South Korea Deploys Deadly Sentry Bots to Keep Watchful Eyes, Serious Weapons Trained on the Demilitarized Zone

TERMINATOR BEGINS!!!!

havent seen a picture yet, but im guessing it looks like those indoor tank things from terminator 3

Well, I don't think we wanna hazard a MetalStorm system on a forward position like that, but autoguns will improve initial survivability if the North were to cooperate and mass there on a push across the Zone. Our protectorate might want to take a French history lesson, though, from WW2, and the Nazi avoidance of the Maginot Line. Mobility survives, and all entrenched positions are suspect.

@Nizeke: Yeah, I checked the link, and it wasn't there... I am curious to know what these things look like... Do they just look like a larger version of the SWORDS robot or what?

@Quasi: correct me if I'm wrong, but the DMZ runs the entire length of their border. The only way to get around it is to use the ocean, but then they have to put up with us, and our aircraft carriers wouldn't stand for that...

You could fairly easily rush across the DMZ so long as you have the longer range artillery with which to blow the crap out of the other guys from farther away...

that's a cool picture. They didnt say anything about the robot being disguised as a fence, or is it supposed to be disguised as that guard house.... possibly even the guard!!!!

how about a few of these bad boys on the USA, Mexico border?...

The USA/Arizona border, you mean? = )

But seriously, the dig in the first sentence of the first graph is the best bit of the article. Otherwise, like many such things, *Useless without pics!*

Intriguing, weird, and seemingly impractical - I mean, how can that possibly be cheaper than just manning the post?

Perhaps they should build a large wooden badger and hide inside. Wood is organic, but trees sequester carbon and shouldn't be cut down. We could make it from recycled toilet paper! That way we can build it holding our breath and minimizining our carbon foot print.

We could really save a lot of rescources, and the enviroment if we made a virtual combat robot instead.

@Dirk Mcbratney

The average cost of training a US soldier last time I checked was somewhere near $400,000.00. (not an exact figure).

Undoubtedly the cost is lower in S. Korea but that training cost does not include continued costs and intangibles such as housing, food, salary, paid vacations, or incidental health care costs from war or other means. You also do have to pay a pension to a retiring robotic sentry.

--GTO--

*do not* have to pay a pension to a retiring robot. haha

--GTO--

This poses some interesting problems for the future, if wars begin being fought by proxy don't you lose the adrenaline and snap judgement of a soldier in a dangerous situation? Could this not escalate into an arms race of sort to create the most effective robots? Do robots have to follow the Geneva Convention?

Couldn't many of these things cause major problems in future wars and shouldn't we be aware of them going into it.

www .nerdherd .ucoz. com -- our site (without the spaces)

@Volt: Nah, you're right, North Korea would never be able to, say, get China to lend influence allowing neighboring states to be encroached on, there is simply no precedent for such a thing...except the Vietnam War. And the possibility of tunneling to evade contact, totally impossible, except for the many miles of tunnels in that region.

@GTO: That's for Basic Training and AIT, not including whatever specialty school the recruit signs up for. Some of those still cost a whole lot more than the military said they would by now. Quality simulators are more evident, but still underutilized.

I wonder if north korea has the technical resources to wage effective war against the south should it choose to do so.

Wonder if they are shielded against EMP? Pulse grenades work great on the sentry bots of Fallout3. Macguiver could make an EMP gun out of a welder and an old microwave oven.

@edison lol, you know pulse grenades dont exist outside of fallout 3 right? most military hardware is emp shielded, but its not been combat tested. so who knows.

To see the sentry bot in action, just go to youtube and type in 'Korean Sentry Robot' and it'll pop up. I'd post the link but PopSci will think it's spam.

Though it may be an earlier model of the bot, since I do not see a 40mm Grenade Launcher built into it.