Russia is to turn its famous T-90 tank into a robot and potentially wants the conflicts of the future to be fought by computer gamers.
A close ally of Vladimir Putin announced this week that the T-90 – a staple of Russia’s army with some 20 years of service – will be refitted so that it doesn’t need physical drivers.
Instead the tank will become the ground-based equivalent of a drone, controlled from a distance by operators in no physical danger.
Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s deputy prime minister, said that the change will mean the Russian army of the future will need to be full of computer gamers – then named online simulator World of Tanks as a potential recruiting tool.
Writing on Twitter, Rogozin linked to a news piece about the T-90 conversion and said: ‘Now we don’t need tank drivers, but World of Tanks gamers’.
Previously Rogozin has spoken of how in future an army manned with ‘bespectacled nerds’ would completely destroy the forces of ‘handsome athletes who fight on a lower technological level’.
The T-90 has been the mainstay of the Russian army but in coming years it will be replaced by the T-14 Armata tank, heralded as the most powerful and flexible in the world.
