Cyborg Soldiers

How long will it be, before we have soldiers that have been physically and mentally optimised for the battlefield? for example, limbs replaced for faster movement and more impact protection or neural interfaces for large data storage that can be recalled by the individual, (i.e. maps and target objective photos??)

or do you think that we will go down the whole unmanned, totally automated war route?

I think it will probably be quite some time before we use "cyborgs" or robots for fighting wars. It would save lots of lives I suppose...but in the government's eyes it would also be very expensive. Also robots could be programmed to kill, which eliminates the human morality part in battle. No matter how much you put someone through conditioning to kill your enemy, some simply can not pull the trigger, or will hesitate and be shot.

In the future what would happen to war if two armies of robots blow each other to bits? It wouldn't really accomplish much except throwing money down the drain. This is a very interesting issue.

This reminds me of a star trek episode that I saw a while ago...there were two warring nations that instead of having actual battles, the two governments agreed to simulate bombings and battles using computers. The computers would sometimes report bombings and casualties and the location of the attack, and the corresponding people would be marched off to a gas chamber to die as casualties of war.

I was just taking a look at last year's Popular Science: 21st Century Soldier special issue. Talks a lot about "Future Worrior 2025" which is supposed to be in service by 2010. Also saw a Discovery Channel (Maybe History Channel) program on the use of Nanotechnologies and their use in new "smart suits" that Future Worrior 2025 would use. About as close to androids/cyborgs that I have seen in the way of actual troops. This suit is supposedly going to be able to stop bullets, and stop any bleeding by constricting, and cutting off circulation. It is also supposed to be a "chameleon" type of camo that will change colors with its environment. I found a few sites, but nothing really great:

www.aro.army.mil...
(very slow loading PFD. Many Pictures)

www.techtv.com...

www.nationaldefensemagazine.org...

Interesting concept!

But who's to say they have not already started building these!!!

They already could be making there own armys,

Hmmm NWO super soldiers!!!!
Scarey!!!

They have plenty of info on their exoskeleton program, which is what you people are talking about.

DARPA.gov

I think that its more likely that before we have Cyborg Soldiers on the battlefield, that we will have genetically engineered soldiers. I mean, a genetically engineered soldier is always gonna be better than some robot, he's been bred for killing. (i suppose an example of this would be Solid Snake of the great Metal Gear series). I suppose that the next level after having genetically engineered soldiers would be to mix it up a bit, part human, part machine (robocop anyone?).

I think that any cyborg hybrid killing man/machine would be on a non-voluntary basis. That is I could see the govt using re-animated corpses of convicts. or possibly soldiers to experiment with making the first cyborgs.

Who needs cyborgs when we can throw our own men out into the battlefield who are more then trained and ready to lose their life for a 'cause'?

I guess America might need some cyborgs if America continues to kill off our men to the point that there are no new recruits for the armed forces.
So yeah, I'm guessing 'they' are thinking ahead to this point in time.

I think we need Robo Cop, send him to the Middle East, no more terrorists

But seriously, we should have this techonology just incase. They would be the next generation Soldiers. I heard somewhere that Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany were trying to create and breed 'super soldiers' to dominate the world.