As the basic premise of the Advancement TL is that the world is 200 years more advanced than our own this page exist to document the new advanced technology and where it is used.
Military[]
Weaponry[]
Although infantry are far more limited in their selection of weapons as vehicles are, due to power limitations, the weaponry they have available to them is still very impressive. The primary firearms type for developed nations is a railgun design, optimized for high penetrative power and rate of fire. Even against soldiers in armor, one shot can often pass through several people at once, and even some tank armor can be rendered ineffective with these infantry guns.
Certain nations such as Sweden and Japan have also developed an even more impressive type of weapon. Replacing the standard fragmentation grenade, soldiers with access to enough power can be equipped with Plasma Grenades. Essentially a dense ball of plasma is suspended in the grenade between superconductor coils which are turned off by a timer after the "pin" is pressed. When exploding, the plasma is violently released, vaporising anything within 2 meters, tearing apart nearly anything within an additional 2 meters, and killing an unarmored soldier within an additional 6. The only disadvantage though is that the cost of each grenade is rather high, due to the superconductor, and the power requirements for the containment field are beyond what most soldiers have access to. Nevertheless, since one grenade can destroy even the most well armored tanks or emplacements, its very much worth the cost.
Vehicles[]
Tanks[]
Despite there being massive advances in technology and development of new weapon and propulsion systems the basic design for the tank has remained uncharged since the early 1800's. The standard pattern remains similar to OTL although the main gun is usually of a railgun or laser design. The Swedish have experimented (unsuccessfully) with replacing the tracks with hover skirts or robotic legs, but the basic tank track is still remains the dominant mode of propulsion. However, the new Swedish P-133 MBT (coming into service in 2013) has small load-carrying Casmir coils, reducing the effective weight to 37 tons (down from 67). It also features an experimental system utilizing the Lenz effect to deflect and slow-down any conductive metal rounds. Since most developed nations utilize railguns, the deflective force can reduce the impact to a much more managable magnitude. It is also useful in Sweden's various ventures into less-developed Azania, where low-velocity chemically-propelled rounds are utilized, and metal explosives and shrapnel are rendered completely ineffective. Plans to upgrade Japan's tanks and vehicles to use this system are underway.
Aircraft[]
The most common type of military aircraft in use today is the Hypersonic Multi-Role Fighter. Powered by two scramjets it can reach twenty times the speed of sound in the atmosphere and, with an small ion thruster, can leave Earth's atmosphere for surprisingly long periods of time. They are normally armed with either hypersonic missiles, small railgun rounds or lasers, although conventional ballistic trajectories are far more difficult for pilots to intuitively plot out. These fighters can normally be modified for use in outer space as well, and are used as patrol craft by nations that cannot afford a fleet of interplanetary carriers/cruisers.
Other aircraft used by militaries include hypersonic bombers and helicopters.