Unconventional Strategies for Defeating a Robotic Army in Urban Warfare

[GTOM]

I'm planning a semi-hard SF (around Mohs scale 4).

I wonder, what can be the weaknesses of a robotic army? That enables to defeat it in urban warfare, by rebel groups, who managed to access some unexpected cutting edge technology, and some support from regular armies.

So far, my ideas :

1. A good number of robots are cheap ones built rather to suppress a riot, than counter a high profile army. They are dependant on a mainframe, that can be their weakness, together with anti electronic warfare and hacking.

2. Use a number of scarecrows equipped by fake sniper guns to reveal to positions of drone snipers - they don't learn from their mistakes... (although their human commanders can, but still slower)

3. That is a rather weird one... i'd like to note, that when i said the rebels had access to some cutting edge technology, it includes alienware... genetically modified wasp hives that are attracted to lidars and to the sound of propellers and attack them in mass, with the help of some strong bio acid, or bio nitroglicerin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardier_beetle

 

[phinds]

Focused EMP beams to disable the robot's electronics without disabling your own.

In my opinion, your #1 mainframe is SO 1950's ... it should be avoided.

 

[jedishrfu]

More than likely a robotic army would be a distributed system being directed by one of the members and if taken out by another member similar to a squad leader. Check out robotic swarms for ideas on how this might look.

 

[DHF]

I am assuing this is the robot army of an invading Alien force. as such you should assume that in terms of robotics and and programing they should be more advanced then what we can currently do. To that end the robots should be able to process tasks and act indipendantly even if there is a central disbatch overseeing them. Blocking the signal won't stop them but it would force them to rely on their own processing power rather then receiving new orders from disbatch.

An EMP is always a good start as Phinds suggested, however its easily conceivable that they would be shielded as that is something we can easily do today, The EMP can still work but it would have to be extremely powerful so that can set up some drama for the heroes, perhaps there are a limited number of EMPS powerful enough, maybe setting off the burst would signal their location ect...

As for the Robots not learning that is a stretch, we may not have sentient AI today but we have programs that are capable of learning in the realms of its mission. for example Decent chess programs can learn your moves and adapt to your style in short order. A tactical program would quickly figure out the scarecrow routine.

All that being said and done...if your Heroes have access to Jeff Goldbloom and a Mac Book you should be all set. ;)

 

[GTOM]

"In my opinion, your #1 mainframe is SO 1950's"

Well, a present day spy drone could be hacked because it was dependant on GPS, as far as i know.

No the robots arent invading alien force, although some could have upgrades with things learned from the alien stuff... but still a number of them could be still a lower version rather meant for riot control, vs badly equipped and not so well organised civilans.

(At least in the beginning that power employing robots also has human marines for they are cheaper at least than robots capable to do every possible task... at least i think so this far)

 

[GTOM]

About the bombardier beetles : "The reaction is very exothermic, and the released energy raises the temperature of the mixture to near 100 °C, vaporizing about a fifth of it. "

Theoretically, could explosions with a similar scale damage a propeller, if the insects attack in mass?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

robotic armies likely require vast amounts of maintenance.

 

[GTOM]

Well that is also true, the question is rather what could robots do cheaper, more effective then humans, not what could they possibly do?
(Especially if future Earth is an overpopulated place where lots of people are unemployed, living in poverty.
More developed robots are rather useful in space and lifeless planets.)

 

[jedishrfu]

robotic armies likely require vast amounts of maintenance.

I imagine that a robot army of the future would have the means of maintaining itself by redistributing the parts of broken robots to fix others.

 

[GTOM]

"I imagine that a robot army of the future would have the means of maintaining itself by redistributing the parts of broken robots to fix others. "

Good idea, there can be dedicated maintenance bots, although at least, IMHO maintaining THEM is a rather human job.

"
More than likely a robotic army would be a distributed system being directed by one of the members and if taken out by another member similar to a squad leader."

I had another idea, if one squadron member hacked up, it can turn against the squadron leader, and take the lead itself, and order the others to change the control codes.
I thought about one had the "genius" idea, to build spacecraft with swappable fuel tank (after a pirate barely managed to outrun the missiles launched from a frigate because of the refuelling time. I read they have plans to replace the entire battery of an electric car to spare an hour of refuelling)
And they get a well prepared fuel tank...

