SWORDS combat robot

Originally posted by Ox
Bomb disposal squads have been using something similar like this to assess situations and detonate explosives for years.. they're pretty handy pieces of equipment...

You'd better believe it they're handy. The first of it's type was designed by 2 technology students from Queens' University, Belfast in the late 70s' as their final project. The design was picked up by the military as there was quite a call for such a system in Ulster at the time. The main armaments for the bomb disposal varients have ranged from shotguns to 84mm Carl Gustav AT launchers with specialised ammo. The current versions use hich velocity blasts of air to destroy the detonator, and are capable of pulling a family car with the brakes on and the gears engaged.

[edit on 9-6-2006 by PaddyInf]

Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRANADE and blow it up. I guess its how you use the robot, I was to lazy to read it. Just saw it looked like the Terminators baby.

Originally posted by ProjectX1986
Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRANADE and blow it up.

Why throw a grenade when you can have a walking machine gun that can turn corners, climb up stairs, send video back, and even pick off the bad guys amoungst the civies?

Originally posted by ProjectX1986
Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRANADE and blow it up. I guess its how you use the robot, I was to lazy to read it. Just saw it looked like the Terminators baby.

I suppose you could, but couldn't that be said about a human? I would suggest that a robot is easier to fix than a human body. As far as grenades go, a minimal amount of armour in certain key points on the vehicle body would increase survivability greatly.

[edit on 10-6-2006 by PaddyInf]

As I said in my previous post.. these things are EXTREMELY sturdy machines.. they are built to withstand blasts.. Bomb Squads use them to detonate material at very close range and these things usually come out fairly unscathed..

"Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRANADE and blow it up."

You haven't been working in IED disposal long, have you?

Seriously, what do you think the danger zone for an IED is like compared to how far you can accurately throw a grenade?

Wembley,

>>>
"Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRENADE and blow it up?"
>>>

>>
You haven't been working in IED disposal long, have you?

Seriously, what do you think the danger zone for an IED is like compared to how far you can accurately throw a grenade?
>>

He actually has a bit of a point, as any device is built, you either exploit a specific weakness or increase the firepower required to destroy it. I doubt if a SWORDS unit could survive the equivalent of the German multihead stick grenade, even as it's ability to defeat an IED which destroys hummers is impossible to justify.

The difference, as I allude to before is how you _selectively_ armor them against a threat which it has assymetric dominance over as well as how you deploy them, tactically.

The best tank killers are NOT tanks but airplanes or missiles which can destroy the AFV without ever being engaged by it. So too are the best man-killers going to be robots which are never alive and thus have no real value (of intimidation/counter) when a man is forced to risk his life destroying one.

Yet if you employ these vehicles as fast scouts to motor along the median or verge of a highway looking for IED, you are putting them in a position whereby an enemy insurgent has nothing to lose by destroying them (certainly not his fingerprint laden mine) 'anyway' and so they had better be very cheap.

Similarly, if I want to fight professional infantry with a mutt force, the only thing I'm going to do is put enough of my people in a room to get the bad guys to force the entry and then sterilize the volume when enough are inside (while my men are safe in spiderhole tunnels to the outside). Or worse, use that structure as the focal point of a VBIED attack when a tank comes up to 'argue the point'.

It is in THESE scenarios that you want to have a SWORDS or similar. Because, rather than enter themselves; you can use them as sniper proof scouts which circle the building (itself a defilad mask to further fires from inside a city) and either bag the guys coming up to observe and detonate the explosives or catch the rats trying to flee out the back.

With a masted sensor and/or small grenade launcher, you also gain the ability to 'clear and clean' rooftops _without exposing the robot or the capture team_ to principle fires.

It is only by leveraging costs with _maneuver doctrine_ and advanced combat theory that orders the battlefield AROUND these systems as centerpiece (primary) assets that you can stay ahead of the game _on a budget_.

Effectively you must say then something like this:

"Okay, the battlefield is too randomly dangerous for man, so....no guys forward of this line, how do I best use the 1/3rd as many combat robots in my TOE without having them all get wasted in the first day and be forced to fall back on an infantry force with atrophied SUW skills?"

If Iraq had half as many casualties and 1/4 of the current investment in blown materiel repair costs; nobody would pay no never mind as to whether it was a cesspool of corrupt savages hell-bent on butchering each other for the worlds 'shock and awe shucks' entertainment or not.

And since OOTW looks to be the status quo until someone 'declares victory' in the GWOT/GSAVE; we MUST move towards a minimum battlefield exposure at maximum tactical yield in all fighting. i.e. Rather than piss and moan at not having 300,000 men on the field, we must make 30-60,000 fight with equal weigth of _effective_ fires.

Using robots like infantry or tanks is going to result in the SOS of like-methods=like attrition. Using robots like robots (figuring out what that /means/ on the risk vs. gain scale of aggressive maneuver) is where the 'next step' in combat arms should be headed.


KPl.

Originally posted by Wembley

"Its nice we have those, but couldnt you just throw a GRANADE and blow it up."

You haven't been working in IED disposal long, have you?

Seriously, what do you think the danger zone for an IED is like compared to how far you can accurately throw a grenade?

Nore have you by the response.

Safety distance for a Carbomb is about 400 metres ish, safety distance for a small truck is about 800 metres with an articulated truck about 1500 metres. These distances are textbook - obviously the guys on the ground will make the decision where the cordon goes in.

In built up areas distances will be greatly increased. It's all down to the commander on the ground.

We had a basic rule for isolation zones with IED/UXOs in Peace keeping ops
Handgranades and equal 150m (one building in urban area)
Light mortar shells, most landmines and IEDs up to briefcase size 200-250m (2-3 buildings)
Anything Larger 500m+

In all out war situation it was 200m for anything and most of the time we would just manouver around and leave a warning sign 200m from the bomb/mine/shell