Unconventional Strategies for Defeating a Robotic Army in Urban Warfare

[Khatti]

I used to consider terraforming as unrealistic, but it seems feasible, just I'm not convinced fully worth the effort.

I'll do you one better. In some of my stories people put spaceports in desert environments on worlds that are Earthlike (though they try and stay away from too much sand, what they really like are plateaus). The idea is that shuttle service in this environment is rarely interrupted by weather (and hopefully sandstorms) so service is near continuous. Because the environment is dry and hot they build domed environments like you would need on Mars to survive. But here it is merely done for comfort--after all, by this time this is an old technology.

 

[Czcibor]

I'll do you one better. In some of my stories people put spaceports in desert environments on worlds that are Earthlike (though they try and stay away from too much sand, what they really like are plateaus). The idea is that shuttle service in this environment is rarely interrupted by weather (and hopefully sandstorms) so service is near continuous. Because the environment is dry and hot they build domed environments like you would need on Mars to survive. But here it is merely done for comfort--after all, by this time this is an old technology.

I toyed with idea of domes to protect city from unpleasant weather for my setting. There were some extra arguments for like no fuel burning cars / industry in housing complexes. But I reached a conclusion, that anyway for all practical purposes such idea would be too expensive, while most of connection between buildings is already protected from sand storm / awful rain.

Anyway - do you get a greenhouse for your citizens? ;) I mean hot and dry climate would be turned into humid and very hot by default unless you spend a fortune on air conditioning :D

 

[Khatti]

Anyway - do you get a greenhouse for your citizens? ;) I mean hot and dry climate would be turned into humid and very hot by default unless you spend a fortune on air conditioning :D

My characters would spend the fortune on air conditioning, and the technology to darken the domes against sunlight like we do with sunglasses, and the technology to turn the domes into solar collected for electricity--as I said, the idea is that this is, by the time of my stories, a very tried and true technology. The humidity thing would have to be solved of course--but wouldn't it have to be solved on Mars as well?

I tend to view cost as relative in this case. After all, a domed city in the desert is far more useful and practical than a sports stadium. The other thought is that the cost of the domed city overrides the cost of shuttle delays due to weather. Finally the buildings and apartments underneath the dome could be produced very cheaply since the only real concern would be for privacy.

 

[GTOM]

Executive summary:
-build a few nuclear power plants and using local mines start producing tetrafluoromethane which is 6500 times more potent greenhouse gas than CO2
-ram a few comets to bring additional air (either on ice cap, or to create a nice round lakes near equator)
-watch a while of runaway greenohouse effect after your ice cap melt all CO2
-breed a black, UV resistant lichen and let it spread around (O2 + decreasing albedo)

I will read through the PDF when i can. In order to long lasting effects, magnetosphere is also needed.
Otherwise i thought, maybe there should be permanent dark combat on Mars. Explanation : so there are the mega lasers, it is logical, that they are near to the cities, power, spare parts etc close. A large scale kinetic bombardment that overwhelms them, most likely also ruins the cities.
So the fleet rather starts throwing sandbags, to engulf the entire area in thick, untransparent dust clouds, so,even if the laser is on the top of Mount Olympos, aerial units can get close. If the laser isn't so high even tanks with lasers and coilguns can get close enough, so maybe defenders rather put concrete and sandbags around them to make them more protected... so they can't be turned against surface units at all, but still serve anti fleet protection.
(Theoretically, a ship could move into a position to attack horizontally the defenders... but to penetrate so much atmosphere, even a quite large ship needs to descend into low orbit... and expose itself to anti-satellite missiles, it is a rather risky movement.)

 

[Czcibor]

I will read through the PDF when i can. In order to long lasting effects, magnetosphere is also needed.

You need an atmosphere for many millions of years?

(serious question - because Venus could keep its ultradense atmosphere in spite of lack of magnetic field... so you can have here some leeway)

 

[GTOM]

I wonder, how much could a martian sand storm really help? Does it create a thick fog of war in UV and IR sight also? (This is a question about real physics.
I don't know whether we can be optimistic or pessimistic in the terraformation matter, but i think they could only begin it with mass dumping pollution in the air, so conditions didnt change dramatically.)

