China has forged ahead in developing unmanned ground vehicles for their army. This still doesn't answer my questions about armored cavalry.
This is where China is going on UGVs:
China has been developing several different types of armed UGV (unmanned ground vehicles) and is pulling ahead of other countries that have been at this sort of thing longer. After surveying troops and commanders, researchers found that the UGV most in demand was an inexpensive one that could perform very dangerous tasks like obstacle clearance and reconnaissance. This is not the first time Chinese researchers have sought to develop a UGV for troop use. Previous UGV designs were expensive and the Chinese military has a tight budget that cannot afford expensive, single use UGVs. That led to the using a common military vehicle and turn it into a UGV. The selected vehicle was one of many hummer clones produced in China.
So engineering and reconnaissance are the missions Chinese troops most want UGVs for. This makes sense as a priority. These units are forward and most exposed to enemy fire.
The Chinese are no longer insensitive to just spending the lives of their troops. No longer cheap, plentiful, and unnoticed when they die in large numbers, robotic alternatives have an appeal in China, too.
The UGV can have weapons, equipment, and sensors attached for the missions intended.
In the area of recon, I've frequently droned on about armored cavalry units for the Army. We had squadrons of them for divisions and we had regiments of them for corps. I want them back.
One question for the recon UGV is not settled by making it robotic. Should it be heavy and capable or light and disposable? That question is a lingering one. And after reading one author who writes frequently on the subject who wrote about the battle between "stealthy or forceful reconnaissance" I reacted:
Yes! I've often mentioned that in peace the urge to lighten up recon elements, supposedly to make them more "agile," has proven to be unstoppable. But in war it is found that recon units need to be heavy enough to fight for information or to screen friendly forces to prevent the enemy from getting information.
Slowing down the enemy is a mission of our cavalry, too, and if cavalry units are strong enough to compel an enemy to deploy rather than overwhelm our cavalry screens from virtually a road march formation, we buy time and information.
So should recon UGVs be stealthy or forceful for reconnaissance? And how does that decision affect the defensive mission that buys information and time?
In the long run, I think attrition will be high so cheap and replaceable is the way to go for the tip of the spear. But are we there yet? I don't think so. Not quite. So I'm in the heavy forceful camp. But it is important to keep an eye out for the tipping point so we aren't stuck with small numbers of expensive burning hulks that we can't possibly replace.
And back to China, you can see the appeal of forging ahead on UGVs for more than just military missions. UGV Man won't even be noticed, let alone globally celebrated.
