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Future Weapons of War in the Works
An anonymous reader writes "Who needs explosive missiles when you can just launch a 3 foot long chunk of metal at near Mach 7 speeds and get the same result? Popular Science looks at weapons the military is developing for future wars including electromagnetic railguns, space darts, superfast torpedos, laser cannons, and a gun that fires a million rounds per minute."
Military technology is striving to be one big Quake clone I mean, we already have aimbots, now there are railguns....next thing you know the US Army will be wallhacking.
So there will be new, more powerful, more accurate weapons. Now we just need a way to stop humans aiming the accurate weapons at the wrong things...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
... if the time and money spent of developing new weapons could be spent on education rather. But then again, a better educated future generation would probably be able to think up even more devastating weapons.
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Of all the things that are happening in the world at the moment, you can take solice that we'll never run out of inventive ways to kill each other.
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
They can brag all they want, I won't be impressed until they get the BFG 9000.
MORE weapons!
I say... leave the cool weapon design to computer games and invest all that money in some really useful technology. Super weapons have no use anyway when you have to fight street to street.
I'm sure those war criminals in the American military are getting a hard-on about this news!
I can understand the need for a good military, but to spend this much money for it.
:(
Personally I think it would be better spent if invested in medical research and to better the relationships with other countries (admit it, a whole big part of the world isn't a big fan of the US, putting it mildly).
Not trying to flamebait people
This is the sig that says NI (again)
We're developing space based weapons. But watch out. Bin Ladin is developing Ewoks.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
"...and what are you researching now, Professor Dexter?"
"Space bats."
"Space bats?"
"You bet your ass."
It's depressing knowing that the potential of this technology is used for destruction. Hunting "terrorists" with a remote controlled laser-firing satelite ala some James Bond movie seems an awful lot like duck-hunting with a minigun.
The US has the most technologically advanced army/navy/whatever in the world as far as I know already...
I remember during Gulf War II, the British were dropping bomb-shaped concrete blocks attached to the fanastic guidance systems they have now. No explosives needed... just plonk it down on a tank from 20000 feet and it does the job with much less collateral damage.
Brilliant idea
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
Apparently being able to kill the entire human race with the touch of a button isn't enough. Now they want weapons which they can actually use. Fucking paranoids.
Good stuff.
Technology marches onward, for all aspects of life. Weapons, medicine, computers, communication etc. etc. it's all tied together. You can't have one without the other.
It's the yin and the yang of the modern world.
Ever since man discovered fire this has been going on.
We could cook food to protect ourselves from rancid and contaminated meat. We could warm ourselves and dry ourselves in the cold winter months. We added hours to our potentionally productivity and progress due to night time light and it was used to clear feilds for our crops and herd animals for food.
Along with that we also figured out how to use fire to harden the tips of our sticks and turn them into spears that more effectively killed our enemies, weither animal or human.
Then later we learned to use it to cure leather to make better clothing to protect us from the elements, and we used it to cure leather for bowstrings and axes that were used for more effective hunting and gathering.
The leather also provided simple armor and sheilds and bows and axes were used to devistate our enemies.
Then we learned how to smelt down shiny rocks to make metal... etc etc.
Now we understand mathmatics, magnets, plastics, explosives, propelents, electricity, gravity, and other modern technology and we refine our understanding of old technology, too.
The cycle goes on and on.
Can't have one without the other. If there is a imbalance it can only be filled with more suffering. One way or another.
Why would it change now? We are the same people that existed many of a hundreds of thousands of years ago.
Look at tank ammunition:
Discarding sabot - essentially a metal dart. This kills tanks using kinetic energy to punch a hole through armour. Makes a little hole and a lotta mess inside. This is the tank version of kinetic-only ammo, so scaling this up to use in a missile isn't a particularly new idea - the Durandural anti runway missile has a hardened nose cone and is rocket-accelerated under the concrete before it explodes.
HESH - high explosive, squash head - hits the outside of the tank and explodes against it. This shakes scabs of metal away from the inside that fly around the cabin, killing the crew. This doesn't need to penetrate to destroy the ability of the tank to fight.
HEAT - high explosive, anti-tank - this is the warhead attached to stuff like the RPG7. Nasty design - the shaped charge fires a jet of energy/molten metal through the skin of a tank, causing lots of damage inside to vehicle and crew. Even the relatively small warhead on a RPG7 can penetrate around a foot of steel.
Now, the point for the last 2 shell types existing is that sometimes, kinetic energy isn't enough. Other ways to get better results are to make the shells heavier - using depleted uranium for example. While what I'm talking about here is tank warfare, the same will apply to bombs and bunker munitions - different tools for different tasks.
Coincidentally, I just saw a program on this tonight on History Channel. Considering that the rate of fire on existing weapons max out at around 6,000 rounds per minute, it's a large step forward. For those of you that might be interested, it takes magazines of caseless rounds and electronically ignites the detonator in the round. By doing this, it effectively removes most of the mechanical limits of firing from the weapon.
t ml
Being in the Army and having fired some very cool weapons, I've got to say this needs to be seen to be believed. What I saw tonight was out of this world.
And for those that want to check it out:
http://www.metalstorm.com/04_video_latest.h
(sorry, don't know how to embed URL's)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Use of the euphemism "collateral damage". What you're really saying is "murders of innocents".
How about timers in land mines so that they blow up/self destruct after two or three years. That way, we don't leave land mines all over the place like we did in Cambodia, with people still dying from them, god knows how long after the conflict. Does anyone know if the US does anything like this? It doesn't sound that hard, and would do a lot of good. (Have them blow up at 3 in the morning, so noone is nearby).
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Research is now beginning into surface-to-air Tiddlywinks, and atomic Shove Ha'penny.
In other news, British scientists have abandoned their work on railguns after they found that the projectiles continually arrived an hour late. This was blamed on the "wrong sort of magnetism".
Spend billions and billions of dollars on new weapons.
:) So it's not all bad.
Sell off all the old weapons to foreign nations to get some balance in the budget.
Realise that the weapon you sold are almost as good as the weapon you developed and start all over again researching even better and more deadlier weapons.
Sell off all the old weapons....
And then you have it going. Great profit for those who make weapons tho
I'd love to see what the army is really developing.
Most of these weapons are just old ideas with gee-wish factor.
But then again, if slashdot posted something that army wanted to keep secret, we might find banner saying "servers ceased due national security issues " on front page next time we logged in.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
i have always protested war between any two parties. /morally right/useful etc. but we should not judge the research like that, or else how could have we got the nuclear reactors for electricity!
but the good thing will come out of any research of ay kinda is we will get some new technology which can be useful for mankind.
there will be of course, always debates on whether or not what we invented/discovered is ethically
fire is both, useful and hazardous. it is important, who is using it and how. don't blame the discoverer of fire.
This just shows the fundamental problem with the American military mindset: that brute force is the way to solve everything. If the military is overstretched, give 'em bigger guns. That way you need fewer grunts to kill the gooks, ragheads, commies or whatever politically-expedient target the rednecks in the White House have found this week.
Here's a thought. Don't invade every country that looks at you funny. Then maybe the rest of the world won't hate you so much, and you won't have to spend all your cash on finding ways to kill us all real quick.
Jerry Pournelle developed the concept of a space-launched kinetic energy weapon in 1964. It's been used a decent amount in his science fiction since then, but we do have to wonder why it's taken the military so long to consider implementing it. The high cost to orbit such weapons could be part of it, but we could definitely bring costs down a lot if we ended NASA's excessive bureaucracy and came up with a launch system that didn't cost half a billion per launch.
"I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
I cant believe an adult actually thinks that a weapon that can fire a million rounds a minute is cool?
Do you not realise that the ulimate reason for this design is to kill more people more efficiently?
You army types make me sick
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's tech, not science, and vapor tech at that.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Don't we have enough bombs already?
