The robots are practically weapons. Imagine the 4-legged one chasing you down like a large cat could, then pouncing on you. Imagine the 2-legged one with armor, relentlessly stalking you like Terminator.
Consistent usage of dumb tactics is unlikely. The robots aren't going to just run across a huge open field, straight toward the enemy, with plenty of warning to set up a defensive 50-cal gun. They could leap through a window or low-quality wall, in complete darkness, while the target is sleeping.
Enjoy your nightmare. :-)
Armor that blocks a .50 caliber rifle bullet is a completely different story; a Barrett 50 round will go through an engine block. If such a round hit the robot anywhere, it would almost certainly disable it.
Detecting an approaching robot would be trivial with radar, IR (these things have to make heat), tripwires, etc.
Not sure what you mean about "setting up" a 50 cal gun; a Barrett 50 is handheld. Setting it up takes about a second. Although in practice a perimeter would probably be established in advance with robotic guns using closed loop feedback.
My point is that it would be a significant engineering challenge and at least an order of magnitude cost increase to design a BD-style robot to deal with even the most prosaic threats of a hostile battlefield. And the power supply would probably need to be a gasoline engine rather than batteries just for reasons of weight and endurance.
I imagine in the not-so-near future there will be fleets of mini drones seeking out soft targets.
or go to the correct lat/long, given wind and temperature, they can just drop from the sky
https://blogs.findlaw.com/dc_circuit/2020/11/doj-argues-us-c...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/secret-u-s-missile-aims-to-kill...
Seems everyone mentioned it. The 2020 BD spot mentioned it https://youtu.be/s6_azdBnAlU
And guess is explained here : https://youtu.be/iX0wuY0rOvs
As an example of this, many autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) are subject to export control laws. This isn't just because they can be used in an explicitly military manner (one of the most common uses is minesweeping), but because the Inertial Navigation System they use while submerged has enough sensitivity to be export controlled, since that tech can be adapted to be used in missiles. So it's not the robot that's export controlled, but the INS system inside the robot. If you took that out, most of them could be sold wherever. I believe the same thing goes for a lot of satellite technology that's export controlled.
The robots Boston Dynamics build seem to be solving a different problem, the (very hard) one of physical adaptive control in real-world environments, but imho what I've seen doesn't line up with what often seems to the reasoning for assigning an export control label, whether ITAR, EAR, or even CUI, to most of the technology.
To further your point, if the inertial navigation system has low limits for max acceleration and angular velocity (i.e. can't be put in a missile) then it can still be accurate enough for this task without ITAR restrictions.
2019 Finals -https://youtu.be/-o_WYEoxWGY?t=438
Only one needs to get through.