I see that it a bit cliche that EMP is some super robo destroyer, with Faraday cages and over-voltage protection. (Although an EMP greande could create shrapnels that damage the cage, so the following current can get in, and aggravate damage.)

Maybe being made of metal could be turned to a disadvantage? Humans need a simple spandex pressure suit, a plastic bottle of high pressure pure oxygen, a gun... and a passive radar that absorbs the radio waves, and turns them visible would be quite helpful. (Maybe guns and that radar could also have only a minimal amount of metallic components?)

Droids are fully made of metal, and since they were preapred to fight in metallic environments, they didnt cared about developing some new super radar camofluege.

 

[Czcibor]

One more idea - you want a victory of bio army? Make marginal cost of producing one uplifted animal that would defend the planet, not much higher than one bag of potatoes. And face the power of fully armed and operational... zerg rush.

 

[Artribution]

wonder what kind of strategic and other errors are believable?

You've said your command AI knows a lot about strategy. Is it sentient?

If so, real sentience needs at least some of the basic emotions - desire, happiness, fear, attachment - without which no machine would particularly want to exist or do a good job wiping out rebels.

Maybe your AI has a fine grounding in strategy, but is emotionally immature.

 

[GTOM]

I don't think the main AI can truly feel emotions (although it could learn that illogical pairing of human thoughts funny for example)
But there will be a number of emotions in the chain of command, most dominant is fear, we have to attack, otherwise they invade us!

Czibor : you gave me the idea to use a beetle swarm, insects are more tolerant for extreme martian conditions, altough they still need an oxygen source.
Good thing, the droids don't recognize that small things as threat.
Bad thing, they can't do much damage, but they stick themselves to the droids, and produce acid, it only have to damage the Faraday cage.
Equip droids with flamethrowers is a major setback at least.

 

[Hornbein]

I think that robots weakness is their inefficiency. Biological organisms are much more efficient. It's amazing how much they can do with a small quantity of food.

Robots of today rely on batteries or gasoline.

It will be a long time before robots are anywhere near as efficient as bacteria.

 

[Drakkith]

I think that robots weakness is their inefficiency. Biological organisms are much more efficient. It's amazing how much they can do with a small quantity of food.

People can't operate continuously with less than about 1,000 - 1,500 calories per day at minimum. And that's just for basic functions, not heavy exertion. In addition, you can't simply turn people off when you don't need them. Even a completely idle camp of soldiers still needs to be continuously fed.

 

[GTOM]

Is there any believable way to crack IFF?
As far as i know, encryption use 100 or 1000 digit prime numbers, even a quantum computer would have troube with calculating every possibilities.
However, what if small nanobots can get between drones, and simply they record the signals, then an enemy drone could simply send the very same signal? (While the nanos add some noise to original signal)
An analogy would be make a photo of someone and create a holomask that mimics his face.
(That would be something unprecedented super technology.)

 

[Hornbein]

People can't operate continuously with less than about 1,000 - 1,500 calories per day at minimum. And that's just for basic functions, not heavy exertion. In addition, you can't simply turn people off when you don't need them. Even a completely idle camp of soldiers still needs to be continuously fed.

True, but it's better than batteries.

 

[James Holland]

True, but it's better than batteries.

but what about charging batteries?
of course AA batteries wouldn't work but one could plug into charge a robot or probably develop a way for them to deploy solar charging (not in battle but before it coz would prove to be a obvious weak spot)

 

[James Holland]

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. ;)

But what if this is upon some hyperthetical planet were the tech is equal

 

[Drakkith]

True, but it's better than batteries.

Not necessarily. It depends on a lot of factors which we don't have. There are advantages and disadvantages to both though.

 

[Drakkith]

But what if this is upon some hyperthetical planet were the tech is equal

That's up to the OP and how they write their story.

 

[James Holland]

That's up to the OP and how they write their story.

true. i was just writing thoughts

 

[GTOM]

But what if this is upon some hyperthetical planet were the tech is equal

In my story, robots are human technology, those have alien technology who want to develop monster armies, find some way to mess robots etc.

