If you had “China develops drone delivery-capable armed military robot dog” on your 2022 bingo card, congratulations, this is your year.
A concept described earlier this year by the New York Post as “dystopian nightmare fodder,” an armed robotic dog, or “Robodog,” is reportedly now able to be transported via drone behind enemy lines, providing a distinct advantage to military units attempting to penetrate tightly defended positions on the battlefield.
Alleged footage of the armed Robodog being delivered via drone spread across social media earlier this month. According to The Warzone, it was originally posted on the popular Chinese micro-blogging site Weibo.
The video, posted by a Twitter user called Lia Wong, appeared under the caption “Blood-Wing, a Chinese defense contractor, demonstrates drone-deploying an armed robodog. The Future is Now.”
Blood-Wing, a Chinese defense contractor, demonstrates drone-deploying an armed robodog.
The Future is Now. pic.twitter.com/tRKnKa8xvp
— Lia Wong (@LiaWong__) October 4, 2022
The footage shows a Robodog with a mounted machine gun being delivered to what appears to be the top of a building. Such equipment could hypothetically provide immense fire support to a team of troops attempting to gain ground, which is especially difficult in urban areas.
An original description of the Robodog/drone tech from Weibo was translated by The Warzone.
“War dogs descending from the sky, air assault, Red Wing Forward heavy-duty drones deliver combat robot dogs, which can be directly inserted into the weak link behind the enemy to launch a surprise attack or can be placed on the roof of the enemy to occupy the commanding heights to suppress firepower. And ground troops [can] conduct a three-dimensional pincer attack on the enemy in the building,” the description read.
Will technology like this be a game-changer on the modern battlefield?
Yes: 70% (7 Votes)
No: 30% (3 Votes)
The Warzone added that the original user who posted the video on Weibo had the username “Kestrel Defense Blood-Wing.”
“The account seems to be directly affiliated with the Chinese Kestrel Defense company, also called China Kestrel Defense in some instances, although it isn’t clear what exactly ‘Blood-Wing’ is in reference to. It is important to note as well that all of the details extracted from Weibo have been machine translated from Chinese to English, meaning some terms and phrases may not be accurately communicated,” The Warzone clarified.
Wong posted a follow-up tweet that shows a different, but similar “Robodog” in greater detail, including its movement capabilities.
On Robodog Shenanigans: pic.twitter.com/EZFqKtsFSw
— Lia Wong (@LiaWong__) October 11, 2022
Notably, the Robodog posted by Wong seems to be strikingly similar to amazing footage posted of a similar armed, robotic dog earlier this year that was viewed millions of times. That particular robot dog appeared to have a Russian flag on its side.
All the people who laughed off the “worrywarts” years ago for freaking out about the Funny Dancing Robot Dogs ™ should be forced to watch this video once a day for the remainder of the year. pic.twitter.com/WBIrlGah3w
— Sean Chiplock @ Anime Texas (Woodlands, TX) (@sonicmega) July 20, 2022
The Robodog in that video successfully hit its close-range targets, even as it seemed to struggle with the recoil from the mounted gun, allegedly a Russian 9x19mm PP-19-01 “Vityaz” submachine gun.
The Warzone wrote that the Robodog concept, especially when paired with drones, offers battlefield commanders “a major element of unpredictability,” and “a new set of tools to solve tactical problems.” They forgot to mention that it also has the benefit of leaving one’s enemies with a guaranteed case of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Regular war is scary enough, but one can only imagine the fear and confusion of watching one’s battle buddies being mowed down by cyborg machine gun dogs that were dropped in from the sky. Welcome to the future.
