The Military Is Calling On These Robots To Do Things It Never Imagined

[xchrom]

http://www.businessinsider.com/these-are-the-10-coolest-military-roots-youve-never-heard-about-2012-10?op=1


The U.S. Marine Corps Gladiator Tactical Unmanned Ground Vehicle packs a punch, with missiles and machine gun mounts
From a Marine Corps article:
The Gladiator is loaded with all sorts of gadgets and weaponry, including day and night cameras, a chemical detection system, Light Vehicle Obscuration Smoke System, and is mounted with either M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, the M240G Medium Machine Gun, 9 mm Uzi or an Anti-Personnel/Obstacle Breaching System (APOBS).



The U.S. Army's XM1219 Armed Robotic Vehicle can drive over just about anything, and kill bad guys

***SNIP


The U.S. Navy's 'MacGuyver' Bot is the next generation of automated disaster relief

[Bonobo]

1. The Bravery of Being Out of Range

[xchrom]

2. it was the bombing runs in bosnia that first brought that thought to my mind. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

16. The same argument was used against the crossbow

The same argument will continue to exist forever.

Why robots are somehow unacceptable while intercontinental missiles are not a problem is simply beyond me.

Extending the range of an attack for the safety of the soldier is fundamental to military tactics. You may as well argue that holding the high ground is the act of a coward.

This makes no sense at all.

[maggiesfarmer]

23. well put, +1

[JackRiddler]

28. Actually, this argument will not exist forever.

Perhaps you're right, and people will keep coming up with lame, self-serving (and ultimately self-destructive) justifications for arms races, until the probability of nuclear war rises to 1.

However, if this "sense" you speak of is any kind of factor in human affairs, then I cannot share your blind pragmatism about new technologies for murder, at any distance. To hell with wars and militaries. The constant preparation for wars, always with pragmatic-seeming justifications, is what has created a world full of them. "The safety of the soldier" is the death of a whole lot of other people conveniently defined as other.

Intercontinental missiles are obviously not acceptable, by the way.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. Actually people in the military arms

You know with stars, have raised the issue of making war damn too easy.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. The cartoon

That is a movie made by an IDF soldier after the Lebanon war, on the insanity of war.

[orpupilofnature57]

3. Wow !!!! Remember to forget

[Kindly Refrain]

4. All it's going to take is one very large ground war

for the Pentagon to realize how useless these robots are. Nothing can replace eyes on the ground. The reaction time is cut to pieces if there is somebody in an air conditioned trailer 500 miles from the combat who can't react in real time. Not to mention the hacks from an enemy that would render these things inoperable.

[Motown_Johnny]

17. What do you think the time lag is for radio signals traveling 1000 miles?

[bemildred]

18. That's not the issue.

Some guy in a chair reading screens and pushing buttons and joysticks to swivel things around and fire is much too slow for ground combat, and one RPG will make a mess of that piece of crap. Pneumatic tires no less. And I'll bet it costs a bundle per each.

[Motown_Johnny]

19. These are robotic tanks. The idea that they are easy targets is silly.

Also, the people controlling them are, and will be, well trained.

If you think joysticks and buttons are going to slow reactions then you need to go watch some kids play video games.

You also need to consider the 'fear factor' of the people who's lives are in danger.

I don't think you have really thought this one through.

[bemildred]

21. They have rubber tires, the idea that they will stand up in combat is silly.

Tank warfare is thoroughly obsolete anyway, and taking the operators out of them, while understandable, will do nothing to improve the situation. These may be OK for police work, in a real war they won't last a week.

[Kindly Refrain]

26. They would have to have extremely sensitive senors

One monitor doesn't give you a good sense of what is going on in an environment say 50 feet behind you. All you have to do is take out the cameras and the thing is useless.

[JackRiddler]

29. Who says they're going to be controlled from 500 miles away?

In less than 20 years they'll be coming up with excuses why it's so great for national security to have these run by computer-animal hybrid brains with autonomy over battlefield decisions. They'll program the Geneva protocols right into'em and claim a higher rate of compliance with international law than with live soldiers.

But anyway, the eventual deployment isn't going to be on foreign battlefields. It's going to be right here at home, and the targets - you lot - are going to be pretty easy to deal with.

[redgreenandblue]

5. The new arms race of automated weapons.

People are now all smug about it because America currently has an edge. This is not guaranteed to last though.

[sibelian]

10. I think America will probably always have the edge.

America is considerably more technologically advanced than almost all the comparable powers and there is no indication that America will give that up willingly.

[redgreenandblue]

13. "always" is quite a long period of time.

People living in the Roman empire probably thought the Roman empire would "always" have the edge compared to the Kelts or the German tribes.

Today things move even faster than they did then. I think if you look down the road a few decades, there is simply no telling who will have what kind of edge.

