美陸軍開始“瘦身” 考慮用機器人取代士兵

During remarks at the Army Aviation Symposium in Arlington, Va., on Jan. 15, Cone quietly dropped a bomb. The Army, he said, is considering the feasibility of shrinking the size of the brigade combat team from about 4,000 soldiers to 3,000 over the coming years, and replacing the lost soldiers with robots and unmanned platforms.

“I’ve got clear guidance to think about what if you could robotically perform some of the tasks in terms of maneuverability, in terms of the future of the force,” he said, adding that he also has “clear guidance to rethink” the size of the nine-man infantry squad.

He mentioned using unmanned ground vehicles that would follow manned platforms, which would require less armor and protection, thereby reducing the weight of a brigade combat team.

Over the past 12 years of war, “in favor of force protection we’ve sacrificed a lot of things,” he said. “I think we’ve also lost a lot in lethality.” And the Army wants that maneuverability, deployability and firepower back.

The Army is already on a path to shrink from 540,000 soldiers to about 490,000 by the end of 2015, and will likely slide further to 420,000 by 2019, according to reports.

Cone said his staff is putting together an advisory panel to look at those issues, including fielding a smaller brigade.

“Don’t you think 3,000 people is probably enough probably to get by” with increased technological capabilities, he asked.

It’s hard to see such a radical change to the makeup of the brigage combat team as anything else than a budget move, borne out of the necessity of cutting the personnel costs that eat up almost half of the service’s total budget.

Cone used the Navy as an example of what the Army is trying to do.

“When you see the success, frankly, that the Navy has had in terms of lowering the numbers of people on ships, are there functions in the brigade that we could automate — robots or manned/unmanned teaming — and lower the number of people that are involved given the fact that people are our major cost,” he said.

Some of Cone’s blue-sky thinking was echoed by Lt. Gen. Keith Walker in a Jan. 6 interview with Defense News.

In what Walker called the “deep future” — about the 2030 to 2040 time frame — he said that “we’ll need to fundamentally change the nature of the force, and that would require a breakthrough in science and technology.”

While Walker, the commander of the Army Capabilities Integration Center, which oversees much of the Army’s modernization and doctrinal changes, didn’t talk about replacing soldiers with robots, he did say the Army wants to revamp its “tooth-to-tail” ratio, or the number of soldiers performing support functions versus those who actually pull triggers.“美國陸軍正朝着規模更小、作戰能力更強、機動性更好、反應更敏捷的方向發展。”美國陸軍訓練與條令司令部司令羅伯特•科恩上將表示。至於其規模縮減的程度和方式，則令人頗感意外。

綜合外國媒體1月21日報道，美國陸軍考慮將旅級戰鬥隊的人數削減1/4，從目前的4000人減少至3000人，被裁減的士兵由機器人等無人平臺取代。目前，陸軍方面已組建一個顧問小組對該計劃展開研究。

據美國《防務新聞》週刊報道，美國陸軍已開始“瘦身”計劃，將在2015年底把陸軍人數從54萬縮減至49萬左右，到2019年時可能最終減少至42萬。

科恩說，隨着現代科技的發展，3000人規模的作戰隊已經夠用，“我被明確告知，認真考量用機器人來執行部分任務的可操作性，以及這對陸軍部隊未來的影響”。此外，他還被要求重新思考是否有必要改變陸軍現行的9人制步兵班編制。

至於有哪些選項已被納入討論範圍，科恩列舉美國海軍利用科技裁減人員的成功經驗，稱旅級戰鬥隊的運輸等部分功能可由機器人完成，“就像執行遠途補給任務時，可以將車隊中的一部分車輛換成無人駕駛車，它們只需跟着有人駕駛的車前進就能完成任務”。

《防務新聞》指出，目前人力成本幾乎佔到美軍費總額的一半，陸軍方面決定對旅級戰鬥隊的人員構成進行“如此激進的改革”，其根本原因只可能是適應軍方預算緊縮的現狀。

科恩對此表示默認，他舉例稱使用無人駕駛地面車輛不用考慮人員防護的問題，既能減少車輛的體積，又能節省裝甲等防護成本，從而從整體上降低旅級戰鬥隊的費用。

“在過去12年的戰爭中，爲了保護士兵安全，我們犧牲了很多東西，我認爲我們也爲此損失了不少戰鬥力。現在，陸軍想要重新拿回機動性、可部署性和強大火力。”

不過，對於“用機器人取代士兵”的計劃，美國陸軍中也存在質疑的聲音。基思•沃克是美國陸軍能力集成中心負責人，他認爲到2030年至2040年，美軍的性質將從根本上發生改變，這需要科學技術取得突破性進展，“並且，美軍有必要改變前線部隊和後勤支持部隊的比例，而不是用機器人取代士兵”。