Why did they make it look like a bear ?

KILLING a soldier removes one enemy from the fray. Wounding him removes three: the victim and the two who have to carry him from the field of battle.

[editors note: The Russians never had that problem they would just let them die it may have made some difference. More calculating and cruel was the way they would clear a mine field, they would stand the soldiers shoulder to soldier at the edge of the field and march them across.]

That cynical calculation lies behind the design of many weapons that are intended to incapacitate rather than annihilate. But robotics may change the equation.

The Battlefield Extraction-Assist Robot, BEAR for short, is, in the words of Gary Gilbert of the American Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Centre (TATRC), “a highly agile and powerful mobile robot capable of lifting and carrying a combat casualty from a hazardous area across uneven terrain.” On top of that, when it is not saving lives, it can perform difficult, heavy and repetitive tasks, such as the loading and unloading of ammunition.