2 1/2 foot tall robot headed for Iraq: Now, the U.S. Army's squad of robotic vehicles is being prepped for a new set of assignments. And this time, they'll be carrying guns.

picture:
http://www.military.com/pics/SoldierTech_Talon-1.jpg

Armed robots will soon be marching to battle. With a weapons platform mounted to a Talon robot, the SWORDS system allows Soldiers to fire small arms weapons by remote control from as far as 1,000 meters away. The system may soon join Soldiers in Iraq.

The Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection System, or SWORDS, will be joining Stryker Brigade Soldiers in Iraq when it finishes final testing, said Staff Sgt. Santiago Tordillos, a bomb disposal test and evaluation NCOIC with the EOD Technology Directorate of the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center at Picatinny Arsenal, N.J

"We're hoping to have them there by early 2005," Tordillos said. "The Soldiers I've talked to want them yesterday."

The system consists of a weapons platform mounted on a Talon robot, a product of the engineering and technology development firm Foster-Miller. The Talon began helping with military operations in Bosnia in 2000, deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002 and has been in Iraq since the war started, assisting with improvised explosive device detection and removal. Talon robots have been used in about 20,000 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Foster-Miller reports.

SWORDS recently was named one of the most amazing inventions of 2004 by Time Magazine.

"It's not a new invention, its just bringing together existing systems," said Tordillos, who has been involved with the project since its inception about a year and a half ago.

Different weapons can be interchanged on the system – the M16, the 240, 249 or 50-caliber machine guns, or the M202 –A1 with a 6mm rocket launcher. Soldiers operate the SWORDS by remote control, from up to 1,000 meters away. In testing, it's hit bulls eyes from as far as 2,000 meters away, Tordillos said. The only margin of error has been in sighting, he added.

There are four SWORDS in existence; 18 have been requested for service in Iraq, Tordillos said. So far, each system has cost about $230,000 to produce, said Bob Quinn, lead integrator for the project. When they go into production, Quinn estimates the cost per unit will drop to the range of $150,000 to $180,000.

As soon as March or April, eighteen Talon robots armed with automatic weapons are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq, as part of the Army's Stryker Brigade.

Soldiers wanted to know what military occupational speciality they have to sign up for in order to work with the system. There is no specific MOS for it, he said. Does he envision a day when armed robots outnumber humans on the battlefield? Tordillos firmly said no. "You'll never eliminate the Soldier on the ground," he said. "There'll be a mix, but there will always be Soldiers out there." .......YEAH RIGHT!!!

****I remeber an encyclopedia salesman telling my mother how computers would never ever replace the 30 collosal books they offered......LOL