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How to Kill a Robot Dog By Will Dabbs, MD

We live in the most amazing times. Someday soon when we are all living in caves wearing animal skins picking parasites off of each other, our children will ask why we no longer have cool stuff like the internet, running water, electricity, and food. When that time inevitably comes, you can at least tell your kids that you saw it coming.

The Terminator was Actually a Documentary

The people who work on artificial intelligence cannot cogently articulate exactly how AI works. The days of some computer geek settling in behind a keyboard to bang out code are gone never to return. Nowadays, computer programmers get their computers to write their computer code. It seems inevitable that those computers will eventually wise up and decide to cut out the middle man.

Unless you want to end up paying taxes to your microwave, it behooves us all to do a little sensible preparation. Chief among those post-apocalyptic chores is figuring out how to kill a robot dog. It’s not intuitive.

Know Your Enemy

Just in case you’ve been living underneath a bridge someplace, Google “scary robot dog” and get ready to have your world rocked. If you have an operational credit card, $9,420 will get you a flame-throwing robot dog over the Internet from ThrowFlame.com. The Unitree Go2 robot dog is only two grand. Uncle Sam has militarized versions sporting advanced sensors, thermal imagers, and machine guns. It just seems inevitable that we will someday go to war with these things.

For starters, the militarized versions are quite often armored. However, like tanks, extra armor means extra weight which means decreased agility. Such stuff is the perennial tactical tradeoff. With the right ammo, your typical defensive rifle should be up to the task, presuming you know where to shoot.

U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Johnny Rodriguez, 321st Contingency Response Squadron force protection craftsman and lead defender for the CR team, walks with the robot dog during an agile combat employment exercise Sept. 3, 2020, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The robot dog is an experimental technology with the intent of aiding defenders in securing an airfield and is part of the Advance Battle Management System, which is being tested during the ACE exercise.

Feeding the Beast

GI green-tip M855 5.56mm ammunition incorporates a small tungsten penetrator into the bullet to offer better performance through light cover. It’s not armor-piercing per se, but it will still penetrate 3mm of mild steel at 600 meters. It’s even better up close. Think car doors and the like. That is likely adequate to deal with your typical robot dog.

I keep two PMags loaded with M855 next to my primary defensive rifle at the house. It doesn’t sport a label that says, “For use against armored robot dogs” or anything. However, yeah, it’s for use against armored robot dogs.

Mechanical Anatomy

It is tempting to concentrate on the head of the robot dog. However, robot dogs are anthropomorphically different from real dogs or carbon-based animals of any sort, for that matter. The head is just sensors. That’s not where the beast thinks.

It’s not unreasonable to shoot for its legs. In tank parlance, this would be called a mobility kill. The thing might remain prickly, and it may yet still be relaying vital tactical information back to your doorbell camera or your dishwasher or whatever else is coordinating everything. However, shoot one of its legs off, and at least it won’t be chasing after you with quite so much enthusiasm.

The Vitals

Heat is the mortal enemy of computers everywhere. As a result, the CPU for a robot dog is most commonly carried inside the main upper electronics bay underneath the top shell. They often include mechanical heat sinks or cooling fans. The CPU will be protected by the main chassis cover and may be armored. It makes for a small target, but putting a round through the mother board is going to reliably take that robot dog out of the fight.

The other sweet spot is the battery. Most robot dogs use lithium-ion, lithium polymer, or lithium iron phosphate rechargeable batteries. Older toy-grade mechanical hounds might incorporate nickel-metal hydride batteries, but these are not the machines that are going to be trying to get all up into your business.

The Achilles Heel

The common thread to robot dog batteries is lithium. Lithium is a soft, slivery-white alkali metal. It is, in fact, the lightest of all metallic elements. However, like all alkali metals, lithium is both highly reactive and flammable. As a result, pure lithium, like its legendarily malevolent cousin sodium, must be stored in a vacuum, an inert atmosphere, or within a liquid like purified kerosene. Expose that stuff to water or even wet air, and it is going to get all conflagrated.

Pass a bullet through the battery, and your robot dog will most likely incinerate itself right sharpish. You will find the battery on most robot dogs in a secure slot in the bottom or rear part of the torso. The battery assembly is fairly heavy, so it is usually stored low in the chassis to improve stability.

Ruminations

So, there you have it. When you inevitably have to defend your home and family from a weaponized AI-driven robot dog, don’t waste your time shooting it in the head. That will likely just make it angry. Concentrate your fire on the center of mass either toward the top focusing on the CPU or at the bottom to rupture the battery. Or just blow its legs off. Connect with any of that stuff, and humanity gets to live another day.

All this seems silly right up until it’s not. Knowing how to efficiently kill a robot dog may someday be something we teach little kids in school, presuming our evil mechanical overlords still allow us to have schools. It’s a brave new world, and luck always favors the prepared.

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And the Platoon Guide and the 1st Sgt and the Plt. Leader and the Company XO etc etc!

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All About Guns Anti Civil Rights ideas & "Friends" Paint me surprised by this You have to be kidding, right!?!

