The military of the future (today)

[MattC]

Soon, U.S. tanks, APCs, etc, will be equipped with defense capabilities such as this one:

http://spikedhumor.com/articles/53036/Anti_RPG_System.html

 

(if it doesn't show, reload the webpage, sometimes there is an ad in place of the video and you just have to reload the page)

 

I'd like to devote this thread to discussing the future of warfare. I think that in the nearterm, conventional weapons, along with some new toys such as sound-based weaponry and lasers, will continue to dominate. Remotely operated or AI-operated tanks and planes will replace manned vehicles.

In the not-so-distant future, I expect nanobots to take over the role of defending (and attacking!).

 

What do you think? Will satellite lasers with pin-point accuracy allow some countries to dominate the world? Will biological warfare make all other weapons look like pleasant houseguests? Or something else entirely?

[padren]

I've been thinking a lot about liquid propellent weapon systems that seperate the slug from the propellent.

It makes sense to me that a few tanks of liquid would be easier and a magazine could hold a lot more without that component attached to each shell.

 

 

I think wide area non-lethal systems may become prevelent.

 

Good link btw, that is a pretty cool defense system.

[swansont]

Soon' date=' U.S. tanks, APCs, etc, will be equipped with defense capabilities such as this one:

http://spikedhumor.com/articles/53036/Anti_RPG_System.html

[/quote']

 

 

apparently not

[Bluenoise]

apparently not

 

 

Ha ha ha. So let me get this strait the US military is sell-out on it troops lives to please a weapons manufacturer!!

 

"Umm sorry miss Jones your son died in combat today because we'd rather not upset our own plans to make money..."

 

And what ever happened to support our troops??

[MattC]

Eh, politics. So, anyway, what does everyone think the future of warfare will be? One author (I forget who - not a particularly famous one) speculated that in the future, corporations would fight the wars, rather than countries, in order to secure resources and people. To save costs, the various corporations of the world would agree to nonviolent combat - a sort of laser tag in which the "battle" is really just a competition, and the winner takes all.

 

Personally, I don't think it's very likely. I think warfare will remain a deadly game, with every side attempting to escalate the situation with new methods of defense (and perhaps new variations of old methods of offense - small nuclear bombs, lasers, etc, rather than larger, more dangerous bombs and such).

 

If the US army doesn't take this trophy system and run with it, it's still plausible that the navy or airforce will. Isreal would love to have it, too, I'm sure - and something tells me the Israeli won't care whether or not Raytheon made it, they'll use it as long as it works (and it seems that it does). The next step may be for some country to develop an RPG or missle that has tracking hardware on it - when the sensors detect an anti-ballistic projectile coming, a small laser will melt enough of the projectile surface to destroy it's aerodynamic properties, throwing it off course.

 

All of that is just wild speculation, of course! I still think that in the long run, nanobot soldiers are where it's at.

[swansont]

Eh, politics.

 

 

Quite right. I wasn't paying attention to the fact that this was in the engineering section. Any political discussion can go to the politics board, where I've started a thread. No need to derail a science/engineering discussion. My apologies.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22785

[Skye]

There are already naval versions, most corvettes and frigates, and larger vessels, are fitted with them. They are larger guns though since they're dealing with missiles. Germany is also developing an RPG counter measure for their tanks.

[Dak]

more unmanned (limited AI/remote control) weapons.

 

mebbe coil guns too (an advert for metalstorm ltd)

 

I think, no matter how advanced a civilisation, human infantry will allways form the bulk of the army.

[MattC]

Ah, that's something I can whole-heartedly disagree with, Dak!

Human infantry is the bulk of all armies, today, yes - but we must ask why this is! I would argue that this is because, no matter how powerful a weapon is, if it's not controlled by a human (who is there, not controlling it wirelessly), then you have to either rely on AI (which today is not up to the task) or some sort of remote connection (which can always be hacked, presumably).

 

I don't foresee any technology on the near-horizon that will allow 100% secure remote control. I do, however, see what I perceive to be an inevitable explosion in the AI field. Video games are getting more and more cleaver, automated customer service systems (a computer-controlled "human" voice) are clunky but rapidly improving - and the incentive to get them up to the level of your average real-person is immense. Imagine the savings for a company that can replace 1,000 phone operators with a few computers.

