The restraint is not a matter of military doctorine but international law.
This is why you aren't supposed to use things like cluster bombs on civilians or fire bomb cities. Also the general Geneva conventions already limit such attacks in general not just specifically.
edited 21st May '15 4:48:47 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?It does.
And I've been meaning to ask. Let's say we get IFF figured out and rudimentary AI Slash VI Slash Whatever systems run and we get combat robots.
What would you go for in terms of robot "companions" that follow you and your every order across the battlefield, what weapons would you give them? What systems? Would they be humanoid or something else?
If you can forgive me tooting my own horn briefly, I think we can use my TSR (Tactical Support Robot) concept as a good blueprint. Keep in mind it's mostly a platoon or squad level element, so that affects its load-out and characteristics.
It's roughly man sized, if not a bit bigger, and utilises a hybrid quadripedal-wheeled design (it uses its legs for areas where the terrain is too treacherous for wheels, but otherwise "kneels" and uses its wheels to go everywhere). It's typically armed with a minigun, along with micro-missiles - this gives it decent offensive punch that can still be easily used by a squad or platoon (a 120mm gun would be overkill, for example, and wouldn't be very useful for an anti-infantry role). Due to its thick armour, it can be (and is!) used as mobile cover by infantry. It's also equipped with smoke grenades so as to assist in screening friendly movement (or its own movement).
It accepts voice commands, but it's roughly intelligent enough to perform actions on its own initiative (for example, scouting ahead of the squad/platoon and reporting what it can see). Although it isn't as exciting as the shooty stuff, it can also haul a squad's load like a robotic pack mule, and recharging stations let electronics be recharged with minimal fuss. It can "see" in visual light, infrared/ultraviolet, radar (this can be set to passive so as to preclude detection), and EM.
Of course, this is just one way of going about it, and it does admittedly hinge very heavily on the sort of assumptions my setting uses (i.e. soft sci-fi with a dash of more realistic elements for verisimilitude). So it might not necessarily be suitable for you, since it seems like you're going for hard sci-fi.
Locking you up on radar since '09It isn't particularly necessary to armour a robot to that extent - I was thinking more like small arms fire than laughing off anti-tank munitions (since although RPGs are a ubiquitous weapon, you're still far more likely to come under small arms fire).
Either that or - again, depending on the setting in question and its assumptions - it might be entirely possible to have ERA/NERA in miniature, allowing even smallish robots like that to weather at least a couple of hits from RPGs.
Locking you up on radar since '09Not with passive armor no. You would need some sort of APS to resist something like that. Even with composites you likely would not be piling enough armor on a small frame to stop an RPG. Remember even relatively small HEAT warheads can do serious damage.
Before I forget. One of the problems with ERA is you can't mount it on everything. Even with mounting brackets ERA explodes. To deflect something like a RPG type round you need something with a bit of oomph to it.
edited 21st May '15 4:13:01 PM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?True. It wasn't the best example I could've used by a long shot, though the main thrust of what I was saying is that the tech assumptions you start off with can have a significant impact on what's possible. After all, I'm sure we've lost count of how much sci-fi has some sort of super duper armour that treats supernovas like someone sneezing on them!
It could have an APS that uses the Minigun. Which could be the reason for having a Minigun rather than a regular machine gun.
An important possible advantage of such an APS over armor(and reactive armor) is that it could protect nearby soldiers, rather than only the thing carrying it.
Another option for infantry-companion drones; Small fliers with good sensors, searching the area around and in front of the soldier. To recharge, they occasionally latch on to a larger land drone, or to the power suit's backpack. The latter could reveal the soldier's exact position.
And regarding bullets; In a 22nd century world I've been cooking up, they include, among other things;
- HESH
shells for 11mm pistols. Can be effective against lighter body armor, as well as barriers. If they hit an unarmored person, they typically explode inside him.
- SLAP rounds for this caliber are also available, but not very popular these days. To have decent armor-piercing capability in a pistol, the big, heavy 4mm Squeaker is the only option.
- Standard rifle bullets are 7 calibers long, which supposedly is the upper limit for stabilization through rifling. As mentioned before, they are very hard, and already have the spiraling grooves matching the rifled barrel rather than having to squeeze through to get them. For these reasons, they have no SLAP varieties.
