
Australian-made high tech armour could reinvent Mixed Martial Arts - carpdiem
http://www.news.com.au/technology/design/australian-made-high-tech-armour-could-reinvent-mixed-martial-arts/story-fnjwubd2-1226834027811
======
roel_v
"UWM’s vision is to create a large-scale sport and entertainment experience
where martial artists can compete against each other with real weapons, with
an objective measure of who would have won in a real combat situation"

Well the one with the gun would have won in a 'real' combat situation (what
does that mean, anyway?) How is he going to score an icepick to the eye vs a
baseball bat swing to the shoulder? While the latter is painful, it's a lot
less debilitating than the former.

While I think there are many legitimate uses for an armor like this, and I'd
love one to integrate into our training, building a spectator sport out of
this isn't going to be one of them. What people like about the UFC is the same
thing some people like about cycling over car races - it's not about getting
from point A to B, but doing so purely using unleveraged physical abilities.

Still, cool tech.

~~~
rjtavares
Are you really saying that people dueling with samurai swords in high tech
armor that provides 3D visualization of damages have no entertainment value
because the stats aren't realistic enough?

~~~
lloeki
I can't believe nobody here thought about (role)playing with this kind of
thing instead of watching some crappy event on TV. Paintball for swords!

------
iamwithnail
Something something outfit for going out drinking in Australia.

~~~
girvo
Should mandate them instead of instituting this idiotic "one punch" law.

~~~
stephenr
Right, because someone who KILLS someone else, with a SINGLE PUNCH, should go
free or get a slap on the wrist, because the mouth breathing meat head can't
hold his piss?

Fuck off and go live in the united states of "i'm alright so who cares".

~~~
iamwithnail
The one punch law is still bad law. But way to answer a point the other poster
didn't make.

~~~
stephenr
because it increases terms for people who have drunken brawls? because it puts
time limits on people getting shit face drunk before having said brawls?

~~~
girvo
The former director of Public Prosecutions says that it's "a recipe for
injustice". More importantly, it isn't going to stop anything. Oh, and on top
of all that, "king hits" and violent crime has decreased in Australia, so why
implement such an idiotic, short-sighted law? Oh, to make the populace who
have been riled up by the media feel better.

Mandatory sentencing is a blight on the rule of law, and takes away the point
of the justice system.

------
joe_the_user
It sounds like a lot of fun.

I'm not sure MMA would be where it would come out but maybe.

The one thing is I think you can concentrate an lot more force by stabbing
directly forward with a stick, putting your weight behind the blow, rather
than the sideways swing the demonstrator did. I'd like to see what the armor
would do against a blow strong enough to knock someone over.

------
pseut
The last paragraph was fun:

"“UWM’s vision is to create a large-scale sport and entertainment experience
where martial artists can compete against each other with real weapons, with
an objective measure of who would have won in a real combat situation” UWM CEO
David Pysden said."

------
noonespecial
Every time I see something like this, I become more sure: The empire will have
stormtroopers.

------
grovulent
Am I not the only one seeing this deployed as riot gear in the Ukraine and
else where?

~~~
jmnicolas
We could equip the police and the rioters with this gear and have an
independent third party (UN maybe ?) count the points and announce a winner.

Well I guess you still have to resort to "real" violence when one party refuse
to accept the results and start to bring guns to a tonfa fight.

------
frozenport
This will damage the weapon, very much dissimilar to human flesh.

~~~
bitops
Agreed - if you swing a sword hard enough it just becomes a bat, not a cutting
device. I feel like this armor empowers people who'd like the experience of
just wailing on somebody with a stick, but it doesn't really simulate a real
combat scenario.

~~~
davidw
> I feel like this armor empowers people who'd like the experience of just
> wailing on somebody with a stick

I could see some motivational company meetings employing this to great
effect....

------
EGreg
"with an objective measure of who would have won in a real combat situation"

In a real combat situation, the people being struck would experience shock and
degradation of fighting ability, which would have affected the points they'd
go on to score. I would say this is more about who would have scored the most
points in exactly this setting.

~~~
netcan
That's true and it's not going to be used in mma, kickboxing or anything like
that. But sword and spear fights where the competitors don't get killed? That
sounds like fun. What mma is to karate or boxing, this could be to fencing.

Without any details I'm going to assume this is all nonsense, but fun idea.

~~~
GarvielLoken
That already exists, it is called "Historical European Martial Arts" short
HEMA.

------
ripberge
What does this have to do with MMA? The great thing about MMA is that you
don't need a bunch of protective gear and tech to get an "objective measure of
who would have won in a real combat situation". Very often the loser gets
submitted or knocked out. That's the only truly definitive answer to who won
the fight.

------
mercurial
Where are the specs? How heavy is this thing?

I also don't really see what this has to do with MMA, which is AFAIK a mix of
Muay Thai and Brazilian Jijitsu. On the other, you have plenty of traditional
MA which either use weapons as part of training (eg, some kung fu schools) or
are completely weapon-based (eg, kendo).

~~~
thenomad
MMA isn't a style per se - the intention is to allow martial artists from any
style to compete within rules designed to allow reasonable safety.

Currently the Muay Thai / BJJ combo is the most common and generally
successful, but some winning MMA fighters have incorporated elements of styles
as diverse as Tae Kwon Do, Western boxing, and even Capoeira.

------
sonicjohnson
If weapons don't do any damage then strikes certainly won't. So it will just
become really clumsy wrestling and jiu-jitsu. It will be fun to watch the
first event when they realize this though.

~~~
masklinn
The armour registers the strength and position of hits, which would be used to
allocate points.

------
matthiasb
What's up with the "Hook Player" required to watch the video??

------
froo
High Tech LARPing in 3...2.....1....

