Soldiers from Fort Bliss demonstrated a robot, the Small Unmanned Ground Vehicle, last week in New Mexico. Eric Draper for The New York Times
FORT BLISS, Tex. — The soldiers crouched beneath the blazing desert sun, waiting to burst into the villages in conditions similar to those they have encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But this time, they got some high-tech help in an exercise intended to prove that new devices operated by the soldiers themselves can make those harrowing missions less dangerous in the future.
As the mock attack began on the sprawling military base here, tiny drones hovered overhead, peering through the windows to see insurgents gathered inside the houses. Small robots — like R2-D2 in “Star Wars” — crawled through some of the doors, flashing back live video of the startled enemy’s positions. Electronic sensors placed nearby watched escape routes. And a battery of six-foot-high missiles stood at the ready farther out in the desert to destroy vehicles that tried to rush in to help the insurgents.
“When I was in Iraq, we couldn’t see what we were busting into,” said Specialist Randall Thompson, who operates the robots. “But with this equipment, we can at least get a peek.”
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My Comment: These small drones .... used mainly for surveillance .... are producing a seismic shift on the battlefield. These drones can quickly survey an area for hostiles as well as assist ground forces to target any hostiles in a period of time that is a fraction of what it was in the past.
While the focus is on the urban environment, these drones will also have a great impact on the rural battlefield. The time to scout a valley with high mountains for the enemy can now be easily done by using these drones. Who wants to climb a 2,000 or 3,000 foot hill/mountain, when the drone can do the scouting for you ..... the applications are just endless.