 

If we extrapolate from the exponential growth of computer processing power, it would appear that human-brain level computational power will be available at an affordable (that's the key) price in 15 to 20 years. This pattern-recognition ability would also come with the inherantly fast-processing ability of computers - that is, massively parallel computers can, presumably, emulate the pattern recognition abilities (that set humans apart from modern computers) of the human brain, but at the same time, they process millions of times faster. You cannot aim a gun at a person and do more than estimate the trajectory of the bullet - a computer, even a modern computer, can not only do that, but it can do it instantly, and not just for one aim and one trajectory, but for thousands or millions. A tank controlled by a modern computer (with todays abilities) and enough guns and detectors (radar, sonar, cameras and pattern/motion detection) would be an amazingly effective murderer - we don't see this happening because the ability of such a system to distinguish between a friend and a foe would be limited. We can't just release tanks into the wild and *hope* that immature software would keep them from killing allies - so this will have to wait until the AI is capable of making these decisions with the same (or superior) accuracy of a human.

 

And tanks are just one example of this - Toyota has developed a numer of exciting robots. The abilities of these robots are limited, but the technology is in it's infancy. 20 years ago, no one would try to build a robot that could dance and play music.

http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/special/robot/

In another 10 years, I think the toys you buy for your children will do these things. Imagine telling your children, "when I was your age toy cars just moved in one direction - the direction you pushed 'em! They certainly didn't have collision detection ... thank god for that! I remember just *ruining* the wooden legs on my parents chairs with my toy cars!"

 

In the longer run, humans will merge with computers and robotics, and we may again see the dominance of the human soldier - this time, outfitted with metal bones and stronger, artificial muscles (allowing for heavy armor), constant wireless communication with headquarters via eye-implants that project data over the field of vision, computers that allow every soldier to calculate *exactly* how far their futuristic bullets will penetrate the armor of an enemy, and so on.

 

Just speculation, of course, but it's speculation I'd be willing to put some money on!

[Rhino]

Without involving humans, world conflicts could be settled on episodes of "BattleBots". Then it would become all about the ratings and advertising. Since BattleBots isn't on the air anymore it would be the end of all world conflicts because not enough people are interested, and we'd have to start fighting with people again. How much interest would the media have in covering a war of robots? Would anyone care if 2,000 robots were defeated? Especially when you could salvage parts and rebuild a lot of them.

 

The human face is where the story is. Showing the pictures of people killed in combat on the evening news gets people much more stirred up than showing a pile of busted robots ever would.

 

We (the USA) looks bad enough to other countries for invading Iraq with humans. How much worse would the perception be if we invaded them with inhumane, cold, unfeeling robots. On the plus side it would eliminate the protesters who say you're not sending my sons and daughters over there.

[Dak]

if you dont mind me putting a slightly odd twist in this thread...

 

do you think the future will bring 'pasifistic' warfare. reading rhino's comment about the US looking bad for invading iraq but looking worse if they sent a robot army to kill, following mattc's comments on robot armys, made me consider something:

 

i'm sure that the majority of developed countries would wage a war that spared the life of the majority of foreighn soldures wer it not for the facts that:

 

1/ weapons that incapasitate are less effective than weapons that kill, so using them would put our own soldures at risk, and

 

2/ capturing soldures ties up a helluva lot of our soldures keeping them prisoner -- more than it takes to kill them (i remember a story, tho im not sure how true it is, of a british advance that seemed unstoppable -- because of this, the enemy soldures gave up en mass, and we had to sped time and effort enprisoning them, which effectively stopped our otherwize 'unstoppable' advance at least for a while)

 

with robots, maybe they could take non-fatal guns, and who really cares if this results in the robots distruction? its not a human life you'd be risking to save another (enemy) souldures life.

 

and maybe the humans could man the third line, guarding the POWs that the robots collect, fixing any POWs that are injured in the process, and perfoming maintanance for the bots, as well as being there to fight the enemy if the bots fail?

 

to mutate rhino's comment: the USA looks bad enough to other countries for invading Iraq with humans. How much better would the perception be if we invaded them with robots and a significantly lowered death toll, maybe not even in triple figures across both sides. in addition, it would somewhat eliminate the protesters who say you're not sending my sons and daughters over there.

[mr d]

Hello

 

Thought I'd put these up about Trophy system.

 

 

http://www.defense-update.com/products/t/trophy.htm

 

http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/trophy-active-defense-system

 

http://www.defensetech.org/archives/002361.html

 

 

Techblog has a bit better video from U.S. Fox News Network. Defensetech gives a better explaination of Trophy and why it was past on.