The biggest threat to the USA in the future is terrorism. Terrorism is defeated with bombs, although the chimps currently in the White House seem to think it is.
Terrorism is just a symptom of a disease - hatred within society. For every terrorist, there will be a hundred people in the same society that feel very strongly about the same issues, but not enough to become a terrorist. That is, until you drop a bomb on their children. To defeat terrorism in the long term, you've got to tackle the strong feelings within the society that produced it.
When Tony Blair first started office, he realised this was the way to solve the Northern Ireland problem, and did some very intelligent things (along with his counterparts in the Republic of Ireland) to tackle the social problems that were the root cause of terrorism in N.Ireland. Why on earth he is now supporting Bush's neanderthal approach to Al-Quaida I will never understand.
...the rest of the question is really unnecessary.
Yes. It must be really expensive to make all of these amazing weapons.
No wonder we can't afford health care, education, Social Security, welfare, and a living wage.
It all makes sense now.
Of course I meant to say "Terrorism is not defeated with bombs..."
Also, I guess a tip of the hat is also required to John Major re. the intelligent approach to solving the N.Ireland problem.
> a gun that fires a million rounds per minute
Christ, the yanks could wipe out the entire british army with this before they realised that the union jack is not the Iraqi flag!!
I see that lots of you are tearing down on the development of weapons in the context of terrorism and such. But lots of these technologies are being applied to law enforcement as well. Smart rounds being the best example. Some of these new ammunitions are based on 'smart-metal' designs that can penetrate metal or body armor, but stop and fragment when it hits tissue. Sounds bad, but would have been a great solution to the armored bank robbers in LA several years ago. Those cops did nothing but blanket a neighborhood with random shots because they were useless against soft body armor. So look at the positives of the whole argument.
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/radar.htm
see Iraq for details, big special guns mean nothing against people with grenades and suicide bombers
It can't be easy to aim for something when travelling at Mach 7!
End of the day, unless your prepared to develop physic mind control devices, ala Red Alert 2, then your either going to have to level cities or get out of the war.
Explain what good spending a billion dollars in developing space borne missiles is going to do if for $80 a guerrilla fighters can set themselves up with an AK and some ammo and hold of the entire US army in [insert rouge state here] for months.
by a miscalibrated satellite dropping a tungsten rod on my house
Damn, I left my good sig in my other pants
the torpedos in question are old news, and have been discussed here several years ago.
6 25 1&mode=thread&tid=126
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/06/164
I think the soviet skhval torpedos that have this capability were designed back in the 1980s.....
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
... space darts....
Didn't Dodge already try that?
Metal Storm's technology is pretty close to useless. It might have a limited role protecting naval frigates as a patriot anti-missle type defensive weapon but that's it. The logistics of carrying and resupplying a gun that turns over that much ammunition is absurd.
of the Glitter Boy Boom Cannon when they read Mach x railgun?
That already exists.
He, who is higher up the gravity well..
will win everytime.
for those pesky and elusive WMDs.
Deal with the ones we currently have ...
We all know Russia has plenty of weapons that are unaccounted for, (or some that have bad care taking/accounting). So instead of funding all this new bullshit, and this useless war on Iraq, how about we keep funding for arms control like Nunn-Lugar or Start III ?
Sunny Dubey
i wont even blink until they actually find a way to build the eludium-Q-36 explosive space modulator.
You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill afford...
and by this, i mean that the total number of torpedoes fired in anger in the last 60 years has essentially been three, all aimed at the same ship (the general belgrano) and all of which (well, except for the one that missed) have brought only shame and embarassment to the country that fired them (old blighty).
perhaps i am wrong about the number of submarine torpedoes launched in anger--anybody know of any others?
Although I am a pacifist, I do believe that currently it is still a necessity to develop weapon technology, for if the Americans and Europeans don't, some other country, perhaps with less respect for human life or International Law (although the USA haven't been that respectfull with the last one), will! So it's a martial arts kind of philosophy: get the knowledge in hope you'll never need to use it.
What must be stressed, though, is that military supremacy should not be an excuse for poor or non-existing foreign policy. The best way to get and maintain peace is not through the use of weapons, as we've been repeatedly taught by History, but by respecting people, their culture and balancing economical divides. And this is true not only as far as international war is concerned but also in the little national wars that are waged in every country in the form of crime.
As a final remark: didn't "Kursk", the Russian sub, sink due to a failed test of that same torpedo technology? And now they're selling it? Great move... develop a dangerous-to-use torpedo AND get the other guys to use it! :)
Also anyone else notice how popsci's future predictions are rarely remotely accurate, as opposed to SciAm? Also these techs are not new ideas by any means, heck super cavicating torpedos have been around for years, admittedly they don't steer but they go faster than sound so steering to track a target probably isn't that importantant. The rods from space/lasers were key components of the star wars program. The gun's been around for a while too, though also its concept is nothing new. I seem to recall that bricks were droped from airplanes (followed shortly by explosives) during some greco-turk or italian-turk or some war in that area in the early 20th century.
Think of one of those in an Apache helicopter.
Lets's say it's fired upon with a ground to air missile. Give it 2 seconds to impact. Assume the automated gun can be aimed at the missile in 1 second. So the next second it will be firing at 1 million rounds pr minute, so about 16000 bullets are fired at the missile, surely some of them will hit and destroy.
Listen to his allies? Bush blew the cover of a CIA spy because her husband was saying things he didn't want to hear.
Bush decides what he wants to do, and goes fishing for someone who will give him a good excuse for doing it.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
I find it highly disturbing that the US recoils in revulsion at the brutal beheading of one of its own, but bats nary an eyelid when superweapons designed to kill MILLIONS are announced. Just because you can visit death on people from afar, doesn't mean you are somehow morally superior. That is already painfully evident in Iraq and Afghanistan.
If we don't learn very quickly to put aside differences and work towards real peace, I fear we won't be celebrating the coming of the 22nd century, because we won't be around any more.
Visceral Psyche Films
...or shaped charges as they are often know:
Back when the shaped charge was first developed as a usable weapon against tanks, it was seen as a way to defeat the newer, more heavily armoured tanks that had started appearing. Up to that point, a anti-tank gun had relied on the penetrating power of a solid shot - often with a tungsten core.
After a little while people realised that since a HEAT warhead did not rely on kinetic energy to punch a hole thru armour, lighter, manportable anti tank weapons could be designed and built - including the US bazooka, the british PIAT and the german Panzerfaust (the worlds first disposable anti tank weapon). Shells fireing HEAT warheads was also fired from guns of virtually any caliber during and shortly after WWII.
Relatively soon however, it was found that composite armour and, to a lesser extent, spaced armour was efficient in protecting against both HEAT and HESH shells, signaling a return to the solid penetrators - now fired by guns that could achive much higher muzzles velocities than the pre WWII designs. For manportable weapons however, it was difficult to increase the velocity of the weapon without making it larger, heavier and thus more difficult to transport and operate. Therefore the wast majoity of the manportable anti tank weapons, including the M72, the RPG-7, the TOW missile and many, many more, still uses HEAT warheads - and is likely to do so for the forseeable future. The deliverysystems for the warheads are simply not capable of delivering enought energy to make a kinetic penetrator a viable option.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
This reminds me of the Arthur C. Clarke story, Earthlight. The battle was set on the moon, which helps considerably with projectile weapons.
The weapon used in this case was a large glob of molten steel, fired using extremely large electro-magnets to launch and guide the "projectile".
The image he paints of spearing a space ship, like a pinned butterfly has stayed me for a long while.
When you shoot this gun (I did look at the article and there aren't any details except that it's electric) more than 15000 bullets a second are leaving the muzzle. If each bullet is 1cm in length that's at least 150m of bullet and assuming a recycle time equal to 10 times the length of the bullet [*] let's say 3000m. That's a firing velocity of Mach 9.