 

[jedishrfu]

It would be good if your story is more nuanced. Look at how real armies have medics, aid stations and surgical units... Look at the mechanisation of the army foot soldiers, jeeps, trucks, half-tracks, tanks, artillery... Imagine now how much more advanced but still the same.

In your story, each robot could do limited repairs on itself, more extensive repairs on fellow squad members, ... If the medic is taken out another robot can assume the medic role... Distributed networks allow for decentralized sharing of roles and responsibilities.

You will have a lot of fun using your imagination and military observational skills to craft a cool story. For me the best kinds of sci-fi stories are those that extrapolate current tech into the future while staying true to most of the physics and the reality of how things work.

 

[GTOM]

"In your story, each robot could do limited repairs on itself, more extensive repairs on fellow squad members, ... If the medic is taken out another robot can assume the medic role.."

If i look at present day robots, i see that they are very good in one task, but unable to do other things.
Asimov speculated that androids will be so great, as we already built every kind of machines and tools, and androids can operate all of them.
It looks like in reality, we automatise the specialized tools, auto vacuum cleaner, self driving car etc.

Extrapolating this, i can rather imagine a robotic army of highly specialised units, like a hive of ants.

Even if the software of the shooter bot could handle repair, i think it is only equipped with a gun, and don't have human like arms, or other specialised tools to perform a repair job.
The repair bot has this, and they want to keep it away from enemy fire.

(And minor alienware upgrades will be pretty limited... most of them held by the rebels.)

 

[GTOM]

I was thinking, maybe when the villain face defeat, one suggests to employ atomics...
But i wonder, could a robotic army really "survive" a nuclear war more than humans? On the first level yes, they are more resistant to radiaton... but on the second, it is enough to destroy all fusion power plants, without power recharge, they shut down, while humans can still survive on areas far from fallout.

 

[jedishrfu]

I was thinking, maybe when the villain face defeat, one suggests to employ atomics...
But i wonder, could a robotic army really "survive" a nuclear war more than humans? On the first level yes, they are more resistant to radiaton... but on the second, it is enough to destroy all fusion power plants, without power recharge, they shut down, while humans can still survive on areas far from fallout.

Earlier Phinds mentioned EMP (in this case NEMP) and your robotic army could be affected by it if they use electronics:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_pulse

 

[GTOM]

Another thread about EMP was closed, so i don't want to get into details too much, military grade bots will surely have protection against it, of course no protection is 100%, and they can still rely more than humans on radars and radio communications (today even spy drones and quadrocopter swarms are dependant on theese things, of course lots of things can be solved, it depends on money, more developed electronics are also more sensitive usually)

I also thought, that heat seekers arent really efficient against infrantry, but robots emit more waste heat, and more expensive, human soldiers can launch lots of mini heat seekers.

 

[Khashishi]

Robots are good at chess, but fail when the rules of the game change unexpectedly.

 

[Khatti]

If the robot army is running around on legs they will have some of the same susceptibilities of a human army. They may be able to run through mud faster than a human being, but it will still slow them down. Remember the Alamo, and remember that well dug in defensive positions can truly wreak havoc on an army stupid enough to attack one. Sometimes the best offense is a good defense. Arrange terrain where you have a clear line of fire and obstacles to slow the robots down.

The other thing that occurs to me is that robots may be harder to kill, but if you can access their software they're easier to befriend. Some robotically inclined version of Anonymous would be the nightmare of dictators who depend on a robot armies.

 

[Khatti]

Study the history of the Hussite Wars and Hussite commander Jan Žižka, one of only a handful of military commanders to have never lost a battle. You may be able to upgrade Hussite tactics for your urban army.

