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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."
Would mirrors be effective?
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?
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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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.
RUN
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!
Recoil mitigation? On a Laser weapon? I don't get it, where does the recoil come from.
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.
Admittedly, I don't really know anything about what the weapon will do, or what kind of testing they have done that they think this will be a viable weapon, but 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?
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.
I guess it comes down to the fact that there is too much we don't know about what the weapon will do.
"...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley
which humanitarian war will this weapon see the light...
I'm curious as to what you mean by "humanitarian" wars, there is nothing humane about wars. It is true that most countries follow the Geneva Conventions that bans among other things the use of a few of the most gruesome weapons(such as land mine or weapons targeted towards children) the US(who will get these first) has never allowed it self to be limited in such ways. We are currently one of the only countries that uses
1)"depleted" uranium bullets
2)land mines
3)cluster bombs(and their painted bright yellow, a kid friendly color and the same as food drops)
and of cores we are the only country that has announced that we are willing to use nuclear weapons
compared to the uranium bullets we use today these can only be an improvement as they will not cause a long term increase of cancer when used
Don't save your orgasms for Heaven; Heaven knows we need them here.
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.
Makes a lot more sense. They'll have to teach soldiers not to shoot through stuff that's transparent to light but opaque to that wavelenght, then, though. But I can see the sweet Ghost Recon snipering with "invisible laser" guns :-) *aim* *click* psfhhht *dead*. And silent too, as there's no explosion.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
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.
Anyway, while the "Funny" moderation is appreciated, that was a sincere question. Presumably the submitter had something in mind when he wrote that -- I'm genuinely curious what it was.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
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!"
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.
OK, speaking as an active duty Marine Corps grunt, the MOLLE sucks. The chest harness/load carrying gear is alright but MOLLE violates the most important rule-KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). I don't know how many broken MOLLE packframes I've seen and the amount of little straps and pouches I've seen lost or torn is unbelievable. YOU may like MOLLE gear but I don't and my organisation; the United States Marine Corps doesn't like it especially after the ops in Afghanistan when the MOLLE system failed miserably. THAT'S why the Marine Corps is replacing it. Thanks for the insults but I do know what I'm talking about. The first thing I did when issued the MOLLE gear was go out and buy a large ALICE pack (called a mountain ruck by Marines). Best pack I've seen in the military.
This guy is way out there
It specs a recoil force of 90 (yep, NINETY) pounds in the forward direction
I have read that in other posts as well, and I just don't get it. The gun throws a bunch of photons in the forward direction, and (presumably) nothing in the reverse direction. Why should the recoil be in the reverse direction? Is this another case of something I missed when I fell asleep in Physics lecture?
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
Inevitably a soldier's laser rifle will get blown up (most likely by friendly fire, judging by the current state of things). There would suddenly be an invisible radioactive hotspot on the battlefield and drifting plumes of radioactive particles. Would all soldiers be forced to carry geiger counters? Would medics refuse to treat contaminated soldiers? Will chem/bio/rad suits become the permanent uniform of our fighting forces?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
I'm sorry, but you, as a unique individual, don't have the slightest right to decide what's best for other unique individuals. Nor does any other individual or group, including government. By definition, only an individual can decide what's right and what's wrong for an individual.
To charge a unique, thinking individual with "making the wrong market decision" is not only arrogant, but incredibly ignorant.
Go read an economics textbook.
Whose textbook? Try mises.org if you still don't understand my perspective.