The War Against The Machines Has Arrived

While the world cannot be certain that there will ever be another war between major global powers, one thing is certain: If there is another war, it will be a war against the machines.

The annual Association of the United States Army convention held in Washington on Monday through Wednesday showcased the world’s cutting-edge killer robot technology, referred to by the defense industry as unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). These weapons ranged in size from massive armored fighting vehicles and tanks all the way down to dogs and insects.

These systems all play a role in Project Agincourt, a program that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth created to push the U.S. military into the future of autonomous warfare with an expedited timeline.

“We started with drone dominance almost the minute we got here; [the] president put out an executive order,” Hegseth said during a roundtable on autonomous weapon systems at the conference on Wednesday. “We got $1 billion of funding on drone dominance, which we put straight into the hands of operators out into the field.”

The Daily Caller News Foundation interviewed representatives from the manufacturers of some of the most promising UGVs at the event to see what makes them tick.

The largest UGV at the convention was an armored fighting vehicle called the AMPV (Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle), manufactured by BAE Systems. A BAE representative explained to the DCNF that this vehicle is a hybrid unit, designed to be fielded in both manned and unmanned configurations.

“This is an AMPV armored multi-purpose vehicle built by BAE Systems for the Army in full-rate production. So we have five variants that are already being delivered to the Army, and we’ve got over 600 of those fielded to the Army,” Bill Sheehy, the vice president of ground maneuver platforms at BAE Systems, told the DCNF. “About a year and a half ago, the Secretary of War had a big meeting with industry and said, ‘Hey, I need you guys to self-organize. I need you to self-fund and bring me solutions to today’s battlefield rapidly.’ So from that, we’ve done a number of things. One of them is the autonomous AMPV.”

Autonomous systems such as the AMPV would allow armed forces to do more work with fewer personnel.

For example, if the AMPV is needed for routine resupply missions, the vehicle can use a system of cameras, artificial intelligence and sensors developed by Forterra Autonomous Mission Systems that would allow the vehicle to operate autonomously. At the same time, the vehicle could be operated without the autonomous package to allow it to conduct offensive or defensive combat operations, similar to the Bradley armored fighting vehicle, which is currently in service with the U.S. Army.