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Warfare at the Speed of Light

Posted by michael on from the also-good-for-making-popcorn dept.

unassimilatible writes "From the They Said It Couldn't Be Done Dept., the Oakland Tribune reports that the Lawrence Livermore Labratory is ensuring that the Pentagon, inside of a decade, could be armed with a beam weapon that is near-instantaneous, gravity-free and truly surgical, focusing to such hair-splitting accuracy that it could avoid civilians while predetonating munitions miles away - perhaps someday even being mounted on Humvees."

13 of 561 comments (clear)

  1. Say again? by Lord+Grey · · Score: 5, Funny
    ... experts say the Defense Department has no coherent plan for speed-of-light weapons research ...
    "No coherent plan" to use lasers in warfare? Did anyone else find this quote amazingly funny?
    --
    // Beyond Here Lie Dragons
    1. Re:Say again? by Davak · · Score: 4, Funny

      "We've made a quantum leap here," said Randy Buff, solid-state laser program manager for the U.S. Army's Space and Missile Defense Command. "We're anxious to get out there and do something."

      Translation: We are anxious to get out there and blast somebody.

    2. Re:Say again? by Davak · · Score: 5, Funny

      Moreover, all laser guns will, for the forseeable future, remain fair-weather weapons. Airborne particles and vapor diffuse the beam and cut its range enormously. Smart adversaries will attack under cover of smoke or inclement weather.

      "In the first order, lasers are not going to work on bad days," Campbell said. "They're just not."

      Dear Mr. Rumsfield:

      Please schedule all future wars in excellent weather. It's great for the morale of our troops and we get to use our new laser toys.

      Thanks.

      G.W. Bush

  2. God says... by Bakobull · · Score: 4, Funny

    Kent, Stop playing with yourself.

    --
    "The ignorant fight to win, the wise win before they fight." -Sun Tzu
  3. Friendly Fire at the Speed Of Light! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hold Your Fire!

    Too Late!

    You Vaporized Kenny! You Bastard!

  4. one question by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    can you point it at a mildly victorian house from on board a jet fighter and fill the house with popcorn?

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  5. Oh great by MagicM · · Score: 4, Funny

    "We're anxious to get out there and do something."

    Always reassuring when someone in the US Army makes such a statement...

  6. Wow that was fast by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Funny

    A laser arms race already is under way, chiefly in California.

    Wow, Goverminator hasn't been elected for 2 weeks and Skynet is already flexing its muscles ...

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  7. Chinese embassy all over again by G4from128k · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Leaving aside the technical issues of "can you do it," there are the political and moral issues of "should you do it." Precision guided, 100% accuracy is fine until you target the wrong point. The notion that we can have zero collateral damage assumes that we can distinguish between combatants vs. innocents and allies with high accuracy.

    This invention might lower the tragedies of war if we have the intell to discriminate accurately. It might also increase collateral damage/friendly fire if the device inspires overconfidence in those who press the trigger.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  8. Quantum Leap by henrygb · · Score: 5, Funny
    Is a quantum leap the smallest possible discrete change?

    Would a gravity-free weapon (even with light) defy General Relativity?

    Will the enemy start using mirrors?

    1. Re:Quantum Leap by Vess+V. · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Come on, is this an article about optics or military equipment? For all conventional intents and purposes, "near-instantaneous" is correct and "gravity-free" almost so. And you know what? In four words, the article has thoroughly described this system's advantages over other weapons.

      Of course, you are probably being facetious and my extreme boredom has driven me to type this reply.

  9. We'd Throw Rocks, If Necessary by reallocate · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Absent human intent and use, technology stays on the shelf. Getting on a moral high horse about new weaponry will not stop people from deciding to war on each other, It will only ensure that they use more primitivw weapons.

    War won't diappear if we're afraid to use new tools. People will throw rocks at each other if they have nothing else.

    --
    -- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
  10. And bullets don't reflect? by zCyl · · Score: 4, Funny

    you are constantly at risk of the laser beam bouncing back and obliterating you.

    If you stand next to a solid surface, like a tank, and fire a conventional automatic weapon at it, you had better be wearing some serious bullet proof armor.

    The main problem is that any reflecting surface can act as a mirror

    Mirrors do a great job of reflecting low power light. Put a sufficiently high powered pulse laser on the scene, and the behavior of reflective surfaces becomes "non-linear" in the sense that it will simply burn through them.

    and turned the h20 into h202 which is deadly hydrogen peroxide

    Which is regularly used as a mouth wash, and easily noticeable because it tastes like crap and fizzes in your mouth.