also, w/out the armor, they are awesome, but w/ it, it protects them AND increases their speed, strength, and reaction speed.wen they first tested it on regular marines, they moved so fast that wen the guy tried to move, it broke his arm and he ended up killing himself by accident because he broke all his bones. wen the Master Chief first tested the new armor w/ the energy shield and Cortana, he beat 10 ODSTs w/out killing any of them, got across a mine field, destroyed 2 motion tracking turrets, and deflected a homing missile. the missile did hurt him pretty bad, but he still won, by himself (- Cortana), against about 15 ODSTs wen they planned out the field and they had airships/turrets/mines [Edited on 05.07.2012 1:35 PM PDT]