>Look at the soldiers with the big gun in the picture in the article - they look like teenagers.
Eh, yeah, they always look young. The issue with that "big gun" is that it's a larger round, so it's about 2 lbs heavier than the M4, which it is replacing[1]. With all things like this, the answer is to get in the gym.
Anyway, I've been around an early version of these "dog" robots and have friends that have been around them more recently. They are loud. There's no noise discipline with these things, so until that's addressed somehow their use case is going to be limited to instances where that does not matter. Interestingly, I think it starts to matter not, the more these robots are used. The future (maybe present, in Ukraine) battlefield is trenches with a constant "neeeeeee" and vreeeeeee" in the air as these dogs and drones move in and out of earshot.
I wonder if it's more intended to be used for additional perimeter security. I doubt they're going to be making as much noise if they're just hunkered down in a fox hole with only a small periscope peeking out, and then just have it make noise when it pops up to engage.
The noise was from the various systems that operate the legs and gyros to maintain balance, so it's only generated when it's in a mode for actively traversing terrain. If it's in "peek" mode, it would probably be pretty quiet. Regardless, I don't think one cares too much about noise in the trench. Maybe they do, never fought in one.
Eh, yeah, they always look young. The issue with that "big gun" is that it's a larger round, so it's about 2 lbs heavier than the M4, which it is replacing[1]. With all things like this, the answer is to get in the gym.
Anyway, I've been around an early version of these "dog" robots and have friends that have been around them more recently. They are loud. There's no noise discipline with these things, so until that's addressed somehow their use case is going to be limited to instances where that does not matter. Interestingly, I think it starts to matter not, the more these robots are used. The future (maybe present, in Ukraine) battlefield is trenches with a constant "neeeeeee" and vreeeeeee" in the air as these dogs and drones move in and out of earshot.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM7_rifle