Posted on 03/23/2009 3:33:40 PM PDT by Flavius
The U.S. military is calling out the "BigDogs" in addition to its big guns as it deploys more troops to fight terrorists in Afghanistan.
The BigDogs — four-legged robots that can navigate the country's treacherous terrain — and pilotless helicopters than can transport tons of supplies to very remote bases are just two of the new weapons being tested in Afghanistan.
The war zone is increasingly becoming a development laboratory for machines that don't eat, sleep, polish their boots or suffer casualties. But can they succeed where man struggles?
It takes a moment for the senses even to comprehend BigDog, a four-legged robot that vaguely resembles a headless pack animal.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
We're not used to thinking of them this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic -- picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force "is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday."
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/10/robot-cannon-ki.html
When one thinks about it, air defense (High and medium alt) is essentially an automated and digital process. Your life already depends on machines/computers determining whether you’re friend of foe, if your a TBM or plane.........
Those walkers never did that good in Star Wars.
Awesome!
No nation on this planet can leverage technology and resource for a fighting force like we can! No one.
since china is making all the circuits i imagine they will be right along swimmingly
But that was one of the all-time cool Sci-Fi battle scenes! ;-)
You’re thinking of Jedi. The big walkers in Empire were quite successful. I think the rebels were only able to down 2 with their cables, and Luke got one with a bomb. In fact, it was the only real evidence of competence on the part of an imperial commander in the (original) series. Also, according to the books, the big walkers normally walk a lot faster, but the snow surface was too treacherous, so they had to move slowly.
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