Connecticut gun dealers forced to suffer yet another no-sales day Legal action may be necessary, they say. Lee Williams

by Lee Williams

Saturday was supposed to be a big sales day for Lock N’ Load Firearms, which is located in Southington, Connecticut. The gun shop has two major sales each year, and Saturday was its “Customer Appreciation Day.” The store spent a lot on advertising the event and on party goods. Several vendors came out for the sale.

The fun ended around 11:40 a.m., when the state’s computer system went down, and it stayed down throughout most of the day.

Josh, who works at the gun shop, estimates they lost thousands of dollars.

“Guns aren’t $200 or $300 anymore. They cost $600 or $800,” he said. “To set up an event like that, all the advertising, and then to not be able to sell firearms definitely hurt us. But here, it happens all of the time.”

The State of Connecticut does not allow gun dealers to run their own NICS computer checks. It insists on running the checks for them, as well as a half-dozen other state checks.

Josh said the state’s computer shutdowns are becoming far too common.

“I don’t know how to hold the state accountable,” he said. “I hate to think that a lawsuit is the answer, but that’s where we are at. We can’t flip the state reps and senators to get more fair representation at the state capitol.”

Matt, who works at The Gun Store in Waterbury, Connecticut, said the state’s computer shutdowns have become “random but consistent.”

“You can expect to go down every couple of days,” Matt said. “It’s more than I’ve ever experience in the past 20 years. I’m not saying that the State of Connecticut is intentionally doing it, but it’s been consistent enough lately.

 

If only they used NICS and circumvented all the other six or seven checks they use. The problem is that the state legislature added all these checks. It’s created massive amounts of confusion.”

Common names, he said, like “John Smith” have become a serious issue for the state’s computer systems, which lack the clarity of a NICS Unique Personal Identification Number or UPIN, which gun owners can apply for.

“If they have a NICS UPIN, you find out quickly that it’s not the ‘John Smith’ wanted for murder in Idaho,” he said.

At Central Connecticut Arms in Portland, Connecticut, staffer Ronnie said the shop lost thousands of dollars.

“We couldn’t sell any firearms. It was not a very good day,” he said. “Some customers put their purchases on layaway, which helped.”

The state had another major shutdown just a few weeks ago, Ronnie said.

“We were down for three days. They don’t explain when it’s going to be back up,” he said. “We just sit around here hoping it will be back up soon. It’s a major pain in the ass, man.”

Holly Sullivan

Holly Sullivan is president of the Connecticut Citizens Defense League and serves on the board of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

She said there is growing speculation on whether the shutdown was an effort to prevent state residents from purchasing firearms.

“Unlike other states, FFLs are not allowed to use the NICS system themselves. The State of Connecticut acts as a middleman between the FFLs and the NICS system,” she said.

 

“The state does NICS and state-level checks. Usually, if there’s an IT issue, every FFL gets an email. None were sent on Saturday. This ‘breakdown’ was unusual. Generally, the state will say it’s an IT issue, but they didn’t do that this time.”

Hundreds of Connecticut gun shops were affected, she said.

“This is a symptom of a much larger problem,” she said. “The state wants to control us, but they’re not adequately doing their job. They don’t trust FFLs to do their job. People are denied their Constitutional rights. Let’s say if someone works offshore, it could be months before they get this opportunity again. And besides, Saturday at noon is prime time to buy guns!”

The state has an extreme anti-gun history, Sullivan explained.

“Attorney General William Tong—his hobby is being anti-gun,” she said. “Every legislative session, every anti-gun bill was proposed by Tong. And then he’d bring in his Mom’s Demand action crew. It’s an ongoing problem. Dealers lost a lot of money.”

Neither Connecticut Attorney General Tong nor Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection commissioner Ronnell A. Higgins, whose office is responsible for conducting the background checks, returned calls seeking their comments for this story.

The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.

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All About Guns California You have to be kidding, right!?!

CA: 5 Bad Gun Measures Head For Floor Votes by Mark Chesnut

We reported last month that several anti-gun measures that were still under consideration as California’s legislative session closed remained on track to be considered when lawmakers reconvened on August 3.

Five bad bills clear appropriations — now on to the floor

Now, five of those measures have, indeed, been passed in committee and are eligible for floor votes in the state Senate and Assembly.

According to a legislative update by the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, three bad Assembly bills were passed by the Senate Appropriations Committee and are now eligible for a vote on the Senate floor.

AB 1743 expands the database that leaked CCW holder data in 2022

Assembly Bill 1743 expands the state’s firearm owner data-sharing framework by increasing access to information maintained in California’s Automated Firearms System and related databases.

AB 1753 expands red flag laws under the guise of “clarification”

AB 1753 “clarifies” California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) violation framework by explicitly subjecting ammunition possession to the same hearing and enforcement procedures currently applied to firearms.

“Red flag laws have repeatedly stripped law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights while undermining basic due process protections,” NRA-ILA wrote. “Existing red flag laws in California should not be expanded under the guise of ‘clarification,’ but repealed.”

