US Marine Corps may soon use unmanned vehicles to clear deadly mines from beaches before an amphibious assault.

The Crawling Remotely-Operated Amphibious Breacher (CRAB), a submersible remote-controlled vehicle, would be deployed before troops in a bid to minimise battlefield casualties.

According to the Corps recent release, each CRAB would be seen as expendable in the hope current disposal troops would only be used as a last resort.

Currently, the dangerous job is done by combat engineers who use expensive vehicles that are ill-equipped for beach operations.

But, the CRAB would allow Marines to detonate underwater explosives before any manned vehicles passed through for an assault.

Captain Anthony Molnar, a project officer for mine countermeasures at Systems Command said: “We’ll save lives and reduce costs for the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps.”

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General David Berger said it was vital the Corps innovated to make sure it stayed ahead of its enemies when developing new battlefield tech.

He continued: “I encourage experimentation with lethal long-range unmanned systems capable of travelling 200 nautical miles, penetrating into the adversary enemy threat ring, and crossing the shoreline.

“This would cause the adversary to allocate resources to eliminate the threat, create dilemmas, and further create opportunities for fleet maneuver.”

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The document continued: “We cannot wait to identify solutions to our mine countermeasure needs and must make this a priority for our future force development efforts.”

US officials are rapidly developing new tech amid a mounting arms race from China.

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Pentagon chiefs said it needed a massive cash injection to keep the US ahead of its rivals, demanding a stonking £546bn.

These include hypersonic weaponry, which is already being tested by arch rivals China and Russia.

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