... using KE (kinetic energy) formula we give it 30 thousand-million Joules of energy @ 500 million Watts (about the output of 5 large electric plants). ... They're going to need big batteries!
Also, a one million strong line-up of 1cm bullets adds up to 10km of metal being fired each minute! Alternatively if each bullet is 1cm^3 of metal that's a m^3 of metal which is likely to weigh in excess of 7 metric tons (using Iron, 7380 kg/m^3 as a guidline).
So each 60seconds we accelerate 7+ tons of bullet metal to Mach 9
[*> that is the bullet has moved ten times it's length before the next bullet sets off]
PS: I'm sure someone will find a mistake in these calculations and that someone else with more gun knowledge will correct some horrible assumption, but hey.
And airforce.
Did you know that before the war in Iraq "ended", the US armed forces killed more of their allies than the enemy did?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
The suicide bombers from 9/11 were mostly university students, therefore much more educated than the average poulation of their countries.
The problem is, you have to be a moron not to see that what the Israeli government does to their Palestinian "brothers" by all standards unfair, illegal und cruel.
Then, if you're young and clever and have a sense of justice, you feel the urge to do something against that.
If some demogugue comes along then, you're an easy victim for their propaganda.
There comes your next suicide bomber.
I don't need a signature.
The whole thing stinks of war crimes to me.
The U.S. is guilty of more war crimes than any other state.
Period.
The U.S. refuses to live up to its ratification of the ICC, because half of the existing Administration would go straight to Jail, would not collect $200, and would not pass Go...
Dick Cheney == biggest war criminal of the 21st Century.
Highway of Death incident, anyone? (It was his order...)
Most Americans do not have the courage to confront the fact that their country is being run by known and wanted criminals.
Alas, the conversion of American to Consumerican has been completed successfully, and the elite get their way no matter what...
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Just watch Iraq. The US have an overwhelming military advantage there. Nothing in the whole country can even dent an Abrams tank. The US soldiers have the best protection, the best fire power, the best communications, recon etc... Yet they are slowly losing control of the situation.
Those futuristic weapons are designed to fight 20th century's wars, not today's or tomorrow's wars. What's the use of a gun that fires a million rounds per minute when you're trying to control a riot? How can space darts help you identify the terrorist hiding in the crowd?
Overwhelming weapon superiority does not work in Iraq; I don't think further increasing this superiority will work better.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
General: [walks to a map of Springfield] Springfield has been classified "NWB," for "Nuclear Whipping Boy." In the first moments of a nuclear war, Springfield will be bombed at will by all friendly nations to calibrate their missiles.
[audience cheers wildly]
Now for total security, I will terminate the cameraman.
[pulls a pistol, and shoots the cameraman]
Cameraman: Argh! Thanks a lot, Steve! [falls out of camera range]
Does anyone get this whole 'supercavitating torpedo' thing? Wouldn't a gas bubble cause just as much friction as the torpedo itself? And I thought cavitation created a vacuume? But then IANANSMD (I am not a nuclear sub missle designer)
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
1) As long as terrorism is seen as being effective, it will be used. Terrorism breeds fear: fear makes change.
2) The current mess was allowed to fester for well over a decade before proactive action was taken. An entire generation was brainwashed to hate America as the enemy. Until they are old enough to recognize the truth and have the societal roots to care about living more than dying, the murder will continue. Population demographics in Africa and southwest Asia aren't on our side.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
really. Its more of a flamebait in its current form.
- America absolutely does NOT use brute force to solve everything.
- The purpose of better weapons is to shorten conflicts and save casualties.
- We don't invade every country that looks at us funny. North Korea is a good modern day example.
- Many countries do hate Americans, but some of that hate is rooted more in jealously than disgust. By they way, every country is hated by somebody. We have a lot of friends too.
I can't believe someone moded this insightful because its absolutely not.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
To win the Iraqi's hearts and minds would have been alot easyer, if the US had taken the time to do things like fix gas mains, ensure access to water and electricity 100% of the time and if they had bothered to repair the telephone system. Had things like this been done right away even the impact of this abuse chrisis would not be half as bad as it is. One somehow gets the feeling that the Bush administration argued:
1. Invade Iraq.
2. Arrest Saddam.
3. Everybody cheers.
4. Sheperd the Iraquis to the oil pumps.
5. Oil profit.
6. Oil profit pays for buildup.
Unfortunately it has taken alot longer to get the Oil flowing than they thought and the rebuilding of Iraq has been half hearted which has resulted in alot of angry Iraquis. And in a way it is hard to blame them, I would certainy be pissed off if electicity and gas were rationed, I had to wait in line for 4 hours in the burning sun to fill a jerrycan with water and could expect to be harrassed by US troops on police duty that have had ZERO police training (not their fault but their leaders). You expect that during the initial period after an invasion but not after over a year of occupation. It is amazing that the USA which did a very good job at stabilizing Germany after WWII did such a lousy job at taking those lessons into account when trying to stabilize Iraq.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
i heard somewhere if every military operation in the world stopped for just one day, it would save enough money to end world hunger.
Cheers!
Anyone else notice that the most exciting part of the story is the authors quiet use of timetravel technology? Apparently he wrote the article in June 2004. Is it really John Titor back again?
The more complicated the device, the more things that can go wrong.
Don't forget, the United States got its ass handed to it in Vietnam even with a technological superiority that has never been seen before or since.
Simple stuff doesn't break as often, and when it does its easier and faster to get it working again. That makes a big difference when the shit hits the fan. Simple stuff is also easier and faster to train people in using.
High tech military hardware certainly makes a difference, but when shit goes wrong, we need stuff that any idiot can operate and fix. Our commanders need to be focusing on how to win a battle, not how to keep the equipment working.
When do we get to see some NEW ideas?
If that huge ship-mounted railgun had been included in Unreal Tournament 2003, it would have done about 15 points of damage on a direct hit.
--- "When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all..."
I call bullshit. We are simply not using them, PARTICULARLY in urban areas.
We are doing enough things wrong for REAL, you don't need to go to the tinfoil hat brigade for news.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
While the BBC's bias is well documented, it is AGAINST multinational corporations. To suggest that the BBC is in league with them is, frankly, ludicrous.
... you won't find out about it on the BBC website.
Uh huh. Yup. You know whats ludicrous? The fact that anyone puts any faith in the BBC providing fair and balanced reporting on the subject of mass-genocide.
Millitants get their arms from somewhere. They get their trucks from somewhere. They get their gas and machetes' from somewhere. You know which multi-national corporation has the biggest weapons cache in South Africa?
I'll give you a hint
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Is 'Martian Rainbow', by Dr. Robert L. Forward (ISBN: 0595167462). The storey's characters are thin, but the technology is not.
I find it interesting that the slashdot story icon for this is a nice wavy American flag. Is making missiles and weapons what America is proud of ?
The problem with all these expensive new weapons isn't that we have morons who run our foreign policy and invade countries based on pathetic, easy-to-disprove (e.g. WMD) lies.
The problem with these "smart" weapons isn't that we have low-skilled people in the military fleeing "McJobs" flipping burgers or Wal-Mart clerking who were primarily interested in the military in order to fund a college education. (E.g. like the MPs stupid enough to take pictures of their torture.)
The problem with these weapons isn't that we simply cannot afford them and that as a nation we would be far, far better off sinking our riches into education or economic development rather than more toys for generals to play with.
The problem isn't even that, as Martin Luther King Jr. put it, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
The problem is that these weapons won't solve our "security"[sic] problems. We make our own enemies. We funded and created Bin Laden and Hussein. The Iraqis are now defeating the US military with little more than improvised explosives, courage, and a desire to defend their homeland. These new weapons will simply spur an arms race that we cannot afford and our insecurity will remain that will cause us to spend more and develop more new weapons. It's a race to the bottom.