Upgrading military technology is a bit like buying new computer hardware. Things become obsolete very fast. You have to spend tons to always have "high-end" stuff. For every purchase of high-end gear you make, a person of lesser means can easily make the same purchase at a much lower price, after a few months have passed. Maybe with military stuff the time-scales are different, but I think the principles are the same.

[sibelian]

22. that certainly *could* be the case...

As a European, I wouldn't mind America always having the edge as long as the Americans using the machinery were nice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

33. Hey sparky

Where do you think DOD buys it's computer chips?

China

You know Intel, yes INTEL is not an American company either...it's based in Tel Aviv.

Oh and that edge in Nobel prices is fading.

[sibelian]

39. Please don't respond to me with things like "hey sparky".

It's very rude.

I suspect you'd rather America didn't have the edge, well, nasty as American Imperialism is, if I had to make a choice I'd rather your nation had the edge than the Russians or the Chinese, neither of whom are very nice. The ideal situation would be nobody having the edge, but that seems difficult to achieve, currently. I don't like Iraqis being tortured and humiliated and the idea that American psychological research and technological expertise is only going to get better (or worse, depending on your point of view) does not fill me with delight, but, grubby as your nation's human rights record has been recently, it's not really anywhere near as ugly as China's, particularly historically. Note - all that is IF I had to make a choice. As I stated, actually I don't think I get one.

I don't think pretending a significance to the source of the DODs chips or operating systems says much about America's future in military technology as America has always been an expert in aggregating and integrating technologies from other areas to develop its own military systems - the competetiveness of such a system depends more on creative development of its components than the source of its components.

If you, like me, would prefer America to stay away from smaller, weaker nations and leave them alone to get on with their lives peacefully rather than laying waste to them, tying them up and photographing them in sexually suggestive positions, tormenting them and slaughtering them in the tens of thousands, perhaps populating the American political system with people of better temperament would lessen such unpleasantness. I don't think relying on the military-industrial complex to collapse is going to be a winning strategy, long-term.

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. It is not what I prefer,

1.- American exceptionalism makes people feel better, but it is bunk.

2.- Empires rise and fall, we are on the other side of the curve.

That is a fact jack, and you can bank on it.

We have made this partly ourselves with the predictable exceptional attitude. It is what it is. Whether it is Rome, China (middle Kingdom), Spain, the Netherlands, the Raj, the Russians, the British... I could go on. It is what it is.

[RKP5637]

6. This is what we will eventually see patrolling the streets of America to keep the

masses in line. And I'm really not joking. This will be a replacement for the many police, for example, we often see at protests and used against those not agreeing with TPTB. It'll be a step up from the pepper spray used against OWS. After what happened way back at Kent State, nothing will surprise me.

[Zalatix]

7. Zardoz, but with machines.

[RKP5637]

12. Yep, that's the road we're traveling down, I fear. I saw a parade of police vans around

here earlier in the summer that looked like an armed tank division going down the street. The vans were huge and looked well armed. It was a parade in recognition of something, but we were so stunned when we saw the display and show of force we never did find out what it was all about ... we were just driving along in the car dwarfed by these things. Frankly, it was quite spooky to say the least. It seems more and more "we the citizens" are the enemy.

[raouldukelives]

15. Yep and they are hard at work making them autonomous. nt

[Archae]

8. Skynet?

"I'll be back."

[WinkyDink]

9. It's all about Defense contracts.

[RKP5637]

14. Yep, and hoards of money in northern Virginia where many of the recipients of all of that

defense cash live. It's all a racket now, a huge $$$$$ racket. Death and destruction are now just given trivial side effects, nothing will stand in the way of hoards of $$$$$. And if one is not in favor of hoards of $$$$$ for death and destruction, then they are deemed to be unpatriotic and un-American.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. I admire your clarity of vision.

[RKP5637]

36. Thanks dixiegrrrrl

[.99center]

11. That's one dope robot

I'm not sure the 'MacGuyver' bot provided the relief he needed at the time,I'm sure he could use a hit after you save him though.

[bluestate10]

20. That is the stuff that the Pentagon is willing to show the public.

The truly lethal stuff is under wraps, not to be seen.

[SammyWinstonJack]

24. See, this is why we can't have nice things such as single payer health care...

infrastructure repair.....etc.

WAR INC gets all the $$$$$.

[xchrom]

25. +1

[winstars]

27. What, no bayonet attached to it, its completely useless obviously!!!

Not to mention I did NOT see a horse with it.

[JackRiddler]

30. "...and Kill Bad Guys"

Go, Goebbels, Go!

[tabasco]

35. Looks like a defense contractor got rich off another piece of shit n/t

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

37. Wonder weapons to defend the crumbling empire that's going broke building wonder weapons.

[xchrom]

38. right? nt