The future of warfare - robot or nobot?

[Greyblades]

Now you're moving the goalposts. You said we can't stop really fast kinetic penetrators and I showed you that we can. Artillery shells are different and there are systems which can stop them, but those are different systems entirely.
And yes, you can tick it onto a manned tank but that says nothing about whether or not it can defend robots.
Carpet bombings and nukes are completely different issues. Would you nuke London to stop the five killer robots wreaking havoc in the city?

I moved the goalpost because I had been proven wrong in one insignificant point but the main thrust stays the same: a good cheap counter to a platoon of robots will be the same as the good cheap counter to anything else: overwhelming ordinance.

My point was that robots are easier to defend because they do not need the room to comfort humans, they can be designed without huge interior spaces and without taking into account ergonomical and work safety factors, that IS a huge advantage.

and not incompatible with my point... so why are we arguing again?

[a completely inoffensive name]

The murdering robots won't kill off humanity, it will be the robots that are programmed to love us...

[Husar]

I moved the goalpost because I had been proven wrong in one insignificant point but the main thrust stays the same: a good cheap counter to a platoon of robots will be the same as the good cheap counter to anything else: overwhelming ordinance.

and not incompatible with my point... so why are we arguing again?

As I said earlier, not all the robots have to be machines similar to tnks or soldiers, they can also be similar to insect swarms or single insects, perhaps even the size of microorganisms and I do wonder how you want to kill those off easily with known weaponry. Bigger is not always deadlier. Small robots could lay ambushes and be almost undetectable until they strike.
You seemingly keep reverting to the idea that a robot has to be some kind of tank with heavy armor when IMO it could also be a mosquito that explodes next to your head or drills into your ear channel and through your brain or flies into your eye like a bullet. How do you kill that off, espeically when attacked by hundreds or thousands from many directions? Nuke your own platoon? Yes, they will be very vulnerable to tank rounds, but how many do you think a tank can kill before they crawl into it and kill the crew or destroy the engine?
How many of them can a squad with assault rifles and machine guns kill before they are all dead?

The murdering robots won't kill off humanity, it will be the robots that are programmed to love us...

Why? Sounds like a good solution for overpopulation and environmental problems.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Why? Sounds like a good solution for overpopulation and environmental problems.

Once you go chrome, you never roam.

[Marcvs julius]

The most important advance in warfare today is the drone but it does not have an intelegent AI insted it is controled at distance by an operator... i gess that in the future there will be a mecanisation of warfare.

[HopAlongBunny]

The UN seems to lean toward requiring some form of human decision-making in the taking of life; is that even relevant?:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-repo...rium-1.1386348

[Marcvs julius]

At least in the coming years it will be relevant computers are not yet capable of taking decisions. (althougth i wold like to know how the radon factor is "decided" on computers...

[Brenus]

"Derp": ? http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...n/english/derp

[Husar]

"Derp": ? http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/de...n/english/derp

It was more or less just a filler that was somehow meant to indicate that you completely missed the topic.
A bit like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ytCEuuW2_A

[Myth]

I would much preffer it if we started a second space race.

[Brenus]

"You seemingly keep reverting to the idea that a robot has to be some kind of tank with heavy armor when IMO it could also be a mosquito that explodes next to your head or drills into your ear channel and through your brain or flies into your eye like a bullet. How do you kill that off, especially when attacked by hundreds or thousands from many directions? Nuke your own platoon? Yes, they will be very vulnerable to tank rounds, but how many do you think a tank can kill before they crawl into it and kill the crew or destroy the engine?"
Equivalent of mosquito net? Or mosquito spray? To carry enough explosive, your mosquitos would have to be quite big, as it will have to carry the engine and fuel (not even speaking of fly control), that is a lot to offer for detection...
The crawling ones will offer the same king of challenges. I know some robots do exist but they just carry a light camera, and a small brain, but mostly, are operated by human. To built some as meaningful weapons (without even THINKING of IA) would request a lot of technological improvements...

