New technologies such as drones have remade the battlefield as has been show in the Ukrainian conflict with deadly effect.

However, a new terrifying dawn is coming to warfare - the robots.

Recent People’s Liberation Army (PLA) urban warfare drills suggest that unmanned platforms armed solely with light weapons may struggle to root out enemies shielded in buildings or underground bunkers, wrote the South China Morning Post.

To achieve “comprehensive annihilation”, Chinese military scientists now propose equipping ground robots with thermobaric warheads – weapons of mass destruction second only to nuclear arms in lethality.

This marks China’s first official disclosure of plans to deploy the controversial munitions on unmanned systems.

“It’s essentially a mini-nuke without radiation,” scientists with the National University of Defence Technology said in a People’s Daily article in 2016.

These weapons would detonate into 2,500-degree fireballs and vaporize anything in an 80 meter radius.