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Contractor Proposes Laser Rifles for US Military
The Fryar writes "Well, folks, it looks like the future really is now! It seems the Defense Review has uncovered a submission by Stavatti, a sort of "free market" defense contractor, to the military for a laser rifle. The submission comes in response to the Army's LFLAN requirement - the quest to provide "Light Fighter Lethality After Next" technology, or lasers/phasers/sabers/advanced weapons for use some 20 years down the road. Needless to say, I also considered the category "Star Wars Prequels" for this article."
Now attach them to shark's heads.
Fire the "laser"!
I also here that the BFG isn't far behind...
I'm with it as long as the use Red for one side and Blue for the other just like they did in the GI Joe cartoons. After all, you have to be able to tell who is shooting at you.
Set your phasers to stun gentlemen. -- Captain Kirk
I've read about these things, and unless there is some breakthrough that wasn't mentioned above, the worst this rifle will do is cause a bad rash. The smallest potentially lethal power source and mirro set would fit(barely) into a full size Railroad car. Star wars isn't coming soon without a breakthrough in safe portable high output power and mass production of industrial mirrors. Perhaps they are using Meta-mirrors.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
How do you power a weapon like this?
It must demand huge amounts of electricity, or am I wrong?
Note to self: get smarter troll to guard door.
which humanitarian war will this weapon see the light...
This Laser Rifle? I got one of these stored away with my Power Armor Mk II.
Call me a peace loving hippy but I don't think the prospeect of a weapon thats designed to kill and injure should be put under a category that is about fun and enterntainment (toys).
Alrighty. Lasers as weapons. Sure...I believe that one. I bet they've also got an evil bit to tell you whether the beam should be red or blue/green.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
April Fools day is over right?? So I can read read the artical without feeling like an ass afterwards. No wait.. this is /.! Aw well... Fire the laser!
We've already got these.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
This is a money pit for the government. The problem is the energy.. there's just no way to have that much energy mobile in any form other than chemical (explosive) as it is now. Nuclear would work, but they don't make those in standard NATO cartridges. Yet. I played around with building devices like these, but they didn't make it off the table because of the energy requirements.
The only effective laser rifles are those designed to burn out the retinas of enemy troops, and are easily defended against by regular forces. Nevermind that they're against the geneva convention, but that doesn't stop anyone these days, haha.
Hard to beat plain 'ol hot inertia at mach 5.
..don't panic
Would mirrors be effective?
Hasn't anyone else here used a rail gun before? Oh wait... We're back in reality, oops...
Business \Busi"ness\, n.;
A scam in which all people involved perceive as beneficial...
Two quotes from Austin Powers immediately come to mind.
Of course; "Fire the giant freakin laser!"
But as to the likelyhood... "Riiight..."
Did you vote?
I'm joining the army ;-).
The document submitted to the govt. is dated 7/2/1999 Link to pdf of doc
Jon Bardin
You have to wonder how many shots you will get per charge? I can see it now in the not too distant future, soliders on the battle field firing laser at each other for 5 minutes. Suddenly stopping. Having to spend an hour charging the weapons and then another 5 minutes of fighting :)
Rus
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There has always been one problem for me with laser weapons is that once you cut through your target you then start to cut through what was behind it and so forth for then next hundred kilometers which seems to be a bit of a problem. Though they would be useful for executions cause instead of lining up the people against a wall you line them up in series and take them out in one go.
Checking out my form of escapism.
Just make sure that the U.S. lasers are 'blue' and the enemy's lasers are 'red'
I am the lord of the pun. Dance Knave!
Why? Won't we all be dead at that point?
But hell why not, let's try arming the post-nuclear apocolaypse cockroaches and see what happens.
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Anybody else think thats a little strange? Also, what happens when there's a dust cloud and enemies hiding behind it? Wouldn't that tend to disperse the beam? How lethal would this be? Could enemies protect themselves from it by wearing reflective clothing?
That term doesn't appear in the article, doesn't show up in a Google search and is completely incomprehensible to me.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Granted, let's hope they'll be better shots and not as prone to suggestions from old men in robes.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Call me conservative here, but what exactly are the advantages of a laser weapon over more traditional methods or advancements to traditional ballistic weapons like caseless cartridges? I suppose that lasers *might* be silent and tuneable to different spectral frequencies, but the ballistic method is cheap, portable and quite effective over long distances that most light infantry will be engaged at (100-800 yds).
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The Army has some weird ideas. From COO to the MOLLE replacement that the Marine Corps is fielding since the Molle gear is worthless. Seriously, combat gear that you need a video and a book to put together? The M-16 works. We should keep the M-16 and save our money for training and maybe even better benefits for servicemen.
This guy is way out there
I'd like to see helmets with fricken LASER beams on them. I'd also like to see the troops be trained to be ill tempered.
There\'s no place like ~
Although they are looking at this for 20 years down the track, a _lot_ has to be improved to get to the point that this could be a weapon. Besides, any funding to a product that far away is purely speculative about its potential anyway.
___________
Cheap web site hosting, taco taco, taco taco, i love that ad.
Would you actually be able to kill anyone with a laser unless you were at point blank range or would it just slightly warm them to death?
I bet George Lucas will get a kick back for each one either way.
- Welcome the coming of the New World Odour
They say it to Israel all the time but it never makes the news here. We are going to be in a 20 year war in the middle east that will end us all. Syria and Iran are next.
(If these countries were full of white christians we wouldnt be bombing/invading them)
Now why would they need laser sabres to fight wars in cyberspace ?
is due to a chemical laser basically being a jet engine. So it may work in a fighter plane, where it will provide extra power, but in a hand held, it might be slightly uncomfortable hurtling yourself at the enemy...
Nah! That shit's boring! Lets focus our resources on developing more efficient ways of killing people!
Someone really needs to start an extra-American hyper technology-driven society with some priorities besides war-war-war. Brotherhood. Unity. Peace. Peace through power! One vision one purpose!
Everyone knows that war helps technology along in many ways, although never at first with the safest intent. We discovered nuclear power as direct result of World War 2, and maybe this war with Iraq we're in this will advent a rise of a different dominant technology. Basically what the computer did to the 90's. Well i doubt that extreme, but I doubt there would have been much intrest in this area of research 2 years ago before 9-11.
Posting with out proof reading since 2001.
... rock bands used as tools of war because of their immunity to laser rifles due to smoke generators.
guarded by shiny tanks with lots of mirrors.
If so, quite aside from the relative uselessness of a 1.3mm self-cauterising beam firing for 1/3 of a second ( ZAP! ... "Hey, joey, I gotta small hole in my arm. Hurts like hell, not bleedin' much") what happens if the laser unit itself is damaged? What stops the high pressure container ripping itself apart, taking the bearer with it?
For real comedic effect, they could also blow up their squad mates if too close. Wow... the US military of 2012... blowin' up like a line of lemmings ;-)
Do americans not care about this? I'm real curious to hear if they'd rather see more spending on defence, or the creation of a real healthcare system, bettering education, or even daycare (though I think that's *way* to far ahead...)
Wow - 50s Sci Fi eat your heart out
To facilitate the gasdynamic process and provide the output energy necessary to deliver a lethal mechanism, a high density power cell fueled by Polonium-210 (Po-210) is employed. Use of Po-210, a radioisotope that provides approximately 141 watts/gram of thermal energy through continuous emission of alpha particles, permits
the delivery of the heat energy ultimately necessary to facilitate the gas lasing process.
Now all I need is my sexy alien babe and I am set..
Could I defeat this nifty laser gun by simply wearing mirror chain mail under my clothes and a nice shiney tinfoil liner under my hat? The would help to keep out the mind control waves to!
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
What a stupid bloody name, makes it sound like what they are after is a proposal is
Get a solider, cover in methanol, set on fire, this should not kill him.
After that then cover in dynamite, light again.
Thus resulting in a lethality (is that a word) to the fighter in the lighting after next.
Now a weapon that can identify who is on your side and not let you kill them... now that would be something.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
If this is at all like the movies, we wont be able to hit ANYONE with them. And they'll travel slower than bullets. And be about a half a foot wide and red. And they'll make a noise when going through the air. And they'll cause explosions and sparks whenever they hit anything. And we'll wear big clunky white armor which doesn't even defend against rocks let alone lasers which restrict our movement and cause us to act all stupid and that will be the end of us as they will fly a suicide bomber into the heart of our deathstar and blow us up and it will suck but make a killing at the box office.
Mirrors are much lighter than the bullet proof body armor that they currently wear.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
Games like Unreal and Quake have me reloading my lasers once ever like 20 shots. This sucker can be tactically used for over 60 days before needing a new power cell. Man won't that be cool... our sixth future Gulf War in 2025 will look like that scene in Moonraker where the assault team from a space shuttle tries to take the station.
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Research plasma cannons. I wonder if Saddam is hiding some Elerium 115 with his weapons of mass destruction.
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
Lasers can be created by several things, most commonly electricity passing through certain types of gasses. The primary problem with this design is power - we don't have a portable nuclear power pack yet, and I sure don't want to carry one around and get shot at.
Since you can also get laser power from chemical sources, is it possible to make laser "bullets" that are basically chemical sources with an electronic trigger? Firing them from the gun passes a small trigger charge into the bullet, which lases (is that even a word?) the chemicals inside the bullet all at once - ejecting a large light pulse out the end of the gun at one time.
The bullet is then ejected and a new one from the magazine is loaded into the chamber.
Does anyone know how much power you can get in a short chemical laser burst like this? How large would the bullet have to be to have adequate power?
Any chemical laser specialists out there?
LOAD "SIG",8,1
LOADING...
READY.
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if this article is real...:
-the po-210 element is an alpha emitter hence its not radioactive in the bad way (but its still toxic, and hot as heck). Has a halflife only in the range of a few months, and would need to have industrial production seriously ramped up for it to be deployable in quantity.
-It gave only figures of heat, how much damage could those numbers result in?
-it has a recoil of 90/lbs: to get an idea for comparison, i searched google for m16 recoil statisticts (very tough to find)
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But not in the context of ray-guns.
In one of the newer models of military brilliance, a laser is used to determine the distance between the soldier and (for the purpose of explaining the functionality) an entrenched target.
The soldier need only point the laser to a position above the target, and when the round is fired, it explodes at that point above the target and peppers it with shrapnel.
Personally I don't see the appeal of ray-gun-type weapons, except for science piction purposes. You can get the same job done with traditional munitions that require much less power to operate.
There's a Mercedes gap too. I want one and can't afford one, but it's not government's job to do anything about it.
