Army Tests 7-Ton Robots Armed With Javelin Anti-Tank Missiles

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington, D.C.) The Army is preparing to fire Javelin Anti-Tank missiles from 7-ton robots able to surveil forward, high-threat areas, find and track enemy targets such as tanks and heavy armored vehicles and fire weapons when directed by a human.

In a recent Army demonstration at Fort Hood, Texas, soldiers tested the technology to eventually fire Javelins and .50-cal machine guns from robotic vehicle prototypes during a series of war preparation and weapons development exercises.

“We just finished our second large scale operational soldier evaluation done at Fort Hood, Texas, we had 12 robotic platforms with six control vehicles. It’s a culmination of about four years of activity. This really, really is a huge learning opportunity for the Army to understand how combat robotics can inform future decisions on how we buy material and how we fight,” Kevin Mills, Deputy Executive Director, Ground Vehicle Intelligent Systems, Army Ground Vehicle Systems Center, told Warrior in an interview.

As part of the evaluation, Army weapons developers placed armed robots in the hands of soldiers to assess weapons, refine tactics and help fast-track a new class of Robotic Combat Vehicles to war. The service is moving forward with three variants, a RCV-Light, RCV-Medium and RCV-Heavy, and each robotic vehicle variant is being developed for a complex, interwoven set of unmanned missions. These include manned-unmanned teaming efforts wherein forward ground drones or robotic vehicles perform reconnaissance and scout missions, deliver supplies and ammo or actually track and destroy targets themselves when directed by a human.

“The RCV-Light is about a seven ton vehicle and carries a 50 .cal machine gun and a Javelin and several other weapon systems. It is built for modular payloads. The RCV-Medium fires a 30mm cannon from a turret. The lights and mediums were purpose built prototypes for the soldier operational experiment,” Mills said.

Robotic Combat Vehicle

The Robotic Combat Vehicle – Heavy is earlier on in the developmental program but was used in the experiment with an M113 personnel carrier as a surrogate for a future heavy robot armed with a 120mm cannon. Mills explained that robotic vehicles armed with larger caliber systems will emerge more fully in coming years.