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US Army Testing Robots with Shotguns
Darren writes "The US Army is testing robots armed with shotguns. The robots are called Packbots and have already seen some action in Iraq. It also has chemical sensors that detect nuclear, biological, and chemical contaminants. Maybe I've seen a few too many bad sci-fi movies, but robots with shotguns scare me."
Haven't we already covered the packbots and their shotgun plug-ins enough? This is pretty old news.
"The pitiful fleshy humans can have my gun when they pry it from my cold metal fingers".
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
So much for the three laws of robotics.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
... you have twenty seconds to comply... ... rrrr ... you now have fifteen seconds to comply...
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Thats gotta be some scary shit if you're a soldier in Iraq, imagine a robot with a shotgun walking up to you yelling "DIE EVIL INSURGENT", mistaking you for an enemy. Thats not even an honorable death, dying from a robot?
thisnukes4u.net
Here are two more older articles with more pictures. These don't mention shotguns...
The robot is controlled by an integral Pentium based computer. It uses a modular payload system offering standard (USB, Ethernet) communications and networking.
I get this mental picture of some sneaky terrorist with a Sony Vaio sneaking up to one of these packbots and plugging in his cat5...
I am a viral sig. Please help me spread.
>> "...robots with shotguns scare me."
But I'm perfectly fine with 200,000 teenagers armed with billions of dollars in "smart" weapons and ordered to do what they are told under penalty of courts-martial.
For a minute, I pictured the Army's new class of robots being "stress tested" via shotgun fire. I was really wondering if that was such a good idea... I mean, who expects a machine to stand up to a hit from a shotgun?
I know the robots in System Shock 2 certainly didn't last long.
The speed of time is one second per second.
if they can afford to build a (let's face it) Terminator (T-0.00001a?), then why can't they afford to build a weapon for it that's better suited to being used by a robot? A shotgun is a pretty complicated weapon to fire, whereas an uzi-nine-millimeder isn't.
robots running windows scare more!
"kiss my shiny metal ass"
cheers,
Adolfo
How are those things going to recognize whether someone is a soldier or a civilian?
Now that's just a huge fallacy.
Gore has repeatedly stated that he would have thrown the terrorists in a lock box. The key to the lock box would also be safely kept away in another lock box.
I thought they already put shotguns on bomb defusal robots as a way of remotely triggering explosives.
And, I also seem to recall (probably on a Fox special) police using a robot with remote camera and a shotgun to negotiate with an armed man (and get the layout of his place)... and this was YEARS ago.
Why is this really news, outside of it containing the "Iraq hotbutton?"
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
So how long before we battle the evil robot spider things like in this film
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
Just imagine the applications:
HUNTER'S HELPER: The lazy backwoods redneck no longer need soil his clothing or even leave the house! Simply be remotely controlling his JethroBot, he can blast away offensive and dangerous deer, squirrels, and "possums" with the flick of a switch! Sure to be a top seller at Wal-Mart stores nationwide.
FOOD FETCHER: Too damned fat to get out the door and make that McDonald's run? Add the handy tray attachment (sold separately) and your shotgun-toting buddy becomes a handy way to get grub once your limbs can no longer support your weight.
PAINTBALL III - RISE OF THE MACHINES:Sick of losing to uber-good paintball players? Buy a fleet of cyborgs, swap those 12 gauges for rapid-fire paint launchers, and tell those wusses "I'll be back". Life-size inflatable Linda Hamilton doll not included.
It seems that these "robots" are actually just remote controlled vehicles with shotguns. I don't think they're autonomous, most of the concerns raised don't reem relevant.
The arms the shotguns are attached to tend to move pretty slowly, and using them against live combatants would not be the simplist task. I think the author of the article was looking to add a little more sauce than necessary. These things are most likely being used to go into hazardous situations to collect information and handle volatile/dangerous substances/objects.
Idiot, n. A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant
Actually the US rules of engagement prohibit firing at women/childen/civilians. So if terrorist babies are shooting at US troops the usual approach now is to withdraw without returning fire, and then call in an airstrike to kill the babies (they can now be considered collateral babies), which is allowed apparently.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
How come we don't have something like the automatic machine guns that were used in Aliens? I think they'd be great in securing remote points from enemy filtration. All you need is a machine gun with a motion sensor and tracking software.....