Anyone else ever love the fact that in Trek, phasers could be set to explode... good thing they kept that in mind on this one. Hopefully they don't overheat in a heavy fire fight, eh? Could give new meaning to the term 'friendly fire'. (And I thought depleted uranium rounds where kinda dumb...)
Reading most of the posts, people are being skeptical of the hurdles needed to be attained for this weapon to actually "work".
But the thing you don'r seem to understand, the military has alot of money, and if they are paying large amounts of it to a contractor so he can do research on viable compact energy sources, it can't be all bad.
Even if we don't see neat weapons, there might actually be some good that can come out this, as this is important research for the next generations fuels/energy that will replace our current systems.
In that sense...If they figure out how to power a lightsaber, imagine how large your laptop battery life will be with that kind of technology.
Just a thought, I am always up for any kind of research funding, no matter how bad the goal is, there are always great things that come out of it, that turn out much bigger than the original intended plan.
Posting useless rant since 2003.
Does this mean that future armor will be super shiny mirrors? Sweet.
A little dialog box appears and says:
"Hello, it looks like you are trying to kill commies. Do you wish to stop the recharge quick cycle? Ok/Cancel/Ignore"
I see my grandson reading Slashdot and he clicks on a post titled "Contractor Proposes Death Star for US Military" from the that's-no-moon dept.
He's reading it....he clicks to enter a post...he posts a link to goatse. Damn. My grandson is a troll.
Your comment about war is true of virtually every country. You can create a similar list for France, the Netherlands, England, and many others. Throw in countries that kill their own people, and you cover the world. And I would guess the people of all of those countries would argue that they are peace-loving. It seems that you are holding the U.S. to a higher standard. All you have demonstrated is that Americans are human.
> which humanitarian war will this weapon see the light...
... this is not about being right or left. It's about having common sense; it's about not taking this fatalist approach and say "Our enemies have weapons, so we need more weapons and more powerful weapons." I embrace technology, but I am not so sure about laser rifle. Suppose fighting a war is absolutely necessary. Let's suppose laser rifle is functional TODAY. Can anyone tell me a compelling reason(s) that, say, Iraq War would be fought better because we have laser rifle today? What's so great about this laser rifle (for anyone except for Defense contractors and their employees)?
I sincerely hope NEVER.
Bill Joy wrote some article and it was published on Wired magazine a couple of years ago. In that, he pointed out the danger of our generation's (in particular, in, what they call, 1st world countries) self-destruction by weapons of mass destruction.
Laser rifle is not exactly a weapon of mass destruction, but it feels like that to me. Now... if I say things like this, people start talking about being right or left, but
The only problems with Laser weapons are that they are illegial under the Geneva conventions, as are any weapons that are designed to permanently blind a person. While it may be possible to skirt the issue by using a non-visable wavelength, targeting becomes an issue... even low power lasers for targeting would be potentially illegial as they could/would be intense enough to harm the vision, OR if they are sufficiently low power, they probably disperse so greatly as to give away the position of the 'shooter'.
Now this is not free bait for trolling, so please do not reply with stupid comments about the U.S. not following the convention as is... this is not about Iraq or GitMo.
_CMK
Bad spellers of the world untie!
Did you guys check the specs on this thing? They propose to use a big cylinder of Polonium 210 as a power source in the back half of the laser rifle.
Could you imagine? And you're supposed to put your head next to it to aim it?
What if your rifle takes a bullet and the Po210 is pulverized and you breathe it in?
And quite frankly, if anyone develops a man portable power source that has enough energy density to run a necessarily multi-kilowatt laser, then we probably have better things to do than send in ground troops with rifles. Robots, anyone?
I saw something the other night on Discovery/TLC (whatever channel it was), they were showing the next 'replacement' rifle. It was a big-effin' gun, it shot exploding ammo as well as the normal stuff. The soldier had to set distance parameters for the exploding stuff, but it looked pretty affective.
My only worry with the newer stuff is the electronics durability in warfare. With the mechanical guns you had to worry about jams, the electronic guns only need a few circuits to fry. I didn't see if it had any redundancy (sp?), I would hope it does.
Sean D.
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Hopefully they will develop blue lasers for the good guys and red lasers for the bad guys (or is it the other way around), just like in G.I. Joe! Also maybe this will lead to more combat with absolutely no deaths! Yo Joe!
....who are going to make those vibrating body arm thingies so you know when you have been hit!
Wars turn into one massive leserquest session!
The radioactive heat source (Po-210) is supposed to keep the tank of highly pressurized (272 atm) gas very hot (2173 degrees K) to deliver 1.9kW to the target 170 times a minute... in a package small and light enough to be a shoulder-fired weapon.
Right.
It probably has an evil bit, too. And a USB cable. And the government will pay for them with the proceeds from the sale of the Liberty Bell. And...
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
And if they can get the Turbo Plasma version, our boys will be unstoppable, even if their opponents have Power Armor... We should annex Canada first.
-Mp
War. War never Changes.
Such a system will probably be initially implemented for long-range sniper teams. Such a team using this particular weapon could move into an abandoned house nearly 3 times as far away as current sniper rifle's maximum range, could fire more quietly, and hopefully would have the distance and confusion to get away. In addition, this weapon prototype is tuned to replace the m-16 as a rapid-fire battlefield meat and potatoes weapon... lazers are more likely to begin its life as a stationary or semi-stationary weapon like machine guns in WW1 or grenade launchers. As an assassination tool, tuned to fire once but be hidden in a pair of guitar cases, it could be quite effective and available quite soon.
Replacing the M-16 seems like the wrong way to begin down the technology curve... More specialized applications like a cartridge-based sniper rifle, truck-mounted anti-aircraft lazers, or bridge / encampment defense lazer positions seem like a more useful... use. Their strength lies in distance, not power, and that is what they should be used for.
The ______ Agenda
Wouldn't it be cooler to put a giant laser in space? Our GI's could just carry a laser rangefinder with a built-in compass & GPS. They do a quick spot on the target, upload the coordinates to the sattelite and ZZAAAPPP! a bit bolt of evil-clensing laser light strikes down from the heavens...
Dupe posts are
Now THIS is why we need the right to bear arms!!
I have _got_ to get me one of these!
Hi,
I did a bit of googling and looking through Stavatti's webpage. In short: they have no sellable products. They are planning to build two planes, called the F-26 and the Sleek. Neither is yet at the prototype stage, however the company claims that there is a computer model of the plane. I'm kinda dubious of their claims, because they list the CAD packages they used to design the model as proof that the planes will fly at all.
In short, I think this is a vaporware company - both the laser guns and the aircraft do not exist even as prototypes. Looking at their investor relations page, I think they are simply trying to trick stupid investors into giving them money.
Posted anonymously.... just in case.
The vast majority of bullets used in infantry combat are used to keep the enemy's heads down until someone can get close enough to kill them. This means you need loud bangs and puffs of dust, so the enemy knows it's dangerous. The only soldier's who rely on sharp-shooting to kill are snipers. On the other hand, I look forward to seeing parading in their mirror suits - it'll be oh so pretty. What baffles me is why they're proposing this as an infantry weapon, and not a large scale version for fighter aircraft and the like, which have they're own power source and integrated targetting systems. This would be lethal in dogfights.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Of the laser gun is Po-210. A milligram of Polonium 210 emits as much alpha radiation as 5g of radium.
To quote LANL Polonium-210 is very dangerous to handle in even milligram or microgram amounts, and special equipment and strict control is necessary. Damage arises from the complete absorption of the energy of the alpha particle into tissue.
The maximum permissible body burden for ingested polonium is only 0.03 microcuries, which represents a particle weighing only 6.8 x 10-12 g. Weight for weight it is about 2.5 x 1011 times as toxic as hydrocyanic acid. The maximum allowable concentration for soluble polonium compounds in air is about 2 x 10-11 microcuries/cm3.
Also polonium 210 is very rare in nature. It is usually produced by bombarding Bismuth 209 with neutrons (typically in a nuclear reactor). In the current form, this weapon is an invitation for radioactive contamination disaster.
Lasers And Their Potential For Tactical Military Use
These weapons have been long under research and development. Interestingly, this paper seems critical of the gasdynamic laser. The paper is nontechnical and relatively brief.
At the moment it is vapourware. If they ever finish it....it will really be vapourware.
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
..is with some Tiberium.
But seriously, could you imagine a bunch of dudes driving around in an old pick up up against an army of Samus Aran like soldiers. It would be no contest. I know I'm thinking waaay into the future. Then again, back in the 80's, laser guns were only seen in cartoons, but is seems they are just around the corner.
What, me Tweet?
Here is the manufacturer's site and the page with the rifle's information. Look down the page for the TIS-1.
Plans for a 'Death Ship', which would attack a large laser onto a ship capable of destroying entire ports, have been presented. The new ship will undoubtedly be the ultimate power in the universe, even greater so than your ancient religions Lord Vad...sckk...*choke*
"I only speak the truth"
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They mention that this weapon can take all manner of current M16 "accessories" such as a bayonet. That's rich for a gun that's supposed to be able to shoot for 60 days. I wonder what happens if you clog the lens with blood then pump a few 2kW pulses thrugh it.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The Navy were experimenting with fairly low-powered offensive/defensive lasers a few years back for carrier defense (the idea being to blind incoming pilots, and possibly seeking weapon sensors also)... unfortunatelty this was deemed illegal under the Geneva Convention.
As to Stavatti, the proponents of this... take a look at the rest of their site, and do a Google. They claim to have not only this laser, but a $36m 5th-generation fighter that will begin full production next year ("F-26 Stalma"), all this from a company with 150 Google hits at all.. hardly Lockheed-Martin. Looks pretty suspicious to me.. lotsa pretty 3d renderings, precious little else.
At 2173K and 272atm, you basically have a plasma bomb. Nevermind the fairytale power source. How will they contain gas that hot and under that much pressure?
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
However, here in Oklahoma Guns and Toys are synonymous. In fact why else would you need shooting ranges, hunting licenses, ... Hunting is a sport, sports are games, guns are used in hunting, therefore guns are toys (albeit dangerous ones).
Secondly, how easy is it to defend against? I doubt many mirrors would last long attempting to reflect this much power, but what of ablative materials?
And forward recoil? If the recoil is produced by the energy creation scheme, could the same scheme be used to power a railgun and have the forward recoil counter the kinetic recoil?
