US Army considers replacing thousands of troops with robots

Daily Telegraph (UK) ^ | 6:14PM GMT 21 Jan 2014 | Ben Farmer

[Olog-hai]

The US Army is considering replacing thousands of soldiers with robots as it deals with sweeping troop cuts.

A senior American officer has said he is considering shrinking the size of the Army’s brigade combat teams by a quarter and replacing the lost troops with robots and remote-controlled vehicles.

The American military is still far from fielding armies of Terminator-type robotic killers, though. Ideas under discussion instead include proposals to see manned trucks and transporters replaced by supply trains of robot vehicles.

Generals are studying proposals as the US Army is to slim down from 540,000 to about 490,000 soldiers by the end of next year. Some reports suggest it could dip below 450,000 by the end of the decade. …

[Squawk 8888]

[AppyPappy]

It’s really hard to do. The robots are on auto-pilot much of the time with a minder watching them. He only intervenes in an emergency.

[Secret Agent Man]

I would guess many of them would have an operator on their weapons gear - remotely, like drone pilots. I am also guessing not all robots would be armed.

[12th_Monkey]

yep. But I would suspect they would be hardened against that sort of thing, but still.......?

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

The greatest Sci-Fi movie of all time

"Monsters from the Id!"

[GraceG]

Robots don’t go home after the war and stage a real life re-enactment of the Battle of Athens.....

Which is a another bonus for the establishment for doing so...

That being said anything to prevent troop deaths is a good thing.

However, I fear a day where we get EVEN MORE involved in foreign entanlgements because we could use the excuse “we are only sending robots”....

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

How many of them will be female or gay robots?

Hopefully enough to go around.

[GraceG]

[ What a coincidence - the remake of Robocop comes out in a couple of weeks. ]

I like the movie “Surrogates” better in terms of millitary robots... because they have a human pilot running them instead of a cold hard AI....

[GraceG]

DON’T DATE ROBOTS!!!!

[GraceG]

So you have robot guards along the US/Mexican border. How do you tell the good guy from the bad guy??

No you leave the borders open but you use robots to round up all those freedome loving throwback americans who consider themselves citizens and not slaves to the state...

[Olog-hai]

Actually, the Czech word for slave is otrok. The word robota refers to drudgery, or corvée work (unpaid work substituting for paying taxes). It’s related to the Russian word работа, which means any kind of work.

[M Kehoe]

Just a guess, but one day Skynet will become self-aware.

5.56mm

[BCW]

What will the gay robots say?

[Made In The USA]

Recruiters will be hanging out at Radio Shack?

I’d like a Jr. model robot just to have around for helping with laundry, dishes, yardwork, oil changes, oh, and kicking ass.

[blueunicorn6]

You could replace 99% of our admirals and generals with electric toothbrushes.

[Yo-Yo]

"Roger roger."

[rlmorel]

What could possibly go wrong?

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]