Back in 1990 a good friend of mine took his gifted internship (Florida has such a great gifted program) out on the Eglin AFB RailGun test site... they launched BB sized pieces of metal at something like 300G's over the gulf of mexico. Or some such ludicrous speed.
meh
You apparently are very much unaware of how education and media collude to control what and how you perceive the world, with the ultimate goal of conrolling what you do with your life.
In fact, what you say is so wrong that the simple reason mandatory education was ever implemented was specifically to better control the masses.
People are not innately consumers or internationalists or egalitarians. Only through relentless propaganda do people give into the international system of finance we have in place. Only then do they crave new material goods, or welcome endless hordes of foreign immigrants, or believe their system of society should be imposed on the entire world. Education is absolutely necessary to maintain our current system.
Also, I should say that your point of view is very representative of the ridiculous points of view found on American college campuses. Try and examine the world without parrotting the views of your teachers and your 5 million fellow rebel students.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
The tungsten darts dropped from the orbit (forgetting for a moment that you can't drop anything from orbit) will burn up on the way down. Tungsten or not, they're too small and light to penetrate the atmosphere at any useful speed.
Railguns for DD(X) - fantasy too. A ship could generate enough power, but that's not all. The power needs to be supplied in an insanely short time. A warehouse full of car batteries (14000 of them) or a ridiculously large capacitor bank are some of the current "solutions" - but the energy density sucks ass and they would need to be scaled up, a lot, for blasting bunkers 290 miles away. And they are talking about superconducting rails in an application where the power has to arc from one rail to the projectile and from the projectile to the other rail. Good luck keeping those rails at superconducting temperatures while arcing hundreds of kiloamps straight from them.
Not to mention that point targets have been getting scarcer and scarcer in the recent wars.
This wasn't in the article, but US is now trying to make small, earth-penetrating nukes (in fact US has raised the nuclear weapon budget to what it was at the height of the cold war - like the current arsenal wasn't enough for every conceivable scenario). I just want to say one thing: look at the quality of the intelligence US had about Iraq's WMDs, and tell me how the hell do they think they're going to get accurate enough data to nuke someone's WMD program?
Yeah and another thing. I think that the threat of chemical weapons has been raised out of all proportion. Consider the track record: Aum Shinrikyo strikes the Tokyo subway with nerve gas: 12 dead. One crazy guy attacks the Seoul subway with a friggin' milk carton filled with gasoline: 120 dead.
Nuclear and biologic are another story, though.
--
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, where does the road paved with evil intentions lead to?
He obviously doesn't read /. or he would know that that sneaky Swedish Navy is up to no good. We may need those torpedoes!!
This has been a test. If this had been an actual Sig, you would have been amused.
It was a while back, but last time I read about the railguns currently being experimented with, they were trying to raise the velocity from about 13 mile per second to a wee bit over 18 miles per second. The reason being that just over 18 miles per second, a ballistic object colliding with another object can initiate a fusion reaction (at least of limited proportions.) This would needless to say, neutralize any object the rail struck instantly, and with extreme prejudice.
Genda
Warfare is politics by other means, as Clausewitz put it, I think. It seems to me that the US military has been put on the back foot in Iraq by nothing more sophisticated than a few dollars worth of camera equipment deployed in the wrong place at the wrong time. All the high tech weaponry in the world is useless without the political and moral will to employ it. Perhaps that is what is so frightening for the West countries in the phenomena of suicide bombing. "They" have people who are willing to die for their beliefs, "we" have leaders who pulled strings to dodge the draft. Anyone remember that jungle war where the B52s battled elephants and bicycles, and came off worse?
Using the force of Gravity to accelerate a non-explosive projectile has been used in the past. In WWI, darts were dropped from aircraft on German cavalry and similar devices were tried in later conflicts against unprotected troops.Now, in persuit of enlightened technology we drop the equivalent of a large boulder with a guidance package costing several hundred thousand dollars. Methinks stenciling rock images on the sides of B-52's is not very glamorous.
Oh I support your right to make an ass of yourself. I was just giving you ideas for your next step.
I'm strugling to understand what the practical usefulness of this would be... sounds like a major waste of ammunition. It's unlikely you'll find a million *targets* per minute or anything near that figure.
the "root cause" (to use the fancy schamcy bleeding heart liberal term) of "terrorism" in Northern Ireland is that the GOD DAMNED BRITISH WON'T GET OUT OF IRELAND AND GIVE US BACK OUR FUCKING ISLAND!!!!!!! No right at all to be there. Quite frankly, if my mates gave me a suitcase nuke and told me to blow up the london underground, i'd have no qualms at all about doing it. 800 years of brutal, racist oppression. it cannot stand.
anyway, muslims are bent on world domination, not fighting against occupiers of their land. 15 active conflicts, all of which have to do with muslims not getting along with their neighbors. do you really think that in Indonysia, they will stop chopping off the headsd of christians if Israel stops fighting for their survival?
All Muslims hate Jews. They may not all be terrorists, but not all Nazis were in the SS. Islam is like Nazism only 10x worse. the SS didn't wrap themselves in Christ as they were administering Zyklon-B. And I know sure has hell it wasn't Christ or Mary or St. Patrick that put an Armalite in my hand and told me to fight for Ireland.
Islam is a social disease. It spreads like AIDS. It must be eliminated before they take over the western world and crush the light of humanity, plunging the world into 1000 years of darkness. If you don't believe that will happen, then i hope you're the last one they kills, so that you can see every other decent human being perish before your eyes and know full well it was the disbelief of people like you that let darkness spread over the land. There is no fleaing to Numinor in this realm, my friend.
Sinn Féin.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon
Puff the Nuclear Weapon was pointed at Iraq,
and waited in his submarine for the signal to attack.
Little George Bush Junior, he loved that rascal puff,
and all those days, he nightly prayed for the UN to get tough.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
protecting all our freedoms to
a brand new SUV.
Now Puff he liked to travel, so he wore travelling clothes
While Bush was home and on the phone, from locations undisclosed.
Presidents and Princes, they bowed when'ere he came,
and Nation States lowered their flags when Puff roared out his name.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and the occasional golden fleece.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the peace,
securing the world's oil supply
and hte occasional golden fleece.
Plutonium lasts for ever, but not so little boys.
ICBMs and M-16s give way to... other toys.
And one grey day it happened: The traders broke the Dow.
So Puff the Nuclear Weapon's on the open market now.
His warhead packed in plastic, green crates that bore his name.
Poor Puff would not intimidate for the Stars and Stripes again.
Without his life long friend, poor puff could not be brave,
so al-Qaida hid that that weapon in a deep, dark, man-made cave.
oh
Puff the Nuclear Weapon lived in the sea,
but now he's in a backpack
some where close to you and me.
Puff the Nuclear Weapon defender of the free,
and you can blame it all upon
Bush fiscal policy.
lyrics fully GPL.
It would be immoral to simply walk away from them without some kind of democratic justification.
I guess NI is just that bit closer to home. This, combined with the fact that while most people in the Republic would have some general idea that a united Ireland is a desirable thing, that doesn't mean that we want to annex a population the majority of whom don't want to be part of an independent Ireland, some violently.
You guys bitch and moan about engineering jobs crossing the seas to India, but look at this - the defense industry provides tons of jobs to intelligent American engineers and computer scientists. These are jobs that will NEVER be outsourced, either... Yet, it's always the same people complaining we should put more money into education instead of developing these weapons. Granted, education is great.. but sometimes it seems like we're just throwing money away on wasted reforms ("Leave No Child Behind" act).. More money isn't gonna solve the schooling problem in our country, better management of teh money will. Giving money to the defense industry rather is a win-win situation - it keeps hundreds of thousands of engineers/scientists employed (not to mention, thinking of innovative and creative solutions), while keeping America safe.
Loved the article, btw.
