Jack Morrison, the american hero.
Indiana Born and raised.
Don’t know who that is?
That is the Ex- Overwatch Commander, now commonly known as Soldier 76.
The man is the pinnacle of what any good soldier should be.
Determined, Passionate, Hard working and most of all willing to lost it all to help innocent
people.
Everybody's favorite aimbotter has a lot of cool shit on him.
His gear may seem basic from an outside perspective, but it’s not stuff you see on a regular
basis.
I mean a beacon that can send out healing to people in a certain area, that’s pretty
advanced shit.
Okay maybe the biotic field is a little farfetched but bare with me.
I’m going to ask and hopefully answer a gosh darn interesting question: Is he possible,
or more to the point, how close are we to replicating a soldier 76 in our real world
right now?
As with pretty much all of these topics, it’s all in perspective.
We can be so close and yet so far away.
And I feel like that is true with his legs.
I want to dive into this first, because I noticed a few people mentioned it in a previous
episode of the TECH!
So his legs aren’t 100% organic.
AND sadly during an intense battle, he was injured, forcing him to find a replacement.
He engaged in numerous operations that got him back on his feet out in the field once
again, but essentially turned him into a cyborg.
We’ve covered our fair share of prosthetics on the channel, so i’m sure by now you know
there is a large number of working replacement robotic legs that work to the equivalent of
a human, or in some more expensive cases even better.
But since his legs have an emphasis on the sprinting functionality, I thought it be cool
to look at fast robotic legs.
This will obviously need major adjustments, but this Kaist Raptor robot is a pair of legs
designed after the prehistoric legs of numerous raptor skeletons.
With some structural adjustments, it could potentially support the weight of 76 and run,
but at the moment it does look a little tame.
To flash things up for you, would you be impressed if I told you it can reach roughly 50 kilometres
per hour.
That is something that could be handy if you’re in a bloody rush.
Bare In Mind that’s just a max speed with only the legs and no extra weight, but this
still means we could potentially make robotic legs for humans that can run pretty darn fast.
It’s kinda all hypothetical, but let's dream big.
We’re on the right tracks!
As for the comments concerning how sombra could halt Soldier 76...well her EMP would
reduce this and most robotic legs to bumbling bits of material barely holding up a body.
No idea how 76 would still be able to walk around normally and JUST not sprint whilst
this is in effect though.
I guess it’s one of the mysteries that only Blizzard know the answer to.
Let’s move onto one of the items people most associate with a modern soldier.
A gun.
Soldier 76’s weapon of choice is a ‘Heavy Pulse Rifle’ that can dish out 6 to 20 damage
per hit.
I was considering finding a basic assault rifle that provided a similar outcome of fire
rate and so on but I came across a pretty cool fan made weapon.
It’s not an Overwatch fan made weapon however it is fully functional and it fits the bill
with 76’s Pulse rifle.
It’s pretty much a working version of the M41-A pulse rifle from the Alien series.
And can be fired in a similar way to Soldier’s pulse rifle.
The only problem with this, is because it’s a hybrid weapon -more of that in a second-
it uses a smaller sub machine gun for the rifle segment of the gun.
It’s a Military Armament Corporation Model 11 otherwise known as a MAC-11.
Which can produce a varied fire rate depending on the specific model, that peak at 1200 rounds
per minute which is a much faster fire rate than 76’s pulse rifle (at 600 rounds per minute).
But 600 can still do a lot of damage and get the job done.
To top it off, this weapon has a underbarrel shotgun, just like in the alien film.
The creator of it has sadly said he won’t be manufacturing any for selling, so don’t
get your hopes up about buying one for yourself.
However if we could get our hands on one, we could always swap that shotgun out for
little underbarrel grenade launcher because we’ve got some badass Helix rocket boots
to fill.
The Helix rockets are three mini rockets that fire out at once and when they hit, they deal
120 damage to any foe in their way.
So 3 mini rockets simultaneously firing out in a spiraling fashion isn’t exactly basic
equipment, and sadly not priority for research and development sectors of armament suppliers.
However we do have the famously efficient, powerful and versatile Heckler & Koch M320
underbarrel grenade launcher.
The M320 can fire numerous types of NATO grenades, such as high explosive, which will function
as a slightly less accurate version of the helix rockets but would probably add more
of an area of effect damage to 76’s arsenal.
The M320 can also fire smoke and illuminating grenades for tactical purposes, which you
never know, could come in handy in overwatch.
One little cherry to top it off, would be the day/night sight which has a laser range
finder attached to increase accuracy.
So we’ve got a major advantage at anytime of the day compared to any other individual
with or without a grenade launcher.
You thought it couldn’t get better?
The actual launcher can be fired on it’s own and detached completely from the rifle
it’s attached to.
Can you imagine how badass it look, Soldier 76 with a pulse rifle slaying fools in his
right hand and grenading the fuck outta folks with his left hand.
Unrealistic, but badass as hell!
As I mentioned earlier, Soldier 76 is an aimbotting scumbag and that’s why we love him.
Right?
So his Ultimate is called Tactical Visor but it’s pretty much -and was inspired by- an
aimbot program.
The player gets to lock onto any visible enemies with pretty much perfect accuracy.
The ultimate lasts 6 seconds and also reduces the reload speed of the pulse rifle by half.
So to make this possible, we need to essentially hack real life, and allow us to have aids
on our accuracy that can turn a novice into a crack shot.
In come gun manufacturer TrackingPoint, who specialise in accuracy.
They’ve created the M800 which has they’re specially crafted tracking system and scope
combination.
It is a multi-functional semi-automatic rifle, which can be fired by your own finger like
normal, which obviously has the chance to miss your target because...well...we’re
only human, nobody is perfect.
The second mode however, being the tracker, is almost perfect.
It’s especially useful on moving targets, because you simply need to aim at the target
you wish to hit, press the track button and then let the magic happen.
When the end of the barrel perfectly matches up with your target it will fire, flawlessly
taking it down . It uses similar technology that some fighter jets use when targeting
enemies and it’s just sitting in your hands.
Sure the gun doesn’t move around like crazy perfectly tracking the barrel on your targets
head, allowing you to JUST pull the trigger and kill.
But it comes in at a close second, and it’s something that I think you’ll agree is a
pretty interesting advancement that could help out military forces cleanly take down
targets with precision.
So that is a wrap. We essentially have a real world Soldier 76.
Minus the sweet jacket and biotic field.
If you guys have any interesting topics for a future episode of the tech, I'm taking requests because I'd love
to see what you guys want.