perfidy

... is a robotic dog that carries your ammo. At least according to this Wired Magazine report. 

If your conventional, kibble powered fido is no longer adequate to your needs, rest easy; the new model is gas powered, and can carry 50 lbs of gear for a grateful foot slogger. Naturally, much work remains ahead before our soldiers enter battle accompanied by their faithful robotic rovers, spots and fidos. These initial contracts are essentially fishing expeditions for companies hoping for truly large amounts of government butter. Developing walking, let alone running robots has proved fearsomely difficult, so far - but no one doubts that with enough effort, and enough cash, it can eventually be done.

Mindful of the difficulties of creating walking, running and gamboling robots, the Navy is focusing on the development of mine detecting mechanical lobsters, and disembodied elephant trunk repair robots. The Air Force will eventually live up to its nickname, the chair force, when it succeeds in perfecting combat-capable UAVs, probably within a few decades. We already know how to build jet fighters that can perform maneuvers that would kill their pilots, it's simply a matter of developing the software to make them autonomous.

We shouldn't be surprised by these developments. After all, we have been using robots in combat for decades - what is a cruise missile but a simple, autonomous, jet powered bomb delivery robot, and the new reconaissance drones are already at least partially autonomous. So far, though, most military robots have been large scale, and under the control of rear echelon personnel. The eventual advent of robo-lassie ["Robo-lassie! Lance Corporal timmie is hurt! Go find help!] is just another example of the trend in the US military for putting ever more capabilities in the hands of the common soldier.

These are great days.