Less Soldiers, More Robots for the Millitary

 

The pentagon's Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel's proposed budget would, according to the proposal, shrink the Army to 450k or to levels that existed just before the United States entered into ww2.

The plan is to fill the void with hi-tech devices that have proven themselves reliable but for the most part, more of these devices can be fielded with far fewer personnel.

Weapon platforms are not exempt either. The U2 and A10 are well known weapon and surveillance systems, but rising costs of manufacture and maintenance plus the need for a human in the seat throughout the mission.

Naval systems like the Littoral Combat Ship, a new modular naval vessel capable of light combat, anti submarine / mines etc, all with a modular design and an equally small crew, possibly as few as 88. Another example is the new Zumwalt destroyer. This vessel can go to sea with a crew of apx. 150 where the aging Ashleigh-Burke fields 300 with almost no automation. The Popular Science article is very good and informative. You Can Read The Whole Article Here

First Robot on Robot Combat Kill

Here is another "It was bound to happen sooner or later" From Gizmodo the first combat related autonomous machine kill of another robotic device. A week ago in Iraq, a MQ-9 Reaper killed a remote controlled vehicle carrying a bomb. The MQ-9 destroyed a RC car using a laser-guided 500-pound GBU-12 bomb in southeast Iraq. It was the first recorded incident where the UAV searched for, found, fixed, targeted and destroyed another autonomous/robotic threat.

Cyberattacks: The new battlefront

Barry sends in a very interesting article from the New York Times. The article documents a curious occurrences that took place several weeks leading up to the Russian invasion of Georgia.

• Weeks before bombs started falling on Georgia, a security researcher in suburban Massachusetts was watching an attack against the country in cyberspace.
• (Internet Experts at) Arbor Networks in Lexington noticed a stream of data directed at Georgian government sites containing the message: “win+love+in+Rusia.”
• Other Internet experts in the United States said the attacks against Georgia’s Internet infrastructure began as early as July 20, with coordinated barrages of millions of requests — known as distributed denial of service, or D.D.O.S., attacks — that overloaded and effectively shut down Georgian servers.

In the early '90, during the first Iraq invasion, the U.S. weakened their opponent with sustained barrages of bombs and missiles. Less than 2 decades later we are seeing clear evidence that the first steps in a sustained engagements contain bombs of a completely different caliber. Every bit as effective towards crippling the opponents ability to share and access data and disrupt communications, is the sustained attack on the internet infrastructure. This kind of attack becomes ever so much more insidious when you consider that projections have the U.S. military comprised of 20% of robotic armament in the coming decade. Disrupting the ability to communicate and control these weapons would be every bit as effective as bombing the individual units themselves with the added advantage of being faster and lest costly overall.

William Gibson and the other crafters of the Cyberpunk venue were pretty much dead on IMHO
The article is full of descriptions of not only ddos attacks but site defacement and other very inventive attacks.

<- more of the NY Times cyber attack on Georgia ->

DOD wants to prep for cyberwar offensive

U.S. military officials seeking to boost the nation's cyberwarfare capabilities are looking beyond defending the Internet: They are developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies. The first real question that has to be addressed is "what constitutes an act of war in cyberspace?" Officials say that the military is not looking to gear up for a first strike. Initial uses likely would be limited to diverting or killing data packets that threaten the nation's systems, the way the military may intercept a foreign ship carrying arms in international waters. Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr. said that in the future, the military might rely upon network warfare to disrupt an enemy's communications system, replacing the need for conventional weapons like bombs. Elder said that during the early days of the Iraq war, rudimentary forms of cyber attacks were used by the United States, including electronically jamming Iraqi military systems and using network attacks to hinder Iraqi ground units from communicating with one another.

{ap news via Wired}

Battlefield 'Bear' robot to rescue fallen soldiers

A remote-controlled robot that will rescue injured or abducted soldiers, without putting the lives of their comrades at risk, is being developed for the US army. The 1.8-metre-tall Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot (Bear) will be able to travel over bumpy terrain and squeeze through doorways while carrying an injured soldier in its arms. The prototype Bear torso can lift more than 135 kilograms with one arm, and its developer, Vecna Technologies of College Park, Maryland, is now focusing on improving its two-legged lower body. The robot recently showed how it can climb up and down stairs with a human-size dummy in its arms.

Click here for complete story
Thanks to Shaun Saunders for the post

StarWars type Binoculars on Darpa drawing board

In a new effort dubbed "Luke's Binoculars" -- after the high-tech binoculars Luke Skywalker uses in Star Wars -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is setting out to create its own version of this science-fiction hardware. These binoculars will add a strange and powerful new weapon in their arsenal: a pair of high-tech binoculars 10 times more powerful than anything available today. To be able to achieve this level of power, Darpa hopes to integrate technologies that have been in laboratories for years, ranging from flat-field, wide-angle optics, to the use of advanced electroencephalograms, or EEGs, to rapidly recognize brainwave signatures. The defense agency wants the binoculars to have a range of 1,000 to 10,000 meters, compared to the current generation, which can see out only 300 to 1,000 meters, also the binoculars are supposed to provide a 120-degree field of view and be able to spot moving vehicles as far as 10 kilometers away. The most far-reaching component of the binoculars has nothing to do with the optics: it's Darpa's aspirations to integrate EEG electrodes that monitor the wearer's neural signals, cueing soldiers to recognize targets faster than the unaided brain could on its own.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

New Robo-Weapon: Paralyzing Floodlight

The US Army's Aviation Applied Technology Directorate plans to demonstrate the use of a 7.5 million candlepower strobe floodlight system mounted on board an unmanned air vehicle as a non-lethal crowd-control system.

The project will see a Peak Beam Systems searchlight adapted to operate as a strobe capable of inducing physical effects, such as short-term paralysis, in humans.

The system uses a xenon-based searchlight that "can be pulsed with a unique modulation [strobe] effect that results in immobilisation to those within the beam.

But that's not the only flying robot / ray gun combo the U.S. military is examining. The Air Force is also toying with the idea of mounting its Active Denial System pain weapon on a drone, too. Just so the robots can make us feel like we're on fire, before they temporarily blind us.

submitted by Shaun A. Saunders

Military Builds Robotic Insects

Israel is developing a robot the size of a hornet to attack terrorists. The prototype will not see action for three years. However, slightly larger romote attack robots, Called killer Micro Air Vehicles, or MAVs are well on their way to deployment.

British Special Forces already use 6-inch MAV aircraft called WASPs for reconnaissance in Afghanistan. The $3,000 WASP is nearly silent, so it can get very close without being detected. A new development will reportedly see the WASP fitted with a C4 explosive warhead for kamikaze attacks on snipers.

Many more ground shaking and breaking ideas in the story. Click the title for more.

Shaun Saunders submission.

Navy test new "rail gun"

The US Navy the first of what it hopes to be a whole new type of gun. Call the RAIL GUN, the unit fires nonexplosive projectiles at incredible speeds, using electricity rather than gun powder. With the added advantage of extending the reach of naval guns more than ten times the current distance!

The railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails, creating an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a projectile at tremendous speed.

Because the gun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it's safer, eliminating the possibility of explosions on ships and vehicles equipped with it.

The test model of the gun can deliver about the same energy to a projectile as present naval guns, however once the gun is put into production, the output is very likely to be 6 or 7 times as much energy.

Even though the warheads won't be very large, they will be able to hit targets 200 to 250 miles away and hit with the power of a Tomahawk rocket due to the fact that they will impact with tremendous force.