(Three situation, monster army attack japanese nuclear research facility, after Fukushima, they built it on a remote tropical island, urban warfare on Mars, developed robots vs weak AIs and humans, battle in hollowed out asteroid, see Descent game, Appleseed 2 for example)

 

[Drakkith]

However, what if small nanobots can get between drones, and simply they record the signals, then an enemy drone could simply send the very same signal?

I believe IFF can already be picked up by everyone within range when the IFF on the target is "pinged" and sends a return signal. The point of IFF is to help in identifying friendly troops/vehicles, but it is not the only way. A good command and control unit will know where their subordinate units are to a varying degree of accuracy depending on the circumstances. Merely mimicking the IFF signal isn't a guarantee that the enemy won't shoot you.

An analogy would be make a photo of someone and create a holomask that mimics his face.
(That would be something unprecedented super technology.)

I think a better analogy is that IFF is very similar to the sign-countersign used when ground troops encounter an unknown party and are trying to figure out if they are friendly or not. Even if you know the countersign, they're still going to shoot you the moment they see you're not wearing the same uniform as they are.

 

[James Holland]

also their is the issue of transport
to move a large amount of human soldiers over long distance with any hope of speed requires lots of vehicles however robots do not need this as much. they do not have stamina and will go until they need to charge without a break, their feet will not hurt (assuming they have feet) they would not need to eat or sleep and so only support vehicles would be needed carrying a few spare parts and all the humans required immediately.

 

[GTOM]

I believe IFF can already be picked up by everyone within range when the IFF on the target is "pinged" and sends a return signal. The point of IFF is to help in identifying friendly troops/vehicles, but it is not the only way. A good command and control unit will know where their subordinate units are to a varying degree of accuracy depending on the circumstances. Merely mimicking the IFF signal isn't a guarantee that the enemy won't shoot you.
I think a better analogy is that IFF is very similar to the sign-countersign used when ground troops encounter an unknown party and are trying to figure out if they are friendly or not. Even if you know the countersign, they're still going to shoot you the moment they see you're not wearing the same uniform as they are.

Thanks. Hmm, theese drones are designed to fight in space and use well directed laser comms, in this situation, tap into signals almost impossible.
But i try to come up with better, maybe a missile that drill inside and take over control, with a help of a supercompu? I'm wondering how magical i should become.
(Not like the only manned spacecraft there would be immune to that, but the drones need to be commanded to fire on their own)

 

[Drakkith]

to move a large amount of human soldiers over long distance with any hope of speed requires lots of vehicles however robots do not need this as much.they do not have stamina and will go until they need to charge without a break, their feet will not hurt (assuming they have feet) they would not need to eat or sleep and so only support vehicles would be needed carrying a few spare parts and all the humans required immediately.

I'm going to disagree a little. The first reason is one of power. It is usually more efficient to use one large vehicle to move a lot of thing than to use many different smaller vehicles (robots in this case). Assuming that power is a finite quantity and needs to be protected and conserved, any robot army would probably be transported around in large vehicles just like humans are.

The second reason is that robots are machines and are subject to wear and tear on their parts. It's much easier from a maintenance standpoint to have a small number of vehicles that need maintenance to save a great deal of maintenance done on the robots.

But i try to come up with better, maybe a missile that drill inside and take over control, with a help of a supercompu? I'm wondering how magical i should become.

I don't know. I'm honestly not sure what you're even going for here.

 

[James Holland]

Thanks. Hmm, theese drones are designed to fight in space and use well directed laser comms, in this situation, tap into signals almost impossible.
But i try to come up with better, maybe a missile that drill inside and take over control, with a help of a supercompu? I'm wondering how magical i should become.
(Not like the only manned spacecraft there would be immune to that, but the drones need to be commanded to fire on their own)

are they directly controlled by people on the ground or are they fully robotic?

 

[GTOM]

are they directly controlled by people on the ground or are they fully robotic?

I assume for deep space battle, they can go fully robotic, in the final battle, someone will insist, she has to go in the asteroid shafts and control herself, I'm wondering about a situation, where a high (but not human level) AI could really fail against higher tech level enemy?

