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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.
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.
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
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!
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
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 ;-)
Don't you watch the Simpsons?
...
If you shine a laser dot onto someones pants, you trick them into thinking they have a spot on their pants and they drop them. Then when the spot is on their underwear, they think THAT is where the stain is and drop those.
I'm guessing at that point you just go in with conventional weapons since the enemy will be standing there with no pants.
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!
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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.
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
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.
Misguided peace loving hippy.
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
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).
So you'd agree that the system described in the article, with its noisy, high-recoil gas cartridge system, is completely useless then?
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.
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 --]
Now all we need is someone to develop shiny white plastic armor that looks cool, but is disturbingly inadequate for stopping a laser blast.
Why would Captain Kirk want to stun gentlemen? He always seemed like the "it looks more like a women than Spock" type.
It take more faith to believe in evolution than it takes to believe in God
for the lazer yes, the shark no
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.
That's about 59.5 seconds per minute...
Yep, definitely vaporware. I don't forsee them changing a minute from 60 seconds to 59.5 anytime soon either.
Don't forget, 90 pound of thrust at vertical, 3 times a second, could lift some soldier. A new way to fly!
Actually, let's coin the term "Hoaxware," or perhaps more accurately, "Delusionware."
Read the Stavatti website:
http://www.stavatti.com/contact.html
That's a real impressive "Registered Office, design center and present headquarters." I bet they store the Polonium samples in the hayloft. Or maybe in that dumpster out front. There's "security through obscurity" for ya.
Crotchdot? Hmm...
Hey, Taco...I have an idea...
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.
.50 cal machine guns, and rapid-fire grenade launchers are currently mounted).
If you consider it as a heavy support weapon rather than an infantry rifle, you could put it on a mount, say a tank or a reinforced Humvee (where tows,
Alternatively, you could build a mech to carry it. It's the obvious platform for a heavy laser weapon. Either a giant robot or a full-conversion borg. (Hold on, let me get my Rifts sourcebook...)
Sure, why not? We're talking 15-25 years away, right? It worked for John Connor... and they'll have discovered lasers that fire slowly enough to look good in a movie by then, too.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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
Each Laser rifle will be shipped with a Baseball Bat(tm) as a backup device. =)
So what do you suggest? Uninventing it?
Lets go back in time and un-invent the rubber ducky. That way everyone will grow up angry and mean.
lick the cancle button (at least thats what our Chinese QA says)