 

[Czcibor]

Ideas:
-crippling overspecialisation - wonderful sniper robots, but can't cross river (who needs that? ;) )
-poor security at computer system - hacking everything would be excessive, but taking over a few and partially paralysing coordination with DoS sounds good or cancelling a few identification certificate which would make some units being perceived as foe..
-how supplies are provided (ammo, fuel, spare parts)? How much fuel is being used per day of fight and is possible to supply that? Scorched Earth policy with setting on fire all petrol stations?
-how identification system works? Visual identification relies on picture processing which can means either being too careful and ignoring targets or massive friendly fire.
-strategy problems - you fight with AI - persistent attacks on some selected, well fortified targets instead of trying to ex. encircle

-how cost effectiveness is taken into account by robot? Are they designed not to level cities that are to be conquered?

 

[jedishrfu]

I remember an old 1950's era sci-fi movie where the evil robots from another planet were disabled by a ultrasonic sound that cracked some crystal inside them.

Other robot limitations might be:
- communication with other robots for coordinated attacks
- the star trek idea of using spread-spectrum weapons against the borg as they couldn't adapt to the changing frequency quickly enough
- if they used digital comm then perhaps malware could be injected into the transmission
- if they used line-of-sight transmission like laser comm then you could beamsplit the signal and inject something or delay/block the signal...

In your story, have a convincing tech feature where you know it can be subverted but just don't tell the reader until the time is right and the characters figure it out.

The cleverer the solution the more people will like your story.

I read one sci-fi book by Timothy Zahn where he described space battles with many Sun Tzu like stratagems. One was an impenetrable shield around a planet no one knew how to subvert it. Admiral Thrawn placed a innocuous space freighter inside the shield before the attack. When he fired at the planet he actually fired at the freighter (bounced off the planetary shield) and the freighter simultaneously fired at the planet. The leaders were shocked to see that someone breached their impenetrable shield and promptly surrendered never realizing the ruse.

I think the idea actually came from the Bible story about the walls of Jericho where there were supposedly spies inside the city that undermined the walls so that when the trumpets blew a portion of the walls fell down but the people inside felt it was the work of God.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Admiral_Thrawn

The Thrawn Trilogy:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0553298046/?tag=pfamazon01-20

 

[GTOM]

Good ideas, thanks. :)

Well i think about multiple kinds of robots, spider or ant like legged ones with infantry weapons, tanks from mini to giants armed with coilguns and machine guns, flying drones, smaller ones with a low altitude and machine guns, big ones with guided bombs and missiles.

I think their software are quite well protected with encryption, codes, they are very difficult to hack, without inner help.
(Well, the main story involves discovering some magitech that changes a few things, but it won't be mass produced. Well they will produce a good number of disintegrators - either simply very strong laser or plasma point range defence, or some magic - but the scientist character also unreveals its weakness, the disintegrator crystals can be crippled by ultrasound. )

I imagine them to be highly specialized, like insects, it can be a weakness if a unit can't be helped by other units (like ships or aerial transport, sappers).
There are specialized supply units. I expect that hydrogen can be used as fuel. I don't know exactly how much they need, their field requirements can be lesser than humans, but their maintenance (resources and humans) is rather costly. (Another magitech that will appear, superfast healing for humans.)

They have a communication network, they know exactly where are their squad mates and units. But there comes a weakness - anti satellite weapons and EMP can cripple much of the communication, less vulnerable laser comms (not impossible but hard to jam) require line of sight. Otherwise the shape of a human and a robot is rather different, identify a human that has a suit that can contain heat can be troublesome.

I think the main command AI knows quite much about strategy, but without guidance, individual units arent really good in improvising.

Well originally they want to conquer cities, later they care less and less about lives and damage.

Radars and radio comm systems always have to fear from EMP attacks, but the radar and IR cross section of robots are much bigger, humans can use weak radar signals from multiple sources that are harder to locate.

 

[Czcibor]

When for my story (rpg scenario) I was creating a robot army, it had a few weakness:
-serious cutting corners at production
-over standardization (one uniform chassis for many different tank like devices), forced by limited number of production facilities, a few standardized calibres which makes logistics easy and but a bright enemy would know exactly which is the right thickness of armour)
-useless without humans at strategical level, at tactical it also rather dumb
-needs human infantry for urban fight
-it can be stored, so big part of army was produced a few decades earlier (because of tech stagnation it was not a big business, in your story it actually might be a problem)
-actually the quality of products would make them... clearly inferior to an early XXIst century army... except that being cheaply mass produced for decades made possibility for a tiny, peaceful country to offer a zerg rush.

