This 1.9-ton steel arm can spot bombs and lift soldiers out of harm’s way
Meet the Kampfmittelaufklärung und-identifizierung. (Gerd Benndorf/Bundeswehr/)The KAI is the newest tool at the disposal of the German Army—it’s a vehicle with a 33-foot long, multi-jointed, 1.9-ton steel arm. The burly appendage is designed to detect and identify unexploded ordnance from a safe distance. It has sufficient dexterity so that a soldier could use it, and the sensors and tools at its end, to check out what could be a bomb under a bridge or elsewhere, hopefully without exploding it. The unabbreviated German name of the system is almost as long as the arm itself: Kampfmittelaufklärung und-identifizierung, which stands for “ordnance reconnaissance and identification.” It's known simply as KAI. The long arm is carried atop the latest variant of a 30-year-old armored transport vehicle called the Fuchs 1A8 (“fuchs” is “fox,” in German). The 23-ton vehicle itself is well protected from mine and improvised explosive device (IED) blasts and can hit...