Sometimes, things just come together...

Bolos! WoW! I hadn't thought of those in YEARS!! For me, Laumer's Bolo stories were right up there with Dickson's Donal Graeme and the Dorsai! And the Lensmen, and... Well, suffice to say, I LOVED old SF, and the Bolos were among the best tech toys I remember. As for battle buddies, the engineers and the MPs ahve been using robots for several years now, as you well know, and the AF is moving ahead full steam with the UCAS (unmanned combat air system), a fighter that has no pilot in it. I also suspect the Navy has a couple of unmanned armed subs too. It won't be long, I suspect, till our army will be like the Empire's forces in Star Wars, humans in envrionmental suits with fully integrated NBC, Comms, Armor, and C3I systems, supported by special purpose droids. I have thought so since I first saw star wars in the mid 70's! -SangerM

How about this.... A Small (Ie RC toy sized) robot Has a nice..say C4 Shaped charge with a contact detonator on a telescoping arm. and (maybe) a camera. Trooper maneuvers it up to where its facing the door... pushes the button... arm extends.. BLAMM door becomes so much shrapnel in the room.. no more door. Bet you can make a mill spec for under $500

Humans will not always be needed. We humans are biased, so we like to think so, but the reality is somewhat less comforting, I think. We like stories in which there is always a fatal flaw in the enemy, and which is only ours to discover. Standard fare in every story line; even the bolos could be killed (eventually). Unfortunately, even if there is a fatal flaw in a system, it may not be possible to take advantage of the flaw in time to avoid dying. Also, while will power and stick-to-it-iveness certainly count, machines could care less, they only stop when told or when they are destroyed. A machine would be an implacable enemy, and an especially fearsome one because the enemy knows compassion is NOT an issue. In f act, with war machines, the base issues are sensor reliability, observed spectrum, and discrimination; power mgmt and reliability, decision and discretion systems (what's an enemy, what not), self-security, and human safety. While it's true that a trained, skilled human can currently ID threats (or non-threats) and react appropriately more quickly than a machine in ambiguous situations--when there are many people in a dark room, of whom only 2 are the enemy--that may not be a relevant point much longer. We have missile systems that can reliably ID and kill tanks on the road. The UCAS is going to be an effective air superiority system because all it has to do is shoot down anything that is not ours. If an occasional friendly gets splashed, that's really not a big deal in the overall scheme of things (don't read more into that comment than it deserves--of course one person matters, but not really so much in the macro view--that's why a 1000 US combat deaths may be devastating at the individual and local level, but have almost no affect on the overall war effort. But I digress.) Certainly, while there will always be a need for people to conduct hostage rescue or other highly sensitive collateral-damage avoidance missions, people are not necessarily needed in a declared hostile fire zone. It is easy to make machines that will autonomously shoot at and reliably kill anything that moves e.g., the Phalanx naval guns (http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/weapons/wep-phal.html). In fact, I understand the biggest problem with the Phalanx is that is doesn't always know when to stop shooting (big pieces become small pieces, but they are still moving, etc.) I don't think we are at the point where machines could have alone fought the battle in Fallujah, imagine the benefits if a droid was used to check every body. Or if the droid was sent into the room first. If nothing else it would draw fire... And they enemy could not ignore it because sensors would report their presence anyway. No, I think the flavor and essence of war is going to change is ways we haven't even begun to think about yet. It may be that the rich nations will use their machines to kill the soldiers of the poorer nations. It may be that the machines of the rich nations will fight one another, but I think really that if it comes to that, we are back looking at attacks on civil populations because that's all that will matter. But again I digress... Sorry. Just some not-so coherent thoughts. -SangeM

Maybe I don't remember my Bolo's enough, but I'll tell you what this reminds me of. Warbots, a series of books that came out in the 80's that I devoured. It was a typical novel of it's time, but the ideas in it were at the time fresh and exciting for me. The army had moved to an entirely neurally controlled robot force, keeping troopers out of the field and line of danger. But there were problems with this force structure... namely protecting the controllers and what happens when you can't have a large 'bot do what you need it to, like hostage rescue. Thus the army creates a "new" unit old style, where the troops are putting their skin out there in the thick of it. Instead of larger remote-neurally controlled 'bots, they use smaller, voice command ones to suppliment their forces. Anyway... it's an interesting read. Technology was believable used for it's time, and it was smartly written. Hard to find now, but I've managed to find some on www.abebooks.com.