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The Netherlands has deployed four armed ground robots or unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), making it the first NATO country to do so. The robots are Tracked Hybrid Modular Infantry Systems (THeMIS) UGVs built by the Estonian defense company Milrem Robotics. It has treads like a tank and can use a variety of weapons. Photos provided by the Dutch military show their UGVs outfitted with machine guns.

The three pictured here at TCJ are not necessarily the same model that’s being fielded.

Here’s a video with the companies involved shown at the end. Here’s another video of the UGV in multiple terrains, weather conditions, and various configurations. And here’s a robot “dog” with, what the article claims, is a mounted Russian PP-19-01 “Vityaz” submachine gun.

The UGV looks fairly easy to de-track.

Janes, a military and intelligence trade journal, first reported the story. The UGVs were first deployed on September 12 and, according to the Dutch Ministry of Defense (MOD), are an experiment. 

“We have deployed four weaponised [unmanned] machines within an operational experiment”, Lieutenant Colonel Sjoerd Mevissen, commander of the Royal Netherlands Army’s Robotics and Autonomous System, told Janes. “To my knowledge, we have not seen this before in the West…the machines have been handed over for experimental use in an operational unit in a military-relevant environment. These are not simply tests on a training ground. We are under the direct eyes and ears of the Russians, and as such in a semi-operational environment.”

The machine-gun-toting robots aren’t the first the world has ever seen. Estonia first deployed an unarmed version of THeMIS in Mali in 2019. This Russian MoD confirmed it deployed armed UGVs in Syria in 2018. Iran has also been developing its own UGVs and showed off its Heidair-1 on social media in 2019. Iran’s small beetle-like drone seems designed to roll under tanks and APCs and explode.

There’s a lot of modularity to the design, which is good. It’s also helpful because they keep increasing the loadout of a soldier’s pack while lowering the physical standards. Perhaps each soldier should get, um, her own robot personal assistant. It was better when America was a serious country. In all seriousness, the modular design enabling conversion to various roles seems like a worthwhile feature.

Both Russia’s Uran-9 and Estonia’s THeMIS are bigger and can carry more deadly equipment. The Uran-9 is capable of carrying a 30mm 2A72 automatic cannon and four 9M120-1 Ataka anti-tank guided missiles, which makes it look like a frightening and deadly killer robot. However, early reports indicate that Russia’s UGV didn’t work well in Syria and repeatedly lost connection to its controller.

Via Instapundit