 

[James Holland]

I'm going to disagree a little. The first reason is one of power. It is usually more efficient to use one large vehicle to move a lot of thing than to use many different smaller vehicles (robots in this case). Assuming that power is a finite quantity and needs to be protected and conserved, any robot army would probably be transported around in large vehicles just like humans are.

The second reason is that robots are machines and are subject to wear and tear on their parts. It's much easier from a maintenance standpoint to have a small number of vehicles that need maintenance to save a great deal of maintenance done on the robots.
I don't know. I'm honestly not sure what you're even going for here.

if the humans were transported in one or a few large vehicles they would automatically become a primary target for air-strikes artillery and ambushes. plus when they stop to deploy troops if they are attacked then the men will struggle to get out.
the advantage of small vehicles is they can split up manoeuvre and have a generally increased combat ability.
if these were civilians moving about i would agree however as they are not.

i understand the robots need for maintenance hence the support vehicles.

 

[James Holland]

I assume for deep space battle, they can go fully robotic, in the final battle, someone will insist, she has to go in the asteroid shafts and control herself, I'm wondering about a situation, where a high (but not human level) AI could really fail against higher tech level enemy?

well if i was you i would make them work in squads with one permanently human controlled acting like a sergant and the others programmed to respond

 

[GTOM]

if the humans were transported in one or a few large vehicles they would automatically become a primary target for air-strikes artillery and ambushes. plus when they stop to deploy troops if they are attacked then the men will struggle to get out.
the advantage of small vehicles is they can split up manoeuvre and have a generally increased combat ability.
if these were civilians moving about i would agree however as they are not.

i understand the robots need for maintenance hence the support vehicles.

Well infrantry bots will also need fuel, ammo, charge, spare parts etc, the transport vehicles needs to be protected anyway.

 

[GTOM]

well if i was you i would make them work in squads with one permanently human controlled acting like a sergant and the others programmed to respond

Yes, that is the goal. :) I just wonder, whether i could create a situation, that could make human intuition level necessary, something unprecedented for even a trained high (not human level) AI?

(Well in my world, most parties don't trust military decision to AIs as start, but the ones have a human level AI as a supermanager on their planet, don't fear.)

 

[James Holland]

Well infrantry bots will also need fuel, ammo, charge, spare parts etc, the transport vehicles needs to be protected anyway.

true abuot supply so would humans and a British redcoat from the war of 1812 (or around then) could carry 100 shots constantly so how many could a robot carry? and also for power i am sticking with my suggestion of expendable solar panels concealed by armour during battle and open when marching or encamped small A.P.C.s are already armed

 

[Drakkith]

if the humans were transported in one or a few large vehicles they would automatically become a primary target for air-strikes artillery and ambushes. plus when they stop to deploy troops if they are attacked then the men will struggle to get out.
the advantage of small vehicles is they can split up manoeuvre and have a generally increased combat ability.
if these were civilians moving about i would agree however as they are not.

Of course. You don't transport troops right up to the front line with these vehicles. You just get them close. Even then, this is an issue you can't away from. Transports packed full of troops are always a good target for the enemy and any military will usually go to great lengths to protect them. Note that I'm mostly talking about non-combat transports. You can't transport 150,000 soldiers any significant length of distance with jeeps or other small vehicles. Not if you want it done quickly. You must use larger, more vulnerable methods of transport.

 

[James Holland]

Of course. You don't transport troops right up to the front line with these vehicles. You just get them close. Even then, this is an issue you can't away from. Transports packed full of troops are always a good target for the enemy and any military will usually go to great lengths to protect them. Note that I'm mostly talking about non-combat transports. You can't transport 150,000 soldiers any significant length of distance with jeeps or other small vehicles. Not if you want it done quickly. You must use larger, more vulnerable methods of transport.

this is all true but taking in that this is a rebel force that would be probably hard pressed for safe territory with speed as a necessity and recruit hard to come by. this would make every manouver of high chance to come into contact with enemy units.

 

[James Holland]

mildly unrelated but what will it be called?

 

[GTOM]

mildly unrelated but what will it be called?

Exactly what do you refer?

 

[James Holland]

i was under the impression this was for a book or film
sorry if i was just being thick