This thing is interesting, but I don't see the kinetic penetrator going away any time soon.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
Dunno if this was just a typo? Can't imagine a typo in a military spec of this type? The design requirement was > 90% at 500 meters. "The TIS-1 is a revolutionary tactical weapon system for the individual combatant that will deliver a first round probability of hit using directed laser light as the lethal mechanism in selectable bursts from 1 to 170 shots per minute in excess of 60% at a range of 500 meters and 80% at 1500 meters."
There are so many things wrong with that the units, and numbers and the basic physics in that article.
The last nail in the coffin (besides several other I can find that just aren't right) is that the power supply generates 104kw of extra heat, that is more heat that most car engines generate, if you guys things laptops chips are hot, this things is many many times worse. The alleged power supply would be
quite adequate to power any electric car, or anything else one wanted to power. I suspect though the power supply (if it actually exists), is probably quite a bit larger (and more expensive) that is actually claimed, ie truck mounted rather than handheld.
Hm, is this whole thing is an April Fools joke ? I can't even tell anymore...
>|<*:=
For successfully referencing both Dr. Strangelove and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in one sentence, very nice!
Will it include a laser scope, or will they develop something even more complex?
The Right Reverend K. Reid Wightman,
A few salient details should convince you this is as close to an April Fools joke as it's possible to get on April 2. If it hadn't been posted on DefenseReview I'd have completely ignored this.
..." like this one. Yep, that makes it likely this could ever work.
t ml
The polonium source is always hot, whether or not it is being used. The article states that "while the weapon is in a storage mode, in essence the system produces 104KW of heat energy." Imagine a bin of these replacement cartridges - it could run a small town. And when in use, each burst (of which you can fire 170 per minute) has an internal energy dissipation of 16.4KW. No kidding. You'd need several inches of shuttle thermal tile just to hold this thing.
The article states "Currently Polonium-210 is only produced in microgram quantities for research purposes at facilities such as Oak Ridge National Laboratory." Yep, THAT'S likely to change soon.
It specs a recoil force of 90 (yep, NINETY) pounds in the forward direction - enough to rip it out of the hands of a soldier. And it claims to be able to sustain 170 bursts per minute, at 0.35s per burst. That's about 59.5 seconds per minute, yanking at 90 lb on a soldier. No human could handle this thing for long.
The article states "Stavatti has not previously, nor is currently involved in an effort to develop a qualified small arm weapon system
Finally, the article is full of spelling and grammar errors.
Just in case you missed the pun, it's a carbon dioxide / nitrogen gas laser - hence the term "vaporware"...
BTW, their web page about this thing is here:
http://www.stavatti.com/armament_systems.h
I think Defense Review got hoaxed.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
this would be a good replacement for that clunky SR-8 in Urban Terror.
for that matter could be for the railgun in QuakeIII as well.
not to mention takin out those pesky squirrels taunting my dogs from the utility poles.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Or perhaps more accurately lightning guns.
I can't remember exactly when, I think it was in New Scientist about 5-7 years ago, but there was a short article about a phaser like device.
There were no pictures but it was described to be about the size of a fridge.
If memory served, it consisted of an ultraviolet laser, whose purpose was to ionize the air between the device and the target. It then dumped a huge electrical charge down the path of the laser.
I've no idea about range etc. I can't even remember if it was designed to be a weapon or not.
Set phaser to "dance like a chicken"...
Like caseless ammunition for infantry weapons -- loads of resources and weight are lost to shell casings. If the shell casing represents 15% of the shell mass, then eliminating it should allow for 15% more ammunition to be carried. More ammunition means less resources devoted to supply lines and more resources devoted to fighting power.
.223 rifle rounds would pack a better punch against hardened targets (buildings, bunkers, vehicles, helicopters).
Better targeting systems. One thing that gave us huge advantages over Afghani forces was our guys actually can aim their rifles -- lots of irregular forces just kind of spray and run, which wastes ammo. An infantry targeting system that could combine small, instantaneous adjustments to windage and elevation to compensate for motion, wind or other ballistic effects on aiming would go a long way towards improving the hit ratio. More hits, less ammo, less supplies.
It'd be great, too, to shrink the kinds of ammo available for the 25mm Bushmaster to be usable in rifles as well. High explosive, incindiery or other types of ammo while larger than standard
Sure, the idea of a military weapon is to poke a hole in the other guy. Lasers are pretty good at hole-poking in lots of objects.
But wouldn't it be more effective to do so with a weapon that doesn't cauterize the wound as it makes it?
-JDF
I have a coworker who was in the army. He has friends who told him how they demonstrated the laser guided bombs in in Afghanistan.
The lasers that they use to paint the targets have a range of several miles and are quite large. When powered, they make a humming sound. When the bomb is dropped, it is done from such a high altitude that you may not even notice the plane and you certainly won't see the bomb falling.
When they demonstrated the lasers to locals, they didn't explain all this stuff about airplanes and bombs. Instead, they would paint the target, the laser would hum, and then the target would explode.
After the demonstration, they would release the local who would return and tell his comrades that we have a "death ray". They would then all surrender without a fight.
It may not be April 1st, but the joke sure is.
/.-ers read before they post (hint: the answer is "all of the above: few")
Check out the site and you'll see it's a monumental collection of military aircraft and other ideas that make Howard Hughes seem like a pauper...
Just goes to show how many
"Could enemies protect themselves from it by wearing reflective clothing?"
:)
In a word, no. Tom Clancy said it best (IMHO) in Cardinal of the Kremlin. "A dancer could pirouette in front of a shotgun and it would do just about as much good. All of that energy has to go somewhere."
Also, reflective clothing isn't too good for cover and concealment
This guy is way out there
Googling for 'radioisotope power cell' gives several sites including:
http://cndyorks.gn.apc.org/yspace/articles/amps.h
which describes such a cell to be used for NASA space missions. On that site: So in order to produce ~2kW, the cells are going to be BIG - and before anyone points out the 15-25 years bit again, even THESE cells don't exist yet, they are still being developed.
Looking at Stavatti's claims - the gas reservoir is therefore going to contain plutonium, and gas at 2200K and 270+ atmospheres.
a) What are they going to make it out of - that can withstand that temp and pressure - and guarantee not to rupture, releasing the plutonium. Never mind the fact that the material will have to contain all of the heat - a 2000K temp gradient - how thick would that need to be ?
b) What sort of idiot is going to want to not only HOLD one of the things, but take it into an environment where it's likely to get damaged (and go BOOM) ?
There are much more sensible ideas out there that Defence cash could be wasted on.
*puts on skeptic cap*
Anyone a little skeptical about this Stavatti corporation? Is it real? Their homepage contains plenty of CG designs for fighter jets "available for procurement in 2005", but isn't it awful fast to go from designs to a federally approved warplane in 2 years? Why are there no pictures of any people or facilities on the site?
Counterpoint: there's a lot of documentation available within the site . . . here. But much of it is marked as 'proprietary'. Why's it here?
I dunno. Maybe I'm just being silly. Just one of those wierd gut feelings.
Did you know I had a skeptic cap?
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
It's the need NOT to carry ammo that makes this weapon appealing. The M16's round was selected because the individual can carry far more ammo in .223 than .308 which makes all the difference in a firefight.
This weapon, while heavier than the standard m16, doesn't require you to lug around 22LBS of ammo, so you can carry thicker body armour, more food, water etc. That's a tremendous advantage in mobility.
Here's the link if you'd like it http://www.stavatti.com/contact.html
IT amazing how the simple things can be the most effective.
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
You sound like the local gang of teenage thugs that always bitch about cops. Every time they see a patrol car they bitch about a "police state" yet then proceed to go vandalize someone's property. Then they have the audacity to claim they are oppressed when they are busted. The problem is the lack of understanding the basics of physics really. Understanding the consequences of actions is not just a moral or ethical thing, it is indeed a common sense thing.
Now get your ass out there and make things happen, unless you just wish to bitch about it. (note: protests by retards only hurt the cause of peace)
Even non-military small arms have come a long way. There are electronically fired rifles that minimize human error, electronic primers, laser sighting, etc.. And they're not that expensive, either. Of course, some things you can't get legally but many rifles are sold that can be trivially modified to enable these extra features. The soldier of the future, at least the night-vision, laser assisted, helmet comm soldier of the 1990's can be equipped today at the equivalent of a WalMart.
... does it make a cool BEEOW!! noise?
Let's see. I've got a $100,000 laser rifle and I'm being attacked attacked by a towelhead with a scimitar. In a sandstorm. Thanks, Rummy.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
....that I see with this weapon is better shooting. With a ballistic rifle (aka: the M-16) you have to account for the arch of the round you are firing. The soldier firing would still have to rely on firing basics, breathing and trigger squeeze for instance, but not having to account for a bullets arch would be helpful.
One disadvantage to a system like this would be laying down cover fire. The adoption of the M-16, by the Army, made it easier for a soldier to lay down cover fire so that fellow troops could move into a better position to engage the target. This weapon system, IMO, wouldn't make a visible or audible cover fire that would force enemy troops to seek cover. That can be a good or a bad thing depending on the tactical situation.
There is nothing inherently safe about liberty. That's why so many people died protecting it.
Blue lasers have much more energy (U=hf) so the blue side will always win!
"Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40-Watt range."
"Hey, just what see here pal.."
"Uzi Nine-millimeter."
"You really know your weapons. This baby's perfect for home defense..."
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
"Phased Plasma Rifle in 40 Watt Range"
"Hey, Just what you see, pal."
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
But hell why not, let's try arming the post-nuclear apocolaypse cockroaches and see what happens
These cockroaches will probably still be using Slackware linux as their distro of choice. It'll be the only Linux that survives. Of course *BSD will still be around too, although it'll be dead.
Exactly how heavy is a bright light on your planet?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Does anyone else see a problem with using a weapon that can be blocked by the shiny side of tin-foil?
I'm sure some here have read ringworld. There's a brief discussion of the difficulties of using a laser against someone wearing clothes of the same color as the laser.
When something is a certain color, what does that mean? It means it reflects light of that wavelength. If the US army were to use it you know it would have a standard color... what's to keep an enemy force from charging wearing surplus santa suits? "AIM FOR WHITE FRINGE! THAT'S THEIR VULNERABLE PART!"
The more the U.S. kills people around the world the more enemies it makes. It needs to kill those new enemies. Better make better guns so you can kill more of those enemies...creating more enemies.
for my Acme disintegrating pistol and illudium q-36 space modulator.
