This Massive Robot Could Soon Join Marines on the Battlefield

The future doesn't always arrive with a gasp and a boom like Skynet inTerminator. No, sometimes it's more like Office Space.

At least that's the idea I get watching this video of the Marines' testing the Legged Squad Support System. DARPA built the LS3 to act as an autonomous pack horse that "can carry 400 lbs of a squad’s load, follow squad members through rugged terrain and interact with troops in a natural way, similar to a trained animal and its handler."

And yet, in the hands of real Marines, it sounds like they're testing a new network printer out, or maybe putting the office fob system through its paces.

Indeed. However, the question I must ask is: why would the military invest in the millions necessary for each of these things when they already have plenty of low-level able warm-bodies that are already doing it? I am reminded of reading in the Military Times, I believe, many years ago about an E-7 that decided to purchase a riding lawn mower to help with area maintenance. He was charged with unnecessary expenditure of monetary (military) resources and the cost of it came out of his pay.

However, the genuine Teak desk in the CO's office, well, no one dared to question THAT.

So long as the military has lower ranks that can be ordered to perform countless menial tasks to keep them occupied, they see no need for any labor-saving devices. Got a cargo container full of items that need to be moved to storage? Why invest in a conveyor system that requires three people at most to man it and get things stowed, when you can call up a working party and do it that way.

Need something trekked that the 125-pound (or lighter) "serviceperson" can't manage on her own? That's what the rest of us big strong OTHER members are for. Stiff up, take the load, and get the job done. If that means you take up more because certain others can't, well, tough. Suck it up.

I really do not see any such machine appearing on the battlefield any time soon. Or later, even.

This is yet another example of more money than good sense or educated fools with no good outlet for their “talent”. Poor dumb leatherneck kids who have no idea about things that have already been and been better.

Ever hear of Sgt. Reckless? She did all her work without commands and did it silently at almost no cost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergeant_Reckless

In the early 90 s I met an old fellow who was a crewman on a US merchant ship that hauled mules as part of the cargo to Italy for use as Army pack animals in the mountains.

They entered Bari Harbor after the Luftwaffe raid that delivered the famous disastrous ass- kicking to the allies. He said there were still some bodies floating and that the smell of the fuel oil and the poison gas from the sunken Liberty ship was still pretty noticeable.

There were a LOT of sunken and damaged vessels and the port was closed but I had the impression that the British let them unload because they had to get the animals off.

Would like to talk to that old boy again.

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