AB 2047 goes after 3D printers — the same play as New York’s Hochul law

Finally, AB 2047 targets 3-dimensional printers by restricting their sale or transfer unless equipped with so-called “firearm blueprint detection algorithms.”

“The bill represents a broad attack on lawful technology and raises concerns about free speech, innovation and the rights of law-abiding Californians,” NRA-ILA reported. “These concerns are not just realized by firearm owners, but tens of thousands of STEM educators and technology professionals.”

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The new and improved Sesame Street!

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War You have to be kidding, right!?!

Zimmerit A Solution in Search of a Problem By Will Dabbs, MD

Zimmerit was not used on all German armored vehicles.
This early-production Tiger II with a Porsche turret lacks the stuff.

All real men are smitten with tanks. The latest M1A2 Abrams SEPv3 main battle tank weighs 149,000 lbs. and can beat 42 miles per hour on a decent road. Its Honeywell gas turbine engine puts out a cool 1,500 horsepower, while the tank’s 120mm M256 smoothbore cannon will reach out and kill stuff at 2½ miles. The Abrams is the very embodiment of serious military power.

Like many of today’s modern wonder weapons, it was the Nazis who really got the ball rolling. For all their well-documented moral depravity, the Germans during World War II were some undeniably snappy dressers. They also pioneered many of the weapon systems so critical to modern combined arms warfare.

Assault rifles, cruise missiles, and the attack submarine all had their genesis in Nazi weapons research labs. Additionally, it was Heinz Guderian’s Blitzkrieg that introduced the world to the modern main battle tank. Originally designed simply to get troops out of the trenches during World War I, by the late 1930s the Germans had developed the tank into something else entirely.

The Germans transformed the lumbering behemoths of the First World War into the dynamic armored arm of decision. While the Germans fielded dozens of different armored vehicle designs during the course of WWII, it was the vaunted Panther and Tiger getting all of the press.

Realistically, however, it was the humble assault guns, the StuGs and the Jagdpanzers that did most of the serious killing. These turretless, low-slung armored vehicles were relatively cheap. They also lent themselves to the defensive actions that defined the German war effort for the last two years of the conflict.

The common denominator of all those German armored vehicles was a curiously rough external finish. At a glance the stuff looks like drywall mud crudely contoured with a serrated trowel. The Germans applied this material to the steel armor of their tanks before their final coat of paint. They called this weird goop zimmerit.

The Hafthohlladung was a magnetic shaped-charge weapon the Germans developed for use against Allied tanks. Photo: baku13, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia

The Königstiger Tiger II was the biggest, baddest German
production tank of the war. This example was captured in
Normandy and is covered in zimmerit anti-mine paste.

The Zimmerit Story

Zimmerit was a paste-like substance the Germans used to coat their armored fighting vehicles starting about mid-war and extending to the very end. Once set, zimmerit formed a hard, concrete-like covering atop the vehicle’s steel armor. The theory was the rough raised surface would preclude the attachment of magnetic antitank mines.

There were some concerns later in the war zimmerit might actually be flammable and contribute to the destruction of these vehicles in combat, but this turned out to be unfounded. For its intended purpose, zimmerit worked just fine.

The magnetostatic strength of a magnet decreases with the cube of distance. That’s the reason a magnet seems to snap in place once you get it close to a steel surface.

Magnets can be very powerful, but their effect is greatly diminised by range. By applying this rough stippled surface to their tanks, German engineers ensured magnetic mines could not get a firm grip with which to adhere.

Zimmerit began as a thick putty. It was applied at the factory and then flash hardened using blow torches. It was quite durable. Despite the innately rough environment in which these vehicles operated, the zimmerit remained relatively intact.

The vast majority of zimmerit exhibits the characteristic ridged pattern. Some StuG III assault guns had this material applied in a waffle configuration but it was unusual.

The ridged concrete-looking stuff on the side of this German Tiger Tank is zimmerit.

The Weapon

The reason the Germans went to all the trouble of slathering their armored vehicles in this sticky hard goo was the Hafthohlladung. Developed in 1942, the Hafthohlladung was also known colloquially in the German ranks as the Panzerknacker or “Tank Breaker.” This term was a derivation of the same word used to describe a safe cracker. The word literally translates to “Adhesive Hollow Charge.”

The Hafthohlladung consisted of a cone-shaped explosive charge mounted atop strong horseshoe magnets. The standard version weighed about 7 lbs. and was fired via a pull cord with a time delay. In practice, some very brave antitank troops would run up to an enemy tank, slap this thing in place, snatch the little ball out of the top to light the internal fuse, and scamper away.

The Hafthohlladung would punch through 5½” of rolled homogenous armor and was shockingly effective.

The zimmerit on some StuG III assault gun exhibited this curious waffle pattern.

The Problem

The truly curious bit, however, was the Germans were the only combatants during the war to field magnetic antitank mines. The Hafthohlladung was simply a cracking weapon, but nobody else used it. The Nazis went to all the trouble to create a countermeasure to a weapon only they utilized.

With the crystalline clarity of hindsight, every square inch of the zimmerit was utterly worthless — it was never used for its intended purpose, not one single time. War can be a funny thing indeed.

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