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."

Comments

US Army

[bcmm]

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...

Re:US Army

[next1]

as we have seen in iraq, we also need a way to stop them aiming the accurate weapons at the *right* things.

the restaurant attack on saddam for example? too bad about anyone else in the restaurant, or the near vicinity.

Re:US Army

[Hittite Creosote]

Now we just need a way to stop humans aiming the accurate weapons at the wrong things...

Such as not shooting your allies, for example.

From the article in today's BBC News:
The US military at first insisted that there was a fault with the RAF Tornado's 'friend-foe' recognition system but later admitted they were having problems with the Patriot missile system's software.

Re:US Army

[tealover]

Friendly fire always happens in every war. Regardless of what you think from playing SOCOM, war is chaotic and mistakes do happen.

Re:US Army

[basingwerk]

Can you be sure that this is not due to substandard training? In Britain, people are tired of hearing this excuse when the US blast British tanks and planes instead of the enemy.

Re:US Army

[delong]

the restaurant attack on saddam for example? too bad about anyone else in the restaurant, or the near vicinity

Because of course Saddam was just hanging out and mingling with the little people, and the restaurant wasn't cleared and secured by his security detail first.

Re:US Army

[b-baggins]

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling, which thinks that nothing is worth war, is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertion of better men than himself.

- John Stuart Mill

Re:US Army

[killjoe]

There are two extremes. One extreme says no war is worth it. Jesus takes this extreme and John Stuart Mills rails against this in your quote.

Another extreme to reach for war as your first and primary tool when you want to control the natural resources of another country. George Bush takes this extreme.

So in a nutshell.

Jesus on one extreme, George Bush on the other.

Most people are in the middle.

Re:US Army

[swingkid]

There's a large difference between protesting a war unilaterally begun under obviously false pretenses, and not being willing to fight for anything at all.
And while we're quoting:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
- Samuel Johnson

Re:US Army

[Rostin]

Jesus takes this extreme

Jesus takes the extreme of telling individuals not to retaliate when insulted. He says nothing about war. In his encounters with professional soldiers, he doesn't make their job an issue. He quotes the Old Testament and speaks highly of the scriptures (verses the traditions cobbled on by the Pharisees) in which a not inconsiderable amount of war and killing is mandated by Yahweh.

It's possible to interpret the sayings of Jesus recorded as the Sermon on the Mount as a promotion of absolute pacifism, but this view doesn't really stand up very well under scrutiny and is probably too simplistic.

Ghandi would probably make a much better example of this "extreme."

Re:US Army

[demachina]

"1. No U.N. does not equal unilateral."

I would agree that it was not exactly unilateral since the U.S. did have allies, but so did Germany in World War II. There is a near certainty, and in fact Bush has said it, he would have invaded Iraq if he the U.S. went alone so for all practical purposes it was unilateral he just managed to scrape together a ragged coalition to make it kind of look like it wasn't. When Bush decided he was going to do it and do it alone if necessary he made it unilateral. Many of the members of the coalition were also either bribed or coerced in to participation. The chances are pretty good all the leaders who willingly participated will get voted out of office at the first opportunity, Spain already having done so and Australia may well towards the end of the year.

A better description of Iraq is "aggressive warfare". That is when you preemptively attack someone who is not posing an immediate threat to your nation. It is against international law. The backing of the U.N. is desirable precisely because it gives a war international legitimacy. Iraq engaged in aggressive warfare when it attacked Kuwait, thats why the U.N. and the world backed the first gulf war. The U.S. and U.N. should have taken down Saddam then when they had justification. To come back more than a decade later and do it with no real provacation, and at enormous expense($200 billion and counting, nearly 800 dead and counting, and thousands wounded) was just unwise.

"Anyone who still doesn't think AL Qaeda and Iraq have links after the beheading of a kidnapped American and the Jordanian bomb plot is self-delusional."

Al Quaeda's presence in Iraq NOW is a product of the U.S. invasion. Its simply irrational to point to the fact they are there now and say "See I told you so" when they weren't there before the war. The only part of Iraq Al Quaeda was known to be in before the war wasn't under Saddam's control. Saddam was a socialist, and Muslim only when convenient. Fundamentalists like those in Al Quaeda despised him as a result.