Seriously folks, these are glorified remote controlled cars with shotguns. It's not even that new. Bomb disposal robots that Police departments use have had shotguns for a long time (they use them to set off a suspicious package). The only thing new about this is it's being used against humans in a combat situation. It's still a human controlling it.
The best part of it is that it replaces the "Tunnel Rats" from Vietnam. Instead of sending a human with a pistol to clear a tunnel or cave, you send one of these in.
No scarier or faultprone than a Predator drone, armed with Hellfires, being flown remotely by a pilot on the ground.
Ok folks, put down the kool-aid, The US military(not sure about others) has the concept of illegal orders, wherein a grunt can refuse to comply with an order(eg kill babies point blank) due to it being illegal.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
I just had a flashback to an early Counter-strike bot. Now picture a 400-lb, shotgun-wielding robot bunny-hopping (you can't hit him), running with a knife (because it's faster!), and shooting at your legs (they do the same damage).
There are tons of unemployed people. They can't find any other work so many are forced to enlist. They are probably a lot cheaper than robots. Having a pool of poor people to draw on is terrific for the "war president".
That sounds handy. I can't think of how many times I've found an NBC weapon and wanted to shoot it with some buckshot.
The same company that makes those cute little household vacuuming robots now has a military robot that is equipped with a pump action shotgun
So all terrorists need to do is set up one of those obstacle wire things from the accessory store, right?
(cut to scene in cave) {BAM] [BAM] "ALL YOUR CAVE ARE BELONG TO US!"
"Dammit Akbar, I thought I told you to set up the obstacle wire! Someone go take its batteries out, for god sakes."
The Pacbot weighs about 40 pounds
Okay. So does it kill terrorists by hitting them with the buckshot, or with its body that flies through the air every time it fires the gun?
And, being ankle-height, what part of the body does it aim at? Ouch...
Please help metamoderate.
It's worth quoting in full:
The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea.
They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall
mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by
small robots. And as you go forth today, remember always, your duty is
clear: to build and maintain those robots. Thank you.
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.
Is "collateral babies" the official terminology, or just something you came up with? It would be an awesome name for a band.
The shotgun is a pretty straight-forward weapon.
The action basically consists of:
1) Place Shell in barrel 2) Aim 3) Strike cap to fire 4) Eject shell (repeat).
In the case of the pump-action shotgun, the weapon is cycled by a simple linear motion in 2 directions.
Furthermore, the shotgun has a low requirement for accurate aiming.
The UZI is a bit more of a problem.
Compared to the shotgun, the mechanism of the UZI which provides its 'automatic' cycling using part of the gas from the barrel is quite complex.
Once firing begins from a closed-bolt (not sure if the UZI fires from CB), the weapon then relies on gas to work the bolt and springs to chamber the next round and cycle the trigger.
All of this makes a weapon like an UZI prone to jamming which, in the case of a robot would render the weapon useless until the end of the mission. (When human-intervention can fix the jam)
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
Actually nowadays shotguns in EOD robots is more used to help have access to de devices, like opening doors, breaking windows, etc, the neutralization of the device, in most cases, is achieved with water fired at high velocites using a proper device.
Perhaps this has to do with the potential psychological effects of shooting women and children?
I'm guessing that it is much more traumatic for an 18-year-old guy to shoot a woman or child than it is to shoot another adult man. And I would think this is true even if the woman/child shoot at him first.
I admit that the policy sounds crappy from the perspective that we won't kill them with bullets but we will with bombs. I'm just guessing the thinkging goes something like: if they have to be killed, let's do it in a way that is the least harmful to our own troops (in this case, in terms of morale rather than physical injury).
The rules of engagement become tricky in a "war on terror", where the opponent looks like any other civilian and aren't afforded the normal protections of the Geneva Convention. See "enemy combatant" and Guantanamo.
A report published in The Lancet Medical Journal (although the link seems to be down at the moment) authored by researchers from John Hopkins University, Columbia University, and some University in Bagdhad. Even if the numbers are half of that, its pretty disturbing.
Seriously, I like the idea of our soldiers being out of harm's way and remote controlling expendable robots. I also think that people who aren't fighting for their lives are likely to be more careful to avoid shooting bystanders. When your brain is soaked with Andrenalin and fatigue, your abilities go down, even with the best training.
-- Support a free market in the field of government
These aren't nearly the first robots carrying shotguns. Bomb-disposal robots used by police bomb squads have used shotguns for several years. They're usually used for shooting locks to allow the robot to open doors to get to where the bomb is. I suppose the shotgun could alternately be used to detonate the bomb, though that would be a very expensive use since the robot would likely be destroyed in the blast.
