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USAF Readies Laser of Death
An anonymous reader submits: "From the SkyNet Terminator Death Beam Dept...The London Telegraph is carrying this article about U.S. military plans to outfit AC-130 Spectre gunships with a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) which can be used against personnel and materiel for lethal and nonlethal missions."
"The special operations AC-130 Spectre gunship, whose conventional weaponry has been used to devastating effect since the Vietnam War, is to be fitted with a laser that can shoot down missiles, punch holes in aircraft and knock out ground radar stations."
IIRC, use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it. Besides, the article only says it'll be (intended to be) used against hard targets.
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
The advantage of laser weapons is that they strike at the speed of light.
This way, we'll put even less thought into decimating villagers and frienly troops along with the meanies. oh goody.
on another topic: the USAF hopes to fit it to a whole range of manned and unmanned aircraft, such as the Predator reconnaissance probe, which is fitted with Hellfire missiles and has been used in CIA operations in Afghanistan.
didja ever wonder about data encryption, wireless communications, etc. with unmanned craft? yipes...
Isn't this the most powerful weapon we're ever going to see on a battlefield?
Think about it. The time to take to shoot down a wing of jets - five of them, say - is five times the time it takes to reposition the laser, fire, and acquire a new target. Maybe a few seconds.
The Airforce might be useless. This would completely change warfare - obselete the modern armor which is dominating the battlefield; make the shield against the laser more neccessary than standard metal plating.
It's scary, guys. The United States Military might become obselete by the technology it's procuring.
Perhaps the concern is over blinding soldiers, not killing them, kind of like with mustard gas of WWI, which would ruin a soldier's lungs, rendering him unable to fight.
But yes, it's funny how you can't shine a laser at someone's eyes, but you'd get a medal for gouging them out with a knife.
How does the mechanism of the chemical laser work? Does the combustion of Oxygen and Iodine naturally cause the lasing effect, or does there need to be a radiation stimulus, just like a CO2 or Ruby laser?
That is the ABL program: A big anti-ICMB laser on a 747. This looks to be quite diferent. This appears to be an anti-Stinger missle solution: Meaning the ability to knock down a missle fired at the plane itself.
Hooray for the spooks!
I don't think that Bush has ignored the Geneva Convention. I do think that Bush has recognized the simple reality that adhering to the Geneva Convention does not make sense in the modern world of terrorism and unseen enemies. How can you expect to defend yourself if you're playing by your old set of rules and nobody else is bound to follow them as well? Simple, you can't.
Now, without getting into a political debate, the reality of the situation is that the Geneva Convention was signed by a group of nations who formally recognized each other and formally agreed (generally) to be bound by a set of "honour" rules of engagement and warfare. Do you see any of the so-called terrorist organizations stepping up to the plate and agreeing to be bound by those rules? Heck, do you see any of these terrorist organizations actually having a majority representation in the countries that they are apparently trying to liberate (or whatever they're trying to do)? Simple answer, no. They know that they can't win by playing by the formal rules of engagement, so they don't bother. Why should the USA allow it's hands to be bound? It shouldn't.
In a nutshell, if you want to hit somebody who's big then you can now expect them to hit back. The rules of engagement have now changed. Good for Bush. He's a dumbass, but a dumbass who's stepping in the correct direction.
pi=sigma{n:0-infinity}[(1/16)^n][(4/(8n+1))-(2/(8n +4))-(1/ (8n+5))-(1/(8n+6))]
I'm not raising moral objections here, but practical ones.
Yes, okay, we now have a laser which really can be used to blow something up. Yippee, us.
The people who spent truckloads of money to develop this turkey naturally want us to deploy it.
Ask yourself: Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more. But it is a Laser (therefore the weapon of the future) and it does work at all.
We could also outfit our ground forces with supersonic vibrating swords. This would work, you could kill people with them. Likewise, giant robots as were discussed in a previous slashdot article.
However, the fact remains that all of these technologies, while Cool, are very much NOT the most effective means of achieving military objectives!
These laser weapons are nothing but a white elephant for defense contractors, who have seen the end of the cold war erode their profits.
The idea of using one of these things to shoot down a missile - which is a very difficult feat even using inherently practical weapons systems - is absurd.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I hate to step into this, but if you read your history and perhaps some papers of the era - the opening years of WW2 were a lot like what happens in many of these countries we're policing. Who makes the US the cop? The American moral compass. We cannot just sit by and let butchers and criminals kill innocents while we play Madden on PS2! WW2 wasn't 'instant global warfare,' it was a lot of small things that grew because noone put them in check. In terms of your comment about pictures on TV - sorry, but the press in the United States is free and they are more often than not the people who discover and air these events (and then bashed for glorifying the activities). So if you believe that the government controls the press - it is you are naive my friend.