Now we come to the crux of the matter. Most so called "education" is actually brainwashing and is a perversion of the kind of personal development and mentoring that used to happen only for the sons of nobles long ago.
Education comes from the root latin "Educare" which means to draw out, or to extract the resource which is already there like drawing water from a well. To school someone on the other hand is to force them into a class of person which has certain known skills, attributes and capabilities and then make them into a cog in the machine.
A truly educated person is hard to control, because they will have the knowledge, opinions and most importantly the fully developed critical mind to make their own decisions.
A truly schooled person will be easy to control, because they've spent years of their life being trained to do as they're told.
Both of these individuals can do what an untrained person cannot - devise new ways of making peace and war.
Think about that, and look at the person sitting next to you. Can you trust them with an education?
A Rod 'Falling' out of orbit .. Ouch .. Wouldnt want to be anywhere near that thing when it hits.
..
9 8/ 9/army_wonder_weapon/print.phtml
Here's a older link to the Replacement for the M16 (Standard Issue Rifle)
http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/19
But I think they dropped the program? Not sure
It's amazing how Popular Science comes out with an article like this about every 10 years. And each time they publish it, the weapons and technology never change.
Read you some Footfall [amazon.com].
Seeing through a mach 28 (orbital velocity) plasma bow shield was impossible in 64 and still is 40 years later. Thor is useless until the guidance problem is solved...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
No, your real problem is that your list of friends is growing shorter at a rapid pace.
More and more countries are neutral vis a vis the US. Not actively working against it, but certainly not bothering to help.
Sure, You have all the firepower You need to fight your wars alone, but without the help of foreign intelligence, airstrips and military bases it is a lot harder.
And even though few states actively support terrorists, some start to care less and less about fighting them, as long as their targets are somewhere else...
All opinions are my own - until criticized
If the west had just stopped selling their 'old' weapons, we still wouldn't have had any need to make even more sophisticated weapons.
We could instead be spending money on education and increased peace effort in 3rd world contries.
And we should have helped former USSR, when the communist leadership lost control. Instead we suddenly had huge aoumnts of advanced weaponry being shipped all over the place.
-Troll post my ass....
"We want a system that can generate a variety of effects on the battlefield, from damaging something to totally destroying it, to just kind of harassing with it,"
Wow, Such noble goals, It's good to know the military wants to be able to "Just kind of Harass" opponents sometimes, Here I was thinking the military was usually called in when lethal force was required,
I knew a guy that worked at White Sands in the early 90's. His project was the rail gun. One evening he brought a few thing by my work and showed me the possibilities. A 5mm plastic BB, not even hard plastic, and a 4inch square of 2 inch thick aluminum with a one inch dia. hole in it. The gun accelerated the BB to mach5 and it went throug the plate like a knife through butter. Very impressive technology.
This kind of research goes on all the time, it does advance science. Wheather it ever gets used or not, who knows. Once the technology gets developed it can be adapted to other uses. Anyone think the space programs computer research was wasted? While your sitting in front of the result?
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
"It harkens back to the good old days of WWII."
The good old days???
I find it ironic that the article decries expensive solutions that are looking for problems to solve then goes on to laud the two projects that are just that:
- Metalstorm: Sure it can fire thousands of RPM, but: Reloads are new loaded barrels. Neither light (so you cannot carry many) nor quick to reload (ready when you need it).
- Shkvall: It made sense in the fUSSR's context: When fired on by a US sub that it could not see, fire back a nuclear tipped missile in the general direction of the other sub to make it break off. The article claims that a shkvall will do major damage even without a warhead. How in the hell is the shkvall supposed to be guided? It's blind as a bat & deafened by it's own noise. Once again a solution looking for a problem...
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
The million shots/min weapon is by a company called Metal Storm. The million bullets/min statistic is the theoretical rate of fire acheivable. From their web site faq http://www.metalstorm.com/04_faq_technology.html
Where do you keep the one million bullets?
In dealing with conventional ballistic weapons, the rate of fire is a measurement and a quite separate issue to the number of rounds fired, or to the number of rounds carried in the magazine.
For instance, it is quite common for an infantry rifle to be capable of firing at a rate of say 600 rounds per minute. However, it does not follow that the weapon carries 600 rounds, or indeed that it continues to fire for a full minute. Rather, such a weapon might be expected to have a magazine capacity of say 15 or 30 rounds.
So too with Metal Storm. The 36 barrel prototype has fired at a rate which is in excess of one million rounds per minute, whereas it has a 'magazine' capacity of 540 rounds.
No one in their right mind would have that much ammo on hand anyway. To have 1 Million rounds on hand and one gun would mean that gun would be very quick on the air strike list. Anything thats stationary and that powerfull will be destoryed simply due to the fact it cant move.
Lastly, thankk goodness I dont need to feed that thing.
SPC Gruhn
US Army
Quite frankly, if my mates gave me a suitcase nuke and told me to blow up the london underground, i'd have no qualms at all about doing it. 800 years of brutal, racist oppression. it cannot stand
I wouldn't normally reply to something as trollish as this, but I think you honestly belive it.
So Native Americans would be justified in nuking New York? Sounds reasonable.
Islamic terrorists are certainly justified in attacking Spain. The Muslims only got kicked out of Iberia finally in 1492 - well within your 800 years - and that very fact was mentioned as justification by the group that claimed the attack.
Terrorist attacks on English Catholics might be well be justified - Queen Mary was persecuting English Protestants as recently as the 16th century, after all.
And as for Israel, well Palestinian terrorism is obviously completely justified due to the Israeli occupation. (They were there before modern Israel.) But on the same line so are Israeli acts of aggression! (They were there before that.) What a marvelous circular argument that gets us nowhere and just fuels more violence.
Follow your argument back to its logical conclusion and we should all just move back to Africa, where we'd all get along fine. Might have to cull the world population a bit though.
The whole historical card is absolute crap. In what way is Ireland 'your' island precisely? Do you live here? Pay your taxes? Things change. As I said in my title...
...'nuff said.
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
The cost of war (just in terms of $$$ to fight) is almost unbelievable.
"Laser weapons are a relative bargain compared with existing long-range weapons: They're expected to cost $8,000 per shot versus up to hundreds of thousands for missiles."
8K$ is cheap for one shot!
What %age of GDP does the US spend on defense R&D? CIA factbook places it at 3.2% in 1999 (and it's gone up recently a lot). That is effectively the cost (along with the rest of defence spending) of staying as the most powerful country. This dominance is only the means to the true end of the govt. - the interests of the the country's citizens. Given the level of US defence spending lately, I wonder if the means has been mistaken for the end...
Posters recognized by their sig,
I wonder why they bother? The way things are going weapons and wars will be irrelevant soon - after all, there has to be people in order to have war.
And even if one is to be optimistic - we are going to have more pressing problems than 'American Interests' to think about, when we run out of oil, air, water and environment in general.
dropping tungstun rods from outer space is a bad idea? Accuracy would probably be atrocious, and how would you test the damn thing?
This is one of those situations where a little error up there means a big error down here.
You can't say civilization doesn't advance,
for in every war they kill you a new way.
(Will Rogers)
j
While I don't agree 100% with the Falaise gap comment there were at least two episodes in the Normandy campaign where bombing caused heavy losses among friendly troops and civilians.
S SUE/Liberating _Caen.htm
Bombing of Caen destroyed the city with little military benefit and heavy civilian causialties:
http://www.valourandhorror.com/DB/I
Bombs landed short near Caen/Falaise and close to 500 soldiers of the Polish First Armoured and the 3rd Canadian Division were killed during the accident.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
The problem with the US military isn't a technical one, it is a cultural one. It seems strange to fret over our ability to crush weaker enemies when our military force has a budget that is greater than the other nation's entire GNP.
The question isn't how force is used so much as why it is being used in the first place. We simply have our fingers in too many places around the world.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
Well you're wrong.
