Remote Tank

Not sure if this has been posted already but...

What about a remote tank...

No crew compartment = more fuel armor and ammo no good guy casualties.

The crew could sit in comfortable bunkers watching screens controling the driving and weapons systems putting no one other then the enemy at risk.

The tech is all there already or is being perfected.

If a tank gets destroyed the crew goes takes a piss and starts operating another one.

It will also reduce costs. NO specialized systems like clean air fire supression no housing a soldier in a foriegn land. more armor fuel sensors and ammo.

Anyone ever play BF2? Its really a system to rank remote pilots and work out interface issues for people. lol

the issues that spring to mind are :

jamming -- if facing an enemy relying on RC tanks -- it suddenly becomes a VERY good idea to invest in jamming technology

EMP -- see above reasons .

mainanance / runing repairs -- loaders and drivers are trained to be mechanics in extremis and have a tool kit -- they also do basic maintainence etc and battle repairs

a loader with a big hammer can "solve " a lot of proplems that would other wise ripple a tank -- at least as a temporary fix

the same goes for repairing a track .

how is your RC tank going to keep going -- if you have no troops in theatre ??

what about resupply -- ammo and fuel ??

[Removed unnecessary quote of Entire preceeding post]

The Rc Tank as you call it...

It can use different forms of control 1 being direct laser transmissions. that can't be jammed ok so you have smoke that jams the laser but not other various forms of communication a mix of different systems provides reliable dynamic control. GPS comes to mind those tramsmissions were not capable of being blocked. Communications can be solved otherwise UCAV already in existance would be useless to a great extent. Plus in the field of electronic warfare the US is unmatched.
A backup protocol could be automatically engaged if the unit is compromised being physically or out of contact which could tell it to return to base or self destruct.


Yes machines can break down and that issue would have to be dealt with by crews on the ground sent to repair them. Its still better then having a crew stuck in the disabled tank in hostile territory. Plus greater redundancy can be built into the tank with the extra space avaiable.

You could still establish bases in the area these units are operating manned and guarded by people and robots for resupply. You could also design a class of maintence/resupply vehicles that can go out and dock with the rc tanks and resuply them. Or when the vehicles run low they return to base. Or in an armored blitz krieg have points set up from air drop for resupply.

Many ways to go. Not saying no troops in theater just not as exposed more so special forces and logistics groups. No more avg gi patroling the street. Have a bot sit at an intersection waiting for some to open up instead of a guy in a hummer.

If an emp goes off anything digital goes that includes maned vehicles as well. But in a hulking tank where weight aint so important electronics can be hardened and resist an emp. thats a fact.

[edit on 30-6-2006 by American Madman]

Quoting on ATS – Please Review This Link.

[edit on 6/30/2006 by 12m8keall2c]

Read Combat by Stephen Coonts. In it is a short story by James Cobb about a cavalry squad 20 years from now with 2 unmanned vehicle's. The technical side is really well explained.

American Madman,

Though I'm sure it's a 'terrific surprise' to everybody, I actually agree with most of what you say. I will comment that there is validity to the "The more they rely on remote automation, the more attacking the automation's C2 becomes not only viable but absolutely necessary."

Here are some things to consider:

1. UCAVs don't need to carry armor or heavy weapons. Thus a lot of their costs can be attributed purely to high-ticket avionics systems. Note that even the cheapest (MQ-1 Predator, 2-3 million and technically an A-UAV) are some 2-3 million dollars which is about 2/3rds the price of a modern MBT for little more than a powered sail plane.

2. Airborne systems in general are not as readily visible and thus /studyable/ as ground systems. Both because of the standoff advantages of a high grazing angle sensor and altitude effect on munition performance. And because they (typically) have access to satcomms and relay airframes which make directionality easier to achieve. If you are using C/X/Ku band systems and they are all high power, pointed up and AWAY FROM the the ground sender, you are winning 90% of the jammer war.

3. Really, while you can secure comms in a tactical unit with MMW or Laser systems as you suggest, the ability to at least self-navigate back to a leap off or alternative safe-recovery point is pretty much a 'good thing'. Even as it is technically _harder_ to do than for an airframe which faces few if any obstacles in it's open, 3D, environment.

4. The more you put automated systems on the ground, the more you encourage threats to leave the battlespace where they can find them. Be it getting off a street into a building and tunneling through walls (or sewers or or or). Or shifting to standoff attacks with soft and hard kill alternatives of their own. Or simply jumping on a flight to an area where friendly civillians form a much easier target base. In particularly the latter instance, so long as we moderate our responses to the individuals directly enacting terror, we will always be 'more vulnerable' because we in fact _value life more than death_ and so are richer and softer and 'happier' (more trusting) because of it. As soon as you start saying things like "For every one of ours, 100 of you until we run out of targets..." they will start to shape up. The Indian Wars of the 1800s proved this because it was obvious that we were going to own the landscape anyway and extermination of a hostile indigenous population was not seen as particularly evil in a controlled propoganda environment. Today, this might or might not be possible, depending on the level of casualty inflicted. But it would mean The Death Of Decency. Which is a dark road to travel down.

