Bruce Wayne is nothing without his billions of dollars of gadgets. Sure he could kick some ass in a fight but his ability to sneak up on people and pull a multitude of gadgets from his belt or call in his Bat-Jet are what really make him a super hero. And now he has inspired the United States Air Force to do the same. You see the USAF have created a Special Forces team known as Battlefield Air Targeting Man Aided kNowledge, which is a horrible name but they needed an acronym to say BATMAN because the Dark Knight was their inspiration for the next generation soldier.

When you think about the Special Forces you, the Big Shiny Robot reader, probably think Modern Warfare or something similar. While a lot of that comes from reality its not always true. Dropping a soldier off in the middle of nowhere and giving him a job to do isn’t exactly easy, they need to carry tons of gear (up to 160 pounds) and that gear needs batteries. So the USAF BATMAN program is trying to make themselves more like our hero so that they can be light, and have all kinds of awesome gadgets that make their job easier and faster.

The motto of the program is “Lighter, Smarter, Deadlier” which are all things you want in the modern soldier and more so in a Special Forces soldier who usually needs to be invisible but I think its slightly funny and ironic that they are trying to be deadlier (I know they have to be) when Batman is so adamant about not killing.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, you can read more about the gear they have developed and the program over at msnbc.com and sound off in the forum or comments on what you think of the military Batman.