At least two of the weapon sytems were about taking explosives out of the equation and getting kinetic kills. So an even more casualty resistant form of warfare. And trust me there are PLENTY of americans who'd like to see a little WWII visited upon the muslim world. Then lasers for just injuring and killing hardware with the option to bump it up to the occasional kill for people. Not to mention missle defense. (The current missle defense at all ranges is pre-emptive strike) And metalstorm which would offer increased protection from missles, and facillitate closer contact for better discrimination as opposed to ever greater stand-off ranges. Or selecting lethal and varying degrees of non-lethal force as the moment dictates. It's a lot easier to own the ground when the only trick in your hat is "bomb it to gravel and suck all the oxygen out of the air." We don't do that, and not because we can't, but because we buy into that "age of enlightenment" bullshit. That's what everyone Iraqis, Islamists, Westerners and Americans included seem to be forgetting. But aside from all that, the inevitability and human propensity for war. Pretend that doesn't count. Just go along with me. There's the technology.
The move from chemical to high power solid-state lasers will revolutionize a lot. New cooling technologies, which might influence everything hot where a cold side needs to be kept cold. To semi-conductors in general. To X-rays with out the X-rays. To better low power chemical sensors. And who knows what. But lets go to railguns. Delivering ordinance at hypersonic velocities without explosives very handy no doubt. But a big brother verion of it could put payloads in orbit. All of a sudden maybe putting an erector set in space is pretty cheap, and the space program is looking to build an office building where no man has gone before. Or how about the Rod's from God. Heavy metal indeed. Takes a new type of rocket engine, or just some old school ambition. Next thing we know project Orion gets off the ground from a Sealaunch platform? The government does the hard thinking and 50 years later Intel runs the numbers finding it's suddenly feasible to build a fab on the moon.
Once more, the world should stop looking over our fence, and worry about the shit they've got in their yards.
They hate america because they're reminded of what their not. The Arabs like to blame everyone for their problems, and it's taken the combined might of the Soviets and Americans to keep them from exterminating each other for 50 years. Even the feudal Japanese culture Matthew Perry encountered knew it immediately it must undertake a radical transformation or be destroyed. And American wasn't the dominant power by any measure that it is today. How many second chances do the arabs get? And the things that divide them are insignificant in comparision to the things that divide America. Who gives a fuck about how the leader of the world's poorest and fastest growing religion is chosen, and why the fuck are they cutting their babies with small swords? And really there's the answer. In the west, and America especially, kids are raised to look foreward to the future, not fight some war lost 300, 500, 700 years ago. Who gives a fuck. That is ancient history.
The mongols had it right. "We be bad. You can do it our way, or we can do you in." Harsh lesson? Maybe. But Russia would be a tiny collection of fifedomes if it wasn't for them. Germany, the UK, and China they owe a debt to those that subjegated them too. Of course every american grows up learning Yankee Doodle Dandy, and we love that star spangled banner. A song about the British kicking the crap out of a fort protecting Baltimor after they burned down the whitehouse, later lending the seat of last superpower its name. Maybe that's what the arabs and islamists need. A whole lot of killing at the hands of a would-be empire that thinks they all look equally worthless. Or maybe an object lesson would do it. But h
It's "Popular Science" none of that stuff that they predict ever works out.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I think Popular Military Porno magazine is now edited by Dr Strangelove.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Ready! Fire! Aim!
A regime so authoritarian that it created attacks against itself to justify intervening against minorities and other states. A regime of such unspeakable evil that even its willing executioners smiled while butchering their victims.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Ok, 100k dead in Chechnya...and...they're still fighting!
MILLIONS were killed in Vietnam...and...they still won the war!
When fighting against a people defending their homeland, you must be prepared to fight forever. Or just go home and start doing business with them, which is gentler and ultimately more profitable.
Great. A floating glitter boy. Just what we need.
Doesn't Popular Science publish this exact same story every year? It seems like they've been talking about the Amazing New Weapons(tm) like railguns and space darts for the last ten years.
Chucking I-beams is nice and all, but when will I be able to get a Little Doctor of my very own?
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
version 1.0B7
- ULTIMA RATIO REGUMGatling-type 3-mm hypervelocity railgun system
Ng Security Industries, Inc.
PRERELEASE VERSION - NOT FOR FIELD USE
DO NOT TEST IN A POPULATED AREA
Almost noone seems to remember there was a Nazi resistance at the end of WWII that compares to what you are seeing in Iraq.
The "half-hearted" attempt to rebuild the country is enormously complicated by a spectrum of issues from incredibly poor infrastructure to begin with, to looting, to sabotage. The infrastructure was horrible to begin with and what was running was running because of ingenuity and incredible jury rigging (from lack of resources to repair properly) that would make any slashdotter proud.
As for the police training being the fault of the leaders of the troops, troops are not meant to be cops. Training time is valuable and that time is dedicated to doing stuff that will ensure victory and save their lives.
Look at all the bombs that miss all of the tin pot dictators and all of the bombs that miss all of the terrorist clerics.
Military technology is a great aide but at some point you will always need well trained, well equipped manpower to actually walk into the battle zone, leaders with good plans, and informed foriegn relation policies.
Steve
Cancellation of the Avro Arrow project. They both were inteded to protect against the same threat (Soviet Bombers), but the Arrow had the advantage that it didn't involve detonating neclear weapons over northern Canada. The disadvantage was that it was competing for sales with powerful american companies (GE, Grumman, etc)
http://www.villiansupply.com/heavyarms.html look for ACCUKAK SYSTEMS NON-LETHAL ANTIPERSONNEL UNIT
The article reads like a user requirements and specification document.
Giving advantage to any of the "axis of evil" I wonder?
One of the soldiers in my (US Army) unit was shot in the leg by a British officer who was drunk a the time and was showing off his Browning high power pistol. The American specialist got lucky - despite the fact that the bullet entered his thigh and exited from his calf (crossing the knee joint) the 9mm round managed to miss all of the bones, ligaments, and major blood vessels. This was last November in Baghdad.
It's unfortunate. It shouldn't have happened. But things like this do happen, even outside of combat situations. So cut the poor Patriot crew a bit of slack:
If you saw incoming aircraft and no "I'm a friend" signature," you'd launch, too.
Travel the Galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms...
I had a smart teacher once, ex RAF (I think), and he said this: "War is supposed to remind you of why you don't go to war".
"John Stuart Mill, of his own free will, on half a pint of shandy was particularly ill."
million rounds per second?
Tis just a flesh wound!
I'm a rabbit startled by the headlights of life
2 BLU-109 ( forged steel pointy tip 2000lb iron ) and 2 regular 2000lb ( Mk84 ) iron bombs ) all 4 hooked to a JDAM ( GPS/INS ) kit. Poor intel. Good response time ( less than 20 minutes ).
Many current weapons systems are fast becoming out-of-date, from aging attack helicopter fleets to the early-'60s-designed rifles troops carry on the ground.
He can only be talking about he M16. It's interesting that it's "out of date" but you can't buy them. You can't get the civilian (semi-auto) version in many states. Gotta love the uninformed media.
...mass destruction. I don't fancy having the US invaded by those folks at the UN.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Is that anything like a "mayonnaise cannon"?
I heard this puppy described back in the late '60s or early '70s - and not in a classified context, either. (Early L5 society meeting, as I recall.)
I'm trying to recall the name of it. "Javelin" or "Thor" or something like that.
Basic idea was a rod with steerable tailfins and guidance system, dropped from extreme altitude or orbit. Would turn a tank into a crater easy.
Why is this suddenly "news" in 2004 - when they STILL aren't talking about somebody actually DOING it, but just thinking about it?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why is this suddenly "news" in 2004 - when they STILL aren't talking about somebody actually DOING it
Shoulda RTFAed. So they're launching it from a railgun rather than high altitude and the may actually be working on it.
