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Military Robots Get Machine Guns

Posted by samzenpus on from the remote-war dept.

javaxman writes "Next spring, the U.S. military is expecting to deploy Talon robots with machine guns. They can also be equiped with rocket launchers. Really, they're remote-controlled 'bots, not true autonomous 'bots, so you can save the Skynet jokes for, um, some day in the not-to-distant future. This is just the first, or maybe second step. As for me, I just want to see arena matches between gangs of these suckers. Robot wars indeed!"

2 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. M249 by NEOtaku17 · · Score: 4, Informative

    The weapons these things are carrying are the M249 SAW. They are chambered in the 5.56mm NATO round spec and carry a 200 round box which it feeds from, but it can also use the regular 30 round magazines that the M-16 uses. The gun was developed in the 70s and has been used by the US, UK, and Isreali forces. Although the original ones could accept the M-16 magazines the latest Mk.46 mod.0 version doesn't include this option as to save weight on an already hefty 6.8 kg gun.

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    Creative Demolition
  2. Re:Captured robots by PeterPumpkin · · Score: 4, Informative

    These are controlled by people, so unless an enemy whacked the soldier and took his joystick away, this shouldn't be a problem.