Ooops, perhaps once again, I didn't reply to the question. But from when it is compulsory to answer to the question in the org?

Well, before to worry about developing the IA, worry about developing explosives, material and the reason to produce such weapons, when having cheap recruits who will do the job to lesser costs is a very well known solution in warfare...
This answer the question (partially).

[Papewaio]

The murdering robots won't kill off humanity, it will be the robots that are programmed to love us...

Those ones will kill off many future generations of geeks... Whose potential parents can't reproduce with their robot girlfriends...

[Kadagar_AV]

Drones will NOT be very functional against a modern enemy, with the hardwiring they have today... We can just swap them like flies.

With that said, technology moves on...

I don't remember the exact quote from Starship Troopers, but in my own words:

Maybe one day we will have evolved bots advanced enough to go down a hole, separate civilian from enemy, and rescue the former and kill the latter...

But until that day has come, the military need guys like me.

[Beskar]

Dun dun dun....
http://secondnexus.com/technology-an...here/?ts_pid=2

Looks like it has occurred.

[Kadagar_AV]

http://www.voltairenet.org/article185860.html

Might be Russian propaganda...

With that said, these systems do exist. The Russians are now developing Krasuha-4 and I happen to know that even a tiny nation like Sweden has rather advanced toys to create havoc for electronic devices (shouldn't come as a surprise, Ericsson who used to be big in the telemarket industry on the side worked for the Swedish electronic warfare division).

[Greyblades]

Dun dun dun....
http://secondnexus.com/technology-an...here/?ts_pid=2

Looks like it has occurred.

That has got to be the dumbest test for self awareness I have ever heard of.

[Papewaio]

Yet many reality a TV contestants wouldn't pass it...

[Viking]

Lazers and counter projectiles do not work against supersonic projectile weaponry and there isnt an armour made that is immune to all modern ordinance.

The speed of sound is not of major concern - light travels much, much faster. Both visual cameras and radar units in the robot could accurately determine the path of incoming projectiles shortly after their detection. The next requirement, in the case of a counter-projectile, is that the the robot is able to deliver them with enough momentum: even relatively light robots should be able to deflect kalashnikov rounds, while tank shells would presumably require heavier robots (as long as mobility is a requirement; immobile robots would just need a good enough anchoring and projectile accelerator).

a good cheap counter to a platoon of robots will be the same as the good cheap counter to anything else: overwhelming ordinance

Which is something insurgents normally don't have (which is what the original question of I of the Storm was about).

IEDs remain effective, but they can also be detected with ground-penetrating radar(s) and, perhaps, sniffing mechanisms.

[Greyblades]

I was unaware lazers could stop high velocity metal, and countermeasures require the robot to carry extra ammunition, not a problem for large vehicles I suppose but puts a crimp on husar's mini bots.

[HopAlongBunny]

I think Husar has the right idea.
Literally the size of a mosquito, delivering a neurotoxin.
I believe troops are already supplied (in some armies) with electronic identification marking; so a crude sensor to distinguish between marked/unmarked-anything unmarked is fair game.
You could place (or deliver) "swarms" to deal with troops quite easily.

[Husar]

I was unaware lazers could stop high velocity metal, and countermeasures require the robot to carry extra ammunition, not a problem for large vehicles I suppose but puts a crimp on husar's mini bots.

You do not use mini bots alone, a large bot has to have some defense if it operates alone or in a small group, but if you have cheap, mosquito-sized, expendable mini bots, you won't just send 5 of them into a town, you send huge swarms of thousands. And besides, against a human soldier even one of them might win because first of all the human soldier has to detect it, and even if he does detect it in time, he has to hit it using his unwieldy stick where the high velocity projectile comes out. Now the projectile is small and the bot is small while the human is slow and flawed. The bot is probably nimble, can disappear depending on the background and so on. Another bot may swat it out of the sky, but with humans I'm not so sure, especially if the human progrmmer on the other side taught the bot not to sit in the middle of a white spot or show predictable flying patterns like actual mosquitoes often do.

