The Sarcos Suit does have the capability to be armored. It has a new lightweight armor that has been developed specifically for it, and it would stop and RPG.
There is just one problem… Did any of you read the article and see that the suit has to have a power umbilical in order for it to operate?
Even the battery pack under development only works for about five minutes (it is being made specifically as a retrieval device to rescue soldiers who have been wounded but are still under fire.
There is also a hybrid power-pac that is under development that allows for up to an hour's operation. The hybrid pack is pretty bulky and vulnerable though, but odds are likely that this will be the form that actually sees this thing in combat first.
What will also see it in combat first is the lack of an actual pilot.
They don't mention this, but the software that drives the suit can also be used to operate the suit independently of a pilot – as a completely robotic suit. This feature was developed so that if the pilot is injured there would be a way to retrieve both him and the suit..
Currently, as Notakina has supposed, it is only being considered for logistical purposes, and as an aid for artillery loaders, and ammo carriers. Two guys in these suits could man two or three guns as opposed to the nearly 20 that it currently takes for 3 guns.
Also suggested was having one suit to every Bradley, or man carrying armored vehicle as a sort of "Supersoldier" that could be used near the vehicle as heavy infantry support. I do not know how far this concept went, but it was the reason that the armor development was continued. This thing could carry a lot of conventional armor, and the lightweight stuff would make the wearer like a tank (to a degree, he would still get tossed around due to the momentum and detonation of a projectile, but would essentially be safe from harm… from the projectile at least)…
And, it will be far sooner than 20 or 30 years.
The Japanese are years ahead in development of exo-suits, although theirs have been developed for non-military applications… The underlying code and engineering could easily be adapted in short order to a completely military application. check out Cyberdyne's HAL suit for instance. It has features that make the Sarcos suit look like an erector set model. While the HAL suit may not be able to pick up a small car… Its reaction times are far faster and more fluid than the Sarcos suit, and all that it would take to be able to pick up a car, would be to port the technology to a more robust frame and more powerful motor-actuators… Now, this is not even considering the stuff that Yamazaki, Obayashi, or Komatsu have built. Some of their proposed "Construction" robots look an awful lot like what you might call a "Mecha"… Now, they are incredibly slow compared to the exo-suits, but that is just a simple engineering problem (The problem may not be simple to solve, but it is simply an engineering problem, rather than the more complex task of inventing a completely new technology). Give them a reason, and the money and they could have 20 foot tall walking robots that carry 35mm cannon as their side-arms.
