Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Brief Rise and Long Fall of Russia's Robot Tank

Posted by timothy on from the pew-pew-pew dept.

malachiorion writes with this report from Popular Science"Seventy-four years ago, Russia accomplished what no country had before, or has since: it sent armed ground robots into battle. These remote-controlled Teletanks took the field during one of WWII's earliest and most obscure clashes, as Soviet forces pushed into Eastern Finland for roughly three and a half months, from 1939 to 1940. The workings of those Teletanks were cool, though they were useless against Germany, and Russia proceeded to fall behind the developed world in military robotics."

9 of 79 comments (clear)

  1. In Soviet Russia, by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 4, Funny

    Tanks, er, ah... I got nuthin...

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
    1. Re:In Soviet Russia, by myowntrueself · · Score: 4, Funny

      In Soviet Russia robot tanks you!

      --
      In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
  2. Perhaps the first but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    By no means not quickly followed. In 1942, the Germany military fielded the Goliath tracked mine (basically a remote controlled bomb on treads.)

    Military robotics is by no means new, its just that brutal battlefield conditions meant that the military shelved it knowing that it would be a VERY long time before it ever became battlefield useful (in spite of UAVs, we're still a long ways off from robotic tanks)

    1. Re:Perhaps the first but... by sumdumass · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There is enough bandwidth, our control systems are still a bit off though. We use laser communications in some situations and radio in others but tanks have since the 90's been able to communicate and coordinate their weapons systems for a while now. This makes them more effective in picking targets so 4 out of 5 tanks aren't shooting the same target and invalid targets can be eliminated before a shot is fired.

      The biggest problem is the automation of the drive units. We can't seem to get a real time terrain picture in a way that the tanks can auto pilot around on or relay to an operator. This is an enormous task compared to flying a drone that doesn't have to deal with obstacles in or on the ground that can change in a matter of seconds in a combat situation.

      Of course that is changing a bit with work done by DARPA and their autonomous challenges but as of now, it makes them a sitting duck to often trying to negotiate terrain. But the weapons systems have had the bandwidth for a while now and can pretty much pick the target, aim and fire while moving at great speeds with little assistance from a human. It's quite amazing really.

  3. Did they say by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Exterminatesky! Exterminatesky!"?

  4. Runner up? by cold+fjord · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Goliath: The Nazi Remote-Controlled Bomb

    --
    much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
  5. Link no longer there. by dov_0 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Couldn't find the story the article originally linked to, but here's the wikipedia article on the teletanks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

    --
    sudo mount --milk --sugar /cup/tea /mouth /etc/init.d/relax start
  6. Robot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It was remote controlled. The V1 and V2 are much closer to a "robot" in the sense of a self-guided machine.

    1. Re:Robot? by meerling · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree, anything piloted by a human, even if remotely, doesn't really qualify as a robot.