I try to think about major technological leaps mankind has had in the past with weapons- bows, chariots, ironworking, gunpowder, airplanes, tanks, submarines, guided missiles…
Where do we go from here? Given all the technical limitations, I don’t anticipate giant robots anytime soon 
Ditto for lasers. Science fiction is not always a great model for anticipating the future (though it can be prophetic at times) so it makes me hard to imagine what warfare might be like in 100 years.
I would guess that it is exactly robots, but not necessarily giant ones. More likely, small, unmaned drones (they already use flying ones, piloted remotely), tanks, fighter planes, mobile artillery and stuff like that.
Pretty soon, all the soldiers (in some country’s armed services) will be sitting in air-conditioned trailers 7000 miles from the kill-box while the little robotic minions do all the killing of the (insert whatever you want here) people. (I watch too much “Nova” and stuff like that)
If you had to kill your “enemy” with your own bare hands, there would be a lot fewer wars I imagine. Or at least fewer casualities.
Ah, progress.
Well, perhaps if we could limit the destruction to that of ‘enemy’ robot drones, and their respective real estate, we might be taking a step forward.
I have heard about the potential for drone-controlled fighters, and it sounds exciting. Without having to accomodate a pilot, a fighter plane could be significantly lighter, and furthermore, would be capable of high-G maneuvers that would be impossible with a human pilot.
Uhh…actually… I’ve seen a show about future military technology on the Discovery channel and one of the weapons they talked about was a chemical-powered laser. They mount the laser on a modified 747 which will then fly in a figure-8 pattern over a patrol area and scan for missile launches. If/When a launch is detected, they use the laser to burn through the missile’s hull and shower the launchers with whatever explosive/chem/bio agent was contained in the ex-missile.
I have heard something about that as well, but when I was talking about lasers I meant like soldiers packing laser rifles, or tanks firing laser cannons.
Moved to IMHO.
-xash
General Questions Moderator
I think we’re seeing it right now- the “IT revolution” in the combat arms. There are a couple of aspects I think are important- the training aspect and the C3 aspects.
The training aspect of this revolution is that militiaries can create real-time simulation nets of very realistic simulators and practice large-scale manuevers without the cost of actually using the tanks/ships/aircraft, and without losses. Or, they can set up the MILES gear, and do it more realistically. This is a HUGE advantage versus the old “bang, you’re dead” style of combat exercises.
The C3 (command, control, communications) aspects are that battlefield commanders have VASTLY better ability to tell where their troops are, what/who they’re facing, and then tell their troops what to do. In other words, it reduces the “fog of war” by a lot. This is quite important, as the side with less fog is almost always the winning side, everything else being equal.
With both better training and better control, this makes military forces MUCH more effective than before.
The very fast US victory vs. the Iraqi army was due to this in no small part.
Well, there is the Tactical High Energy Laser which is designed to shoot down rockets & artillery shells. You migh see a version of this on a vehicle alongside of tanks. Also, I think it would work very well as a point defense for ships.
Another thing that will be big are robotic, and remote controlled vehicles, as gatopescado mentioned. I predict manned combat aircraft will be obsolete by 2025; the human pilot is already a limiting factor with current aircraft.
Information warfare.
Surface-to-Orbit missle systems.
Chemically, Biologically, and/or Mechanically enhanced personnel.
MetalStorm™
You know, every time someone says that, we end up having to strap guns back on the fighters, and keep the B-52s flying another 25 years.
That said…according to my fresh copy of Popular Science—always a bastion for even-handed and realistic tech forecasting—someone’s cooking up the idea of replacing the guns on an AC-130 Gunship with a laser system (chemical lasers, at first. But an electrically powered—maybe nuclear?—laser later) for use against ground targets. 
10 Quatloos says that I know what they’d get re-nicknamed, if and when they make it into service.
What? Light-ships? Don’t leave us hanging…
I’m with bump in saying IT. Once we* know where every one of our guys/gals is and, through optical, thermal (and …sonic? …EM? …radiation?) pattern recognition, we know where every one of their guys/gals is, then the battle is ours.
*The proverbial we, but yes, the US is surely the leader.
Puff the Magic Ray-gun?
