sounds promising, it sure has a good ratio, you can loose a bunch of drones for the price of a T80 or BMP.

Human beings evolved to get around on the surface of the Earth. The further you get from natural human environments and natural human perceptions the more likely it is you can substitute a machine. So at the extreme, space, unmanned vehicles should predominate. On the edges you have air to air combat-- when you depend on radar-- and deep underwater where you depend on sonar. Unmanned tanks might have a place clearing minefield or some such thing but there are also many, many problems. Firing either has to be autonomous or you need some reliable FOF recognition. If the device is controlled remotely you need to send a lot of data back and forth. Telepresence is horrible when compared to the speed and perception of a person actually there. Again, it depends on how well the situation is suited to human perception. A tank firing through an IR sight isn't going to suffer as much from the loss of peripheral vision through a camera. But people will be so much cheaper and versatile.

Drones, Unmanned Combat Vehicles (UCVs) have several advantages. They're disposable - one gets hit, forget it, or suicide it (charge the enemy), it's a machine, not a buddy. You can expend them essentially at will. Better sensors in some ways. Could possibly carry more than a grunt. Take more punishment. But there are drawbacks - how are they controlled? Wire/fiberoptics? Too easily fouled. Radio? Jammable. Onboard AI? Nice idea, but how good/discriminating is it? They won't replace infantry, but might be a very good asset for them.

I don't think machines will ever replace people in the FBA anymore than the airplane will replace the battleship as th - ah, ah, wait one.

Tanks, jets, prop planes, dirigibles, battleships, aircraft carriers, APCs, armored cars, ATGMs, mortars, artillery, rockets, ICBMs, submarines, atomics, ships-of-the-line, triremes, longboats, chariots, war elephants, cavalry, camelry, seige engines, Greek fire, longbow, crossbow, rifle, musket, sword, spear, club. And throughout all of this? Infantry. The human being is a extremely versatile weapons platform, with excellent sensors, stunningly flexible and capable motive systems, and shockingly aggressive and innovative combat AI. Granted, it takes about eighteen years of careful and patient effort to build one, and their handlers get attached to them - they even form attachments to each other, but that's been shown to -improve- their combat efficiency. Some have even freely destroyed themselves, for their fellow units. Now, there are drawbacks - most would rather not get damaged - they do have opinions of their own, but that's the price you pay for such capability, and treating them with any sense of ethics. Noise is made every so often about something replacing them, but it's -never- happened. Not in thousands of years of development. Even now, R&D isn't anywhere even close to a substitute for them. What they've done is enhance them with better tools. The support arms (air and naval), however, have jobs that would be much easier replaced by machines. Whether that will happen - the replacement - remains to be seen. Augmentation, of course, has already happened. But until we come up with something as flexible, resilient, capable and aggressive as a properly raised and trained eighteen-year-old human (and there are some, despite what you might think :), infantry will be around.

The disadvantages of robotic weapons systems are, in this day and age, powerfully outweighed by the big advantage: we don't like dying. Consider the current conflict in Afghanistan against the Taliban and Al Quada. Our hesitancy to occupy and conquer is caused as much by fear of casualties as by political pressures against Western occupation of a Muslim land. However, the next generation of robotic battle systems will undoubtedly be designed with just this sort of low-grade conflict in mind. Simple creepers could slowly saunter up to enemy entrenchments, lob grenades, and lay down suppressing fire on survivors/would be escapees. Flat, crab-like automatic weapons platforms could be fixed near troop concentrations and used to eliminate opposing infantry without any risk to friendlies. Small hover craft, either wielding small arms fire and/or high explosives, can strafe opposing positions or self-destruct with massive and perfectly placed effect. One posting here mentioned radio based control systems as easily jammed and/or spoofed. Agreed. The same message suggested that fiber optics would be too easily foiled. I believe this could be overcome. Robotic weapons systems could be constantly fed a signal that *prevents* self-detonation. Terminating the fiber optic connection would lead to immediate self destruction that would prevent the equipment from landing into enemy hands and possibly score lucky hits in the process. Furthermore, proper redundancy and mutual protection between individual platforms would minimize target vulnerability. (System "A" guards system "B'" cables, and vice versa and so on.) Another posting here mentioned that human intuition and response time in the field is irreplacable by AI. Also agreed. But who cares? You don't need to replace it--just *move* it to a safer location away from the front lines, and allow improved virtual reality and detection technology to move the view of the battlefield to the human operator while keeping her/him safe from the hazards of war. Let the machines do the dying.

NICE ARTICLE

Drones will be an integral part in the future battlefield (20 year perhaps). In the air they already have taken many roles; there are decoys and one way bombers(cruise missiles) and lately even ground attack aircraft. On the ground it will be more difficult because there is so much distraction and movement is so unlinear. Laser communications could be the key for a secure and very difficult to jam way to coordinate your drones. In the air you could have your manned craft hiding behind a screen of drones. Trailing perhaps 50 km behind them the pilots would be sitting in relative safety aboard AWACS or tanker aircraft coordinating the drones. On the ground movement is difficult for drones. This is a very difficult issue and a field in which humans are far superior to them. All kinds of vehicles also brake down regularily. One or two drones per squad could be a good number. The infantry helps the drone get where it is needed and then pilot it into the combat zone. This way dangerous things like investigating buildings (or caves) could be taken over by the drones.

