasonic or magnetic anomaly detection system or advanced radar system mounted onto the armor's equipment rails, data from these systems can be displayed or integrated to the composite image.
The HUD provides the wearer with the following information:
On the inside of the left forearm is the battlefield tactical network interface, as well as the armor systems interface. This allows the wearer to control the armor's internal systems (advanced users can override internal systems standard operating systems) as well as collect, recieve and transmit data to the battlefield tactical network.
The suit's IFF is a queriable transmitter, meaning it can be changed from constant transmission to "stealth" mode which allows the wearer to avoid broadcasting unless a specific coded transmission is detected, after which the IFF will broadcast a quick directional pulse to the transmitter.
During the Cataclysm, all NATO/UN troops who could be issued this armor were, meaning that the armor saw extensive use during the early, deadly days of the Cataclysm. However, the production facilities were lost in the disasters.
During the Second Dark Ages, the factory located in Kansas was discovered by a Northern Gun trading caravan. While the facility had been severely damaged, and the majority of the advanced fabrication facilities were destroyed, the Bushman production line was almost intact, and the computers containing the manufacturing schematics and instructions were intact and recoverable. While it appeared that only data was recoverable, and that the armor production facility was destroyed, Northern Gun attempted to recover as much as possible. While most figured only the computers, data-cores, and schematics were recoverable due to the thick ash deposits and weathering, the Northern Gun "Artifact Recovery Team" was able to move the Bushman production facility to Northern Gun's primary fabrication area.
This suit was sold to high-end clients by Northern Gun, as well as used by the company's guards and military forces. In 15 PA most of the battlefield tactical network systems, many of which relied on satellite communication ability, were stripped out, as well as the ECM/ECCM systems, as ECM was a lost art.
In 22 PA a disgruntled employee from Northern Gun sold the manucturing and design specifications to the armor to the highest bidders, selling it to Northern Gun's competitors, as well as the Coalition States, Lazlo, and Tolkeen. Tolkeen began locally producing the suits in 34 PA, and Bandito Arms began producing the armors in 54 PA.
In 79 PA, the suit was offered in two different styles: Stripped down, which removes a lot of the advanced features, and the full suit, which has all of the advanced features found in the pre- Cataclysm suits.
On Rifts Earth, the suit is highly popular, with both versions selling well. However, only Northern Gun and Wilk's Armor subsidiaries offer the advanced sets of armor.
Weight: 11 lbs (9 lbs for the stripped down version)
Available Sizes: Small to Extra Large
Mobility: Good
Availability: Excellent (Special Order for the advanced version)
Manufacturer's Cost: 8,500 Cr. (19,000 Cr for advanced)
Wholesale Cost: 22,000 Cr. (32,500 Cr for advanced)
Manufacturer's Recommended Price: 32,000 Cr (58,000+ Cr for advanced)
Black Market Price: 35,000 Cr (70,000+ Cr for advanced)
Wilderness Price: 20,000 Cr (30,000-40,000 Cr for advanced)
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