All of these robots are remote-controlled. This is no different in concept from arming a Predator RPV with missiles. You're providing a mechanical extension of a human operator the capacity to do a specific job.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Evolutionary biologists would say that war is population control for humans since the only natural predator man has is himself.
That's a little too cynical for my tastes, but it's probably true.
nuke 'em from orbit, its the only way to be sure.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
"The U.S. government has invaded more countries than any other in the entire history of the world."
Don't know much world history, do you?
(And since it was usually really Toronto in disguise, someone would put them in the blue box for recycling pickup.)
Nope, The original Robocop was filmed in Dallas. Robocop 2 was filmed in Houston, and the ill-advised Robocop 3 was filmed in Atlanta. I don't think there's enough urban decay in Toronto (or in all of canada combined) to simulate the really nasty parts of Detroit.
Filming locations for Robocop
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Where do you get your information? Anyone being fired on has the right and responsibility to return fire to protect his life and that of other soldiers. It is a fact that Iraqis have given small children live grenades and told them to go say hi to soldiers in tanks. It is also true that the soldiers had to shoot the kids or else have them all blown up. The kid is dead either way and it was not the soldiers that killed them. It was the coward that put him in that position. Which brings up the question of why are we bashing our own military when we have an obviously scumbag opponent who is willing to do just about anything to cause trouble.
I think it also describes prom night pretty good.
dude, it's "Bite my shiny metal ass"! get it right.
MABASPLOOM!
dude, it's "Bite my shiny metal ass"! get it right.
Dude he only says that because he is not in charge. Once Bender seizes power you can bet your matte fleshy ass that you will be told to kiss rather than bite the shiny metal ass of our booze-hound, pick-pocket, robotic overlord.
Jerk, listen up! Just because the people you're fighting aren't constrained by the geneva conventions, doesn't mean you arent....by your logic, the geneva convention or ANY measure for that matter would be totally ineffective because if anyone were to challenge it, it would immediately die...you dig? Americans are constrained by the geneva convention, the insurgents are not...don't like it? don't go to iraq.
the guy that wrote this article, which was linked to from one of the original links is president and CEO of a well known email marketing software company. In other words, it was written by a SPAMMER. http://www.arialsoftware.com/
since when is a shotgun an area weapon? Or are you basing this on your experience sniping with the super-shotgun in Quake 2?
-- My Sig is a P228.
When your brain is soaked with Andrenalin and fatigue, your abilities go down, even with the best training.
Even with reduced abilities, it's still hard to beat a well-trained human being - eyes and hears are going to have higher bandwidth than a microphone and a video camera or other sensors (which are further reduced by the telemetry link bandwidth), and the senses-to-brain-to-trigger latency time is going to be fairly low compared to having to send info to some remote location and then send the response back.
Most civilian casualties come from indirect fire - airstrikes & artillery, both of which seem off-topic here. In a firefight, there are forms of semi-indirect fire, like cover or supressive fire- this is where you shoot just to make sure the other guy is hiding behind his defenses and not shooting back, or you don't know where the enemy is specifically and you shoot randomly. More indirect would be in a panic situation where the senses are limited, like a tank machine gunner who has come under fire and fires the gun blindly while ducking inside the turret- those are the situations where civilians get killed. So the bot operator will never panic out of fear for their own life, avoiding those last situations I've mentioned- but my point remains that the civilian casualties in a firefight are not usually coming from reduced soldier abilities, but of the unwillingness to use those abilities in a way that puts their life at risk.
After that, I suppose there's willful murder or other court-martial material, so the bot has the advantage their of keeping logs of everything it sees and and everything the operator commands- but it's probably likely that future human ground troops are all going to have black-box recorder type stuff to provide the same kind of accountability.
I'd have thought the rules of engagement in a war on fear were obvious; if it scares you, shoot it or blow it up.
And thats whats happening.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
bullshit that 100,000 number was based off of polling random people in Iraq. It also accounted for natural deaths. Here http://www.iraqbodycount.net/database/
You must have met a different class of fighter pilots, majority, by far, of the ones I know would have to do some SERIOUS growing up in order to act 19.
"Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are the dead." A. Huxley
"Surrender all your weapons of mass destruction. You have 20 seconds to comply."
