This battlefield approach is likely to become a lasting part of Russian military practice, making it relevant for those preparing to counter Russian aggression

All credits to Tatarigami_UA and Frontelligence Insight team

Thread with key findings here: https://xcancel.com/Tatarigami_UA/status/1937204380740256083

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[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

In a perfect world, sure, but in reality it'll be far more like Waymo taxis at best.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ok here is one example that immediately disproves your cynicism.

Imagine you are walking through a field and all of a sudden you step on a mine. Maybe you are soldier in a war, maybe you are a kid exploring an overgrown lot the adults told you to avoid, who knows the situation all that matters is you stepped on the mine and now it has severely wounded you to the point that you will die if you aren't immediately evacuated.

Luckily for you, there are people around that can call for help... but wait... you and them realize in horror that if anybody tries to rescue you they are also walking into a minefield. This is a very real situation and is one of the brutal aspects of minefields.

Now imagine there was a robot stretcher that somebody could drive up to you (perhaps driven at high speed in the back of a truck to the location by emergency personnel), load you up and drive away and whatever risk the robot would be taking wouldn't matter because worst case the robot blows up, best case a human life is saved.

There are plenty of equivalent cases where the lethal threat isn't a minefield, and you can sketch out basically the same situation.

This isn't a hypothetical, these vehicles are already being used in Ukraine to do this kind of thing, ferry people who need medical help through environments risky enough that a normal manned medevac vehicle cannot or is not allowed to perform the medevac. These aren't crazy complicated impractical machines either, they are basically a box with wheels on the bottom and a stretcher on top.

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I am not misunderstanding the concept, thank you. I am, however, extremely skeptical of power being capable of valuing human life beyond a stat.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Ok here is another easy hypothetical, imagine the surfboard equivalent of an umanned water-jetpowered surfboard that could be sent out to rescue people who have been swept out to sea in storm conditions. In a situation that might be too dangerous for even lifeguards to enter into, a surfboard could be driven out to the person to at minimum provide them something to hold onto and at best rescue them without ever having put a human life at risk, and rescuers will have been able to try a lower percent success rate rescue mission that was none-the-less better than sitting back and doing nothing (vs. putting a human crew in extreme risk and failing to keep them safe during the rescue).

These unmanned ground rescue vehicles make a normal stretcher immediately obsolete in any kind of open terrain scenario where help is far away, difficult or dangerous to get to (if even just to get a person being rescued to somewhere a medevac helicopter can do a pickup and take it from there). None of this precludes a human crew accompanying the UGV rescuing someone and thus it could still mostly be a human rescue operation, but the humans can be far more alert to dangers and hazards and deal with them accordingly because they aren't exhausted and distracted by carrying the person on a stretcher themselves.

Logistics will never be the same, of any kind, honestly it is such a generally useful and simple use of unmanned technology.

[–] otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're missing the point, citizen. Good luck.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 5 points 1 week ago

Thank you! Good luck to you too!