 

Video seems a bit misleading, making it appear in their animations that a defensive 'energy' sheild is being deployed around the vechicle. The actual defensive shield is radar which scans an area around the vehicle for detection of incoming objects (mainly to deal with shoulder launched rockets and RPG's).

 

If detected it is quickly tracked, trajectory calculated, and a 'fragmentation beam' intercepts. The fragmentation beam reads more likely to be a explosive package of fragmenting material,launched into the path of the detected object and exploded; resaulting fragmentation damage causing detonation of the missle or RPG.

 

Inventive, but not the Science Fiction weapon technology the Media is try to make it look like.

 

Problem hinted at appears to be the systems ability to differentiate between targets. Dangerous in areas occupied by non-combatants.

 

 

Mr D

[Atellus]

One of the oldest principles of warfare is that you can better damage your enemies capability to fight by creating casualties than by simply killing him. For instance, towards the latter stages of WWII the Germans, both through an understanding of this basic principle and a shortage of alternative resources, took to constructing small wooden anti-personnel mines which contained a single rifle round which was fired upwards through a soldiers foot when the mine was activated. This was not a lethal wound, but it meant that valuable men, material and resources were instantly tied up providing medical care, evacuating and then treating the injured man. Far more costly than ripping off a dog tag and paying for a body bag.

 

You can see how non-lethal weapons is a marvelous euphemism.

 

In this category of non-lethal (yet crippling) weapons we also have laser range finders and their close cousins which are apparently designed only to "dazzle" an enemy, not blind him permanently. Ok. Whatever you say. So happens I know a couple of orthopaedic surgeons who have told me just how incredibly fragile the retina is. Imagine, if you will, a small piece of rice paper being touched briefly by a flame. It shrivels instantly into a tiny charred crisp. A puny laser pointer can do that! Imagine what a so-called "laser range finder" will do at a couple of hundred yards.

 

But coming back on topic: I wonder if we might not see certain technologies being developed for defensive purposes today used in manned spacecraft of tomorrow. A device like the Trophy, or any of a number of similar gun/projectile based Close In Weapons Systems (CIWS) might have some utility as a defence against space debri or small asteroids. The argument, most often used in regards to asteroid impacts on Earth, is that you'd want to deflect rather than destroy as you'll still be hit by the fragments. If we assume that the outer hulls of such craft will be quite rugged in design anyway, both to assure integrity, provide radiation protection and last ditch protection against impacts, then perhaps you don't mind so much if you destroy the target with a chain gun. It would be analogous to a tank fitted with the Trophy system, or something similar. It may destroy the RPG warhead, but the broken pieces of the rocket will still hit the tank at high speed. The only difference is the mass of each piece, the wider impact area instead of a focused punch and the lack of an explosion.

 

In regards to Trophy, the various criticisms are not, as some have suggested, purely political (although there is always behind the scenes lobbying). Many western nations, including the US, buy and operate equipment from many other nations, and Israel is near the top of that list. The valid criticisms centre on the inability of the vehicle crew to reload and rearm Trophy without leaving the safety of the vehicle. This has the added disadvantage that each system is a one shot deal. Once it's fired, you're left with at least 180 degrees of arc completely uncovered, and are essentially back to square one. You might not consider this a particular problem. You might argue that so long as the unit survives, it can withdraw to safety, rearm and return. Well, actually, that still represents a victory for the enemy because the objective in combat is not to destroy the other side - it is to achieve your goal on the battlefield, and the two are not the same thing. If you have two men with RPG's who fire at one tank from both sides, exhausting the Trophy system, the tank might choose to withdraw. You win, because the tank has gone away. Now you can move about for the time being without being shot at by the tank. And in urban warfare, that can be a winning advantage. The worst case is that the enemy very quickly catches on about this disadvantage and arranges to fire two RPGs at the same flank. Given that the combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan expend RPG munitions like there was no tomorrow (implying that they have a plentiful supply) then one can easily see this tactic becoming standard ambush practice.

[MattC]

Not to get too caught up on Trophy, but is that really the case? It can only fire once, at least within a certain section of its view? Or is it just the case that, in a particular segment of it's defense, if it has just fired it cannot fire for a moment or two?

 

Very interesting! If so, it would be very easy to overcome, once the enemy caught on.

