THE US Army is developing heavily armed robot tanks to fight on battlefields of the future.
The semi-autonomous killing machines will work alongside soldiers and can drive themselves to the frontlines, detect enemies and shoot missiles.
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Two types of these Robotic Combat Vehicles (RCVs) are already under development, Breaking Defense reports, with a third on the way.
Speaking at a conference last week, Major Corey Wallace explained how the deadly technology might work.
The three RSV classes vary by weight – lights, mediums, and heavies – with each robot loaded with progressively more firepower.
While the lights will mostly be used for reconnaissance, they could still wield anti-tank missiles and either light machineguns or chain guns.
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Mediums will look more like autonomous tanks, while heavies will act as powerful artillery vehicles.
Four lights have already been built by UK defence contractor QinetiQ, while US outfit Textron has put together four mediums.
The Army is now experimenting with prototype vehicles, Major Wallace told the NDIA Armaments, Robotics, and Munitions (ARM) conference.
He explained that the tanks would lead the charge on battlefields of the future – though the technology is still years from deployment.
For now, the Army is ensuring that a human makes all of the key decisions.
The tanks have been designed to drive themselves to the frontline, after which soldiers will remotely operate their movement and weaponry.
As well as conventional battles, the Army wants to use RCVs to take down drones used by the enemy for scouting and communications.
“Yes, you are very lethal [if you] blow the … turret off a tank, but you are even more lethal if you paralyze that formation’s ability to communicate,” Wallace said.
Terrifying space weapons of the future
Here are three of the scariest…
Rods from God
- A strange but utterly terrifying weapon has been dubbed “rods from the God” and is based on the concept of creating man-made meteorites that can be guided towards the enemy.
- Instead of using rocks rods the size of telephone poles are deployed.
- These would be made out of tungsten — a rare metal that can stand the intense heat generated by entering Earth’s atmosphere.
- One satellite fires the rods towards the Earth’s atmosphere while the other steers them to a target on the ground.
- Reaching speeds of 7000mph they hit the ground with the force of a small nuclear weapon — but crucially creating no radiation fall out.
- As bizarre as it sounds, a US Congressional report recently revealed the military has been pushing ahead with the kinetic space weapons.
Molten metal cannons
- This intriguing idea is being developed by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
- It is called the Magneto Hydrodynamic Explosive Munition or MAHEM.
- This game changing rail-gun can fire a jet of molten metal, hurled through space at several hundred miles per second by the most powerful electromagnets ever built.
- The molten metal can then morph into an aerodynamic slug during flight and pierce through another spacecraft or satellite and a munition explodes inside.
Space force ships
- Already the United States is powering head with its spacecraft, although China is busy developing one of their own.
- The top secret American XS-1 under development by DARPA.
- It can travel ten times the speed of sound and launch missiles.
- Meanwhile an unmanned craft is currently being developed in the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre in Mianyang, Sichuan province, which is also known as Base 29.
A rising number of countries want to introduce a ban on fully autonomous weapons in order to prevent the creation of “killer robots”.
Human rights experts say the deadly technology, which can kill targets without human oversight, should be barred before it’s too late.
Last year, billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates warned that the threat AI poses to humanity is similar to that of nuclear weapons.
He said intelligent machines have the potential to both save and destroy the human race.
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In other news, criminal gangs and terrorists could one day buy killer robot assassins on the black market.
Russia says it’s building a ground force of killer robots including swarms of cat-sized “bomber drones” and self-driving tanks.
Super-strong robots that “make the Terminator look puny” are already on the way.
What do you think of killer robots? Let us know in the comments!
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