Railguns were all the rage back in the '60s/'70s, too, though I never heard of somebody combining the two weapons to make a surface-based device.
Terminal guidance on a railgun projectile. Now THAT's a mind-boggling concept!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Depleted Uranium is just that -- Depleted . Actual research, like that from the World Health Organization, has proven the risk to be minimal:
So basically, don't eat the stuff, and don't hang around a battlezone while combat is going on. But that goes for regular lead bullets too.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
Seriously, the 1 million round-per-minute gun sounds like an extremely bad idea. With a mechanism moving that quickly, if a grain of sand or anything else in the enviroment jams it, the results would be at least failure and at worst an explosion. Currently, our soldiers in Iraq are having problems with their M16s jamming due to sand contamination. Apparently, AK47s, with their looser tolerances, do much better in a dirty environment.
Not to mention that if you're shooting that many rounds into a small area, you may as well be done with it and fire in a few shoulder or vehicle-launched missiles or rocket-propelled grenades. Unguided missiles do not necessarily have to be complex or expensive. Guns are more useful in war when you need to fire a few shots into very specific targets.
-Drew
There are some more factors here. Arab governments gleefully blame America (and our masters, the Jews) for every possible problem, cheaply diverting dissent which would otherwise come down on their own fannies.
You mention the need to "tackle the strong feelings". Oddly enough, that is, for better or for worse, the entire purpose of the "Bush doctrine"
Whether this will work is certainly open to question. But do note that it is an attempt to address the real real root causes (poverty, societal failure) of terrorism, as much as any foreign aid donation.
One final note before we go back to normal programming... the way in which foreign aid is given out really, really sucks. We give cash to governments, where it is promptly wasted, stolen, or otherwise prevented from helping anyone. What we really need to do is get some massive helicopters and airlift technical and vocational schools to trouble spots. Or say something like, "Okay, 3 billion in foreign aid? Hmm
(gasp) Okay, I'm done.
... a good Slashdotting is still the deadliest of weapons.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Why do those who oppose something government does (e.g. the current mess we're in in Iraq) instantaneously jump the gun and say we should be spending the money on something else? Why can't we KEEP our well earned money for a change? Why must we spend it on *your* favorite badly-run corrupt government-sponsored program?
Always go back to the essence. People question the spending of public money on a particular program but rarely question the source of that public money in the first place, its very spending (and taking).
It looks like you're trying to aim the weapon. Would you like to :
->Track the target
->Fire the weapon
->Cancel
*Pop-up window appears with links*
->Search for weapons on ebay
->Fast fire weapons on amazon
->Get your weapon to fire faster!
*Dialogue pops up on touch screen at that instant*
This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. If you would still like to use this gun, break the glass and use the pedals provided to power the device.
*Another dialog box pops up*
MICROSOFT WINDOWS SUXORS! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! - Outlook worm.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
That's because you hang out with the frothing-at-the-mouth anti-landmine lobby instead of watching what the military actually does.
You make a lot of assumptions...
I was an army engineer during my military service. Just not in the American army.
Our mines had no timers and the warzawa-pact mines generally had no timers.
I don't remember much about US mines (it was 8 years ago) but I think a lot of them were timerless too, at least the ones deployed manually.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Hypersonic projectiles... Milions of rounds per second... I thought i've head of those in one of N. Stephenson's books - was it Snowcrash?
As we get more technologically superior with our weapons, we are increasingly finding ourselves in situation where they are not particularly useful. Specifically, guerilla warfare seems to be difficult to defeat with such weapons. Rumsfeld's doctrine on using advanced technology to created a slim, efficient force works well when the enemy has tanks, aircraft, and well define building that can easily distinguished for attack. But when faced with a insurgents who blend in the civilian population and use schools and mosques as bases, the doctrine becomes less applicable. This is evident in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where often a strike against militants often cause unintended collateral.
Perhaps what the military needs is less emphasis on technology and more on tactics. As we becoming increasing superior in both military and resources, our enemies are going to increasingly rely on guerilla warfare and terrorism. So, our military should put more effort in its most reliable system- the soldier. No technology developed is as versatile as the human mind. They should focus mobilizing efforts on preparing the soldier for the battlefield environment that he is entering. This includes basic education in the local language with techniques to expand their skills once they are there. Also, they should give soldier better access to surveilance with a realtime view of the battefield as that they can track enemies using hit and run tactics as well as ambushes. Ultimately, they should develop a toolkit of general tactics that the soldier can then hone into a specific strategy to suit their current situation.
The technologies we should give particular focus are those that augment the soldier. Examples include body are that protects not just center mass but also the limbs, a selection of weapons that have strength in certain areas of combat such as long-range (open field) and medium/short range combat (urban), a lightweight computer that they can use to get realtime information.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Look at what British special forces are carrying. Look at the offerings from SAS and a slew of other manufacturers. The M-16 is a good weapon, but there are better, more reliable combat-assault weapons available. The fact the author is trying to make is that the military hasn't put any serious cash into developing a successor in 40 years, and with a 10-15 year development cycle, they need to start now.
You can have all the fancy weapons you want, but areas are still occupied and patrolled by the most basic weapon...a soldier and his firearm. Have the best-trained foot sildier, and the rest of the technology is 10x more effective. Have a poor soldier, and no technology is going to help you win the battle. Look at Vietnam, great weapons
far advanced compared to the enemy, but crippled by poorly trained, non-motivated soldiers. They didn't have a chance.
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
If it's so out of date, they can send a me a pallet of them. OK?
I have a gun that fires more than a million rounds per minute.
Unfortunately, the photons coming out of my flashlight don't pack a whole lot of punch.
"Terrorism is just a symptom of a disease - hatred within society."
Shhhhh, you'll be arrested for being unpatriotic. Either you agree with the US administration or you are with the terrorists!
When your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
I see two plausible scenarios with the introduction of this technology. #1: How long before some greedy-rich politician, trying to make EVEN MORE money, sells these ideas/secrets/actual production models to some foreign government? #2: Which future president will accuse another country of having these weapons and then recant his story later? #3: Where do I buy my tinfoil hat so I can avoid being railed by the electromagnetic phaser gun?
Nathan's blog
Right on the money, though it seems some individuals cannot understand this concept.
Thanks for putting it correctly and technically.
Is the juice worth the sqeeze?
http://www.metalstorm.com/04_videos/videos.html
.. Watch the AVI ...
It DOES exist
Those of us among the "educated masses" know that "alot" [sic] is actually two words: a lot.
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
What exactly happens if the enemy has thick mirrors?
"So, a round of applause for...this inanimate carbon rod!"
ok -- I confess the rods in this case are apparently tungsten but they're still (mostly) inanimate...
Agreed- though, of course, Shakespeare said it best: "The Devil can cite scripture for his purpose"
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
When white minority rule was ending, South Africa sold most of its weapons grade uranium to the US. I think the white government was more than a little afraid of the ANC or a unstable government getting their hands on nukes. One ex-South African diplomat asserted in interviews that South Africa's decision to sign the NPT was in fact "motivated by concern that it didn't want any undeclared nuclear material or infrastructure falling into the hands of Nelson Mandela" and the ANC. http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1993/a93/a93Albr ightHibbs.html
Syndicate Wars, made back in '96 or so by Bullfrog Software (which got folded into EA, I think). In said game that weapon system is poetically known as 'Satellite Rain'.
Note, too, that the article addresses the placement costs and inherent availability issues of a satellite-based platform, suggesting modified ICBMs (or, I would think, SLBMs) as delivery vehicles for these rods...
- White Knight of the Order of Mihoshi Enthusiasts
For more info, go to Dr. Jerry Pournelle's EXCELLENT site and do a search on "THOR." He helped develop the idea. There are 32 hits, one of which is MEGAMISSIONS AND SPACE POWER. Another is for the book he co-authored with Dr. Possony and Dr. Kane called THE STRATEGY OF TECHNOLOGY, which was a required text at the USAF Academy for YEARS.
