Robot Soldiers Coming to U.S. Army in Future?

Carbon-based life units could be diminishing in the military if this works out.

Last week the Army Aviation Symposium was held in Arlington, VA and U.S. military officials said the Army is looking to slim down it's forces over the next few years.

According to the IEEE website (the site for international electronic engineers) some are surprised about the scale to which the Army plans to trim it's numbers. Currently the branch is on pace to drop from 519,000 to about 420,000 by 2019. But they could drop those numbers even more with the use of robots!

Military officials say if soldier robot programs work they way are designed, the Army could even reduce the size of a typical brigade from 4,000 to 3,000 soldiers, with much of the work being done by automated fighting machines.

Defense News magazine reports the Army has seen how many active duty functions and mission completement has been done by automated units in the Navy and Air Force (such as drones carrying missles or programmable rockets) and they want to implement similar technology on the ground. According to the publication, the Navy has been able to reduce the number of servicemen and women on ships.

What do you think of this idea? Could fighting "robots" take the place of soldiers? This video shows where the Army is when it comes to robot technology.