Robot dogs join US Air Force exercise giving glimpse at potential battlefield of the future

[mfcorey1]

(CNN)It looked like a scene from science fiction.

Emerging from United States Air Force planes, four-legged robot dogs scampered onto an airfield in the Mojave Desert, offering a possible preview into the future of warfare.

But the exercise conducted last week, one of the US military's largest ever high-tech experiments, wasn't a movie set.
Flying into a possibly hostile airstrip aboard an Air Force C-130, the robot dogs were sent outside the aircraft to scout for threats before the humans inside would be exposed to them, according to an Air Force news release dated September 3.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/09/us/robot-dogs-us-air-force-test-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html

[hlthe2b]

1. Oh, please. How insulting to refer to these giant metal insect-looking robots as dogs...

"Scamper?"

That is irritating to me.

[crickets]

4. Agreed.

It's playful language that softens news about a deadly serious topic. These are not toys and they are not dogs.

[soothsayer]

2. What could go wrong? (Warning: gruesome)

[alphafemale]

5. That episode stuck with me

And I'm usually not bothered at all by the horror genre.

[soothsayer]

6. Yes indeed. Same

[Chainfire]

3. We are so clever at inventing tools of war, and so deficient in the practice of peace.

[flotsam]

7. Unless the aircraft is armor plated the scenario is absurd.

Troop carriers of any kind are prime targets and thin-skinned aircraft are the prime target you would least like to be forced to stay in-an unarmored flying gas tank with extreme poor visibility of the surrounding hostile area. Any sane soldier would rather lie prone on the open tarmac (outside the blast perimeter if the plane were to explode) and then
either run or low crawl to cover...