Link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6852832/ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J. - The rain is turning to snow on a blustery January morning, and all the men gathered in a parking lot here surely would prefer to be inside.
But the weather couldn’t matter less to the robotic sharpshooter they are here to watch as it splashes through puddles, the barrel of its machine gun pointing the way like Pinocchio’s nose.
The Army is preparing to send 18 of these remote-controlled robotic warriors to fight in Iraq beginning in March or April.
Made by a small Massachusetts company, the SWORDS, short for Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, will be the first armed robotic vehicles to see combat, years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp.
Could it be we are beginning to see a new age of warfare? These machines might still seem clumsy at the moment, but I got a gut feeling that this just might be what wars will look like in the future. Say, itsn't war suppose to be man vs man?