-Marvin
*cough*A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...*cough*
The TIS-1 Gasdynamic Laser Weapon System will
function as a result of gasdynamic thermal pumping of a 10%, 89% and 1% mixture of Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen and Helium gas respectively. Initially contained at a state of thermal equilibrium at a high temperature (2,173K) and pressure (272 atm) within a gas reservoir heated by a radioisotope power cell offering a high energy density, the gas mixture is permitted (upon release of the weapon trigger) to enter a restrictive nozzle throat annulus whereby the gas will achieve local sonic velocity (Mach 1.0). Exiting the annulus, the gas is permitted to enter a supersonic expansion nozzle, consisting of an inverted aerospike configuration.
Sounds like what happens to me (in my intestines, for those of you missing the humor here) after a bad lunch.... Come by my house if you would like a demostration.
What's scarry about this idea (besides the proposed Po energy source and yet another way to kill people when kids outside of the capital don't have food or a decent school) is: The government is going to spend LOTS of YOUR TAX DOLLARS on this crap and companies like this make LOTS of MONEY! We already out gun everyone else on the PLANET, so I can only figure this is to fight off the pending alien attack that Bush must know about and is not telling anyone!
Ok, this thing is going to weigh 15 pounds, use exotic materials, requires the mass production of Polonium, and it produces 104 kW of heat energy in storage. The use of a nuclear power source means throwing away powercells every 60 days even if the device is not in use. That's going to make these things hard to keep ready for use.
But let's say we overcome all of that. Our boy has his laser gun and is out there on the battle field. Let's take a real stretch and say it's a hot and a dusty battlefield (I understand that's happened once or twice). One of the funny things about light is that it likes to reflect, refract and isn't too adverse to being absorbed by things. So let's say we fire, immediately loosing a significant amount of punch vaporizing dust particles on the way to the target. Along the way we hit a nasty, sharply defined inversion layer that refracts our beam to a brand new target. Let's say the new target happens to have a nice big searchlight with a parabolic mirror. Terrible, random things ensue.
This ain't your grandpappy's ricochet.
Somebody's gonna put an eye out.
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
Fortunately, they are apparently focusing their resources on less efficient ways of killing people. Laser weapons? Any decent undergraduate in the physics/optics area could tell you that laser weapons is a dead end. Dispersion will limit lasers effectiveness to such short distances that good ol' chemical propellant weapons will be better AND cheaper. Great for targeting though.
It appears we're quickly approaching tech level 8. Now if they could only get that grav sled finished . . .
The United States demanded that Syria cease meddling in the war with Iraq. The list of demands included that the Syrians quit chrome plating Iraqi soldiers.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The Geneva conventions only outlaw lasers explicitly designed to damage sight or cause permanent blindness - not ones in which blinding is incidental. This weapon is meant to kill people dead, not blind them, so it's all hunky-dorey with the convention.
- Chris
If you look at the "Stavatti approach" page, it's got "Customer Survival" as one of their core values. :)
As a customer, I also value my survival.
A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "Sonic Bullets" as found at:/ sonic _bullet020716.html
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews
Almost certainly the whole thing is a fantasy. Perhaps there might also be a clue in the fact that alongside their advanced aerospace and firearms divisions, they also make drums. From their website again:
Concentrating upon the value added resale of pipe band percussion products, Stavatti can address all your pipe band drumming needs!
Remind anyone of Boeing's Harmonica division, or Lockheed's Advanced Stealth Accordion project? Me neither.Do hand-aimed laser weapons really make sense as a future technology? Fighter pilots already use "gaze tracking" technology to aid in locking on to targets. Apply this to laser weapons, and the future soldier's shots will never miss.
BURNINATING THE PEOPLE!!
Oh wait, that's not funny.
Let's assume this thing actually works, why not simply dress in reflective material? Maybe this would simply reflect the laser beam and render it harmless?
Any firearm can accidentally discharge. It's rare and not an everyday occurance, but it can happen. Woe be to the maggot who drops their rifle during basic training.
Any case, something civilians NEVER realize is that the military accepts CASUALTIES. They don't like it, but they deal with it.
Slightly off topic, but still in the same thought pattern:
Quite frankly, I'm amazed that the U.S. hasn't lost more troops. If I was an Iraqi soldier, I'd booby trap and landmine every fricken room, door, approach, etcetera. Every video image coming back from the field shows the boys kicking in doors, flipping mattresses, etc. Prime places to make someone's day become a shrapnel filled surprise. But, I'm an ex-Combat Engineer, so these thoughts come naturally to me....
I hope that they come home safe.
I thought they need to research laser pistols first??
</BAD XCOM JOKE>
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
Now all we need is someone to develop shiny white plastic armor that looks cool, but is disturbingly inadequate for stopping a laser blast.
- Protocol IV to the 1980 convention
- FAS' take on the same convention
- Comment from the Human Right Watch
The key here is if the weapon is designed for blinding only, or has a function to the same effect. Killing people with lasers is OK, blinding them is not. Capiche?A)bort, R)etry or S)elf-destruct?
I half expected to see airborne lasers used for boost-phase antimissile defense in the current war. I guess it's still too experimental. Then again, maybe they were trying to use it as the primary defense and didn't tell us. It seems like a smart approach to combine this with something like the Patriot missile. If the laser fails, then try the missile.
Also, it's probably not a visible laser, but if you really want to burst your enemy's bubble, there'd be nothing like having him launch his most sophisticated missile, and then seeing a friggin laser come out of the sky and shoot it down.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Laser rifles are only the beginning. Be affraid when our government decides to automate the military. Can you imagine a world class superpower that doesn't listen to the UN and has an automated military under the control of President Bush and VP Chenney? I can.
We're on the verge of an explosion in robotics. I'm not talking robots the size of people. I'm talking mean little fuckers the size of a rodent packing the same firepower and efficiency of our soldiers without the emotional complications. They would seek and destroy anything we told them to and be designed for killing people.
You heard me. These robots will be designed to kill people. Possibly discriminantly. But probably not.
Nah, who am I kidding.
Doesn't Japan still have a cap on it's 'defence' spending.
I know it's still third world in terms of technology, but it seems a good place to start.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Rockets, Brain surgery, psychology, taking land from that natives (cultural expansion).
Where would the US be today without genocide.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Yes, it's the ULTIMATE WEAPON Mr. Bond! MUAAAAHAHAHA!
I've seen plans for these things in the back of my Pop Sci magazine for years...
This is possible and probably has been done. The thing that everyone (media and joe schmoe) don't realize or forget is that it takes a lot of energy to change something 1 degree.
I don't remember all of the calculations from chemistry and physics but the amount of energy required to burn a whole through a person (as lasers are portrayed) is quite significant. Think about your local laser barcode scanner, you could hold your hand in front of that for days and not feel anything.
The problem with lasers is the power required to generate that type of energy. Hence the ones that are developed right now are no where NEAR man portable.
The submission date for the proposal is 7/2/99, this is almost four years old!
I want a laser just powerful enough to kill a fly at a range of about 10 yards. Now THAT would be loads of fun (as long as those wackos over at PETA don't object).
Maybe we're a little behind schedule and these laser guns are a tad unrealistic, but it's really good to see there's still serious effort to make the ultimate killing machine.
Gotta give it up for Honda here too. The P-series robots are pretty slow today, but I'm shouting out mad props to that R&D effort.
Of all the tech needed in our dev plan for the first terminators, the most vaporous is still the AI, but Doug Lenat's CYC project just landed $9M in Total Information Awareness money, so I guess there's hope there too.
Well, maybe we can just skip the laser guns and go Robocop-style instead. Anything to get these things on the front-lines ASAP! There's simply too many radical war-mongering people in the world to not have a Terminators fighting for our <blink>National Security</blink>.
From the PDF (capitalization intact):
A System That is Tactically Superior To All Future Weapon Systems Potential US/NATO Adversaries Will Ever Consider Developing, Derived Solely From US Research/Technology.
Pretty bold claim, eh?
"...Ever Consider Developing..."?
"Ever"? "Consider"?
Maybe those adversaries are just smarter than us. Just one of these things uses 740 grams of Polonium every 60 days? That's 12 grams a day!
I doubt that even by the 15-25 year timeframe this thing is taking about that 12 grams of Polonium will have
- ever
been made.Heh, "Derived Solely From Heavily Fantisized Research/Technology" would be more appropriate.
Gives new meaning to "A thousand points of Light"
I don't know about better shooting. Look at all the aweful shots that storm troopers made. They didn't have to account for ballistic arc.
SCO to Hell
The Terminator: "Phased plasma rifle in the 40-Watt range."
Alamo Guns Clerk: "Hey, just what you see, pal."
No drop, no windage, presumably silent. What more can a sniper ask for?
They should just skip straight to lightsabers.
The recoil mitigator is along the same technological branch as the Heisenburg compensator. The manufacturing process is remarkably simple. All you do is hire a bunch of people to sit on an assembly line and prove "p and not p" over and over, and the mitigators just appear!
Its amazingly stupid that Stravatti, the developer of this nuclear-powered laser rifle, feels the fuel (Polonium 210) is 'harmless' because it's an alpha particle emmitter' ... That is nonsense!!!
ALL radiation can be harmful, depending on circumstnaces! Eg, 'Alpha particle emmiters' are MORE deadly if ingested, for all their energy is absorbed by body tissue, while beta particles' high speed let them escape thru tissue. Alpha's have much more mass, and as their range is short, are indeed deadly in ingested!
Now, just where do you think all this Polonium is going to end up?? yes,, where lead has ended up today : filling our environment with its toxicity! ...so much so that lead bullets are being outlawed..
Harmless?? i think not!!!!
"There are 11 kinds of people: those who know binary, those who don't, and those who could not care less!"
For example, with an M-16, you actually have to "zero" the weapon to your particular aiming style and body geometry. It's a time-consuming and annoying process. Ask any ground-pounder what they'd like most, and they'll tell you a weapon that's lightweight, easy to aim, and packs a punch is where it's at.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Axis of Evil Wannabees
.we're the
by John Cleese
Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil", Libya,
China and Syria today announced that they had formed the "Axis of Just as
Evil", which they said would be more evil than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North
Korea axis President Bush warned of in his State of the Union address.
Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new Axis as
having, for starters, a really dumb name. Right. They are just as
evil...in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il.
"Everybody knows we're the best evils . . best at being evil .
best."
Diplomats from Syria denied they were jealous over being excluded,
although they conceded they did ask if they could join the Axis of Evil.
"They told us it was full," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. "An
axis can't have more than three countries", explained Iraqi President
Saddam Hussien.
"This is not my rule, it's tradition. In World War II you had
Germany,Italy and Japan in the evil Axis. So, you can only have three, and
a secret hand shake. Ours is wickedly cool."