"we don't like dying" nobody really does yet the Terrorists have lines of volunteers who are willing to give their lives for crack pot causes. They see death everyday, so they view it as only natural in the cycle of things. They have nothing to lose, so by risking their necks they possibly have everything to gain(at least in their eyes). Not us Americans, we have so much we don't care. We're so remote from the realities of the world(which made 9/11 possible), we don't even fully understand or accept it. Whatever happened to "I regret that I only have one life to give for my country"? You know the same logic most of you people are thinking by is what got us into this mess in the first place. Instead of sending Spec ops into Afghanistan to hunt Al-Qadea down, we used cruise missles so as not to harm our boys. Let the bombs do the killings. Yet what did that prove to Bin Laden, "Ha the Americans are scarred dogs who won't even fight us man-to-man, they have to use their high tech weapons to get us." To him, it was nothing but a sign of weakness and he thought by brining to war to us he make us crapp our pants in fear. Imgaine what totally replacing our entire military with drones will send to future enemies, and how they'll respond to that? "oh but it will save lives", yeah that was the reason behind the development of the machine gun(so you won't need as many men to do the firing when one man has the firepower of 10 men), the atomic bomb(totally anhilate the enemy's positions so our boys wouldn't have to fight them), in fact almost every deadly weapon in history had the original intent of saving lives. yet it has had the opposite effect. The machine gun and the a-bomb have become the modern symbols of instruments of mass-death. If you truely want to save lives, go back to fighting with stick and stones, that was far less bloodly. besides you can just pack explosives on the back of a common remote control car towards the enemy and BOOM! Heck thats what the Germans did against the allies during World War 2, but did that replace humans? No! I think Americans have such a fetish with high-technology that they just think that everything can be solved by it. Yet usually the more high-tech, the more problems and possible problems occur. "oh but who cares, the machine does the dying while I get to sit on my butt watching tv". We'll be playing right into our enemies hands! As the old proverb goes, "If you have nothing worth dying for, you have nothing worth living for."

Here are some things I like to add that I forgot to say earlier. The concept of replacing humans with unmanned vehicles is ridiculas as the concept that tanks would completely replace human infantry on the battlefield. In fact the two concepts have remarkable similarities(only one involves unmanned tanks). But as the Battle of Cambrai in 1917 proved that tanks alone were not as effective without infantry support. Same with unmanned vehicles cannot operate without human support ON THE FRONT(not a control center 300 miles away). Do drones have a future role in warfare, yes! But you people are highly over stating what that role will be. Mostly as aids for recon teams and softening up enemy positions before a regular infantry srtike(much like an air-strike or artillery bombardment does). But unmanned recon vehicles will not totally replace human recon teams either I like to add. But as far as totally replacing humans, absolutely not! If they were going to, they would have done it years ago. The potential to do so is at least 20 years old, and like I said earlier the German Whermacht of WW2 had little remote control robots packed with explosives rush towards enemy lines. In theory, all you need to do is pack $20 remote control cars with explosives and drive them towards the enemy. Heck its theoritically possible TODAY(not 20 years from now), but why haven't they? Because of something we like to call PRACTICE. A theory may sound good, but it ain't worth crap if it can't be put into practice. Just like trying to wage war with tanks only, waging war only with remote control vehicles has loopholes that must be filled with human ifantry at the front. "but we don't like dying" "it will do the dying for me", well mister you're in for a big reality check: EVERYBODY DIES, INCLUDING YOU! Sooner or later pal, it will happen. It can happen anywhere anytime. You can choke on a pretzel, you can get into a car-crash, a sudden heart-attack, whatever. Sending a robot isn't going to help your situation, you're still going to die someday. If not by some Taliban warrior than possibly by some gang-banger in the ghetto. SO LIVE WITH IT! Plus lets examine the notion of trying to control these things from several miles away. In "Shooting Blanks: War making that doesn't work", James E. Dunnigan and Albert A. Nofi say that of all the world's militaries, none are most obssessed with the concept of trying to fight wars long distances away as the Americans. Where do we get this love affair from, they don't know. But trying to fight a war long distances from the actual fighting isn't effective. Now sure you can see the battle-scene through a video cam, but its a poor substitute for actually being there. In order to truely know, understand, and effectively react to whats actually going on, YOU HAVE TO BE PHYSICALLY THERE! Most tests I've seen of unmanned combat vehicles are under unrealstic conditions. Instead of trying to actually hit real targets, they're aiming at paper dummies, plus the dummies just stand still. These are more than perfect conditions, but as anybody whose been into combat knows PERFECT CONDITIONS NEVER EXIST ON THE BATTLEFIELD! Plus many of you people claiming unmanned vehicles will replace humans, you argue mainly from a technology point of view. Yet to win in wars, technology alone will not win it. Its not technology that counts, but appropiate technology. And what is appropiate is rarely revealed untill the shooting actually starts. Just because the British had new breech loading rifles didn't mean they would automatically defeat the Zulus armed with primitive spears. The Zulus actually defeated the British at Isandawana in 1879. Low tech Soviet weapons defeated American weapons(which are usually too complex) during the tanks battles between India and Pakistan. The German Whermacht was light-years ahead of many of it opponents, yet they met a massive defeat. The technologically superior Romans were beaten by barbarian tribes armed with sharpened sticks. So don't think that technology alone is the answer. I know this is a hard concept to swallow in such an age of blind worship of technology. If everything depended on technology alone, we would have been replaced long ago! And if you're going to try to tell me "oh but the advances of technology will replace humans on the battlefield, its inevitable" you're just trying to sound big by claiming the laws of nature are on your side. Many commercial elites in the early 1800's used this argument to justify the massive poverty, pollution, and other guff caused by the Industrial Revolution. "OH this is how things work in the world, to try to change it is as useful as trying to stop the tide". What this eventually did was create a massive backlash against thinking of the time, which gave birth to the origins of Fascism and Communism, which took hold with bloody effects in the 20th century. The same thing