 

[GTOM]

Production limits also plays a role in my setting, Earth is already overpopulated, big unemployment, not much need for robots, they also lived in peace, until Mercury (the lair of the biggest robot manufacturer company) convinces the corrupt leaders of some country, that with their economic power and the magitech breakthrough, they could rule empires on Earth (and help Mercury to win the battle for the Solar System).

I don't see standardization a big problem, tanks and guns also has standards.

Yes, urban warfare is a really difficult environment for robots, with the lots of hiding places, lack of clear lines.
Although i think the forces of Mercury only really need humans for maintenance and missions where they don't want to kill civilans.

 

[Czcibor]

Production limits also plays a role in my setting, Earth is already overpopulated, big unemployment, not much need for robots, they also lived in peace, until Mercury (the lair of the biggest robot manufacturer company) convinces the corrupt leaders of some country, that with their economic power and the magitech breakthrough, they could rule empires on Earth (and help Mercury to win the battle for the Solar System).

Robots are optimized for Mercury or Earth conditions? How they react for humidity?

I don't see standardization a big problem, tanks and guns also has standards.

Sure they have. In my rpg that country could cheaply mass produce any calibre if it's 5,56mm (usual machine guns), 8mm (sniper rifle/machine gun /minigun), 30mm (rapid gun) and 155mm (artilery). It facilitates logistics a lot and cuts cost, and is very practical unless you want pistol, anti-material rifle or main tank gun ;)

Of course you may get to other extreme. There is proper calibre for each kind of robots... and part of your army stay idle because the proper ammo is to be delivered in 10 days... in 10 working days... ;)

 

[GTOM]

Well, there are factories on Earth also, otherwise many robots also work in the colonies on Mercury - for humans on Mercury it is totally accepted to work in sex industry, one area where robots arent superior.
Otherwise i think humidity is an easy problem compared to extreme conditions in space. (Even Mercury mining robots don't go onto the sunny side.)

 

[Czcibor]

How suitable are those robots for a naval battle? (with hovercrafts ;) )

 

[GTOM]

I wonder what can be the role of naval battles when there are interplanetary spaceships, maybe there are only airships.
Otherwise i don't expect bots to be able to swim.

 

[Drakkith]

I wonder what can be the role of naval battles when there are interplanetary spaceships, maybe there are only airships.

I don't see any reason a standard navy wouldn't be used. The invention of the aircraft has done little to get rid of land based or sea based forces, so I don't see why spacecraft would make naval forces obsolete.

Otherwise i don't expect bots to be able to swim.

Flotation devices wouldn't be too hard to implement. Nor would minor water-proofing.

 

[jedishrfu]

I don't see any reason a standard navy wouldn't be used. The invention of the aircraft has done little to get rid of land based or sea based forces, so I don't see why spacecraft would make naval forces obsolete.
Flotation devices wouldn't be too hard to implement. Nor would minor water-proofing.

Yes, I agree. Engineering wise different types of vehicles require different engineering constructs. I know in scifi movies they love to show spacecraft hiding underwater and then surfacing to take off. However, water provides a pressure on the hull that can crush it whereas in space it's the inside air that applies the pressure outward. My feeling is that while a spacecraft can handle outer space it might not withstand great ocean depths simply because of its design. Hence the need for additional underwatercraft.

 

[Drakkith]

I think their software are quite well protected with encryption, codes, they are very difficult to hack, without inner help.
(Well, the main story involves discovering some magitech that changes a few things, but it won't be mass produced. Well they will produce a good number of disintegrators - either simply very strong laser or plasma point range defence, or some magic - but the scientist character also unreveals its weakness, the disintegrator crystals can be crippled by ultrasound. )

That seems to be a pretty serious and obvious flaw that should have been caught early in the research and development phase. Real world weapons, while having problems of their own, rarely have them to such an extreme, so it seems like kind of a stretch to give them such a weakness. If nothing else some sound dampening material could be used to protect the crystal.

Otherwise i think humidity is an easy problem compared to extreme conditions in space. (Even Mercury mining robots don't go onto the sunny side.)

