foreign policy The magazine visited a U.S. military training exercise where Lt. Isaac McCurdy and his infantry platoon faced machines with camera lenses for eyes and sheet metal for skin.
Running on eight squeaky wheels and carrying enough firepower in the back of a truck to fill a small arms warehouse, a handful of U.S. military robots raced across the battlefield in the fictional city of Ujen. The robots shot at the houses where the rebels were hiding. The drone, which had been hovering over the battlefield for hours, hovered over McCurdy and his team, dropping a “bomb” — in this case a foam soccer ball — directly above them, and firing a perfectly placed shell. Dropped. A robot dog with a sensor attached to its head searched the house to make sure no one was inside.
“If you look at the whites of someone's eyes or their sunglasses, [and] “If you shoot back at it, they'll have a human reaction,” McCurdy said. “If it's a robot that pulls up and shoots something bigger than it can carry on its own, and you shoot the center, it doesn't just die.” Mass, it's a whole different feeling. ”
In America's next major war, robots will take the first punch, leaving Army top brass to do the dirty, tedious, and dangerous work that has killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the more than 7,000 U.S. service members. The department is looking forward to it. He died during the 20-year Middle East war. The goal is to place robots in the most dangerous parts of the battlefield, replacing a 19-year-old private who has just finished basic training… [Several] Army leaders believe that nearly every Army unit, down to the smallest foot patrols, will soon have drones in the skies to sense, protect and attack. And it won't be long before the United States deploys ground robots in human-machine teams in combat.
The magazine notes that the robot has not yet been tested with live ammunition or at lower temperatures. (And at one point during the exercise, “Army personnel sabotaged it, and a swarm of drones fell from the sky.”) But the U.S. military also said that “a platoon of robots the equivalent of 20 to 50 humans… We are considering a proposal to add “Soldiers'' to the Armored Brigade Combat Team. ”
Six generals and several colonels observed the exercise, according to the article, which notes that the ultimate goal is not to replace all human soldiers. “The important thing is to gain an advantage before China or Russia.”