By way of Wired, is this article on SciFi type weapons that exist today.
My favorites:
- The XM-25 grenade launcher
- Battle field Robots!
- The Taser Claymore
- Hummer-mounted Anti-Aircraft laser
Just to check up on how predictions have worked, here are some posts made to sci.military back in 1991 about the future of infantry battle systems.
Filed under: Miltech | Tagged: Military, military tech, Miltech, SciFi, weapons |
Urbin Technology 
I’ve always wondered why the sensor-fused weapon never makes it onto these lists. It’s essentially a bomb which scatters forty single-shot antivehicle weapons.
Each of the forty submunitions, or ‘Skeets’, searches an area to locate a vehicle and destroy it. Since each skeet is essentially autonomous — each one picks its target, which might or might not even be visible to the pilot who dropped it — I think it’s much closer to a “battlefield robot” than the remote controlled crawler vehicles.
For what ever reason, my guess is that artillery just isn’t seen as “sexy” enough.
It’s what racks up the kills on the battlefield though.
Right, and it’s less “manlike.”
Which is shortsighted. The robot revolution is about giving machines the power to decide, not about replacing people.