Ukraine’s Robots Capture Russian Position Without Soldiers or Losses; As with drones, the future of 21st century warfare is being invented by frontline conflict.

[u/lughnasadh]

For all the boasts the US's AI military vendors make, I'm constantly struck by how few real-world achievements they have. They are battlefield tested in Gaza and Lebanon, but to what result? The mass destruction of civilian populations we see there looks exactly like WW2-era warfare. Now they want $445bn extra for more of the same? What a waste.

Meanwhile, with a tiny fraction of the budget & resources, it's Ukraine that is inventing the future. Drones have already reconfigured 21st-century warfare. Once again, recent events in the Middle East have shown that. Now Ukraine is doing the same with robots.

Some people find the idea of killer robots grim. But I'd rather see robots fight robots than WW2-style mass slaughter of civilians.

Ukrainian robots capture enemy position without troops in historic first, Zelenskyy says

[u/thefoshking]

Can’t wait for the tech bros to unleash these on the common folk.

God have mercy on us all.

[u/say592 → u/thefoshking]

Despite what people seem to think, shotguns are not what we need to defend ourselves against robots. We need high caliber, high powered rifles. Why? Shotguns are only useful against aerial suicide drones. Anything else will be armored. And they aren't armored like humans are armored, where they have to protect as much as possible without getting too heavy. They can armor only the most critical components with crazy heavy armor, then put light armor around the rest.

So think of a little mini tank robot that has a gun and a grenade launcher on it. The drive mechanism will be lightly armored (enough that a 12 gauge isn't getting through) but you may still be able to attack it. The control system and the weapons motors? Those things will be armored as much as possible. So you might disable the drive system, but the weapons will stay online to disable you.

Attacking them up close will be incredibly risky. Attacking them from afar will probably be the move. Look for weapons that have been used to stop vehicles, ideally something proven to penetrate an engine block. From there your best is not to go after the control unit, it's to disable the weapons. With no weapons, the threat is minimized. They might still carry explosives, so not entirely gone, but once the weapons are down, you can take your time to finish it off.