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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."
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!
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.
AFAIK the US are not really interested in more "humanitarian" behaviour of landmines. The Ottawa convention has not been signed by a few "rogue states", including the US, Russia, China, India, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. If you don't like that company, write to your representative.
Landmines are not really meant to kill soldiers after all, they know what they look like and where they might be - they are often even designed not to kill, but to mutilate. A dead is buried, a mutilated child will be a burden for society for all his life. Fill a country with landmines, as both Soviets and US-backed Mujaheeddins did in Afghanistan, and you have cursed the country for generations.
Self-destructing mines are not going to be accepted - these days the Geneva convention is used to wipe Rumsfeld's arse, and frankly a proposal for a more expensive and on-purpose less effective weapon is not going to get through.
I'm told that mine production is not even that lucrative business. They have children mutilated with landmines that look purposefully like toys, only to make a few pennies more. Some motherfuckers.
Speaking of Cambodia, these people know something.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I must disagree with you here, pretty much the sentiment about the Belgrano sinking was that it was justified and correct. Court cases brought against the UK government regarding the case have all failed.
For the people who arent aware of the story, the Belgrano was an Ex US battle cruiser sold to the Argentinian Navy after world war two. The Argentinians used the Belgrano during their invasion of the Falkland Islands, which the UK has owned for nearly 200 years, but the Argentinians have always claimed as their own.
The UK government authorised the Royal Navy submarine Conquerer to sink the Belgrano after it was decided that she played a great threat to the UK task force fleet sailing to free the Falkland Islands, even tho the Belgrano was outside the "area of interest" as defined by the UK government (she was sailing to intercept the task force when she was sunk, but was about 100 miles outside the exclusion zone around the islands). She was hit twice, and sunk. The two escort ships accompanying the Belgrano turned and fled, failing to pick up any survivors now in the water, and thus sealing a lot of deaths.
THe upside of it was that the UK Navy didnt have to deal with the Argentinian Navy any longer, they stayed in port during the entire conflict, leaving the defence of the Falkland Islands to the Argentinian airforce, who could fly from the mainland and had enough range to attack the falklands.
The reason that the strike was ordered while the ship was outside the exclusion zone was that she was about to pass into a shallow area of water, which the submarine would have to go around. IT was deemed too risky to the task force for Conquerer to attempt this and search for the Belgrano on the other side, so the descision was made to sink the Belgrano before she passed into this area.
"Could this be real?Possibly" http://www.metalstorm.com/04_the_technology.html
(sheesh, ever heard of a search engine??)
Yes it is real.(USA does not invent everything in the world, surprising as that may be..). Although it has a high rate of fire it's not like a machine gun. The projectiles are loaded into the barrel in series. Once gone the entire barrel needs reloading. The main advantage is many bullets close to each other means you can target things things like grenades and artillery in flight. Normally the physical distance between each bullet/shell is so large the target can move far enough between each shot (say 1/10th second=30m of target movement)so that the rounds miss. If the rounds are only 1/100,000th of a second apart they are physically closer together and as long as you can aim the first shot accurately the rest of barrel load will be very close behind.Of course if you miss, the target will probably hit you before you reload the barrel. (Which is why the device typically has multiple barrels)
You can also electronically control the rate of fire to exactly what you need. e.g. 1 rounds/min to it's maximum.
Iraqi rescue workers using a bulldozer to search the rubble said that three bodies had been recovered -- those of a small boy, a young woman and an elderly man -- and that the death toll could be as high as 14. The woman's head had been severed from her torso.
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( http://www.boston.com/news/daily/08/war_leadershi
Rescuers said up to 14 people may have been killed in the blast, which reduced four houses to dust and blew out windows and doors of houses as far as 300 m away. The remains of a small boy, a young woman and an elderly man were pulled from the rubble.
( http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/story/0,
John Carmack is probably a bigger influence.
John McCormack was an Irish tenor if you believe that lying Google.
Lobster, I'm of the same opinion concerning Friendly Fire that you are, but:
- The great majority of the German army was never in France. Only 1/3 of the Wermacht was on the western front which includes all forces in southern France & Italy as well as the forces in Normandy.
- While Friendly Fire was feared & factored into plans, both Monty & Patton tried hard to close the Falaise pocket. The historians I've read attribute the failure to trap the German forces to german proficiency (being the first users of blitzkrieg they knew what getting encircled entailed) & allied exhaustion (breaking out was a Major effort. Sealing off the forces was beyond them).
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
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.
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