“Exoskeletons and automatons for human enhancement have been in the human imagination for millenia, as far back as 2,700 years if you go back to the story of Talos,” Mayor said. According to Adrienne Mayor - a Stanford University historian and the author of Gods and Robots: Machines, Myths, and Ancient Dreams of Technology - the TALOS acronym is a tribute to Talos, the giant bronze android of Greek myth who patrolled the shores of the island of Crete in epic poems stretching back as far as Homer’s writings in 700 BC.

Standard combat gear may not have changed much since World War II, but that doesn’t mean that TALOS didn’t have centuries of military imagination to draw on. “Not only that, but we wanted to do so while enhancing their tactical capabilities and strategic effectiveness.” “The fact that personal protective equipment for operators has not significantly changed since WWII was certainly part of the impetus for SOCOM exploring how to provide operators with comprehensive ballistic protections,” Navy Lt.

Navy suit for war