International reaction to Bush's Axis of Evil declaration was swift, as
within minutes, France surrendered. Elsewhere, peer-conscious nations
rushed to gain triumvirate status in what has become a game of
geopolitical chairs.
Cuba, Sudan and Serbia announced that they had formed the "Axis of
Somewhat Evil", forcing Somalia to join with Uganda and Myanmar in the
"Axis of Occasionally Evil", while Bulgaria, Indonesia and Russia
established the "Axis of Not So Much Evil Really as Just Generally
Disagreeable".
With the criteria suddenly expanded and all the desirable clubs filling
up, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, and Rwanda applied to be called the Axis of
Countries That Aren't the Worst But Certainly Won't Be Asked to Host the
Olympics".
Canada, Mexico and Australia formed the "Axis of Nations That Are Actually
Quite Nice But Secretly Have Some Nasty Thoughts About America", while
Scotland, New Zealand and Spain established the "Axis of Countries That
Want Sheep to Wear Lipstick". "That's not a threat, really, just something
we like to do", said Scottish Executive First Minister Jack McConnell.
While wondering if the other nations of the world weren't perhaps making
fun of him, a cautious Bush granted approval for most axes, although he
rejected the establishment of the "Axis of Countries Whose Names End in
'Guay", accusing one of its members of filing a false application.
Officials from Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chadguay denied the charges.
Israel, meanwhile, insisted it didn't want to join any Axis, but privately
world leaders said that's only because no one asked them.
The Carbon Dioxide-Nitrogen-Helium gas that gets released achieves a relative speed of Mach 6 in the process...perhaps that causes the recoil?
If they're really evil lasers will come out of both ends of the weapon. Duh!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
I was just thinking - according to earlier post, the weapon delivers about 600J per shot (.35 seconds). The weapon has a rate of fire of 170 shots/minute. So that comes out to be almost continuous .35 sec bursts.
:)
Now, a 500 mW laser burns through paper
So, we have a ~1500mW laser shooting for about a second. That's IF you keep it trained on the same spot. Your victim is, presumably just standing there. So, in about a second of this wild excitement the target will get a pin-point burn somewhere. A cauterized burn, no less.
So, unless you hit the heart, or eyes, this probably won't do alot for you - you're providing the target's own medical service for them. This is effective for slow executions, though
In other news: Scarvatti is promising to revolutionize warfare with their new "laser-based close-combat melee weapon". Dark cloaks and long hair optional.
boron nitride is still regarded as slightly exotic, using this in harsh environment might be OK but mass production of large scale items are not
storage problems are glossed over, for instance bringing a large number of radioactive items close together requires strict handling rules
environmental damage when a laser rifle breaks is not even mentioned, also militaries are strict about such things. For instance the US navy has stricter environmental rules than the British merchant navy...
reloading the powercell must be reasonably easy when you only have a half life of 138 days.
pressure is immense and boron nitride is not just hard, it is brittle. Protecting against shattering requires a bit more than a little injection moulded plastic. When this high pressure hot gas breaks free it is a good idea to stay away.
wavelangth is 10.6um which means it will be eaten up by the CO2 in the air so useful range becomes limited. This is not described properly.
the large wavelength makes for more diffraction but the opening aperture is not stated.
this wavelength chouce makes locating a shooter relativgely simple, just look for massive re-radiation in the CO2 band.
of course the massive constant power flux from the Po source makes for nice thermal targets too.
this wavelength is not eye safe. No, this is not a joke. The snag is that it can then be construed to be a violation of various convensions of war.
thrust is said to be big, yet recompression is said to be part of the plan in which case most of the recoil should be possible to compensated for. Why is this not mentioned?
and compression takes a lot of power, where does this come from?
the gas expansion is likely to cause a hideous noise and makes for even more simple location.
And so on. I could go on at lengths.
Possibly they never made it off the table because you don't understand the concepts behind making a high-powered laser rifle.
The next phase of major research project designed to produce very short pulses of light over a million, million, million times brighter than a household bulb has been given the go-ahead. [snip]
(Keep in mind that those are British millions.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Sand. Yes, sand. Cast it to the wind, let the enemy (with their cool new laswer thingy) try to shoot through that. Oh, wait, it failed? Gee, didn't see that one coming.
Keep with the OICW. Better idea, better weapon.
Has this company ever actually produced anything? After looking at their website I would be suprised if they've ever had an actual contract. not to mention that I couldn't find a photo of any products that they've created. I've been working DoD for a while, and can attest that going from "wouldn't it be neat if..." to actual implementation is a long, long road. And that's for companies with proven track records.
Recoil mitigation? On a Laser weapon? I don't get it, where does the recoil come from.
This weapon is pushing a gas mixture from a tank
under pressure through a valve at mach 1.0, allowing
it to expand in a chamber and accelerate to over
mach 4, then redirecting the flow back to an
electric pump that puts the gas back into the tank
it started out from in the first place. The whole
process taking about 40ms.
Really, I don't see a need for this kind of weapon. I don't see it being as effective as our current rifles, unless this is intended as an anti-vehicular weapon as opposed to an anti-personel weapon.
You'd have a weapon that depends on the half-life
of it's heat/energy source, need no ammo ever,
that works at light speed, delivering 170 shots
per second in a 1.3 cm beam contantly for 6
months before needing recharged. If you don't see
that as being more effective than our current
rifles, you obviously didn't read the article.
Each shot would have significantly more energy
than say, a nato 308. The only thing this weapon
won't replace (until they make a bigger one) is
some of the larger 50 cal stuff that's good out
past 3000 meters.
The only use for this I see, would be a no-recoil sniper weapon, using precise shots to the head or heart. But then there's that odd "recoil mitigation" hurdle that I still don't understand the cause of.
Once again, if you had read the pdf file instead
of writing moderation friendly tripe, you'd
understand.
I guess it comes down to the fact that there is too much we don't know about what the weapon will do.
Unless we read the article, yeah.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
How can somebody rate something intresting that's so full of shit? First, we are NOT the only ones to use landmines. Second, we are NOT the only ones to use cluster munitions and third, how is the use of uranium delpleted shells, mostly used in anti-tank applications, any more "inhumane" than a rocket or lazer guided bomb!?
That's right, keep modding up the troll....
You need a FREE iPod Nano
has anyone noticed that the rifke looks similiar to the one used by the snowtroopers on hoth....sorry had to point that out.....
Yes! Finally a gun worthy of Danny Vermin!
what? what I thought we were in the trust tree in the nest, were we not?
So when is the mighty industrial combine that is stavatti going to have time to finish working the bugs out of this gun? After they complete their first sale of their F-16 replacement? Or maybe when their supersonic stealth bomber, is in "advanced development"? Or how about when the prototype supersonic sea plane/executive bizjet flies? My money is on just after the sale of the 100,000th Moller flying car hits the skies. But that's not bad for a defense contractor based at a Minnesotta general aviation airport founded during the sophomore year of a kid with a bachelor's degree
The way a high-powered rifle like the M4/M16 kills isn't always through the puncture wound itself. There are many factors:
1) the bullet directly damaging whatever it hits on the way in
2) the bullet richocheting off of bone after penetration and damaging other organs
3) systemic shock to the body from the the wound
4) the kinetic shockwave of the bullet hitting the victim, which disturbs the functioning of all nearby organs even if they're not hit
With a laser weapon, you'd only get #1 and the only way that'll work is if a soldier could hit the heart every time. Not even the best special forces snipers can do that, let alone a GI that's scared shitless in the first place
And how's that sattelite missile defense laser system going? Have they found a way to overpower that to destroy small nations?
The other day I read an article talking about how the star wars empire wasn't all that bad, they just wanted peace... at any price. Kinda reminds me of the current administration.
I still think Donald Rumsfield kinda looks like Grand Moff Tarkin.
In this case, the customer is the government. That's why they are called government contractors, and not citizen contractors. And, yes the government contracting market (by law) is pretty damned free. Anyone is free to bid on upcoming contracts. If you have a small company, there are a number of SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) contracts available every year, from every department related to the government. The linked SBIR page is about NASA's SBIRs, but there are literally a total of thousands available from DoT, DoD, NIH, NIST, NIMA, etc. If you're a big company, then you go through a similar, yet more formal process to bid on contracts. As is the case with most government-related things, there's more paperwork to complete, and in some cases due to the sensitive nature of the contract, you might be required to have some level of security clearance before you can bid, but other than that it is really wide open. I happen to know of a few recent large contracts that have been competitively bid on by very small companies, so small businesses are not just limited to SBIRs (which are capped at $1M, I believe).
In relation to your statement:
You clearly don't remember history class in high school, or maybe you didn't take it yet. We live in a republic. We elect representatives to make key decisions for us...that's the whole point of a republic. If you don't like the decisions being made, well, that's the citizen's fault for electing a bad decision maker. You are perfectly free to vote, write letters to your representatives, write articles in the newspaper, put up a blog, participate in protests and rallies, and bitch and moan on /. to express your opinion. But please don't complain that you are being coerced and that you have no choice, because you do.
"A plawsma rifle, inna fowty wott range?"
"Just what you see here, pal"
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
That would require an amazing amount of government surveillance to ensure that we were all seeking the same purpose. Fortunately, the US was founded on individualist principles which make it next to impossible to completely fulfill your "Slavery is Freedom" vision. However, if you're going to really do the job right, you're going to need the right weaponry, such as laser rifles, to point at the people that would rather pursue their own dreams instead of yours.
h p
I know that you're going to be shocked by this, but many Iraqis are opposed to your vision, and are thankful that the US military is able to squash the tyrant and free their homeland. If war accomplished nothing, slavery might still exist in the Confederate States of America, the French would be German, all of Korea would be under Kim Jong Il's control, and Kuwait would be part of Iraq.
From http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0314/hentoff.p
[QUOTE]
In The Guardian, a British paper that can hardly be characterized as conservative, there was a dispatch from Safwan, Iraq, liberated in the first days of the war: "Ajami Saadoun Khilis, whose son and brother were executed under the Saddam regime, sobbed like a child on the shoulder of The Guardian's Egyptian translator. He mopped the tears but they kept coming. 'You just arrived,' he said. 'You're late. What took you so long?' "
[ENDQUOTE]
The same article goes on to say:
[QUOTE]
The letters section of The New York Times is sometimes more penetrating than the editorials. A March 23 letter from Lawrence Borok: "As someone who was very active in the [anti-Vietnam War] protests, I think that the antiwar activists are totally wrong on this one. Granted, President Bush's insensitive policies in many areas dear to liberals (I am one) naturally make me suspicious of his motives. But even if he's doing it for all the wrong reasons, have they all forgotten about the Iraqi people?"