[silverslith]

Without involving humans' date=' world conflicts could be settled on episodes of "BattleBots". Then it would become all about the ratings and advertising. Since BattleBots isn't on the air anymore it would be the end of all world conflicts because not enough people are interested, and we'd have to start fighting with people again. How much interest would the media have in covering a war of robots? Would anyone care if 2,000 robots were defeated? Especially when you could salvage parts and rebuild a lot of them.

 

The human face is where the story is. Showing the pictures of people killed in combat on the evening news gets people much more stirred up than showing a pile of busted robots ever would.

 

We (the USA) looks bad enough to other countries for invading Iraq with humans. How much worse would the perception be if we invaded them with inhumane, cold, unfeeling robots. On the plus side it would eliminate the protesters who say you're not sending my sons and daughters over there.[/quote']

 

I reckon it should be scapheap challenge. Those hesbolahs with their crotch-high homemade rockets that go 50miles would walk all over the Israelis if you took their giant US made cityblock levelers off them.

Even better the teams should be the top politicians.

[silverslith]

I was joking with someone about statewar scrapheap challenge a few weeks ago. A couple hours later an old star trek rerun came on. The enterprize was chasing an alien starship that had scorched a human colony. This hyperevolved alien stopped the ships and transported Kirk and the lizard capn to a remote planet to settle their differences with and episode of Starship captain scrapheap challenge. Kirk won after recalling that the ancient humans used to mix sulpur, carbon and rocksalt to make primitive projectile weapons.

 

Damn funny episode. Three cheers to the ubersense of the hyperevolved alien.

[mr d]

hello

 

I think the point of that episode was that the super intelligent beings were planning to destroy the winner of the contest. For if you were creative enough to build a weapon of enough destructive force, then you were the greater danger.

But it is by a demonstrated quality of mercy, that they considered showed a evolving knowledge of morality that spared the humans.

 

It's interesting to see when science fiction can tackle topics of greater importance, by hiding the lesson wrap in the trappings of fantasy adventure. Though I think the original Twilight Zone shows did a better job of it.

 

Mr D

[silverslith]

The "theon" I believe he was called was going to release the winner and destroy the "less resourceful" captain and crew. It was kind of like a stray-cat fight in his yard to "him". Kirk earned his surprize by showing the evolved quality of mercy and the theon was "..going to be interested to follow the evolution of your species, Perhaps in a few thousand years humans may be worth talking to again.."

Killing people to gain control of property or people is Psycho stuff whatever the scale of it. My hope is that we will evolve as the Theon hoped and the weapons of the future will be of symbolic battle as therapy for diagnosed despots.

[dragonstar57]

i don't think there will be any warfare in the future. eventually there will be a global democracy that is ... well global

and there will be no one to fight

but even if this happened i would still think a defense budget would be needed just in case

[dragonstar57]

the problem with war becoming laser tag matches is whoever was loosing would just arm his army with ak47s rather than a laser toy.

war where there is no bloodshed would require both sides be willing to loose to preserve human life.

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

As I noted above (#6), this is supposed to be an engineering discussion, and not a political one. There is a thread in politics for the latter.

[forufes]

I've been thinking a lot about liquid propellent weapon systems that seperate the slug from the propellent. It makes sense to me that a few tanks of liquid would be easier and a magazine could hold a lot more without that component attached to each shell.I think wide area non-lethal systems may become prevelent. Good link btw, that is a pretty cool defense system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_G11

[Mr Skeptic]

i don't think there will be any warfare in the future. eventually there will be a global democracy that is ... well global

and there will be no one to fight

but even if this happened i would still think a defense budget would be needed just in case

 

Eventually, yes. As more countries acquire nukes, this seems like it would be both likelier and more desirable solution.

 

In the meantime, we seem to be heading toward the destruction of projectiles. We can knock down RPGs and missiles, and we are testing laser systems for shooting down shells and such, but these are very heavy. More cat-and-mouse games with stealth seem likely too, with both better stealth and better detection. We're working on an exoskeleton for humans that would make us more armored and stronger, but it won't be much use unless it is also quick and agile and dependable. Unmanned vehicles are another obvious venue, whether as remote controlled or future AI. A mind-machine interface would help with reaction times and maybe accuracy, and allow complex controls to be used with ease. Railguns may be used by the navy, to make some good use out of those nuclear reactors.

 

Perhaps we might make guerrilla fighting nearly useless if we have good enough defenses. That would certainly have interesting effects.