This is a series of short stories written prior to 1985 of which military armour is a part of the story. Overall, they had a pretty wild view of the armour and war situations that they would encounter in the post 2000 time period... none were particularly realistic or predictive as I had hoped to see. Most of the stories were pretty boring.

Of the short stories I liked there were only 3 of the them.

SPOILER ALERT

"Warbots" by Larry S Todd 1968

was likeable only for its laugh ability. It was hard to take this story serious at all. It started with a Mech-warrior type. The unit weighed 3 tons!! operated by a soldier with a Atomic bomb in it that would go off if it took a serious hit... Well we have suicide bombers in current middle east wars... close enough. In Urban riot control they "dampened" the A-bomb "feature"... sure... nuke your own populace. Apparently such a man operated weapon was used in Harlem wars and only 2 were lost... one was disabled by a car running into the leg. I would have dug a pit and let it fall into it and I doubt at 3 tons it would get out :)

The story lists several updates over a 10,000 year period. Everyone had a human operator... I guess computers advanced pretty slowly in this author's mind.

"Hired Man" by Richard Meredith 1970

This was a pretty good short story about a mercenary who works for an alien culture against humans. An interesting read for me.

"Early Model" by Robert Sheckley 1956

A story of an explorer in a super protective suit with automatic defenses who meets a new race of alien. He cannot disable the suit and cannot get out of it (by design). He has some amusing experiences because of this.

Two decent stories and one ridiculous one... the rest were boring to read in varying levels. ( )

I love a good anthology, although I'd read a few of these stories before:

* Contact! (David Drake): this story is quite unlike the other stuff of his that I have read, mostly because its set in the Vietnam War, not the far future. A good story with an excellent twist.
* The Warbots (Larry S. Todd): this one wasn't for me. I'm not sure what point the author was trying to make, if any. Its just a long history of imaginary weapons.
* The Scapegoat (C. J. Cherryh): this is long, being a novella, and a little hard to read in places because the story jumps around. Overall, a good read though. My first Cherryh, although I have a lot queued up on the shelf.
* The Last Crusade (George H. Smith): this was a good story, and would have fit well in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow as it has a similar war-is-hopeless tone.
* Hired Man (Richard C. Meredith): there is a nice twist at the end of this one, although its obvious a few pages before it happens.
* Early Model (Robert Sheckley): I was surprised by this one, its the first Sheckley story I've read that I didn't hate. Its not fantastic, but its way better than Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains or his story in Foundation's Friends.
* In the Bone (Gordon R. Dickson): this story is odd, and I'm not 100% sure what I think of it. It was entertaining, but also a little hard to believe.
* The Chemically Pure Warriors (Allen Kim Lang): this was a good story, being quite reminiscent of Tilley's Amtrak Wars series.
* Right To Life (Thomas A. Easton): this story is in the same vein as Make Room, Make Room! and Logan's Run, whilst still being distinct and interesting.
* Or Battle's Sound (Harry Harrison): appeared in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow.
* Hero (Joe Haldeman): appeared in Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow, and was turned into The Forever War.

http://www.stillhq.com/book/Anthology/Body_Armor_2000.html ( )