"But... I don't have any! I never had any! I don't understand what you..."
"Surrender all your weapons of mass destruction. You have 15 seconds to comply."
"Listen, I'm a western journalist - I'm just here to try and find out the other side of the story..."
"Surrender all your weapons of mass destruction. You have 10 seconds to comply."
"Hmm, it's obviously targeted me in error - is there any way to switch it off?"
"Surrender all your weapons of mass destruction. You have 5 seconds to comply."
"OK now hold on a second - can I communicate with your operator somehow? I mean seriously I'm not anything to do with this and I doubt there were ever any......"
Boom! pump,click.
You may not have been paying attention, but pretty soon "don't like it? don't go to iraq." isn't going to apply to alot of us.
We shouldn't treat all people like human beings because we expect others to reciprocate. We must treat other people like human beings because we are the Shining City on the Hill, and we must set the example for others.
In any case, a better argument for the Geneva Convention would be Abu Ghraib: look at what a wonderfully effective marketing and recruiting tool those photographs were for Al-Qaida's global franchise...
[o]_O
If that was meant to reduce my worries, it doesn't. In the German army you have to refuse illegal orders. No choice included and no excuse possible you were 'just following orders'.
You can refuse orders given from someone without the appropriate authority (due to not in chain of command or ordering things unrelated to the task (e.g. cleaning his shoes)).
As the abused prisoners were criminals, not POWs, the Geneva conventions don't apply. The soldiers were busted on the standard prisoner abuse rules.
Geneva Conventions
1. In order for the geneva conventions to apply, both parties have to be signatories.
2. Note that weapons aren't mentioned. The Hague Conventions cover this. *Note: Though the USA follows these conventions, the USA is not a signatory*. The main effect of the Hague is that we're not allowed to use expanding bullets. IE hollowpoints/softpoints aren't allowed if they're designed to expand. FMJ only. A hollowpoint design has been approved for use, but only because it's more accurate, and it's not an expanding hollowpoint (IE it doesn't expand any more than a FMJ on will).
I don't read AC A human right
I wouldn't like hearing that. The moment that order comes out of whoever's mouth, I know there's going to be a court-martial.
It's called an illegal order. It is my duty as a soldier to A: refuse the order, B: prevent the order from being carried out, to the best of my ability. As in apprehend/shoot the officer if he tries to do it himself.
I don't read AC A human right
a 12 inch spread of buckshot does not qualify as an "area effect" weapon. Napalm is an area affect weapon. Claymores are an area effect weapon. A shotgun is not.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Actually, that's incorrect. It doesn't matter if they're women or children. If they point a weapon at us, they're no longer a non-combatant and we're allowed to shoot them by whatever means available. We just tend to play nice.
It's like the mosque thing. We aren't normally allowed to attack religious buildings(why would we? It's a waste of munitions). But the moment they start using one for military purposes, like storing weapons, quartering troops, basing weapons there, etc, we're allowed to target it.
I don't read AC A human right
Look up an article about the U.S. Marines being cut to pieces by the U.S. Air Force while taking enemy fire (NYT). Messages were sent to the AF pilots to cease, but they continued to attack. I guess they were having to much fun. [That is not completely my snide observation.]
I bring this up because, the marines have a unique vehicle that should have been recognizable from the air. Moreover, this is a repeat of experiences of the first Gulf War. Supposedly these problems were solved. However, those among the honored dead are in that state due to persistent screwups. If saying it isn't so suffices for you, then you are totally misinformed or are a true believer.
We have real problems that robots alone are not going to solve. When you have idiots at the controls at the very highest levels and a media that repeats their stupid assertions. How can they ever recognize they have created a situation that can only progressively worse? Hitting the right target is not easy particularly when your enemy understands you better than we them. It appears to me we have a prescription for disaster. This is spoken by a person that believed that the Iraq adventure could possibly be successful and benefical to the Iraqi populous.
If ignorance is your guide it is all to easy to repeatedly hit the wrong targets whether by remote control, robotic or in person. That's where we are now.
So, presumably they're being tested/developed somewhere in California - so good ol' Arnie can keep an eye on em. Make sure they'll look like him eventually.
That'd be nice and neat at least....
If they did, they'd discover that the article is actually an excerpt of a larger article. THAT FA was written by a nutritionist/fitness guy, with a semi-nude picture of himself and his sixpack at the end of the article.
If you try to find HIS source, good luck! There are no links to credible sources on that page.
