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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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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."
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.
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".
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
"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.
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.
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?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
You can't say civilization doesn't advance,
for in every war they kill you a new way.
(Will Rogers)
j
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
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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