Gareth Ingram was an army specialist. He was responsible for testing new technologies after they were ready and mostly bug free. And right now he was ordered to observe the testing of a new armor made from a small startup company. This wasn’t his first testing of armor and he doubted it would be his last. He loaded the clip in his rifle, aimed at center mass of the vest and fired a shot. There was a loud impact and then silence. He released the ammo clip from the weapon, cocked the slide of the rifle to release the round and then put the safety on and then approached the bulletproof vest to check the damage. What he saw surprised him. If the vest was some substandard vest he expected the bullet to penetrate the front and back. To be honest even for a superb product, without a ceramic or metal plate, he expected to see a lot of damage, the least being holes in the front of the vest. But there was only a small discoloration at the impact site. Sure it was one of the smaller calibers, but he just couldn’t believe his eyes, so he went inside a building and watched the slow motion video of the test. When the bullet impacted the vest he could see the force transfer across the entire vest, instead of right through it, which meant there would hardly be a bruise left on the person wearing it. Now the question was would it react the same way with bigger caliber rounds?
He continued testing the vest with increase rate of fire from single to semi-automatic fire, then watched the recording and then changed to a bigger caliber and repeated the process. Only when he started testing armor piercing and magnesium rounds did he start seeing any sort of damage and even that was far from what he expected. Only the surface layer of what he assumed was Kevlar cloth was damaged and he could see the plates hidden under. And again, there was only slight scratches on them and no real damage. All that was left, and this was more of a ‘what would happen’ test and they had no expectations, was the .50 caliber rounds. And he really wanted to see what would be the result. He was both hoping to see significant damage to the vest and at the same time wanted it to survive the assault. They even put stickers that measured the G force all over the mannequin to measure the force of the impact.
The result was very interesting. The outer layer of cloth was blown away and the plates bellow were cracked and falling apart, but the back cloth was perfectly intact. But of course the G force censors were broken, which meant broken bones and possibly even death. But the vest had prevented penetration and what would kill you would be the blunt force impact moving through you, which was kind of a progress.
When he finished testing how bullet resistant the vest and after that the rest of the suit was, Gareth tried the functions of the glasses and was even more impressed. The different modes could make all kinds of task easier. There were some unneeded ones, like counting how many bullets you had left in the clip, or aim assist, but the bullet prediction and back camera were of great help. And after testing and recording all his impressions about the glasses, he started shooting at them. Hey, it was his job. In the end the glasses did just as well as the suit, which was more of a surprise than anything else.
There were test with the repair kit given to them by the inventor of the suit, but all the repairs didn’t hold as good as the suit did. There wasn’t the special weave of the material that distributed the force of impacts, so more force traveled through the suit and into the body of the mannequin. But the thing that he liked the most was the full body cloth that came with the bulletproof suit. At first both the researchers and he were wondering what it was, until they read the instruction manual. Yes, the entire thin came with instructions. It turned out to be some kind of strengthening devise that helped you by following and relieving the burden on your muscles. It pretty much worked like an exoskeleton suit, but lighter and more flexible. Gareth had a lot of fun testing its capabilities and imitating super strong heroes by lifting otherwise impossible weights with relative ease. The higher ups were happy with the reports they were getting, but still wanted some changes to be made to the suit, before they would agree to do business with the company that sold them.
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During the wait period between discussion and delivery of the new product, the scientist took over testing of the materials and after long and thorough study came to almost the same conclusion. It was impossible for them to replicate the whole suit. They could copy parts or maybe substitute with inferior materials or substances, but in the end it wouldn’t be the same, only an inferior imitation. The glasses were almost the same thing. The material of the see through part was impossible to manufacture for them, or at least at that thickness, but the biggest problem was the software. They could make glasses with similar technology, even if a bit slower and weaker, but the programming was on an entirely different level and was very strongly protected from copying and tampering.
A few weeks later, or was it a month? Gareth Ingram was called again to test the improvements and changes made to the suit and he was glad to find it much better that before. The wearer could monitor his vital signs and by what he read about the revisions, so would a medic in their group, which would make identifying wounded, if ever there was one, and where the wound was much faster, which could save lives. There were increased scanning capabilities, which could tell them the number of enemies in a building and where they were and by the look of things, even the condition of their body, which could help scan for prisoners or wounded people on the field. It would make every soldier wearing the suit more prepared for every situation and save lives.
The testing of the new suit continued, but they didn’t apply any destructive tests until they received a new batch of 100 suits and could afford to destroy one or two in testing. But, there was something else that interested him more. The inventor of the TBRES had something else to show them. She had drafted a proposal for a training facility and the people in charge were interested in what it could do for them, so after looking the proposal over, they assigned him to visit the company and test their prototype. If it lived up to the presentation in the proposal, they were going to agree.
Gareth expected great things from the company that created the TBRES. He had personally tested its capabilities and knew how ahead of others it was. If they had advancements in other fields similar to this, then he could hardly start to guess what form the training facility would take. That was, until he entered the room. It looked just like a bare room with nothing in it and at first he thought this might be some prank, but after the explanation, his hope increased a little. He changed his army uniform in another room and put on a suit and glasses and then entered back into the empty room. But this time it didn’t stay empty for long. And then he felt an impact on his chest as if he was shot while wearing a TBRES. Yes, after thoroughly testing them, he was comfortable enough to try one on and then get shot, so he knew the feeling. When he looked around, he quickly found the shooter was a sentry guarding a house in the distance. He was shot a second time, before finding and moving behind cover. This simulation felt very real. So real in fact, that he was flashing back to previous missions and the tactics used and completely forgot about the extended capabilities of the TBRES. When he and his team stormed the house, they were able to kill all hostiles, but his team lay dead all over the map.
The realism of the simulation would either train better soldiers, or give the men nightmares and possibly PTSD. Gareth left the room to receive new instructions from the higher ranked military man and then went back and ran the simulation a few more times. But the high realism and tense atmosphere led to him making mistakes and not fully taking advantage of the capabilities of his TBRES and fellow soldiers. And besides, he was not specifically trained for that kind of missions and what was expected of him. He tested technology, not going on missions and participating in firefights. Also, before he could become accustomed to any one scenario, they changed in subtle but visible ways that required different responses. He was impressed by the technology, but also unable to successfully finish the mission.
After the last in a number of failures, the CEO’s assistant entered the room and demonstrated how the simulation worked and how the TBRES should be used. And that woman knew what she was doing. He wouldn’t be surprised if she had Special Forces training or some other elite unit. Whatever the case may be, the higher up was impressed by the system and what it could mean for the safe training of elite military units and almost immediately signed a contract with the CEO. A little later, a base was selected to house the new training facility and construction on it soon started.