"2. WMD was not the only reason given for the attack on Iraq (read the actual transcript of the State of the Union address instead of your DNC talking points)."

It was the ONLY reason the Bush administration had that they could use to sucker Congress and the American people in to backing the war. Cheney in particular constantly invoked the prospect of a nuclear cloud of an American city if we didn't invade Iraq immediately. It was shameful in its deceit. Even recently Cheney was still trying to claim some vans seized could be used to produce biological weapons when no expert will back him.

Number 2 on the list was this bizarre assertion that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 when there is NO evidence of that whatsoever. 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi's. If you were going to invade some nation besides Afghanistan over it the next country most responsible was Saudi Arabia. Thats why the Bush Administration had to censor huge tracts about Saudi Arabia in the congressional report on 9/11.

Number 3 was to bring "Freedom and Democracy". I'll give you that one when there is real "Freedom and Democracy" in Iraq. Not an American puppet state or a repressive Shia dominated Islamic republic which would be the near certain outcome the day there is a fair election in Iraq.

"3. Iraq is a battle in the war. The war is on terror."

Iraq is a huge distraction from the war on terrorism. The fact the Bush administration did a half assed job in Afghanistan where the real war should have been fought was because they were in a rush to attack Iraq for no good readson. In fact invading Iraq wass pouring gasoline on the war on terror. The massive humiliation the U.S. is heaping on the Arab and Muslim world is driving moderate Arabs in to the hands of Al Quaeda and is a recruiting poster for a new army of suicide bombers. When Bush recently expressed unabashed support for Sharon and Israel and took it upon himself to make unilate

Re:US Army

[dfenstrate]

Ghandi would probably make a much better example of this "extreme."

Actually, I'm gonna have to give ghandi an N/A for this affair. What Ghandi realized, and pretty much every modern pacifist who invokes his name doesn't, is that pacifism only works against a moral enemy.

To quote, for example: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Yeah, Ghandi said that, indicating he believed violence was of us at times.

He used pacifism against the British because they were morally restrained, and wouldn't violently put down a non-violent protest. The one British General who did was relieved of command on rather short order.

You never hear of any Ghandi or MLK types from Iran, former Iraq, Syria, as they where all captured and murdered as soon as they opened their mouths, because their brutal regimes had no qualms about killing anyone given the slightest reason.

It would be MUCH better...

[Phidoux]

... 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.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[10Ghz]

Educated masses are alot harder to control than uneducated masses are. If your audience is just a bunch of morons you can just say "we must kill these people because they are jealous of us and they hate freedom!"

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[Phidoux]

I live in South Africa where, not to many years ago, sentiments such as yours were considered to be official government policy. Thus I'm pretty sure that investing money in education, rather that in weapons technology, is a much better investment.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[sql*kitten]

It would be far better to spend all this money on giving people less reason to fight each other.

You are assuming that people have a rational reason to fight. In the West, that is often (but not always true). For example, Europeans historically have warred over access to natural resources - but have also warred over religion (most notably Catholic vs Protestant) since the Renaissance. However the animosity between England and Spain was about both.

In Rwanda, the civil war was conducted along racial lines - two tribes determined to wipe one another out, pure genocide. In Iraq, the Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over religion and both sides are fighting the Kurds simply because they are of another race. In Zimbabwe, the government of Robert Mugabe sabotages the farming industry in order to starve their opponents into submission.

What about building a machine that, instead of pumping out millions of rounds of lead per second, are able to make mud bricks and houses at a rate of 10 a day?

Such a machine would not resolve a single conflict in Africa. The Hutus and Tutsis (IIRC) aren't fighting over who has the most bricks, but over which "tribe" you're from. The BBC news reported on a Rwandan who killed his own grandchildren because they were mixed race.

Socialists like giving aid to third world countries because a) it justifies higher taxation at home and b) they don't need to trouble themselves about the root causes.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[sql*kitten]

don't always believe what BBC has to say about things ... they are as guilty as any other major corporation of corrupting reality to serve their own purposes.

