Army Robots Will Soon Destroy Enemy Tanks

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By Kris Osborn – President & Editor-In-Chief, Warrior Maven

The Army is arming robots with anti-tank missiles to close with and destroy enemy armored vehicles in mechanized formations, a cutting edge development which could prove decisive in tank battles while keeping manned vehicles away from incoming enemy fire.

While decisions regarding the use of lethal force will still be made by humans operating in a command and control capacity, forward positioned Army Robotic Combat Vehicles can now be armed with Javelin anti-tank missiles as well as cannons, grenade launchers and crew served weapons. In a recent live fire demonstration, Army weapons developers put this to the test. The intent was to make sure attacks could be precise, controlled by human decision-makers and extremely lethal.

“We shot a Javelin. It’s the shakeout testing and the safety testing so you can conduct live fire with soldiers and make sure that it is safe,” Maj. Gen. Ross Coffman, Director, Next Generation Combat Vehicle Cross Functional Team, Army Futures Command, told Warrior in an interview.

The targeting and attack process, involving the shortening of the sensor-to-shooter attack timeline, is now greatly expedited by AI. Should Javelin-armed robots be in position to find, identify track and ultimately destroy enemy tanks on human command, they could present a formidable dilemma to potential adversaries. Being robotic, the vehicles can be much lighter and faster because they do not have to operate with the kind of heavy armor needed to protect manned crews. This means the tank-killing robots could maneuver quickly into attack formations and potentially out-run or gain advantage over enemy tanks.

The weapons integrated into the robots are also fortified by advanced computing and a next-generation sensor suite developed to see targets at greater ranges and process incoming information to organize data and analyze scenarios for human decision makers. In this respect, an armed robot could not only be lethal but also operate as a key battlefield node able to send information in real time to multiple platforms to include air assets, manned command and control centers, other air and ground drones and other armored and tactical vehicles on the move