China is showing off a terrifying new offering from one of its private military contractors — a robot dog mounted with a machine gun that can be transported via drone.
Kestrel Defense Blood-Wing, a verified social media account for a private Chinese military contractor, made a post on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform on October 3. The video shows a large drone carrying a gun-mounted robot dog.
The video shows the dog standing up and moving around the rooftop.
"War dogs descend from the sky!" read Kestrel's Weibo post. "The heavy-duty drones can deliver combat dogs, to be directly inserted behind enemy lines and spring surprise attacks on weak links. They can also be placed on the rooftops and work with troops on the ground to ambush enemies inside buildings."
The dog looks like something straight out of Netflix's "Black Mirror" — harking back to an episode in its fourth season, "Metalhead," where a woman tries to flee from killer robot dogs.
This is not Kestrel's first rodeo with robotic dogs. In August, the company also trialed a robot dog that could carry a munitions launcher.
—Samuel Bendett (@SamBendett) August 20, 2022
The US, too, has found a way to put guns on robot dogs. Ghost Robotics, for one, showcased a gun-equipped robot in October 2021.
Robot dogs — without attached guns — were also used by the New York Police Department in April 2021. The use of the Digidog, an offering from Boston Dynamics, was terminated in May 2021 after backlash from the public.
China, however, appears to have a real penchant for robot dogs. At the country's Robot Expo in August, dozens of robot dogs were seen doing a group dance, with plenty of hopping and paw-shaking.
—AFP News Agency (@AFP) August 19, 2022
Robot dogs were also spotted roaming the streets in Shanghai during the city's COVID-19 lockdown in March. One dog carried a loudspeaker on its back while padding its way through a neighborhood and broadcasting lockdown-related guidelines.
