Remote Control Cars Replace Robots in Iraq

Front-line
soldiers in Iraq have been using Radio Shack remote control cars to prod
suspected
Improvised Explosive Devices. If they explode, they’re bombs.  If
they move, they are too light to be bombs and are safe. If they
are heavy, they merit more careful examination. The military has $50,000
Darpa-developed robots to do the same thing, but
they are
deployed
and
operated by a
limited number of specially trained bomb disposal teams. The robots are reportedly
big, slow, and clumsy, and an actual patrol finding one of these explosive devices
(a depressingly familiar happening
these
days, and the most common cause of American casualties) often
needs to wait many hours for the robot team to arrive, if there is even
one in the area.

Depending on one’s point of view, the fact that our courageous front
line military personnel, many barely removed from finding these $50 toys
under
their
Christmas
trees,
are
using them to defend their lives, is either a testimony to American ingenuity
and cheap Chinese technology, or to military waste the woeful lack of
preparation and equipment for our troops on the ground. Or both.

A young private [named "E.S."]
in that platoon has one of those radio-controlled toy cars. When they
find unidentifiable debris
in the road, E.S. sends out his little RC car and rams it. If it’s
light enough to be moved or knocked over, it’s too light to be a bomb,
so we
can approach it and get rid of it. If it’s heavy, we call EOD [explosive
ordnance disposal — the military’s bomb squad]. At night, they duct
tape a flashlight to the car.

from Defense
Tech