Posted on 10/18/2007 11:36:37 PM PDT by Spktyr
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."
SA National Defence Force spokesman brigadier general Kwena Mangope says the cause of the malfunction is not yet known...
Media reports say the shooting exercise, using live ammunition, took place at the SA Army's Combat Training Centre, at Lohatlha, in the Northern Cape, as part of an annual force preparation endeavour.
Mangope told The Star that it is assumed that there was a mechanical problem, which led to the accident. The gun, which was fully loaded, did not fire as it normally should have," he said. "It appears as though the gun, which is computerised, jammed before there was some sort of explosion, and then it opened fire uncontrollably, killing and injuring the soldiers."
More importantly, they’d never seen the “ED-209 in the boardroom scene” from Robocop.
Not exactly sure of the details, such as access/entry/power restrictions, but some worker managed to get between the machine and the intended screw hole.
That was back in the 1980s.
Considering 2001: A Space Odyssey was done in 1968 I thought is was great.
And in the 70s the Russians had a tank with an autoloader mechanism that sometimes would load the weapons soldier into the breach instead of the intended shell if he got in the way in the cramped area.
I'm not sure how exactly the Soviet autoloader worked, but the US Army declined to add one because of the maintenance of an additional 80-100 parts.
From the cycle time of the Iraqi Soviet built tanks, 20-30 seconds, iirc, it didn't give them any advantage in a real combat situation.
“You know vat ve gonna do nowwwww?”
“Nyet...”
“Unpimp ze tank!”
Oh My Gawd! You mean he was literally, actually, screwed with a screw-driving robot!!
Considering that it started production in 1964, it's even greater.
Skynet???
One of my co-workers used to be a loader, and yes, there's NO clearance during the recoil of the main gun. There's a safety gate, however my co-worker told me that it's not used because it gets in the way. He said that it was a very ugly way to find ones self in the hospital with numerous broken bones, and an occassional medical discharge.
He also told me of the time there was a mixup in the round loaded in the main gun, and the calibration switch on the gun sight during a live fire exercise... He told me that the round overshot the target by about 5 miles.
Mark
Stabbed to death, actually.
Oh, dear. Stabbed or screwed? What’s the difference!!
Don’t really think there is much of one, to tell the truth.
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