DARPA's latest toy is a 20-foot, 12-ton tank that drives itself DARPA has been working on off-road autonomous vehicles for decades, and now it has a combat-scale unmanned tank to show. The Robotic Autonomy in Complex Environments with Resiliency (RACER) program has entered a new phase of research that includes testing the RACER Heavy Platform (RHP), a 20-foot long, 12-ton (6 meter, 10.8 …
Anon is obvious...
I saw the M5 up close at rest and on tac screens in action. I handled problem reports from early outdoors testing at a "customer site" in the Midwest (I will not disclose detailed location) and was part of the admin/ops team that helped organize and run tests both there and at another customer site in Texas, which is where I expect this follow-on testing occurred.
The US Army work was being done by an in-Army team located near me -- again in the Midwest -- and I wonder how they feel about DARPA/Carnegie taking over that work.
Ahem, have you looked at the comparative budgets? And, of course, NASA is famous for having its budget cut and having its priorities set by the politicians.
Meanwhile, at DARPA, there's pretty much nothing you can't get funding for. The internet was strictly while it was just plain old ARPA, and things like the rest of the government still mattered. Now it's pretty much weapons, baby, yeah! But sharks with frickin' lasers are cool, right?
Factual corrections time:
DARPA cuts projects midstream when they don't meet the metrics. Ex: the Airlander. (You didn't know that the Airlander was a failed DARPA project?)
DARPA terminates all projects after several years. If they were good then someone else will continue them.
Carnegie Mellon (and other) scientists did the initial research before the Army; see my previous point.
The first grand challenge was a 200 miles course in the desert; the best team failed about 7 miles in. The 2nd running was 130 miles; 5 teams finished.
DARPA did not pay for the research, but awarded a $1M prize after the fact to the winner and nothing to the others. This seems an optimal use of taxpayer money.
We see a tracked vehicle tooling around in open country, over uneven ground that the vehicle chassis can obviously just bull through without navigation assistance. We do not see it maneuvering among anything I would call an obstacle, even to a vehicle that couldn't just drive right over medium-sized shrubbery.
There may well be high-performing autonomous systems here, but the video shown doesn't substantiate that proposition.
soldier Theodore> Guys, the tank is again attacking the tree!
soldier Brad> WTF man, where is James... JAMES!!! FFS.
soldier James> Aye I am here!
soldier Brad> Mate, go reset the tank, it's attacking the f tree again FFS.
soldier James> No, you go I did reset it last time!
soldier Theodore> Aight, cool your jets ladies, I am going in!
soldier James> Now you talking. Go Go Go!
*soldier Theodore approaches the tank*
tank> *plays What is love! Lady don't hurt me! Don't hurt me! No more!*
*soldier Theodore plunges his bayonet inside the reset slot*
tank> *plays Windows shutdown tone*
*soldier James screams*
soldier James> Theo! Theo! Don't look up! Do...
*loud bang*
*everyone is dead*
tank> *plays What is love! Lady don't hurt me! Don't hurt me! No more!*
*tank commences to autonomously attack the tree*
《By hobbits?》
Orcs probably more vocationally inclined. Hobbits would just think sod this for a game of soldiers and eff off to the pub.
"Optional" is military speak for "expendable" is it not? These beasts would likely be designed for tank, not crew, survivability although a grunt resetting an arboricidal tank with bayonet is likely to be less effective than a ukrainian with an anti tank weapon. Although a ukrainian would have enough sense to leave the trees and tank alone to settle their differences. With a bit of luck one of the trees will be an Ent. :)
Britain's Ajax was so loud when mobile that it was causing hearing issues for the unfortunates inside. Presumably it is easier to remove the humans than make them quieter.
Ukraine/Russia has taught us that we need drones that can fly fast and low, under radar, navigating via road/rail/landmarks without GPS (which can be blocked). In urban environments, they would be difficult to shoot down as you would be taking out your own people when you miss. Smaller drones might even be able to navigate sewer systems. That said, using insurgents to erase members of Putin's inner circle on the sly would have ended things much quicker and much more cheaply, with far less loss of life. Always target the leadership if you actually want to win.
I think the big problem with Ajax was vibration, rather than noise. Which now looks to have been solved. I'm sure it was cheaper to solve than it would have been to make the thing fully self-driving...
Also remember that drones are limited by the laws of physics. if you want to make them faster, you've got to make them either smaller or bigger. If you want to make them terrain follow without GPS, then you're going to have to update their map files every time some buildings in the city you're fighting in get destroyed - or they've going to get lost. Which is actually similar to how missiles like Storm Shadow operate, they do use inertial navigation and GPS, but also have an imaging infrared sensor and are given waypoints to look for on their route, and for their final target. Which is why the Germans suggested that British troops might be on the ground in Ukraine to help them program the Storm Shadows (and French SCALP) that have been given to them. It rather annoyed the British government, I assumed we would be doing that programming for Ukraine, but back in Blighty - but I've seen leaks from the US that suggest Britain does have a hundred or so "military advisors" on the ground in Ukraine. Who knows?
Anyway people just breezily say, "you should just have drones that do..." Well we can. But then they won't cost a few hundred dollars each, they'll cost tens to hundreds of thousands. Lower speed drones can be shot down with ordinary rifles, there are now optical sights you can get that detect the speed of the drone, and give you an aiming point for where to fire.
Basically drones are part of the future of warfare. But if you want to take and hold ground, you'll need infantry. If you want to keep infantry alive on the battlefield you'll need to be able to breach defences and survive artillery and drones. So you'll need armoured vehicles. And the ability to clear minefields. And then air defences, and anti-drone defences. So then if you want drones, you may need anti-drone drones, and anti-anti-drone defence-drones and so forth...
Finallly, killing the enemy's leadership ain't always so easy. Russia sent various special forces teams to Kyiv just before the invasion of Ukraine. Then used air-mobile troops to attack a nearby airfield (Hostomel) to support them, and still failed to kill or capture Zelensky. And that was with a certain number of traitors in the Ukrainian government who'd been working for Russian intelligence agencies for years.
I am not sure Putin is the most competent leader for his Russia engaged in a war. Removing him might risk a much more competent replacement. Although a truly competent and realistic replacement might see russia's future in a different light and call it quits and send all those responsible to buggery (a little settlement in central northern siberia.)
All conflicts inevitably end with the survivors sitting around a table to resolve their (remaining) differences. Starting from this axiom it doesn't take a Quine to deduce that a lot of time, money and lives could be saved by hiring a conference room at the outset instead.
Unfortunately this planet is run and largely owned by individuals and their syncophants whose monomania, greed and defficient grasp of reality, gravely injure the whole world. The fact that these malefactors welcome conflict is not a conspiracy theory but rather the natural consequence of their gross defects.
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