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.

every single conflict going on between any two groups of people is created. it doesn't 'just happen'. give people technology to avoid this creation, and they will nobody 'wants' death.

You are wrong - look at all the wannabe martyrs in the world. And, you also conveniently overlook the concept that some wars aren't rational.

Do you know what Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over? Whether Mohammed's heirs should have been his sons or his disciples. They've been killing each other over this for 1300 years. You think a mud brick machine is going to help here???

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[ratamacue]

Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up). When offered the possibility that terrorists hate the US because the US government regularly kills innocent civilians in the wake of its never-ending war campaigns, these same people launch into a verbal assult and full-out denial of any logic which tries to "reason with the terrorists". (As if admitting that the US government is wrong would somehow give justification for the terrorists' dispicable attacks on innocent people.)

Group think. That's what we're dealing with here (on both sides, the gung-ho warmongers AND the terrorists). It's simply easier for people to conform to the group, than it is to deny the group and think for themselves. If pushed, some of these people will actually claim that it is just and moral to MURDER an innocent human being if it supposedly saves another. This is the power of group think.

Re:It would be MUCH better...

[swillden]

Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up).

Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people. Our sort of cultural imperialism is arguably *more* threatening to them than a few bombs, if you keep in mind that to them (as well as to many serious adherents of other faiths, like Christianity), death is not nearly as bad as damnation.

As a Christian, I look around our society and have to sympathize with them on that point, at least in part. Particularly when I consider that their view of our society is primarily the one portrayed by Hollywood.

And 9/11, of course, was not at all about innocent civilian deaths, it was mostly about trying to get the infidels out of the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia). Bin Laden's major beef is the fact that the Saudi Royal family invited drinking, porn-viewing US soldiers and their flesh-revealing women into Mohammed's sacred land.

In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.

Of course, the civilian casualties of these actions just serve to reinforce the perception that America hates Arabs. That plus the religion-based fears plus the political disagreements leads to all of the Great Satan rhetoric and the moral "justification" of terror attacks.

Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.

Overall, I think we need to be more sensitive to the Arab world, and less heavy-handed in our approach to international relations around the globe, but I think that there's ultimately nothing we could do that would erase the fear and hatred. Middle-eastern societies are in the grip of their own great internal turmoil, as they attempt to decide whether they're going to be Islamic or secular, whether they're going to join the rest of the world in the materialism we call progress or whether they're going to stay "pure". America is the ideal symbol for one side of this conflict, and much of the hatred directed our way arises from that struggle, over which we have no direct control.

Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.

Just don't expect the change to be painless, or to stay within the Islamic nations' own borders.

Finally, it's also important to realize that everything I've said here is a sweeping generalization. The Arab nations are not a unified whole. Iraq is already very secularized (was prior to Saddam, and during Saddam's reign, although he used religion), Iran is very Islamist, Saudi Arabia is Islamist, but still trying to be progressive, Egypt is a melting pot with lots of factions and counter-factions, and a government that is secular. I don't know enough about Syria and Jordan to comment, but I'm sure they have their own, unique situations.

Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".

Why?

[Killjoy_NL]

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 :(

Terrorism

[pubjames]

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.

Applicable uses of military technology

[temprand]

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.

Forget future weapons

[phoxix]

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

Superweapons vs beheading someone

[Quizo69]

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.

Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone

[NickeB]

"One mans death is a tradgedy, a million deaths is a statistic"

Don't they ever learn?

[ThinWhiteDuke]

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.

Re:Don't they ever learn?

[B.Smitty]

Actually, while we may have an overwhelming firepower advantage in Iraq, we hardly have overwhelming numbers.

A general rule-of-thumb for occupations is 1 soldier per 40 inhabitants. Having less means you don't have enough troops to adequately control activities on the ground.

We have something like 1 soldier for every 160 Iraqis there today.

A Proven Formula for How Many Troops We Need

So it should be obvious why we're having these problems today.

Re:Who needs explosives indeed?

[vandan]

Depleted Uraniam is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Two Points

[N8F8]

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.

Re:Here's an idea...

[eclectro]

How about timers in land mines so that they blow up/self destruct after two or three year.......Does anyone know if the US does anything like this?

