Robotic Warfare
Here we are on the verge of more wars. Some may wonder why I am saying that, could it be because we are going to fight more terrorists? Not really. The problem is that we are starting to take some of the risk out of war. I am not talking about the risk to civilians, although the military claims that the risk to them is getting progressively less, I am talking about the risk to our military personnel. We are gaining the capability of launching an attack without getting a single person in our military killed. Okay I got you interest and you are wondering what I am talking about aren't you? First let me make one thing clear, when I say that maybe not one of our military personnel will be killed I am talking about the initial attack, not any counter attacks.
Stryker Robot Tank The world is becoming mechanized and robotized. We not only have drone planes, but also drone space planes. I am talking about the remote control XB-37B that the US Air Force now has. We have remote controlled robots that can be put onto the battlefield, probably thousands of them by now. The military has been playing around with remote control vehicles for years and this includes a remote controlled tank that is named the Stryker. They admit to testing this vehicle as early as 2006. It is a light tank that can hit speeds of 40 miles per hour. The tank does not use GPS, so if the GPS is knocked out it won't affect it. Instead it uses terrain recognition, much like some of our cruise missiles. Other tanks such as the Black Knight are also being tested.
Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System One of the most terrifying people on a battlefield is the sniper. No one is safe from this invisible sharp shooter and he can strike you anywhere and anytime. You might be in the middle of a meal, or going to the bathroom. None of this bothers him. The U.S. Army has decided to develop a robot sniper. The vehicle looks like a very small helicopter. The system is named the Autonomous Rotorcraft Sniper System, ARSS for short. The vehicle is equipped with a high velocity sniper rifle. It carries a RND Edge semi-automatic gun that is mounted in a self stabilizing turret. The turret contains a camera with a powerful zoom lens. The rifle can be fired much faster than any human could fire it. The rate of fire is 7 to 10 very accurate shots per second. Machines are ready to kill us in the blink of an eye and they will not even have the miniscule amount of regret that a human sniper might have, if any. In 2009 a highly sophisticated robot was sent to Afghanistan to replace less capable robots. According to IRobot Corporation which made a special model just for use in Afghanistan, the new robot is faster, smarter and stronger. The robot is a PackBot 510 with Aware 2.0 software. Shades of Terminator. The purpose of the robot is to assist our troops in detection of explosives and such. The robot can also be controlled with a standard type joy stick. The initial order for these robots was for 125 units at a cost of 16.8 million dollars. So far the Defense Department has accepted over 2,400 of these robots. Don't think for one second that the US Navy has not joined the search for robot vehicles. Robot vehicles that are used underwater have been around for years. The ones that most of us see are usually small vehicles that search for wrecks and downed submarines and are controlled from the surface. In 2007 a robotic submarine was used to search for the bodies of two French tourists that were thought to have drowned when their ship sunk. A new robot boat called the Protector is now being used to detect pirates off the coast of Somalia. The boat contains a 7.62mm machine gun and was created by BAE Systems. Pirates like to put out a distress call and then ambush the boats that come to the rescue. The robot craft can be controlled from 10 miles away and sent to the pirate infested area. It can even be sent to intercept a rescue vessel before it gets to the target area. Another robotic vehicle is a jetski sized vehicle called the Sentry that can travel at 55 mph.
USS George W. Bush I can see it now. It takes place sometime in the future. A robotic aircraft carrier is sent out to a hotspot. When it gets there its fleet of 300 robotic planes is ready to take off. The reason that it can hold over 300 planes and maybe more, is two fold. First of all the areas that were needed to accommodate humans are no longer needed and they can be filled with aircraft. The second reason is that some of the robotic aircraft are far smaller than the manned aircraft were. Smaller robotic aircraft are relatively cheap and since command is not worried about causalities, they can now send out waves of aircraft anywhere, without having to consider the fact that the aircraft might be lost. This also allows different tactics to be used that are much bolder. The carrier is protected by its robotic carrier task force of destroyers, cruisers and submarines. All this is controlled by personnel many miles away, thus no human on our side is in harm's way. This allows the initial attack to take place without the chance of any of our people being killed, at least until the retaliation. Here is the scary thing. Knowing how the military thinks, they just might believe that they can launch an initial attack that wipes out all resistance thus eliminating the chance of retaliation. This will definitely make war even more dangerous than it already is, because such a war may be easier to start. There will always be those jerks around like the ones that wanted to nuke the Soviet Union, because they thought that they could completely wipe out their nukes before they could be launched. Personally I think war should be messy and full of death on both sides, as this makes people think twice before launching an attack. If I had my way, war would be a thing of the past. |
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