‘It’s not translating’: Army general says to focus on realistic robotic integration

WASHINGTON — US Army leaders have been “screwing around” with robots for way too long and “it’s not translating” into an avenue for deploying robotic tank formations, according to one four-star general charged with modernization. Instead, the service is testing out ways to add existing capabilities into formations to better protect soldiers today, lift some of the burden and claim an incremental victory.

“Every time it’s like, go watch one LMTV [Light Medium Tactical Vehicle] follow another one around the parking lot and it runs over the curb and I’m like, ‘Come on, we got to do better than this,’” Army Futures Command Gen. James Rainey told an audience today during an Association of the US Army breakfast. 

“We may someday have a robot tank that can go 70 kilometers an hour in six feet of mud, maybe, but that ain’t happening anytime soon,” he later added. “We may get a robot through Ranger school someday, but that ain’t happening anytime soon, right? That was holding us back.”

Rainey has been at the newer command’s helm for more than a year now and has been focusing on what the service needs for the 2030-2040 fight, while also penning a new Army warfighting concept and working on a tactical fires study that is expected to drive artillery investment changes. The proliferation of robots crosscuts all of the above, and the four-star general has taken a keen interest in “human-machine integration” experimentation.

Today, the service is playing with unit prototyping, in part by inserting new robots into a light infantry platoon at Fort Moore in Georgia, while also giving a heavier, opposing force unit at the National Training Center its own set of new capabilities.

While Rainey did not provide exact details about the prototyping effort, many of the robots he designed can be seen on defense trade show floors and even in past Army experiments. But he said the service is now making a concerted effort to provide soldiers with options and see just what they can do.

That light infantry platoon, for example, has been running through urban combat situations, to include building clearing with 20 soldiers, four vehicles and a combination of robots with configurable payloads. Those capabilities have included robotic dogs outfitted with cameras, robots with smoke generators and tethered unmanned aerial systems (UAS) with jamming capabilities or ones that can extend the network. Those soldiers also received UAS designed to scatter robotic cameras on the battlefield or on building tops, while they also received robots designed to enter buildings, create a blueprint of what’s inside and transmit it back.

“Think about a rifle company, it has to close an open area, get into a foothold in an urban area and clear buildings: When I did that last time … that’s [all] humans, right,” Rainey said. Now instead of having soldiers in flak jackets and helmets as the first in, the objective is to rely on those robots and the Army has been able to use the prototyping platoon to do just that.

For heavier formations, though, Rainey said those remain “more challenging.” Due to the speed such units move, he predicted that human-machine integration will first focus on defensive positions.

“How do you take a 14-tank company and give it four robots? Think 10 soldiers, a couple AMPVs [Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles], four robots, but now you can put loitering munitions on a robot,” he added. “You can have a resupply of ammo, you can have a resupply of batteries.”

Leaning on robots for casualty evacuation is also a promising option, Rainey added, where the service can place four litters on a robot, reprogram the grid and move out. 

“I could go on and on but those are all things that are happening right now,” he added.