As for deflecting AK rounds, I don't see why anyone would want to. Seems like a waste of active countermeasures if even bots of mediocre size can probably be armored well enough while the AK can also fire a lot of rounds and active countermeasures are often limited in use.
They are more likely to be used against tank rounds and other large caliber projectiles.

As for a laser stopping those, of course it can, depends on the power of the laser.

[Greyblades]

Hrm, I still think that the minaturisation technology required to create mosquito bots is so far ahead of what we have now as to be nearing scifi.

Also Lazers dont generally work on non explosive ordinance.

The thing about a lazer is that it has no physical impact; it is for all intents and purposes an instant heat beam, if you tried to shoot a slug with one you would not make any difference in how fast it's going or in which direction.

At worst a lazer could melt the metal which would turn the fast moving lump of metal into a fast moving lump of slag, which would make it even more deadly.

[Husar]

Hrm, I still think that the minaturisation technology required to create mosquito bots is so far ahead of what we have now as to be nearing scifi.

Also Lazers dont generally work on non explosive ordinance.

The thing about a lazer is that it has no physical impact; it is for all intents and purposes an instant heat beam, if you tried to shoot a slug with one you would not make any difference in how fast it's going or in which direction.

At worst a lazer could melt the metal which would turn the fast moving lump of metal into a fast moving lump of slag, which would make it even more deadly.

Eh, that's not a given. The molten metal would have a hugher air resistance and the parts that melt first would be shaven off the rest of the metal, making your metal slug smaller and smaller until not much is left. I would also think for a stream of molten metal to be that dangerous, it has to be even faster than a normal tank gun round and very concentrated as in a shaped charge (HEAT round).
The muzzle velocity (and therefore not the terminal velocity on impact) of a modern tank projectile is around 6,000km/h whereas according to Wikipedia, the stream of a HEAT round travels through the metal with up to 25 times the speed of sound or >30,000km/h, which is at least around 5 times faster than your molten projectile would be even if it did not disintegrate during the melting process due to air resistance. And don't underestimate air resistance, one countermeasure to HEAT rounds is spaced armor because just a little bit of air between two metal plates will seriously disrupt the stream of molten metal, making it a lot less effective.

As for the size, I guess we are close:

[Brenus]

The smaller the robots will be, the easier to stop. A mosquito net will suffice.

"Size in what way?" In the book, memory and speed of software. When the IA had enough "brain" to process multiple and complex functions, it awakes and becomes he (or she).

[Greyblades]

Eh, that's not a given. The molten metal would have a hugher air resistance and the parts that melt first would be shaven off the rest of the metal, making your metal slug smaller and smaller until not much is left. I would also think for a stream of molten metal to be that dangerous, it has to be even faster than a normal tank gun round and very concentrated as in a shaped charge (HEAT round).
The muzzle velocity (and therefore not the terminal velocity on impact) of a modern tank projectile is around 6,000km/h whereas according to Wikipedia, the stream of a HEAT round travels through the metal with up to 25 times the speed of sound or >30,000km/h, which is at least around 5 times faster than your molten projectile would be even if it did not disintegrate during the melting process due to air resistance. And don't underestimate air resistance, one countermeasure to HEAT rounds is spaced armor because just a little bit of air between two metal plates will seriously disrupt the stream of molten metal, making it a lot less effective.

Hrm, you have a point, though I would point out that a lazer capable of heating a sabot shell to the point where it is rendered harmless while the shell is going at supersoinic speeds would require both the space and power only found on naval craft.

]As for the size, I guess we are close:

Eh that's a drone not a self thinking robot, which is what I originally thought you were expectng the mecha-mosquitos to be. When I try to imagine these mini bots working I imagine a bunch of drones commanded by a central carrier robot the size of, say, a car, and it becomes a lot more feasable.

