"U.S. Army has developed Third Arm device..." Topic

… that could lessen Soldier burden and increase lethality.

"The U.S. Army Research Laboratory has developed the "Third Arm" device which can be attached to the protective vest of soldiers that will hold their weapon, lessening the weight on their arms and freeing up their hands for other tasks…"

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Amicalement
Armand

Whew. I was afraid this was going to be about the short-arm.

hahahaha, I'll keep my 20 dollar sling.

I was expecting something more like this

Wow. The Army only took 40 years to make copy the get up from Aliens, which was a SteadyCam rig used for film cameras.

Yea, that's gonna work in combat, when you've got to move fast, run, jump, duck, crawl, etc., etc..

I guarantee you it will snag multiple soldiers, many times, on the first combat op test exercise.

Nice try though.

I can see it perhaps being of use for heavy weapons, like machine guns, or auto cannons, being used in fire support roles from a distance, rather than in the thick of the fighting.

I was hoping it would be something like this

I see it being kinda hard to low crawl…

It's really more of a prehensile tail, but that sounds worse than even Chris Wimbrow's suggestion.

Could work in open environments on heavy guns (having a stable platform to fire a M240) with out going prone. But for a assault fire or in close quarters, it looks useless.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

In the Aliens tech manual it shows using their rig being fired prone.

You lay on your back and fire between your feet.

Looks like the rig would get in the way, of a number of things. Like moving thru a jungle or forest, etc.

There was also this …

Speaking of steady cams …