Typically machines designed to operate outdoors in one environment are not well suited to other environments, especially going from one extreme to another. I doubt your mercury mining bots would do well in the mud and gunk of swampy Louisiana. The challenges in designing and manufacturing sophisticated, robust machinery that can reliably operate in a wide range of conditions is not trivial. It is typically much easier to design and build a machine to operate mainly in one environment.

 

[GTOM]

I meant, without special equipment, a land bot is completely unable to swim.
The disintegrator crystals have protecting, but they have to open it in order to use the crystal to take out the incoming missile, that is the point, where a special missile can unleash the ultrasonic wave. Without knowing the exact frequency to cripple the crystal, it isn't something really obvious i think.
But if it is lame, i try to find something better to counter the disintegrator magitech.
Whoops i realized a problem, that most projectiles are supersonic... then they should emit some special beam... or have superstrong magnets to counter the disintegrator plasma, or some pure magic.

My other problem with naval ships, that they are quite big and valuable targets and vulnerable to orbital kinetic bombardment. Producing hydrogen fuel for flyers and spaceships are very cheap.

Well, the robots meant to invade Earth countries, produced in Earth factories, otherwise Mercury also produces invasion forces suited to operate in space colony conditions. (although it is still different from swamp and tropical conditions )

 

[Drakkith]

Well, your original question was what can a resistance group do to counter a robot army. A serious flaw in their weaponry is a little too easy and obvious in my opinion.

I would avoid using "gimmicks" that trivialize a significant advantage for one side. What's the point of them having this advantage if your just going to take it away? Better to cut it out of the story completely and use the space for things that matter.

I also get the feeling that you aren't treating this robot army like an actual army. By necessity, a robot army is going to be extremely difficult to hack and reprogram, otherwise they wouldn't be in use to begin with. That's not to say that you can't hack them, but that it should be a significant challenge to do and present a real threat to whoever has to do it. (Physically sneaking into a command center or something.)There shouldn't be any obvious, crippling weaknesses in a technical sense, otherwise your story becomes boring.

Real world offensive and defensive ECM (electronic countermeasures) is pretty in-depth and should serve as a good example of what can and can't be done.

One suggestion: Have you thought about humans in powered armor? You already have robots roaming around, and current work on powered armor is promising. Many of the advancements in one directly apply to the other. One advantage humans may have over robots is an adaptable, armored weapons platform in the form of power armor.

 

[GTOM]

I didnt say they are easy to hack.
Yes, there will be powered battle armors also.
There won't be any flaw in modern weapons, but the main story arc is about finding alienware stuff, so there will be a sudden jump in technology, i thought one of them is disintigrators, an other one is to counter them (in a way unexpected to the ones, who thought the new technology can eliminate the disadvantage of smaller numbers)

 

[Czcibor]

Well, your original question was what can a resistance group do to counter a robot army. A serious flaw in their weaponry is a little too easy and obvious in my opinion.

Idea: what about standard problem of generals being prepared to win the previous war? I mean clearly good equipment, but:
-prepared for a different war (no navy? So prepare for submarine warfare...)
-cool experimental weapon - which is expensive, but needs a few more years of testing
-robots were optimized for low gravity and extreme temperatures of Mercury, tend to drown in swamp warfare
-logistics nightmare connected with overconfidence that lead to not taking enough supplies and one of supplies won the contract thanks to a bribe

Biological alien tech edge - what about rubber eating bacteria? ;)

 

[GTOM]

Rubber eating bacteria, good idea :), although i don't really like it, because it is close to employing a biological weapon against humans.
They will also produce fanatical clone armies, in SW like style. :D
I wonder whether swimming creatures could seriously damage metal with some kind of acid? (While i said, i see serious problems with regular ships, but airships can also land on water, and i have nothing against subs.
Maybe the ones against the robots could even launch at least one sneak commando attack against a base on a pacific island, after an EMP bombardment crippled security. The personnel of the robot base don't expect to be attacked by anything else than missiles.)

"to not taking enough supplies and one of supplies won the contract thanks to a bribe"

De you mean, a tampered supply?

Yes, theese problems are all valid, and could turn the outcome of the war. :)