Run Sarah Conner Run!

[UncleRojelio]

Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp.

The Terminator’s ancestor rolls off the assembly line.

[Zebra]

When it gets to be the Governor of California, then, I’ll be worried.

[Podkayne]

Number 5 alive, indeed.

[Flander]

Running on lithium ion batteries, it can operate for 1 to 4 hours at a time, depending on the mission

Hmmm…if you’re a patient soldier, you could just hang out until the battery dies, then take it. I have the funny image of some enemy soldier running up and simply tipping the thing over. Wouldn’t that be great if they didn’t think of that?

[carnivorousplant]

@Flander

Hmmm…if you’re a patient soldier,

So power down and fake the patient guy out. He runs over to tip it over and gets a facefull of 9mm or whatever it packs.

[Zebra]

I’m sensing a new and improved version of battle bots soon.

Perhaps combined with those cheerleader competitions on ESPN 2.

[Exgineer]

So where’s the plasma rifle?

[Larry_Borgia]

@Exgineer

So where’s the plasma rifle?

Hey, just what you see here, pal.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

I posted about this last month. :rolleyes:

[Guinastasia]

Eh, some young hotshot kid will knock out the main controls and none of them will work.

[World_Eater]

@carnivorousplant

So power down and fake the patient guy out. He runs over to tip it over and gets a facefull of 9mm or whatever it packs.

So poke it from behind a corner with a broomstick.

[BlackKnight]

The world’s most powerful kill-bot, defeated by a stick. I like that idea, World Eater.

[Ranchoth]

@Flander

Hmmm…if you’re a patient soldier, you could just hang out until the battery dies, then take it. I have the funny image of some enemy soldier running up and simply tipping the thing over. Wouldn’t that be great if they didn’t think of that?

Yesss…let them try. Little do they know they’d just be tipping closer and closer to the POISONED robot!

[CynicalGabe]

@carnivorousplant

So power down and fake the patient guy out. He runs over to tip it over and gets a facefull of 9mm or whatever it packs.

Actually, a facefull of 7.62mm FMJ from reading the article. Just slightly more punch.

[Tripler]

This:

Running on lithium ion batteries, it can operate for 1 to 4 hours at a time, depending on the mission

Hmmm…if you’re a patient soldier, you could just hang out until the battery dies, then take it. I have the funny image of some enemy soldier running up and simply tipping the thing over. Wouldn’t that be great if they didn’t think of that?

[/quote]

this:

The $200,000, armed version will carry standard-issue Squad Automatic Weapons, either the M249, which fires 5.56-millimeter rounds at a rate of 750 per minute, or the M240, which can fire about 700 to 1,000 7.62-millimeter rounds per minute. The SWORDS can fire about 300 rounds using the M240 and about 350 rounds using the M249 before needing to reload.

and:

A SWORDS robot shoots only when its human operator presses a button after identifying a target on video shot by the robot’s cameras.

I can clearly see that we are heading towards a ‘Nintendo Generation’. I understand that technology evolves to help soldiers, but I hope, I pray that wars will always be fought by men and women: “It is well that war is so terrible – lest we should grow too fond of it” – General Robert E. Lee.

Tripler
Thems my two cents.

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!

Stranger

[astro]

These things don’t seem particuarly fast. Wouldn’t an accurate, high powered sniper rifle tear one up pretty good?

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

How fireproof are they?

A Molotov cocktail, now…hmmmm… :dubious:

[Scissorjack]

$200K of high tech in a Baghdad alleyway versus a kid on the roof with a Soviet era RPG? Or a couple of well-aimed breeze blocks and an old fridge? I know who my money’s on.