- Cheaper ones have a lead-molybdenum core with a molybdenum steel jacket, which extends into the core and divides it in a sort of spiraling honeycomb pattern, to maximize structural stiffness to the front. They're coated with a solid lubricant, and have a tiny diamond at the tip. Typical muzzle velocity is around 2 km/s. More expensive ones often replace the core and jacket with a solid piece of tungsten or uranium alloy, its microstructure nanoforged to perfection.
- Available calibers: 4mm, 5mm, 6mm, 10mm, 13mm.
- Saboted darts, for smoothbore "rifles" in 9mm, 12mm, 20mm and 30mm. They are even more elongated than the bullets, and typically have an even higher muzzle velocity(and are better at retaining it). Their fins are flexible, able to bend in order to steer and to create some lift. While inside the sabot they may be rolled up; In that case they are in pairs rolled in opposite directions, so their unrollings after being fired cancel each other out and don't spin the dart.
- Each of these calibers has many other ammo varieties, including "fat" HEAT shells with the same flexible fins, and shotgun-style shells.
- The shape of darts launched by scram cannons
is determined first and foremost by their unusual internal ballistics, reducing their performance in external and terminal ballistics. The 25mm Impaler is the only one that's man-portable, and barely qualifies as such.
edited 21st May '15 6:32:11 PM by ManInGray
Pretty solid ideas and most of what I thought would be around. I keep forgetting about HESH rounds though. Scram Cannons are an interesting idea but I am not sure how compact you could make one or the recoil effects. I have never seen one fired. I should keep them in mind more often.
Have you given any thought to the High Low pressure system? It is a surprisingly effective way to reduce recoil and still reliably project a shell or munition a fair distance. The Germans drummed it up in WWII and it got picked up by both the US and Russia for use in various weapon systems. For example the M-79 GL and M-203 use the system. The Russian BMP-1's low pressure gun is a derivative as well. There was even a Swedish AT derivative called the Miniman.
The weapon weight gets lowered and the weapon easier to make. The recoil is notably reduced because of how it accelerates the projectile. However the downside is in some applications this limits the range of the projectile.
Who watches the watchmen?What Tuefel said
In all seriousness, I can think of a few rationales:
1. High rates of fire. The TSR is large enough to carry enough ammo to ensure it doesn't run out of ammo in like five seconds flatnote . A lot of the time, establishing fire superiority comes down to who can throw more rounds downrange faster. And it's fire superiority that cultivates the conditions for the transition to flanking and finishing the enemy. Unsurprisingly, miniguns are very good at establishing this sort of fire superiority. Albeit it would still probably be restricted to short bursts.
2. As an APS measure. One only needs to look at various CIWS systems to see why!
3. Although it'd be well down the priority list, consider the effect on morale of having this headless machine hosing down your positions with minigun fire whilst shrugging off what you can throw at it.
It's totally because miniguns are kickin' rad though
CIWS systems relying on guns though are being steadily replaced with various launcher type systems instead. Which means missiles, guns, and rocket type units. They have lower mass per interceptor package, frequently longer range then gun based systems, and typically require far fewer shots per intercept. To achieve even a single hit CIWS type weapons usually fire a several hundred to a few thousand rounds.
CIWS is fine for static systems on ships or large land based systems but in terms of compact systems launchers are comparatively superior. For example compare some of the more compact APS systems to their gun counterparts. Like Iron Fist vs any gun system. It is a significantly smaller and lighter system. The Russians APS hard kill systems especially their new one use small turrets loaded with multiple projectiles. You simply aren't going to get the same kind of effective compact package in a gun system unless you get some really wild technology.
Who watches the watchmen?^ And that is why the Navy is looking at point defense lasers. A Phalanx CIWS can fire for about 20 seconds give or take. (I know it's actually a lot less if on full continuous high speed rock n roll.) A point defense laser can fire for as long as the ship has power in theory.
edited 23rd May '15 8:34:45 PM by MajorTom
Uhh....how is that practical again? Unless each of those ten thousand missiles fired has their own unique target and will always hit, that sort of thing is just....it's like hitting a sugar ant with a sledgehammer made of platinum and crusted with diamonds.
edited 23rd May '15 8:46:46 PM by MajorTom

No wonder they were outlawed.
Damn, son.
New Survey coming this weekend!