Adm. Michael McRaven: TALOS Suit Showing “astounding progress;” Program may Have Prizes for Innovation

Special operations types — like those who found and killed Osama bin Laden –may stand tall and do amazing things sometimes, but they tend to be fairly plain spoken. You rarely hear them say something is “astounding,” especially a new weapon. For example, one special operator recently awarded the Silver Star said he would have preferred “a cup of coffee and a thank you” to his medal ceremony.

So when Adm. Michael McRaven, the leader of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) told about 500 people that the so-called Iron Man suit under development by his command is showing “astounding progress,” my ears pricked up.

The admiral said he decided to push the suit because it was time for Special Forces troops to be able to go through a door, something they’ve done since their inception, with a better chance of living. We’ve reported on the suit before, when it was essentially an idea with a nicely-produced video to promote it. Things have progressed since then.

Three unpowered prototype suits are being assembled and should be delivered to SOCOM in June, McRaven said at the National Defense Industrial Association’s Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict conference here. The first operating suit is due by August 2018. What will the “astounding progress” yield if all goes well? “That suit, if done correctly, will yield revolutionary increase in survivability and lethality,” McRaven said.

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So Adm. McRaven wants to offer prizes like the $40 million Google Lunar XPRIZE, designed to spur “the safe landing of a private craft on the surface of the Moon.” I checked with several Pentagon sources and confirmed that McRaven and Kendall has talked, but SOCOM has not filed any papers yet to get the ball rolling.

The combination of a prize with industrial, governmental and educational cooperation is, McRaven said, “the future of how to do business.” But it won’t be how most of the Pentagon does business, because SOCOM is exempted from many of the military’s usual procurement rules to help it buy or develop things it needs as quickly as possible. So McRaven may get what he wants. But the rest of the military will just have to gawk and beg for some if he gets Iron Man suits that really work.

link.