ARGUMENT.
For myself, the basics of automated navigation are already present. You have Tom Tom and other automotive/GPS navigators with builtin 'address' terrain conditional configurations sensors (parking lot, hospital, hotel) for threat-engagement acceptability parameters.

You have both curb whiskers and increasingly cheap MMW/FLIR visionic and traffic-avoidance systems (on high end Beamers and Caddies and the like as well as increasingly as mine detectors on existing tanks). You even have the ability to _simplify_ things like cruise control and servo'd driving mechanisms by removing rack and pinion and power assist channels from a central location and returning them to on-wheel gimballing and digital-engine control subfeatures as a function of eliminating the 'human interface'.

With these basics you can probably ensure auto-navigation in most conditions and commanded-breaching (through walls or into yards/gardens etc.) 'on demand' as digitized requests to a handler.

Which only leaves weapons employment. Here, I actually expect the robot to be superior to the human because the first hit will not 'reprioritize' all sensory responses towards pain management and there is no specific worry over dismemberment or mutilation (since anything lost can be replaced if nothing else).

The vehicle can carry more payload weight in the form of _redundant_ sensor and weapons systems (meaning you can fire an explosive round or a guided round or a low-threat round or a 'crowd control' system off a single chassis, in the same mission).

And it will almost assuredly be superior in terms of killing point targets at range. Because it will have anti-sniper systems (for instance) that triangulate a base range of azimuthXelevation to within a cone perhaps 30` on a side. And a FLIR too look for muzzle flashes after that. And a robotic wingman to take over the mission and handoff engagements to a separate gun-laying optics system should the sniper first engage the robots own anti-sniper sensors (i.e. every unit is networked to provide coverage overlap).

I can even see changes in overall systems profiling (unmanned turrets with with all ammo onboard = halved systems weight on what can now be balloon tires instead of tracks, which means halved chassis weight etc. etc.) which dramatically reduce deployment lag and numbered engagement/support disadvantages.

The problems with all of the above are relatively simple. Let's say it takes 60,000 dollars to make an infantryman a useful killer. Lets say, to 'occupy' a given terrain matrix, so that you can regulate as much as deny all activities within it, that it takes 100 infantrymen.

Let's further say that, because of changes in the UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicle) each one 'only' costs 1 million dollars vs. the 5-6 that an MBT does. Are six tanks the equivalent of 100 soldiers in terms of 'preventative intimidation' on a threat populace that prefers to fight only when overwhelmingly advantaged?

I don't think so. So you may actually see an INCREASE in particularly OOTW actions, at least until the populace realizes how ruthless these things are in counter engagement and how 'un fun' it is to trade a life for a silicon chip.

NOW.

If you reduce the price to say that of a high end automobile in the 100-250,000 dollar range...

And if you equip it with even cheaper (sub-10K) mini-UGV which are either hard-tethered or have such a high power command-link transmitter backing them up at short range as to make jamming irrelevant. Then you can start to talk about utility.

But what this means is _specifically_ evaluating both the KINDS of missions we are doing today (and for which Tanks are no longer appropriate IMO). And how much the soldier specifically is worth. So that you can create cutoff levels as to how much 'value' you imbed in his replacement.

Obviously, no mother will cry why Johnny 5 dies. But there will still need to be made doctrinal decisions at both the tactical and strategic levels as to how much or little you can rely on these systems to perform ALL not 'some' of the high-lethality infantry mission set as a justification to reduce the manned TOE.

Lower costs only work if they offset lower abilities across the board (scrubbing dishes, delivering logistics, standing guard duty, forced entry into a house etc.).

CONCLUSION:
Something few people like to discuss is how vulnerable MAN is as a function of wide area electronic attacks, not just to his systems but his person. As soon as DEWS like the millimeter wave ADW illuminator panel start to make their effects known at less than billboard size, you will discover that robots are evaluated more fairly than is now the case.

You still will need to start with a good baseline chassis (ten times what SWORDS can do) and then plan for a range of 'open architecture adaptability enhancements' similar to what retraining does for us (modular everything).

And at the same time, you will need to control costs above all else. '10-50-150-200' grand escalation level commitments of force being common on a beancounter level.

But it can and will be done, if you can just remove the Beef Eater mentality from the UE.

Excellent post CH1466
Why a surprise that you agree?

Even right now all the remote issues are being worked out DARPAs challenge to make an automomous vehicle has produced tremendous results in terms of advancement towards an almost A/I for navigation. Scientists are working with magnetics for collision avoidance based on what they see in nature with birds.

By no means I'm I saying no men on the battle field but in less vulnerable more specialized positions. Let the bots do grunt work and send in the army of SFs to do what a man is needed to do when a bot can't.

At very least its a tremendous force multiplier, and yes people are becoming more and more suseptible to electronic weapons the government has openly admitted to being able to alter a masses emotions though electroinic manipulation.



[edit on 1-7-2006 by American Madman]