MACHINE GUN 'BOTS ALREADY DEPLOYED IN IRAQ
From USA Today :"The military also is responding to some creative tinkering by the troops, who have modified their (bomb disarming) robots to carry grenades and other weapons into buildings or other potentially unsafe targets.
"'Soldiers and Marines are very innovative and ... have figured out how to do that,' Griffin says.
"As a result, the Pentagon is testing a new version of the Talon robot that carries a remote-control M-240 machine gun.
"Meanwhile, much larger and more ambitious robot weapons are in testing, including a tank-like, 1,600-pound vehicle called the Gladiator, which can fire a variety of guns, tear gas or almost anything else that fits. It also has loudspeakers to "shout" instructions, such as those to calm a mob."
While soldiers in the field may be tinkering with bomb disposal robots to carry weapons, the statement that armed robots is the world of soldiers alone is absurd. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been spent by high tech weapons research companies, like DAPRA, to fulfill Donald Rumsfeld's dream of sending platoons of armed robots into future battlefields.