READ the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments! http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/const.html
None of these resources explained how the thing worked. They explained 'what it does', yes. But not how it worked.
If you had an air bubble around your torpedo it would create drag. I assume that this uses a vacuume rather than an actual 'air bubble'. The only way I know to create supercavitating bubbles is with powerful sound waves. Is that what this does? How do you get a supercavitating bubble around your missle? Or is this one of those "I could tell you but then I'd have to kill you" deals.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Seriously folks, as silly as ewoks are they are a prtty powerful image of the asymmetric warfare the US will face in the next century. We have an arsenal of the most high-tech weapons anywhere; Saddam's army melted away before them. Why fight when you don't have a chance?
A year later they've killed six times as many US soldiers as during the war proper, using entirely low-tech weapons combined with stealth.
The most deadly attack on the US in two generations was perpetrated with a set of quarter-inch-long knifeblades; the only technology used was our own (the planes).
I think these weapons are as cool from a geek perspective as the next guy. But you hide from a space-based kinetic energy weapon the same way you hide from a cruise missile, tank, or humvee: in plainclothes in a crowded building.
These things will be useful in some scenarios, but better intelligence, better cultural knowledge, psychological and group-psychological action, and actually-effective nonlethal weapons are going to be the far more important military needs of the US for the next few decades.
No nation will pick a hardware-based fight with the US. It's all going to turn on boots on the ground, among the people. As yet, we're nowhere near as good at that.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
"Look at Vietnam, great weapons
far advanced compared to the enemy, but crippled by poorly trained, non-motivated soldiers. They didn't have a chance."
The US had a fine kill ratio of enemy troops in Vietnam - problem was, the enemy's loss tolerance was even higher...
The prefered term is 'Incontinent Ordinance' nowadays. No, seriously.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
If you want outdated weapons, buy a pallet of AK-47s. You can get 4 for the price of a pallet of m-16s
"Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect."- Steven Wright
i saw some reports on the super-hyper brick gun about a year ago, also another blurb a couple of months ago on history network (yah i know they have such accurate info) but, yet again, as astounding as these weapons are, any numbers you hear are WAY low. the gun that shoots so fast is a brick of tubes stacked with bullets (caseless). the bullets can be shot one at a time or in a crazy volley, but, in both the earlier article i had read, and on the history channel, both articles said ~180,000 rounds in a fraction of a second!! way way faster than 1 million per miute. both had also mentioned that the bricks could be scaled up, achieving up to and above 1,000,000 per second. this rule of "public lowball" is SOP with the military R&D, but it really is a low, low, ball. the b-2 bomber was being flown in public for over 17 years before any one knew about it! same goes for every skunk works project. the new $2 billion (and up, no no, really, 2 billion $) subs are quieter at top speed than the quietest one we know about at rest. if you think about it, we have been in the dark since the a-bomb, crap why dont we have anything super advanced? when was the TV created - 50 years, 60 years, 70? jeez, it bends light and they still dont have anything fancier?! wheres my teleporter? wheres free power? on the shelf, with the rest of the goodies, until another country or some schmo figures it out. on a side note -my friends brother works for ratheon (sp?) and nobody knows what he does (hed have to kill us) but one night at the bar, we asked - "so exactly how tapped are our phones?" he laughed (this was after a few beers) and then got kinda serious "dont say anything important on the phone - ever", wow.
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Even in SOCOM where friendly players are clearly marked and you can see where they are, friendly fire accidents happen all the time. Someone sticking their head out into your line of fire or a misthrown grenade are always killing people.
Deal with it. We take steps to minimize the occurance and severeness but thats all you can do. Accidents will happen
Just be glad we don't have to carpet bomb anymore.
Too bad the US won't be able to afford them. When .30 of every tax dollar is used to pay for loan interest, There won't be anything left for things like roads, teachers and weapons.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
My first job out of college around 1985 was working on railguns for SDI. Everything that the article says here could have been said back then. Apparently not much has changed. Rails have to be replaced frequently, electronics need to be hardened to withstand g forces. Doesn't seem that they have solved any of these problems in 20 years. Hmmm and they will not be battlefield ready for another 10.
What I wonder about the claimed speeds of Mach 6, was this in a vacuum or in the atmosphere. When I was working on this stuff, everybody fired in a vacuum range tank. Much different than in the atmosphere.
Another major problem with this technology that the article doesn't mention is the hugh problem of EMP. Just look at the USS Forestal to see why these weapons need lots of shielding on a ship.
The article is also somewhat inaccurate in it's claim that the required power could not be generated on previous ships. The most common way to power a railgun is with a homopolar generator. It takes awhile to charge up the generator that then delivers a huge current pulse for a few milliseconds. Even a small ship can power a motor which can run this device. None of these weapons will ever have a 100% duty cycle.
As far as the spaced based KE weapons go, Google for 'Brilliant Pebbles' for much more info.
Here's a pic:i cs/mg4 2pix1.jpg
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~nightingale/graph
But how inanimate is a house when 91 people die when you "demolish it"?
My point is that terrorism is the last weapon of really desparate people. Sometimes, these people win, like Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin. So Israel was basically founded by early terrorists.
I'm not anti-Israel, I'm sure Ben Gurion and Begin would have preferred to fight the British in an "open battle" with tanks and soldiers, but they didn't have any of these so they chose a terrorist attack.
In this aspect, the're pretty similar the today's Palestinians.
I don't need a signature.
In their defense, I'm sure "Rummy & Wolfie" knew there was no way, in this day and age, that we could sustain three to four hundred thousand troops in Iraq for any significant length of time. We just don't have the divisions anymore.
We'll have enough trouble sustaining 100,000+ for a couple years, and the resulting extended deployments will probably play hell with Army recruiting & retainment for years to come.
wouldn't you be able to tell the difference between the abuse of a hundred prisoners* and the killing of a hundred thousand people?
I am -- but I'm afraid, many Arabs are not.
This abuse shouldn't have happened in the first place (I mean, I'm sorry, but I believe the guards when they say they have never heard about the Geneva Convention. But, as it has happened, the criminals (or whoever's fault that is) must be punished.
In a very visible way.
I don't need a signature.
Most modern US area attack/denial bomblets (though not yet mines) will disarm themselve after a given time period.
Please inform this stupid person what "terror." is and is not.
And also how you can wage a war against it ?
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
I think the true answer would be becouse you could!
And thats what's scary!
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
An Iraq pre war blowing up a goverment building (civilian) to try to remove Saddam ?
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
This Starwars book, Shatterpoint, published June 3, 2003 has a very similar concept called a DOKAW (De-Orbiting Kinetic Anti-emplacement Warhead). The DOKAW is just a rod of solid material ("durasteel" I think) with ablative shielding and thrusters for moderate smart targeting. I only remember this because I finished reading the book for the second time a couple days ago.
"We don't make a distinction between civilians and non-civilians, innocents and non-innocents. Only between Muslims and unbelievers. And the life of an unbeliever has no value. It has no sanctity."
--Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad
When you hear someone criticize Israeli policies regarding the Palestinians, you are listening to a jew-hater.
And when your parents tell you not to watch so much TV and not to take drugs, it's because they hate you.
Don't believe their excuses that they want to help you, it's not true.
I don't need a signature.
(no mod points)
Ethics is what you say you do. Morals is what you actually do.
Robert Anson Heinlen. "Yes, but we have many rocks!"
I've liked Manny from the first read. RAH really buggered it up after he went a bit senile and sex-mad; he integrated TMiaHM with his later series and ruined Manny.
TANSTAAFL, I expect. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"I don't know the kind of weapons World War 3 will be fought with, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." -quote Albert Einstein-
I've got to hand it to him, he sure has some nice quotes :-)
Any other questions?