The US military recently took part in a successful test for a robot that fires machine guns while hitting targets located up to 500 feet away.
While the military has used drones to hit targets from the sky, this is the first time a robot has been used to fire a weapon from the ground in a tactical setting. The machine gun firing robots were tested by four companies who showed off the robot to senior army offices at Fort Benning, Georgia.
While land robots have been used by the US military for many years, they have been focused on finding and diffusing bombs and performing other tasks.
The new robot fired machine gun system is equipped with an M-240 machine gun mounted to the “Protector.” The weapon had been previously used to clear paths, dig defensive positions and carry up to 500 pounds of equipment. The weaponized vehicle only travels at 5 miles per hour.
Soldiers operate the remote-control robot from distances up to 3,300 feet away and they can fire ammunition up to 5,900 feet away.
The U.S. Military is continuing to place a larger emphasis on robots which can travel into dangerous areas without the loss of soldier life. In fact, an expert at Computerworld believes robots will soon outnumber humans in the military by 10 to one.
Robots at this time are semi-autonomous but experts believe that robots within a few decades could precede humans into battle. Whether or not those robots will think on their own or remain controlled fully by operators is not yet known.
As for the M-240 machine gun mounted on-top of the Protector, senior officials seemed please with its initial results.
The HDT Robotics weapon was tested at Fort Benning, Georgia over the weekend.
Do you think future wars will be fought and won by countries who manage to develop the most sophisticated war machines?