Sadly, even if the US did create a landmine that would turn inert over time, there are a number of other nations in the military sales business that would not bother to do so.

Certainly cost is a factor. Why buy a mine that goes dead after a period of time when you can buy two mines that don't for the same money?

The idea of self destructing landmines is completely counterintuitive not only to the nature of war, but to the purpose of land mines as well.

Landmines today are engineered to not kill a soldier (I do not know about US made landmines or if this is regulated by treaty as hollow point bullets are), but rather to cause horrific harm to him. In fact, there is one landmine that when it is triggered it launches itself in the air about waist high and then explodes.

This deeply injures a soldier in a sensitive area. The purpose of doing this is to not only take him out of action, but to tie up resources to take care of him. But most importantly, it demoralizes those around him and those that come in contact with him. If it kills the soldier, the landmine is considered a "failure".

Which brings up a larger issue of "war". There are no rules in war, period. War is the distillation of evil from the human spirit, with the purpose to cause (usually hurtful) harm to another human being. It might be a "just war" with a purpose (stop Hitler), or it might be "just a war" with the sole purpose of killing (Rwanda).

Either case, the enterprise of evil is present.

Which is why you find toys that are actually explosives so that kids will find them.

In this context, will a new type of landmine be invented that turns inert?

Yes, it will. But they will be so few in number compared to other countries that don't care, who will produce countless millions that don't turn inert. So, it could be argued that any such effort is doomed to be meaningless.

As an aside, I don't excuse what is happening in Iraq with the prisoners of war. But people forget a couple of things. First, it is a war . By definition this kind of thing is going to happen. People would like to think that American soldiers are above this behavior. But the fact is many of those prisoners have American blood on their hands, and many families here in the US will not see their loved ones again because of it.

So, from my perspective, I can see where if you had a buddy killed by a rebel and you manage to catch him, you might want to exact a bit of vigilante justice to show your displeasure.

In fact, when Americans captured such prisoners at the turn of the last century in wars, they were routinely lined up against a wall somewhere and shot. Another thought was never given to it.

I don't fault the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq. I fault the Bush administration trying to fight a "polite" war, to in some way rid the Iraqi people of the evil of Saddam and bring democracy to the Arab world. As some have said, you can win the war, but not necessarily win the piece.

The purpose of war is to inflict pain on, conquer, or kill your enemy. So, the goal of this war, "to help" the Iraqi people, is incongruous with the definition of war itself. Hence, this incongruity has produced instances of abuse in the Iraqi prisoner of war population. It was not the first, nor will it be the last time it happens. I dare say even by other American soldiers at some future date.

I am not saying that it should be accepted or excused. What I am saying is that war is an evil enterprise, no matter how smart your bombs are, or if the landmines are self destructing. And when people are fighting a war, I think it would be safe to assume that whether a landmine will turn inert at some future date or not is the very last thing on their mind. They just want it to explode when somebody steps on it.

Hearts and minds

[Savage-Rabbit]

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.

Re:1x10^6 rounds per minute - inaccurate stats.

[ivrcti]

First - essentially no reload time since all the bullets are stacked directly in the barrel before firing begins. Reducing your estimate by a factor of 10.

Second - as others have pointed out the electrical charge merely ignites the propelant rather than providing the impetus. Reducing your estimate by another factor of 100.

Third the weapon only fires for milliseconds when at full rate, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.

Fourth - the million rate is developed by a weapon that has about 50 barrels, so the velocity of each bullet can drop accordingly, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.

Your last sentence was the most correct, it's the assumptions that invalidate our calculations at least by a factor of 2,500,000.

Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11

[BgJonson79]

In my idealist world, I pretty much agree with you. In my real world, I think some of my idealism simply won't work.

That said, 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 will be BULLSHIT if the perpetrators don't end up spending many, many years in Levenworth. Yeah, abuse and torture are horrible, but isn't killing even worse?

Come on people!! Get real..

[the_rajah]

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

A Waste of Human Effort

[npsimons]

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired
signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not
fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not
spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the
genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way
of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is
humanity hanging on a cross of iron.
-- Dwight David Eisenhower, April 16, 1953