Future Infantry
I was conversing with Andreas over email over the costs of infantry when he observed the inevitable trend of the increasing complexity of infantry and its protection:
"...will probably continue to be the case until the soldiers look like the marines in the Warhammer universe (protected by super-thick personal armor) or the human fighters are replaced by fighting robots."
There are many such programmes and they are not limited to Singapore.
There is:
the US Land Warrior programme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Warrior
or the British FIST programme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIST
or the French Felin programme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%A9lin
or Australian Land 125 programme:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_125
and the German programme. The name escapes me at present.
The US Interim Styker Brigade has a so-called digital sophisticated communication system and more that is being tested in Iraq at present. Details can be found in various places online and offline.
7 comments:
The US Army is canning or rolling back the Future Combat System project (and i think Objective Force may be a casualty) because the operational cost of the ongoing war is eating into the budget.
I believe the US Army's Future Combat System (which includes the Starship Trooper-esque Objective Force) project was scaled back as a result of the budgetary crunch. The war in iraq is getting too expensive and developmental funds have been diverted to reinforce failure.
I do think remotely controlled robots will replace human fighters. There'll still be human soldiers, but more in the role of special forces and occupiers of territory like garrison troops to supress local unrests etc. - Silver.
I'm skeptical about robot warfare. The purpose of war is to inflict pain upon your enemy. We don't sit down and say "hey, chum, buddy, pal, let's play a nice game of chess and see who will control the world's oil."
In war, we inflict pain on another nation by killing its citizens and harming its economy. This is what motivates that other nation to stand down (or die). Blowing up hunks of circuitry hardly accomplishes that.
I'm not saying I'm for or against. I'm just saying that war, inherently, is about inflicting pain. Blowing up robots doesn't really inflict too much pain on the enemy.
Now if it's robots killing citizens, that's a whole different story.
Cliff, I am sceptical of robot infantry. In terms of automation, I can see automatic rpvs hovering over an area with a search pattern. Tasks can be automated with simple decision-making algorithms. However, like you have stated, the conduct of war is something else. Achieving political ends through breaking the will of the enemy population? Hmmm..
Zero, thanks. I will go read on the Future Combat System and Objective Force. I am not familiar with them at this point. My books are generally outdated. I don't have access to JDW, journals and trade publications.
Yes, you are right about developmental funds being diverted. In terms of military budget, this administration has one of the lowest historically.
Human fighters? Where Silver? Human garrison troops yes. Robotic infantry? I find it difficult to think of a possible role.
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