Power Armor: Fallout's Walking Tanks, From T-45 to X-01

Power Armor is a suit of motorised combat armour that turns one soldier into something close to a walking tank. The US military fielded it in the war with China before 2077, and after the bombs it became the most prized armour in the wasteland, the signature look of the Brotherhood of Steel and the Enclave. The original Fallout's description calls it a self-contained suit of advanced armour powered by a micro-fusion reactor with enough fuel to last a hundred years. (Fallout; Fallout 2)

Where Power Armor came from#

Power armour was built for the war with China. Fallout 76's loading screens say the defence contractor West Tek built the T-45 series, the first to be successfully used on the battlefield, and that it changed the nature of modern warfare. Fallout 4 adds that many T-45 suits were still working two centuries later. (Fallout 4; Fallout 76)

The T-45 wasn't perfect. In the TV series Bud Askins, the Vault-Tec executive who oversaw its rollout at West Tek, admits its design flaws were "ridiculous", and Cooper Howard, a former Marine and later the Ghoul, tells him flatly that those flaws got a lot of people killed. (Fallout, "The Trap")

West Tek's next model, the T-51, was tested at Fort Strong in Boston, where General Brock's reports in Fallout 4 track the problems being ironed out. Fallout 4 calls it the pinnacle of pre-war protection, first used at the Battle of Anchorage. Operation Anchorage shows that battle as a simulation, with T-51b troops readied for the final push once the Chinese defences fall. (Fallout 4; Fallout 3: Operation Anchorage)

The T-60 followed. Fallout 4 says it saw wide use in the US Army after Anchorage and that soldiers in T-60 suits were trying to keep order on 23 October 2077, and Fallout 76 calls it the most advanced power armour to see extensive use. A last model, the X-01, was still a prototype when the bombs fell and was finished after the war by surviving remnants of the US military. (Fallout 4; Fallout 76)

How it works#

Every suit gives its wearer huge strength and heavy protection from bullets, lasers and radiation, and the suits are sealed against the environment. A Brotherhood paladin in the original game even boasts that you could survive for weeks without water inside one. (Fallout)

Fallout 4 changed how it's shown. Power armour became a heavy frame the wearer climbs into, with armour plates bolted on and a fusion core slotted into the back for power. Each part can be damaged, repaired and swapped, and a suit with a flat core barely moves. (Fallout 4)

The TV series shows the same weaknesses. Maximus barely knows how to use the T-60 he takes, gets his foot stuck in some floorboards, and loses when the Ghoul cuts a tube on the suit. (Fallout, "The Target")

The main models#

• T-45. West Tek's first battlefield suit. The Brotherhood's standard armour in Fallout 3, worn after the Lone Wanderer is trained to use it. (Fallout 3; Fallout 76)
• T-51b. The suit the Brotherhood guards in the original Fallout. Darrell, a Brotherhood member, tells the Vault Dweller it's Powered Combat Infantry Armor model T-51b, and that only the Brotherhood's most honoured knights get to wear it. (Fallout)
• T-60. The most common pre-war suit in the Commonwealth and the Brotherhood's main armour in Fallout 4 and the TV series. (Fallout 4; Fallout, "The End")
• X-01. The post-war prototype, the strongest standard suit in Fallout 4. (Fallout 4)
• Excavator. A mining suit by the Garrahan Mining Company in Appalachia that never reached full production. (Fallout 76)
• Advanced Power Armor. The Enclave's post-war design, lighter metal alloys with ceramic plates. The Mk II version is ceramic composite throughout. (Fallout 2)
• Hellfire. The Enclave's heat-resistant armour, worn by its heavy troopers in the Capital Wasteland. (Fallout 3: Broken Steel)

Who wears it after the war#

The Brotherhood of Steel made power armour its badge. In the original game it's a privilege for its most honoured members, and the Vault Dweller can earn a suit by helping the order. In Fallout 3 the Lone Wanderer needs special training to wear it at all, and in Fallout 4 the Brotherhood arrives in Boston aboard the Prydwen with whole squads of T-60 knights. (Fallout; Fallout 3; Fallout 4)

The Enclave went further, building new armour rather than collecting old suits. In Fallout 2 the black Advanced Power Armor is the uniform of its soldiers, and in Fallout 3 the Enclave returns to Washington, D.C. in its descendants. (Fallout 2; Fallout 3)

Other groups make do. The New California Republic has salvaged suits in Fallout: New Vegas, some with their motors removed, and raiders in the Commonwealth bolt together crude armour from scrap. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout 4)

Power Armor in the TV series#

The first episode shows the Brotherhood's airship arriving at a base in California with knights in T-60 armour walking down the ramp, while the young aspirant Maximus watches. In "The Target" he takes the suit of his dead knight Titus and keeps it by pretending to be him over the radio, using the suit's voice modulator. (Fallout, "The End"; Fallout, "The Target"; Fallout, "The Head")

Season 2 ends with Maximus back in power armour, a suit the Ghoul trades him for the cold fusion diode, fighting the deathclaws on the Strip and in Freeside in New Vegas. By the end of the fight he is out of the armour and facing them on foot. (Fallout, "The Handoff"; Fallout, "The Strip")