In other words, nothing to see here. This is not a credible source; it's an anti-war rant.
...not to mention the fact that the last thing you'd install on a pacbot is a pump action shotgun, which would require a little robotic arm to work the pump. If the story were remotely plausible, it would have selected a sensible semi-automatic shotgun, not a pump.
Len.
The whole "pump shotgun" thing makes this a little suspicious. The things don't look like they could pump a shotgun or even aim one at something that was more than 5 inches off the ground:
0 34 207.php
w at ch/2002/12/robot_tunnel/print.phtml
http://www.irobot.com/governmentindustrial/
However, here are Army Times and Popular Mechanics stories, and they do talk about weapons, but it doesn't sound like they have done so yet:
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-1
http://popularmechanics.com/science/technology_
So maybe so, but I think a semi-auto shotgun would be better than a pump.
-- I browse at +5 with stripped sigs
To me, the term "robot" means that the machine is making its own decisions about what to shoot. If there's a human driving the thing, then it's just a remote-controlled weapon.
Those shows like "battlebots" confused matters a great deal, since they referred to R/C devices as "robots."
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The polling method took *out* their statistics for Fallujah when calculating the increased death rate.
All areas were chosen randomly.
The exact same polling method was used by international agencies, governments etc. to obtain the war deaths amongst civilians in Kosovo and Bosnia. It is an accepted method.
All descriptions I've seen have described 100 000 *additional* deaths to the pre-war death-rate. They asked people the cause of death as well. They found that the leading cause of death pre-war were things like heart attacks. Post war it was violence esp. aerial bombing.
You obviously have only seen Fox news and not say actually read how they did the survey.
Robotic Rednecks? Damn! More Bush voters. ducks
Table-ized A.I.
I am not so sure that the Geneva Convention was the the limiting factor in gas warfare in WWII. I think the technical limitations were more important. Against modern mechanized armies, like the Americans and British, chemical weapons were of limited tactical value. In WWI they proved unpredictable, environmentally sensitive, and difficult to target. Granted, during the war the Germans developed far deadlier chemicals than WWI's phosgene and mustard gas, nonetheless defensive tactics developed in WWI were still deemed effective. The Germans and Soviets in particular were probably hesitant because of their own vulnerabilities. The prevalence of equine transport in those two armies rendered them more susceptible to chemical attack.
Likewise, technical problems precluded all but the Americans and British from strategic chemical attacks. Only those two nations fielded strategic bombing forces capable of effectively delivering the volume necessary for an effective attack on a major city. The Germans had the most advanced agents, but by the time they developed them the Luftwaffe was overwhelmed by allied forces.
Interestingly, the nation best positioned to use gas as a strategic weapon, the United States, did in fact plan to do so. The Army Air Force had an advanced plan for massive mustard gassing of Japanese cities. Japanese air defenses were much softer than the German's. Additionally 8th Air Force commander Curtis Le May had markedly less regard for Japanese civilian life than german. The AAF anticipated millions of Japanese civilian casualties. However, with the success of the Manhattan project, the chemical plan was dropped. After the war the plans were sanitized to look like a hypothetical study and the originals destroyed. However, one original copy, complete with complete hand written versions of the postwar changes, escaped destruction due to a clerical error. It surface in the National archives in the 1990s. There was a big article on it in Military History Quarterly. pabl
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
YOU ARE NOT THE WORLD POLICE.
Nope - We're the 800 pound gorilla. 9/11 woke us up, and now we're pissed and swatting at annoyances. I had a clue back when Bush was elected the first time that Iraq was on his list. We'd been guarding and patroling for the last eight years. If anything 9/11 delayed the invasion.
The reasons for us going into Iraq are many and varied. I believe that we should have taken out Saddam way back when, but we didn't.
In a democracy you have to follow certain rules.
Is there a world democracy? Is there an effective "world police" without the USA? How many successful UN interventions have happened without the aid of the USA?
The United States is acting in a manner comparable to an angry mob.
That's true democracy for you, which is why the USA is not one. We're a republic. There are rules in place to protect the minority from the majority. If we were truly acting like an angry mob, we would have nuked somebody.
We've been attacked, and we won't tolerate that. Clinton's era convinced foreigners that the US military was a paper tiger-inflict some casualties and we'd back down. Look at France - despite their backing down, the terrorists are still kidnapping and making more demands, after all, it works!
I don't read AC A human right