1920’s style death ray?
ducks and runs
Good old fashioned kinetic energy weapons will likely be around for a good while longer. Gunpowder is a very efficient energy storage medium and delivery device.
I agree with the small robots idea…a swarm of small semi-intelligent and armed robots could make short work of an army. Immagine being attacked by a billion lethal houseflies armed with a stinger tipped with (non)lethal nerve poison. You could put the entire enemy army to sleep and walk in and arrest them before (if) they woke up.
There was a show on the DARPA Grand Challenge. In it they mentionned that the Army plans to have one third of its vehicle autonomous by 2015.
So, though I’m no military expert, it would seem that autonomous vehicles and drones will be it, especially with concrete plans already on the table for them. This will undoubtably be the greatest shift in military paradigm in a long time. Though autonomous vehicles and “fighting robots” aren’t quite functionnal yet, several years down the road you’re likely to get almost completely robotic units fighting against human-staffed, poorer armies.
And then we can put it all together. A satellite detects targets and downloads the information to a computer that prioritizes targets and sets the order of battle. The firing order is sent to a drone that can maneuver more violently than it could with a human on board. The drone fires laser-guided missiles or drops laser guided bombs directly onto the target with little collateral damage or wasted ammunition. The damage assesment is done by satellite and everyone in the chain of command is made immediately aware of the result and can now plan for the next attack.
Somehow an AK-47 doesn’t seem to be quite enough anymore.
Some will bemoan our superiority. I am thankful for it.
A couple of things.
First off we are on the edge of a technological breakthrough in armor. Spider silk will be coming online in industrial quantities in the next few years. This will allow everybody to have a (mostly) bulletproof uniform.
More importantly, and as already mentioned is the the coming of the information age to the battlefield. This changes everything. We will be able to track a tank from the motor pool over the river and through the woods all the way to the front.
The General will have a display that shows all the enemy vehicles everywhere. The colonel will only have to worry about the ones in his area. The sergeant will have a display showing everything within a mile or two.
Of course to make this work, the satellite has to talk to the airplane to talk to the ship to talk to the tank. Further the One Big System will keep track of where the Good Guys are too.
This leads to the obvious possibility of the system being hacked, spoofed or disrupted.
Anyway all of this Battlefield Awareness should mean fewer misses and so few innocents hurt.
Or not.
That’s great and all if you want to fight an early-mid 20th century force. People aren’t stupid and they adapt to new technologies. If your enemy can pick off anything it can see, then don’t be seen. Don’t look like a tank or a soldier Mingle among the local population. Attack soft and unprotected targets. Basically what terrorists do.
And yet we keep spending money on systems to blow up tanks and waves of infantry more effectively.
This would be nifty, but while it might prevent penetration a .762 round still packs a lotta energy that can wreak havoc on soft tissue, no? (I refer to Cecil’s column on how bullets kill ya).
"What will be the next big step forward in military technology?"
It occurs to me that a lot of bloodshed can be avoided by effective leadership decapitation–like what we did, eventually, with Iraq. Had we put an end to Hitler when it became aparent that doing so was a good idea I imagine WWII would have been a bit different. While it’s neat that we can drop a bunker buster down someone’s chimney, we have seen that accuracy is not nearly as important as aiming at the correct target.
If we continue to approach war with the idea that minimal collateral damage is best, then it would follow that particular individuals should be targeted to receive a minimal lethal (or even debilitating) dose of energy. Like from a bullet or a tazer or a flame-thrower modified to shoot oo-bleck. We sorta have this capability through the use of sneaky commando types like SEALS & Delta, but even they have limits. I could see a “bloodhound” weapon that keys in on a person’s chemical signature and hunts him down to deliver whatever message was deemed important by the sender. Such a gizmo would have tremendous civilian application as well. As with real bloodhounds a chemical signature can be lost, but unlike a dog the machine could be deployed to a target area by a missile or even a high altitude parachute drop for a more discreet visit. It could be about the size and shape of a baseball or even smaller. And it could be cheap. So cheap that for the price of a Tomahawk we could drop 100s or 1,000s of these guys in a presidential palace and have them swarm in search of their target.