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The Shawn Ryan Show · 3 min · Sep 3, 2026
Autonomous breaching can keep dozens of troops out of danger
At African Lion, the 173rd Airborne used autonomous vehicles to provide security and launch a line charge for a breach.
The episode’s best minutes
Full analysis- 50:15DARPA breakthroughs need a company to reach warfighters8 min
- 1:38:24Autonomy keeps vehicles moving when communications fail4 min
- 1:46:10Autonomous breaching can keep dozens of troops out of danger3 min
- 5 more moments in the full episode
“So if you're able to do that with autonomous vehicles, like the way that 173rd Airborne was demonstrating, That's taking, in their estimate, up to almost two platoons, about 40 people out of that extremely dangerous situation.”
Takeaways
- One vehicle provided security while another carried the breach payload.
- The line charge cleared a corridor through defensive obstacles.
- Boots estimates the approach could keep about 40 people out of danger.
About this segment
At African Lion, the 173rd Airborne used autonomous vehicles to provide security and launch a line charge for a breach. Byron Boots says the demonstration could keep about 40 people out of a dangerous operation.
Byron Boots is cofounder and CEO of Overland AI; professor at the University of Washington.
Shawn Ryan, Host · Host, The Shawn Ryan Show
From “Byron Boots - 5 People Could Control an Army of 500 Autonomous Vehicles | SRS #336”, Sep 3, 2026. Watch the full episode
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Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 1:46:13
Okay, so African Lion is an exercise. It's one of the largest exercises in Africa. So it's a place where U.S. warfighters work with partner nations and things like that to essentially train and demonstrate capabilities. We were part of African Lion working with 173rd Airborne. So the 173rd Airborne had two of our ultra vehicles with different types of payloads on them. One vehicle had a Crows remote weapon station with an M240 machine gun on it.
- 1:46:50
Another vehicle had a rocket propelled breaching system on it. And they were using these vehicles for a breaching operation. So essentially what happened was they sent one vehicle forward with machine gun on it providing security. And then a second vehicle was quickly following it, moved to a breach point, essentially applied the payload. So it's an explosive line charge, something like a Miklik if people know what that is.
- 1:47:25
But essentially an explosive rope that gets launched out in front of the vehicle and produces a, it blows up and produces like a safe corridor that can then be proofed with another vehicle. So they're using this to reduce obstacles out in front of the force as part of an assault. And the thing which is really important about this is that it's an extremely dangerous operation. Like when you're doing things like breaching, every area of the defensive obstacle belts are being watched by an adversary.
- 1:48:00
And as you move forward to try to reduce those obstacles, the combat engineers, everyone's targeting them. So even in a successful breaching operation, you're expecting something like 50% casualty rate. So if you're able to do that with autonomous vehicles, like the way that 173rd Airborne was demonstrating, That's taking, in their estimate, up to almost two platoons, about 40 people out of that extremely dangerous situation.
- 1:48:33
You're just sending the machines forward to do that, to work that problem, to create the breach in the obstacle belt, and then they're able to move through. So they're very excited about the technology. But it's just an example of warfighters using our vehicles, putting payloads on them, coordinating as part of their unit's movement maneuver. So pretty exciting to see. This is fascinating stuff. Yeah.
- 1:49:01
Wow. The game has changed a lot. Yeah. 40 years. Yeah. Holy shit.