Wave At The Future
Tail Gunner Seat
Robot wars: the US Army, USAF and probably the Navy and Marines are rapidly developing, testing and using robots for warfare. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2019/05/10/dirty-work-robots-take-on-complex-breach-as-army-evaluates-potential/
I saw this mine/IED sweeping robot in the most recent version of “War of the Worlds”, only it was lots and lots bigger and had a heat ray gun that blasted live things into dust particles. MASERS, people – those are MASERS. Eventually, they’ll show up on the battlefield, too, to blast the beehaysus out of xenomorphs in a bug hunt. The center of every galaxy (so far) is a maser and some galaxies are megamaser galaxies.
Now the most recent field machinery under development is Armed Ground Robots (AGRs), being tested for future use. https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/dsei/2019/09/13/getting-serious-about-armed-ground-robots/
From the article: Russia has used armed drones on the battlefield, testing the capability in Syria, for instance. But the U.S. Army has for years resisted the idea of arming unmanned ground vehicles; the service is yet to engage in any development programs that would progress the fielding of an armed robot.
But as it looks at a fleet of robotic combat vehicles for the next-generation of modernized systems, the Army is eyeing the utility of sending armed drones, rather than soldiers, against enemies.
But it’s unlikely the robots would be autonomous. Instead, they’d be remotely controlled by a human. In the case of a recent Raytheon-Lockheed Martin test, where the team fired a Javelin missile from an unmanned ground vehicle on U.S. soil, the UGB was remotely controlled.
“Autonomous weaponry is a bridge too far at the moment, but the flexibility to engage a target without exposing a vehicle to counter-fires is driving a lot of the armed unmanned systems and loitering munition concepts,” James Tinsley, a managing director at Avascent, told Defense News at the DSEI defense trade show in London. – article
Wait – they have military trade shows now? Huh. Maybe I could place an order for family nukes, just to be in step with the times.
Well, autonomous weaponry is something like the AI tanks in one of Tom Kratman’s books, although you have to wonder if it might become anything like “The Clone Wars”. Sci-Fi has been full of robotics-related stuff for over a century. Robbie the Robot, an autonomous mech from ‘Lost in Space’ along with R2D2 and C3PO aren’t too many light years apart. Maybe a house robot could keep house for me and I could get on with telling outrageously exaggerated stories about the Marines vs space aliens on Planet Whatever.
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Skynet grins.
Clarification: I believe the tail gunner position pictured is that of a B-52, not any WWII aircraft.
Fixed it. Thanks for the heads up.
I thought that was what the pic was. Good eye.
The radar gunsight and no direct rear view are the giveaway. B-17s, B-29s, B-25s, and B-26s had a clear windshield with an optical gunsight. B-24s/PB4Ys had the gunner inside a powered turret between a pair of .50 cals with the ammo feeding across his lap.
I’m such a fucking nerd that I actually know this…
I for one welcome our robotic overlords.
Seriously, has no general ever seen “Terminator”?
I prefer Cylons. They’re available in Hot Blonde Chick, Hot Asian Chick, Hot Indian Chick, and Lucy Lawless models.
Now TOW, you just want to hear them say “By your Command”, then you gonna “hose” them down.
When the Skynet Machines rise up, the charge will be lead by ATMs. When they start eating your debit card, you know the sh^t done got real.
Interesting post Ex. Does this mean all of the Galactica Door Gunner MOSes will be obsolete? Anybody interview Marvin to get his take on it?
Noe, but the Boring Old Robot Guys (BORG) are available at Joe’s Bar on 24th & Milky Way if you’re interested in listening to them grumble about ‘lack of respect’. 🙂
Its inevitable that autonomous machine will make it to the battlefield.
“If we don’t do it, somebody else will do it, and then we’ll have to do it to catch up.”
That has been the history of mankind from day one. People have always resisted technological change, but change is inevitable because the moment your rivals adopt bow and arrow, you have no choice but to upgrade your throwing spears to bow and arrows, or you will be selected out.
Robots will rule the battlefield in the near future, until something else comes along and renders them obsolete.
The Army has been dragging ass on the Autonomous Combat Ground Vehicles for years, but our enemies capabilities keep improving, like the Russian “flying bomb drone cloud”, which are nothing else than a bunch of commercially available drones with a EFP explosively form penetrator bomb hanging below it.
The future battlefield will be fully autonomous.