[ENDQUOTE]
Stop rioting for peace through appeasement, and help free the Iraqis, so they can have the medicine, food and peace that you and I enjoy and take for granted. The protests do nothing but boost the morale of the tyrant who is preventing the very vision you lay out of peace, feeding the hungry and curing disease.
Advantages:
Accuracy and low noise (I'm assuming it'll be relatively low noise) Wind and gravity will have basicly no effect on this weapon.
Disadvantages:
Very Toxic (I guess putting depleted uranium all over everything wasn't bad enough), the heat produced, EMP vulnerability, expense (doesn't sound very cheap to me at least,) and I don't think it would have a high firing rate (I really don't know, though.)
So... sounds it'd be great for special operation snipers, but complete arse for ground troops.
-Derick
I does sound like something Cleese would write, but it was written by Andrew Marlatt.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
the gi joe saturday morning cartoon used laser rifles solely due to the convenience for the artists and sound editors. projectile (bullet) weapons can't be animated with the concept coveyed as easily as drawing a colored line (which you would not see from a laser weapon anyways but...).
www.amazing1.com - they'll sell you anything you need, if you think you know better. If you're intelligent though, any math done beforehand will tell you you're not going to compete with 1/2mv^2.
..don't panic
Is that you could instantly kill anything that comes into your Field of View. Just like the Airborne laser, a laser gun could have a mirror that reflects a laser to kill any target that the system detects. All it would need would be sensors (visual, audio, etc..) to determine where the targets were and quickly rotate the mirrors and fire.
Swat teams have those wands to see around corners, what about weapons that can fire around corners like that? Automatically, that kill as soon as they detect them.
You wouldn't need cover fire anymore, because targeting could be near 100%. The operator of the weapon wouldn't even need to be able to see.
( This is why it's stupid that phasors in star trek miss. How can they possiably miss when the phasor could easily detect and kill/stun anything in range )
Well since Dr. Evil always wanted lazers for his sharks well now he gots his chance. I still think that the US Army should use the wepons that you would see in Star Ship Troopers or in Quake 3.
There are two things that make field laser weaponry problematic. One is the power, as you mentioned, but chemical reactants are a good bet. The second is dirt - if any dust or grime gets on the exit mirror, it will heat up and damage the mirror, maybe even explosively.
I'd been thinking of how to get around this for a while. I think the answer is cartriges. Two chamber cartriges, one with one of the gasses and the mirror elements, the other collapsable holding the other gas which reacts to cause the lasing emission. When fired, the cartrige is physically compressed to mix the gasses (maybe an initial stimulation would be needed - something like those disposable flash bulbs?). The external mirror would be protected by a plastic shell that would be physically cracked or popped off by the same motion that mixes the gasses for firing.
I bet you could make them cheap and reliable enough to be used like bullets. The only question is how big would you need them - they might not be small enough for hand-held guns.
oh by at least 8 years
Each pulse is supposed to produce 1.9 kW for 0.35 s. Not a heck of a lot of energy. Imagine, for ballpark estimates, turning on your hairblower (ca 1.2 kW) for half a second. Okay, so you train that energy on a small spot (say 5 mm at the target, accounting for atmospheric dispersion). Sure it will get hot. Might even cook flesh. But drill through metal? Explode a tank? Um ...
My vote is: Hoax.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
I really think the prospect of such a weapon is quite scary. Look at the kind of devastation gattling guns and artillery did in WW1. This will do the same to a battlefield sometime in the future. It makes the average solider many times deadlier and is just going to result in massive carnage. Such things should not be the focus of weapons developers. The only advantage I can see is that the fuel/ammunition will decay, thus meaning these weapons aren't left lying around to be used in future conflicts.
... can it kill a guy who's slowly evolving into a god?
Miko O'Sullivan
...for the victims of such force of progress.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The OICW was my first thought, too. A decent intro is here for the interested. Love the URL. :-)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
A fieldable caseless ammunition for small arms is likely farther off engineering-wise than the laser is. It is extremely hard to seal of 60,000psi of gas pressure, which is the primary function of the cartridge case. The very early breechloading rifles were caseless, with the first model of sharps as an example, you pushed the bullet into the front of the chamber, poured powder in behind it, and then used a percussion cap to fire. In order for caseless ammunition to be mechanically successful, you have to provide for gas containment, cartridge handling (it can't fall apart in the action or when it gets wet) and you have to be able to extract a dud round from the chamber in case of a misfire. The H&K G11 was a good attempt, and was a great prototype, but was not good enough to pass any trials for a issue military rifle. Aluminum or steel are viable options for a cartridge case, and possible even a plastic/metal composite case. As for the weight reduction issue, there are much easier ways to reduce weight for the infantry soldier, compare the packs the infantry use to any of the higher-end civillian internal frame backpacks. The military should take lessons from backpackers, many of whom are almost psychotic about weight savings (cutting the handle in half on their toothbrushes to save a half an ounce is a great example).
.223 has proven to not be enough gun for the job when you have fanatics overruning your position. Add to that the proliferation of modern body armour for soldiers and we are facing a caliber change. A .223 is not enough rifle for the job, and we have soldiers dying because of it. Go back to a .30 caliber and use sabots and a tungsten sub-projectiles at 4000+ feet/sec.
There is likely to be a change in military doctrine and equipment in the next few years following experience from Somalia and Afghanistan (and Iraq) fighting irregular forces. The military theory of wounding instead of killing doesn't work against these people, and the
The laser rifle is also a great idea, but it would be easily defeated by anti-laser aresols and similar techniques (this is classic military sci-fi here).
Forget the Bradley and it's popgun 25mm...sell them to somebody we might shoot at in the future, and buy Swedish!
http://www.wendel.se/rswa/strf90.htm
40mm Bofors(300 rounds a minute) vs 25mm Bushmaster(200 rounds a minute)....very low profile for better survivability, and it drove itself to the trials in Norway when the Bradley and the British Warrior got stuck on the same road and had to be towed! Add to that a dedicated anti-aircraft version and you have much better vehicle than the Bradley.
http://www.wendel.se/rswa/lvkv90.htm
(the fourth pic is a great action shot, and for reference those empty cases in the air are a foot long and 2" in diameter, makes the bushmaster look puny)
1. When the pin is pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.
Human Evolution consists of at least 5 million years (from the moment there were appe like creatures that started to try to walk upright).
One of the most common traits during the history of humanity is cooperation. Cooperation between human groups is what gave us huge advantages: the young taking care of the old, and that way preserving knowledge for longer, the childless protecting the childs of others increasing the chances of the species as a whole, you name it, you are human so you can find more examples like this.
It is only when we compete for scarce resources that we turn against each other. The problem is that we are being so succesful that the groups tha lose a showdown can't just move to a different lace and prosper there.
We exhibit the same kind of violent behaviour as those rats that were allowed to overpopulate in a controlled experiment. All went pearshape: violence, carelessness for the young, killings and in general mayhem.
Evolution guided us trhough a bening path, it is only our own success and the finite amount of resources in this planet that has determined that we kill each other, but that is not pre-ordainde, if we were wiser we may decide to let the steam off by means of using our brain to go back to our communitary roots as a species.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Seriously, what part of gasdynamic LWS providing LFLAN capability with a Polonium-210 thermal source pumping an STC-catalitic-converter-stabalized CONHe lasing cavity through a supersonic aerospike expansion region following a constricting annulus do you not understand? ;)
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
isn't there already a non-leathal weapon in experimentation that uses highly focused microwave pulses to inflict pain on hostile forces by giving them 1st and 2nd degree burns on small parts of their body?
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Or have several barrels for the weapon and swap barrels after every Xth belt or so, leaving the hot one to cool down while you heat up the second one...
You mean like the Germans did with their MG42s back in WWII?
Let me see: 1.9Kw pulses which last 0.35sec each = 665 joules per pulse = about 160 calories. So it only hits hard enough to warm about 6 oz of coffee by 1 degree, unless my math is off. If you can land all 170 pulses/sec on the target you might start doing damage, but I doubt you can...
Now compare that to the downside -- the weapon, when not in use, radiates its unused energy as radient heat, requiring a liquid cooling system to protect the user. But that means the weapon will GLOW on infrared, making the soldier an easy target for anyone with an infrared vision system. And they dont discuss the hazards to the soldier should the weapon become damage and the high pressure gas chamber rupture explosively.
It's intriguing that they found a way to make a self-container lazer rifle, even if they did have to assume a ready supply of radioactive powercells to make it work. But other than a toy or a model for discussion it fails.
Nevermind the main problem -- aiming... Exactly how well can you aim at a target 2 kilometers away? They ignore this problem by dismissing the tareget's ability to dodge from their instant beam. But if I can't hit him in the first place, that does no good. Sure, maybe with a lazer sight, but that can announce your presence and cost you the first-round advantage you were trying to get in the first place.
Each Laser rifle will be shipped with a Baseball Bat(tm) as a backup device. =)
..is a definite drawback.
What a cracksmoked idea.
Shock and Awe!
I first played with the prototypes for these weapons years ago.
> This weapon system, IMO, wouldn't make a visible or audible cover fire that would force enemy troops to seek cover.
p ons.html, among others.) The sound should, however, be much less directional, which could help prevent locating the shooter, and apparently techniques might exist for minimizing the sound and "here I am!" line pointing to the shooter.
Incorrect, actually. High-powered lasers are visible - they heat and ionize the air they pass through - and audible - the super-heated air rushes away and then collapses back into the beam path with a crack.
(See http://www.geocities.com/area51/stargate/8594/wea
A more serious concern would likely be fragility of the weapon - not only is it full of potentially delicate electronics, this one has very high pressure (200+ atmospheres), very high speed (mach 6) gas and a toxic, highly radioactive power source (alpha is still dangerous when the weapon breaks open). Breaking one of these could be more dangerous than the original attack itself!
Reading the white paper, this thing isn't going anywhere. Here are some likely deal-breakers:
1) Each gun requires 1.5 pounds of Polonium-210. Current production of Po-210 is expensive, tricky, done only in research labs, and about a billion times less than is needed for one gun.
2) The gun's _already_ bigger and heavier than the M-16, and "Stavatti estimates significant weapon weight increases as the system is developed for field use." Taking away manufacturer phrasing, that means it'll be too heavy for an infantry rifle.
3) The gun delivers _90 pounds_ of forward recoil when it shoots! Not infantry.