[Viking]

As for deflecting AK rounds, I don't see why anyone would want to. Seems like a waste of active countermeasures if even bots of mediocre size can probably be armored well enough while the AK can also fire a lot of rounds and active countermeasures are often limited in use.
They are more likely to be used against tank rounds and other large caliber projectiles.

Armour will slow a robot down, and will often have weaker spots. The right kind of particle accelerator (think e.g. a miniature railgun) should be able to accelerate small pieces of metal to a high enough velocity that they could deflect AK rounds. The smaller the pieces are, the more can be carried. If each robot carries 500 pieces each, then a squad of 5 robots can deflect 2500 AK rounds, which corresponds to quite a few AK magazines.

If the robots are quick (which is easier with less armour) to disable identified targets, then not that many counter-projectiles need to be fired, anyway.

There will of course be downsides and upsides regardless of which design one chooses.

[Husar]

The smaller the robots will be, the easier to stop. A mosquito net will suffice.

Not if some of the mosquitoes can explode to blow a hole into your puny mosquito net. After all the robots can and probably will differ from actual mosquitoes in terms of capabilities and variety of killing methods etc. I did not suggest to make 1:1 copies of mosquitoes, just to approach the size roughly.
You also seem to suggest that all soldiers run around wearing this: http://www.bio-bluetenpollen.de/wp-c...-ich-imker.jpg

Armour will slow a robot down, and will often have weaker spots. The right kind of particle accelerator (think e.g. a miniature railgun) should be able to accelerate small pieces of metal to a high enough velocity that they could deflect AK rounds.

And the miniature nuclear reactor is not going to slow the robot down or pose a potential weakspot if the railgun should miss a bullet because 10 AKs rain bullets onto the robot simultaneously?
I still think using active countermeasures against small arms fire is a waste, the armor required to deflect it is not as heavy as that of an MBT anyway.

The smaller the pieces are, the more can be carried. If each robot carries 500 pieces each, then a squad of 5 robots can deflect 2500 AK rounds, which corresponds to quite a few AK magazines.

Also at once and from more than one direction? It takes a certain amount of time even for an electric engine to turn around your mini railgun and aim it properly. Especially since the railgun contains a lot of metal due to its nature, making it relatively heavy.

If the robots are quick (which is easier with less armour) to disable identified targets, then not that many counter-projectiles need to be fired, anyway.

That is correct, but it is not a function of the armor but of how fast the weapons can react, railguns are heavier and slower, and if you want to use it with a battery, you may have to reload a capacitor before each shot because it requires a whole lot of energy at once. The batteries, capacitors etc. also add substantial weight to the robot unless we find a revolutionary new technology soon.
And even if you have a railgun, maybe it would be better to use it to take out the targets rather than fire at all the bullets the targets fire at your robot and let the armor deflect the bullets.

There will of course be downsides and upsides regardless of which design one chooses.

And that is why you could mix the armored robots with the mosquito robots and make the combined arms approach even harder to counter. I think that humans would then have a really hard time against robotized killer armies while the interesting techno race would be the one between the robots as countries will enter an arms race to create robots that can counter the other side's robots even better and so on. At some point they may become so lethal that humans might just vanish if they enter the vicinity as the machines can react and act a whole lot faster and may not miss any information about their surroundings due to a multitude of very precise sensors, sensor networks and so on. Currently a lot of this already exists but it operated by humans who need a bit more time to think and process the information. A computer could processs it much faster. The only reliable way to stop these robot armies then might be to have the remote control or to have more advanced robots.

[HopAlongBunny]

SCIAM article. Very much in favor of an outright ban:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...s-destruction/

Is the genie already out of the bottle?

[Viking]

Also at once and from more than one direction? It takes a certain amount of time even for an electric engine to turn around your mini railgun and aim it properly. Especially since the railgun contains a lot of metal due to its nature, making it relatively heavy.

Most of what you write about concerns the limitations of technology, which are hard to predict. Conventional bullets could also be used, and all that remains then is to be able to aim the defensive gun quickly enough, which may well be no big problem up to a certain (potentially very high) number of bullets.