Special Forces within the UEG

[glitterboy2098]

the technology for landwarrior is definately present in robotech. i mean, you have helmet displays (the stuff seen in Southern cross is more advanced in form than the landwarrior gear!), we see sensors on guns often enough in the show, and basic videocamera gear is (as we see in the Macross portion) way smaller than real world equivalents for the time. we don't have direct evidence for GPS, but said system was already in the works when robotech's history would have diverged (GPS had been in development since the early 70's, and in military use in the 80's, though it wasn't fully operational till the mid 90's due to satellite launch issues. there were earlier sat based navigation systems as far back as the 60's)
battlefield information sharing is a part of the setting from macross on, though infantrymen obviously couldn't benefit from any kind of targeting benefits the vehicles could. but the increased command and control would still be useful.

odds are that they could have made equivalents of the landwarrior gear as of macross. but by that time human scale infantry were no longer a priority, and the development of mecha was getting the bulk of the ground forces R&D budget.

and we do see a number of Landwarrior like capabilities n the cyclones. (all things no doubt based on earlier real world infantry enhancement proposals, many of which inspired and informed the Landarrior program much the same way the Landwarrior program served to advance the current Future Force Warrior program). you have advanced sensors, you have location and mapping capabilities, you have weaponry that ties into the soldier's sensor displays.. plus you have the old 60's and 70's dreams of personal jetpacks for mobility and heavy armor for protection. in many senses the designers of MOSPEADA were ahead of their times.

[Seto Kaiba]

the technology for landwarrior is definately present in robotech.

Some of it, but only ever as separate devices.

i mean, you have helmet displays (the stuff seen in Southern cross is more advanced in form than the landwarrior gear!),

Um... no we don't. There are no direct-to-helmet display systems in evidence in Robotech on ANY scale, be it for a giant robot or a built-in feature of body armor. Perhaps you're confusing a few scenes in which display screens in some of the fighters cast a visible reflection on the pilot's helmet? (If they did have eyeline display systems, they wouldn't build a painfully old-fashioned glass block HUD into every major plane in the series from the VF-1 to the Alpha.)

we see sensors on guns often enough in the show,

Sensors, or traditional scopes? The visuals suggest the latter in most cases. The only confirmed ones are the handful of more modern weapons from the New Generation, primarily guns intended for mounting on armored vehicles.

and basic videocamera gear is (as we see in the Macross portion) way smaller than real world equivalents for the time.

Dunno 'bout that, I had a cell phone in '09 that was about that size and could record video. It was the bottom of the line phone I could get, actually... a Motorola Razr V3 from 2005. My current phone's better than my brother's camcorder for video capture, and is about the same size as Misa's camera.

battlefield information sharing is a part of the setting from macross on, though infantrymen obviously couldn't benefit from any kind of targeting benefits the vehicles could. but the increased command and control would still be useful.

On a giant robot scale, certainly... though there's no evidence for infantry in any of the three sagas having anything more sophisticated than a radio and maybe a mag-compass. The Southern Cross recon division is using conventional binoculars, for pete's sake.

and we do see a number of Landwarrior like capabilities n the cyclones. (all things no doubt based on earlier real world infantry enhancement proposals, many of which inspired and informed the Landarrior program much the same way the Landwarrior program served to advance the current Future Force Warrior program).

Nah, the acknowledged inspiration is actually the Marauder powered suits from Starship Troopers, which also inspired the earliest forerunners of the VF-1 design (when it was a transforming powered suit) in Macross's development.

you have advanced sensors, you have location and mapping capabilities, you have weaponry that ties into the soldier's sensor displays.. plus you have the old 60's and 70's dreams of personal jetpacks for mobility and heavy armor for protection. in many senses the designers of MOSPEADA were ahead of their times.

Some of that is dubious, actually... the only confirmed sensor systems are optical cameras and laser sights, which aren't really advanced, there's very little evidence of location and mapping capabilities, the weaponry uses a dedicated sight or the multipurpose display normally reserved for engine details, but I can't argue the personal jetpack thing.

The LandWarrior concept just doesn't fit, though the Cyclones touch on one or two aspects.

[sirkermittsg]

well robotech technology would be at least on par with our own in any area.... so we can assume that the kind of information they are working on making available to the individual soldiers now, would have been available to say the cyclone riders.

I like the idea of the varios mecha all the way down to the cyclones being networked together in such a way that the battlefield commanders had lots of sensor data to be able to pick and choose from to assist them in planning and reactions to battlefield situations.

[Seto Kaiba]

well robotech technology would be at least on par with our own in any area.... so we can assume that the kind of information they are working on making available to the individual soldiers now, would have been available to say the cyclone riders.

Unfortunately, that's an assumption that almost invariably doesn't hold water in Robotech. It's worth remembering the Robotech universe's timeline branches from ours before 1995, and that a lot of the technology that would be available around that time simply isn't... either because various alien invaders have destroyed the infrastructure it depends on, or it was simply never there to begin with. GPS, for instance, depends on a network of satellites that probably wouldn't survive most of the conflicts in the series, since the destruction of the Zentradi armada in the Macross Saga scattered unthinkably vast quantities of metallic debris into orbit, the Masters made a point to destroy or disable vital satellites, and the years of not being maintained when the Invid occupation robbed humans on Earth of most of their advanced technology.

We can't simply assume that that kind of tech is available, because there's a sizable body of evidence that indicates that it's not present in Robotech. It's not terribly surprising, since Robotech is largely constrained by what the guys who made the original shows dreamed up back in the 80's.

I like the idea of the varios mecha all the way down to the cyclones being networked together in such a way that the battlefield commanders had lots of sensor data to be able to pick and choose from to assist them in planning and reactions to battlefield situations.

Cyclones don't have that kind of communications and data management capability, but the fighters in the series (only the VF-1, really) do display that kind of capability.