4) The gun pumps out over 100,000 watts of heat, which is enough to boil an ounce of ice _per second_! Not infantry.
5) Beam power is 760 watts/cm^2, or 250 joules/cm^2 for a 0.35s beam. 250J on a cm^2 is enough to vaporize flesh to a depth of 0.1cm, which is hardly a dangerous depth. Explosive damage from the vaporized tissue is unlikely to be an issue at this energy, due to the elastic nature of tissue - the best estimate I've seen is 100 times this energy would be needed. Frankly, I don't believe the white paper when it calls this "lethal net beam intensity".
6) Beam time is 0.35s, well below human reaction times. This would completely remove the lethality of the weapon by smearing the beam all over the place at the target's location. A miniscule perturbation on the shooter's part - which is unavoidable for humans even at the best of times, much less in combat - of 1 minute of angle would result in smearing the beam over a 6-inch track on the target, reducing the energy delivered from 250J/cm^2 to more like 15-20J/cm^2. This would vaporize less than a millimeter of skin - at best - and is unlikely to be more wounding than a skinny sunburn.
Not only is this weapon almost certainly technically infeasible, it's not "superior to all future weapons systems potential US/NATO adversaries will ever consider developing" - it's practically useless.
Are we sure this isn't a mis-dated April Fool's article?
The text of the article clearly states that this rifle generates 90 lbs of kick. This comes from the expansion of superheated gasses at ultrasonic (>1900mph) speeds. I am also guessing that this would make quite a large noise also (not quite the quiet sound from movies).
Like pi? Try 10,000 digits.
Traveller's personal laser weapons used either clips (with chemical combustion charges to create energy, as you suggest) or backpacks power sources that needed to be recharged. (Which you could accomplish by hooking up to any craft or ship power source.)
I suspect the largest problem isn't the potential needed, but the current needed. And, yes, lase is a word.
Does this mean we can soon see small bits of laser fly through the air?
Wasn't April Fools Day yesterday? I can't believe they're serious about making this thing. Getting gov't funding to support R&D, maybe, but how could anybody believe this will become a practical weapon?
My concern is that each weapon has a untra-high temperature and pressure gas container on it. One imagines that rupturing that container would be sufficient to take out the whole squad.
So does the Springfield 30-06. Going on a century old, and still as accurate and lethal as anyone needs. What it lacks is the full-auto, spray lead all over the place mode. That (and its potent recoil) are the reasons for adopting smaller caliber, full-auto weapons such as the M-16.
It's a little late for first-person "experience" of World War II. (Closest you can get is something like "The War 1939-1945," edited by Desmond Flower. Amazing book, mainly because it's almost all first-person accounts and it includes any perspective you can imagine.)
If WWII is your model, doing a Google by "D Day" and "invasion of France" has just got me around 5,000 hits.
For a party that makes a big deal out of not being "politically correct," our R'pubs do seem to have a problem saying this word all of a sudden. Iraq's another sovereign state. We may have all sorts of legitimate reasons for doing it, or not, but sending troops into another state to depose that state's government is being called an "invasion" by sympathetic sources like The Japan Times and unsymathetic ones like This Singapore newspaper.
Lord, how Orwellian we're becoming. "Liberate" is okay, but "invasion" isn't? Can I say "war" or do I need to say "police action" -- because we're supposedly enforcing the resolutions of the body that was so divided over whether we should do this? C'mon, give me some guidance here -- I'm not sure how to adhere to the party line. Re-educate us, comrade.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
that carrying around a laser pointer will not only get you in trouble at the movie theater...
During the good old Cold War, things were more clear. The bad guys all had AK-47's and PKM's and MiG's. Only the friendlies (well friendly at the time; never mind about Iraq and Afghanistan and Iran) had M-16's and Stingers and Hueys. What we need now is another superpower to rise as our mortal enemy so we can have another arms race. That way we'll always know what side everyone's on by what weapons they have.
I know very little about the physics of lasers but wouldn't opposing troops just need a really shiny mirror to reflect the laser back at the rifle?
The laser has very few electronic parts, and all military electronics are hardened against emp weapons. Did you seriously think a bunch of 2 bit slashdotters are going to think of something that a government military contractor hasn't?
what sig?
Yeesh. A day late and $10 billion bucks short.
Seriously, Don't take anything I say seriously.
You have to remember that an explosion is nothing more than a rapidly expanding hot plasma, which is what a sufficiently powerful laser beam will turn the material it hits into. Of course there won't be any explosions if the beam doesn't hit anything (unlike the original Star Wars which showed exploding "laser" beams in a vacuum)
Debunking the "59 Deceits"
I think he probably just meant to say "free agent". But thanks for the diatribe.
God will give a new weapon in hands of the truthful
that will help to defeat sons of devil.
Osama
Seriously - does somebody thought what
impact this would have on guerilla
fighting ?
Delivering death at the speed of light
Quitely
Especially dangerous for airplanes.
No more problems with RPGs missing planes!
Even when first try is a miss one can very quickly
adjust beam on the target.
Yet another weapon the Americans can add to their tally. I suppose you can expect this sort of crap from a country that spends 50% of their tax dollars on war.
I'm sure glad those Americans are so charitable they are out there to 'protect my sorry arse' from all the nasty terrorists and such.
The wavelength is listed as 10.6 micrometers, outside the visible spectrum. It's in the infrared range, just before the start of microwaves. I don't see the dispersion listed, but it claims little dispersion over 1500 meters, just under 1 mile.
No doubt he has already signed a pact with the Sectoids. But, we have Autocannons with HE Ammo.
Coincidentally, the coalition strategy in this war seems to be the same as mine in X-Com. Rather than searching the building, just blow off the exterior walls and look inside.
Did any of you anime fans notice that it looks like the rifle used by the Valkerie fighter when it's in batteloid and guardian mode? If they actually build it, they should build battle mechs to go with it. That would be the way to get me to fight in a war, let me drive a big robot.
I guess you can then use mirrors to deflect shots then...and it can bounce right back at you.
The permanently-on radioactive power supply is stated as being in excess of 100 KILOWATTS per weapon. That's rather hot. You wouldn't be able to stand near the weapon, let alone pick it up. A soldier would give away their position by virtue of bursting into flames.
Does no one else see a problem with carrying around a large gas cylinder full of fiendishly hot gas at stored at 270 odd atmospheres?
Fuck the laser rifle. Where's the God damned orgasmoball?
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
I can tell you that: Germany does NOTHING to maintain or even improve its military. Yes, it sits on his butt and wait till others help them out on their humanitarian crusade. I can tell you the truth because of two things: I am a German and I've experienced the "Bundeswehr" live and in full color doing my military service 2 1/2 years ago. 30% of the military equipment was out of service due to defective parts.
The rifles were of piss poor accuracy due to extended use for 20 years with no replacement barrels.
The blank cartridges used for combat training had 20% failure rates, more than 60% of all cartridges we used in combat excercises had problems generating enough pressure for automatic firing.
Out of ten tanks our battailon had, only 3 were still functional, because spare parts as lousy as o-rings were missing and not in stock.
Same with the troop transports, private contractors - holiday bustravel firms - were used for bringing us from barracks to shooting range and back.
Food was terrible. Really.
The machine guns in USE by the Bundeswehr are almost exact remakes (with more plastic) of the famous MG42 and MG34 used in WWII. Yes, they are cool, nevertheless. And *only* 15-20 years old. The real ones from grandpa were carried away by the Sowiets. But hey, never change a winning team
Private contractors were sometimes hired for guarding barracks. Ammunition supplied for the guards were too old to fire in some circumstances and too worn out by extended loading and unloading to hit the broad side of a barn at point blank.
Every building was old and worn. My 3yr old wristwatch was among the most sophisticated pieces of electronics in the entire battailon. Only my neighbours 486-dx50 was more advanced, enabling us to play Doom as, hmmm, Tactical Training in our spare time.
The drill instructors had clearly watched too many war movies and were quoting Full Metal Jacket whenever possible.
Most of our compasses very much disagreed on where north should be when trying to use a map out in the field. Majority ruling then proved to be correct once again.
I can't stress enough, that the excercise ammunition JUST DIDN'T fire in 10-20% of the cases and it almost never triggered the repetition mechanism like they should. Good ol' Karabiner '98 Feeling (tm) I can say
Medical supplies were so freakin old (though we were supposed to be the medical unit!) , the "sterile" bandages had a "best before 1990" printed on them. That was in 1999 and they have a shelf life of about 5 years...
We were supposed to have some entertainment building, equipped with a rudimentary movie projector, amplifier, speakers etc. - needless to say that only one speaker was still in service.
One copier for the staff. 10 years old, as a minimum. Had to refill toner from the toner waste compartment to the reservoir, because new toner was too expensive. As the 10 yr old fax machine broke up, the staff sergeant cried in pain as they had to actually BUY something new and more expensive than anything else. But they still had a telex machine and USED it regularly. (but it's printing ribbon was redyed so many times that its fabric was getting loose)
And the best:
DIN A4 sheets of paper were MANUFACTURED BY THE SOLDIERS from old maps, because the unit had no money for even budget variants of plain paper.
Sorry for the Bundeswehr, but they couldn't even defend Germany against Krusty the Clown. Polish cavalry could now fulfill their 1939's claims to reach Berlin in 1 week if they tried.
It's not that the comments aren't in there, because /. definitely has its intelligent readers, but they'll never be seen because someone decided to reference a no-longer-obscure 80's movie without actually making any kind of 'joke' of their own.
sic
What a waste of time and money.
I think that we should develop this as infra-red, then release open-source plans to the enemy in green then go out in the field and pick em off one by one. The green lasers would point out the location of every enemy when they fire. :)
THE WORLD IS GOING TO END!!!! eventually.
"...we will continue spending money to make sure we are not the next Carthage, Phonecia, Ottoman Empire, etc>"
Too late. The decline of this empire has already begun.
Looks like it already happened! (see photo)
Does anyone know why this kind of weapon would actually be useful? HM!?
seriously, what advantage does it have over a conventional weapon? (read: bullet)
besides.. if mirrors capable of fitting in a gun are possable to manufacture, doesnt that mean body armor could be made that would be light and make you impervious?
Frankly the whole thing seems rather stupid!
No kidding. The only actual "working" chemical laser weapon the US mil has admitted to having is mounted through the length of a 747 :-)
Freedom: "I won't!"
Future Headlines:
"The police found a laser gun near the scene of the crime but cannot know if it was the gun that fired the lethal shots. There are no projectiles left at the scene, however, the victim looks like swiss cheese".
