On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 10:10 AM, Jeffrey Schwartz
<xxxxxx@gmail.com> wrote:
>> (skeet= disposable short range sensor drone, reporting to (surviving)
>> team leader, or possibly one each.  short range, maybe 10 meters?
>> Just enough to look around corners, over walls, and provide limited
>> "overwatch" view. hat tip to Jeff Schwartz for the idea.)
>>
>> For example, moving by bounding overwatch, if you're moving,  you want
>> YOUR perspective.  If you're on overwatch, you may want to watch YOUR
>> view, the skeet's view, and the view of one or both the moving
>> squaddies, cycling between them and with the skeet looking for the
>> glint of optics and listening for weapons fire, pinging for attention
>> if it spots either.
>
>   I dig what you're saying , but I pictured "over watch " as the armed drone
> doing a continuous bounding over watch for the soldier. ..it would lag back
> a ways,  and if anyone tried to hurt it's human it would fire on the hostile

I am OK with armed overwatch remotes, but the skeet is just that-
disposable.  Making it big enough to to be armed makes it a better
target and higher priority.   Presumably it does not spend a lot of
time deployed in flight, or maybe just until it gets shot down.

Of course, if it stays within a couple of meters

Eventually, the opening moment(s) of an infantry fight are everybody's
drones killing everybody else's drones in line of sight, until we're
down to infantry and suit-augmented MK1 eyeballs again.

The other obvious problem with having a skeet on overwatch, is that it
tells observers that there are skeet-equipped troops in the area.

"HI!  WE"RE OVER HERE!  UNDER THESE ROBOT SENSOR PLATFORMS!  OVER HERE!"

And, you know, little flying things aginst the sky, detectable by
optical sensors, camera and software to spot motion, MK1 eyeball....

 "HEY, LOOK, A DRONE.  INFANTRY MUST BE GETTING READY TO MOVE.  BE
ALERT AND BLAST THEM WHEN THEY APPEAR."

Dan

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan