In simulation, the algorithms demonstrated for doing this do quite well with, being able to complete the mission with a success rate of 97.5%, so long as one has 6 search robots and 3 gun robots.
This did not work so well in real life, partially because real robots are difficult to do with. It is still disturbing though because of the high success rate, not to mention the immediate applicability to robot SWAT teams. As a civilian, I'd be much more concerned with a SWAT AI than a fighter jet AI.
However, robot swat teams are still a ways off.
[0]http://singularityhub.com/2010/03/19/teams-of-military-robot... [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi_Autonomous_Ground-roboti... [2]http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~ssingh/Sanjiv_Singh/PUBS_CONF_fil...
Maybe one day war will be less about killing people, and more of a battle between countries' best engineers.
Maybe I'm just optimistic, but I think robot wars would be a hell of a lot better than real wars.
When two robots fight each other, it's not because the other robot is the target, it's because it's an obstacle between them and the human targets that will actually affect the war.
That is of course assuming that the most efficient strategy to achieve a surrender doesn't actually end up being a bypass of enemy AI and direct targeting of human populations. This would only be possible if there's a huge mismatch between offensive and defensive capability. But then you end up with a MAD situation similar to what we have with nukes.
That said, I expect that the flip-side is that this tech would ultimately make a guerilla war by a local population against an occupying force very very ugly for the guerillas.
So it boils down not to robots killing robots, but robots killing humans, while other robots try to stop them.
(That said I'm less optimistic I guess.)