Namaste
I think that statement is completely nuts.
Thoughts like that are predicated on the fact that the USA is the only warlike group out there, and the rest of the world is not warlike in any fashion, and simply reacting to each other. If you look at the history of any region of the world at any time, that pretty much sinks that opinion.
The more the U.S. kills people around the world the more enemies it makes. It needs to kill those new enemies. Better make better guns so you can kill more of those enemies...creating more enemies.
Is that the mothership I hear calling you home? Someone please fetch me the clue bat.
It is human to hate the other tribe. Human nature creates enemies without any political concerns whatsoever. We've been more adept at killing each other than we are than anything else. We've been attacking each other since before we've been cave painting. Climbing to the top of the heap is something that every person tries constantly from birth to death.
To say that war creates enemies is true, but human activity alone does a fine job doing that all by itself. The assertions that you make are practically saying that the other "peace loving nations" of the world have only been building armies in reaction to the US. That 1) makes US citizens "pure evil" that are only building armies to crush others and 2) and that the rest of the world is "pure good." The only pure anything of that statement, is, as I would say, is "pure horeshit." The poster is probably the same kind of ridiculous person that says the rich are automatically evil, and the poor are automatically good. I dare say there is a gentle subtext to everything... personal merits and national merits do weigh in.
They are not building in reaction to the USA.
If we were only so important to them. We're not. We're just another tribe. It is human nature people to want the resources, women, and land of your neighbor. To say that the US is going around the globe and creating enemies... well, that is insane. Humans do that easily without any provocation whatsoever.
The proof? France. We haven't fired a shot at France in anger, EVER. We have defended that nation several times now. We have had debts of honor to France, and have paid them in return too. WE SHOULD BE BEST FRIENDS. Until a while ago, France was the epitomy of cool in US culture. If you would hear the responses of French citizens to our behavior, it would sound like murder and rape. Once again, are we sparring with France? No. We're still training armies with France. But it is just naturally turing into a "screw that other tribe" situation, even without the juicy details.
The whole world situation smacks of "rock throwing," more than it smells of evil hegemony. It's all schoolyard politics with big budgets. The sooner you see that, the sooner you will stop hating GROUPS and start judging people as INDIVIDUALS.
Afer all, it is my humble opinion that groupthink on both sides of any conflict (real or percieved) is the real enemy of mankind. Everyone should make their own decisions, and suffer the benefits or penalties for their actions.
You can all get back to work now.
I'll believe it when I see it. Even when I do, I'd rather havea little laser whole shot through me than the cone of damage cause by a projectile.
There are a lot of comments here that bring up very valid points for why this system wouldn't make a good rifle. However, what if it was mounted on a ship or aircraft? Many of the key arguments against this system dissipate when it is viewed in this context:
:-), and on a plane you can have shielding until you open up - at which point it's usually too late for whoevers on the recieving end of this.
:-)
- Extreme recoil is not an issue shipboard, as the gun can be mechanically mounted. And though 170 rounds/min. isn't as fast as a vulcan cannon, get a whole bunch of these badboys together and then you're talking.
- The radiation control problems are not nearly on the same scale on a ship/plane. And if we are talking a large enough ship it could even use it's own nuclear reactor to power these weapons - eliminating the need for the expensive and toxic Po-210.
- The heat/radiation/noise that the weapon emits that will allow for the enemy to target you are not usually of primary concern on a ship
- The eye-safe provisions of the Geneva convention do not apply to this weapon, as the Geneva convention only prohibits weapons solely intended to explicitly blind the enemy (which is why the army can use laser sights + rangefinders). Further, with the power that this weapon is delivering in a single burst (16 kW), i think that the enemy would be more concerned with his exploding head than going blind
In the context of weapons platforms, this weapon makes lots of sense. I could see it replacing the PATRIOT missile system (I don't know why you yanks are still using that ineffective deathtrap) or the vulcan cannons on AEGIS cruisers in the future.
This is like carrying around 1000 cpu running at full speed you think a heat sink and fan is gonna cool it?
> how much call will there be for a weapon that causes small, cauterized holes in people?
> Isn't that what Lasers would do, or am I mistaken?
It depends on the laser.
A short-pulse, high-power laser (like 50,000J over 1ms) would cause explosive vaporization of tissue, probably killing the target.
A low-powered, long-pulse laser like this one would be very unlikely (as I understand it) to cause any serious harm whatsoever. It just doesn't deliver enough energy fast enough.
> I don't get it, where does the recoil come from.
Gas flying around inside the weapon at 6 times the speed of sound, and then whacking into the end of the chamber.
Between huge amounts of highly radioactive material (enough to contaminate a city for years or literally cook the trooper in an hour), 200-atmosphere internal gas pressures, mach-6 internal speeds, and brittle casing materials, this thing sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
...from...The Stavatti Approach - Golden Rule #18) "Stavatti accepts only the U.S. Dollar (USD), gold or negotiated barter as the approved form of contractual compensation. Foreign currencies are not to be accepted. Barter is not acceptable as more than 66% of a goods equivalent payment, unless the barter involves the acquisition of camels or equivalent offset. Cash and coinage is always the desirable form of monetary compensation. Stavatti does not accept American Express(TM)." Ok guys, and you've missed the best, go for the merchandise, only over a hundred for a SLEEK warplane.
{100% paranoia is not enough when you are 99.9% right}
Heh. Fox News started calling them "homicide bombers" too. If you don't understand the vocabulary-obsessive Stallmanesque mindset, that's gotta be entirely opaque! "HOMICIDE bomber drives exploding bus into screaming children!" I think we got the homicide part of that, but how many people are sitting there saying, "Oh, it wasn't a suicide bomber? Did they catch the bad man when he jumped out of the bus just before the explosion?" That's actually what I was thinking until I recognized the story they were talking about.
"Man found in park killed by homicide killer!!!" Christ. As bad as freedom toast. I guess it says something that we can eat our freedom for breakfast, but I still liked it better when we made our truck stop breakfasts out of Frenchmen, like God fucking intended. Otherwise he wouldn't have made them so buttery and delicious.
EMP only affects electronic devices. Had you followed the links, the basic operation of this laser gun is mechanical/atomic in nature.
Of course, I don't see this beast ever seeing the light of day in the proposed form. Po-210's not exactly easily made in large quantities and it's not exactly one of the nicer isotopes (Estimated to be 2.4e11 times more toxic to life than hydrocyanic acid...).
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Soon, start making Death Stars the Emperor George Bush will. Entire populations will be destroyed, just for the fun of it. A weakening in the force I can feel.
The rebels - aka terrorists - will try to stop it.
But in truth, Osama's father Bush is.
Controvertial elections leads to Power. Power leads to Arrogance. Arrogance leads to war. War leads to more war.
Well, mutated (and ill-tempered) sea bass at the very least...
Would a laser sight on a laser rifle be redundant?
Tag, you're it!
Stavatti's site contains some other proposals that illustrate the company's perspctive on the real world. Especially interesting is the two billion dollar SM-32 Kindred. This airplane wieghs over two million pounds and occupies over an acre of airspace, yet is billed as "low observable". It may look like a flock of birds to radar, but it will look like one of the Vogon constructor fleet to the guy pulling the trigger on the AAA. Maybe a highly toxic, highly radioactive, extremely hot raygun isn't so far fetched after all.
You are the most ignorant fucking idiot that I met in quite some time. Ask France about Rwanda in 1994, and they're military adventure in that country. The accusations that they assisted in genocide committed there. Ask them about their current troubles in the Ivory Coast, overshadowed by the war in Iraq, but still happening. Ask the Netherlands about their current involvment in the war in Iraq. Yes, they have forces in the area. Ask the Netherlands about war crimes they committed in their former colonies after WW II. The list goes on and on, but obviously you are too ignorant to believe any of it or to do a simple google search.
I am having mixed feelings about this one to say the least.
Basically it is a copy and paste from my posting at the original site (defenceweekly), unattributed...
Then again it got at least a reasonable score.
BTW same with the other followup post.
The document is four (4) years old! Duh!
The gun is sealed - no gasses exit.
> Well, an industrial welding laser is about 10W. This is about 190 times more powerful.
In, doubtless, a much wider beam for a much shorter time. The result is nothing.
From the specs, the beam is 760W/cm^2 for 0.35s, or 250J over quite a long period of time. Not only is that longer than human reaction time, meaning you'll get maybe half the energy on target before his movement ruins your aim, the gas whacking around inside the gun is going to throw your aim off from the start, spraying your beam all over the place.
250J is enough to vaporize 1 cm^2 to a depth of 1mm, which isn't even past the skin. Add in the movement you'll get through the beam's duration, and the best you can hope for is a nasty sunburn along a thin strip. This "weapon" is useless.
> I can't see how 1.91kW is anything to shake a stick at.
Shaking a stick would be more likely to kill someone.
From the specs, the beam is 760W/cm^2 over 0.35s, which is enough to burn about a third of the way through your skin - 1mm. Assuming you can control the 90-lb recoil and stop your target from moving for the entire 0.35s duration so you can keep the beam on the same spot.
Frankly, you'd have trouble killing a comatose mouse with this thing, unless you used it as a club.
> delivering 170 shots per second
Each beam pulse lasts for 0.35s, so either you work much faster than the rest of us, or you didn't read "shots per MINUTE".
> in a 1.3 cm beam
What part of "output beam diameter of approximately 1.3mm" did you have trouble with?
Maybe you read the "dependent on dispersion" part and decided that meant "multiply by 10".
> If you don't see that as being more effective than our current
> rifles, you obviously didn't read the article.
If you see this thing as more effective than a weak slingshot, you obviously didn't think while reading the article.
Beam power: 760 *watts*/cm^2
Beam duration: 0.35s
Beam energy: 260J/cm^2
Depth of penetration: 1mm
Depth of skin: 2-4mm
Result: very small, minor burn. AT BEST. The beam duration is so long that it will always move around on the target, dispersing its (paltry) energy over a much wider area and hence doing effectively no damage.
To the enemy, these things are most dangerous as a fragile club.
To the user, these things can give your whole division cancer if they're blown open by an RPG.
Ooo, sounds like a huge improvement over what we have now.
"Phased-plasma rifle in the forty watt range."
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
I'm sure someone has already mentioned this, but a laser rifle would be great for snipers since a beam of light can not be manipulated by gravity or wind, so no more complicated shots or kick-back, just line up in the scope and pull the trigger.
Kinda takes all the mystic out of being a sniper though.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
That was the one I had thought of.
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