Slashdot Mirror
Mysterious 'Forcefield' Tested on US Tanks
An anonymous reader writes "Not too long ago General Dynamics announced a successful test of their new Trophy Active Defense System (ADS). The Trophy ADS generates something similar to a force field around one half of a vehicle as a direct reaction to incoming fire. From the article: 'The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage. Once an incoming threat is detected identified and verified, the Countermeasure Assembly is opened, the countermeasure device is positioned in the direction where it can effectively intercept the threat. Then, it is launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat at a relatively long distance.'"
Ballistic - relating to or characteristic of the motion of objects moving under their own momentum and the force of gravity; "ballistic missile"
So....... if I keep my enemies at bay by throwing rocks at them, I am protected by a "force field"?
And the title of the article is MYSTERIOUS force field. The article describes just how the thing works. If you can describe how it works, it's not a mystery.
Anyway, I'm sick of seeing this stupid story repeated over and over. How many times have I read this in the past two days? Everybody's calling it a force field too. Weird. It's almost like a company has a new product to sell and sent out a press release which was copied by lazy reporters. But that never happens, right?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It looks more like a point defense system for tanks and other armored vehicles. Very cool, but not as cool as a real force field.
:-)
Still, you've got to admit that this would be a huge psychological deterant. I mean, if I fired RPGs at a tank, and the RPGs (seemingly without cause) pre-detontated before they ever reached the tank, I'd be looking to get the hell out of there and warn all my friends! There would be a lot of "how can fight something like that?" discussions going on that night.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Translation: It's a machine gun. Probably 5.56mm NATO standard, as it's just big enough and the ammo is cheap.
Basically the same as a scaled down Phalanx.
Reactive armour has no electronic control, it's just a sheet of explosives sandwiched between two layers of steel held off of the vehicle hull. When a HEAT shell detonates on the surface, the explosive sheet also detonates, disrupting the jet.
1. gotta be expensive (we don't wanna look like cheap assholes) 2. gotta make it sound like it's out of a sci-fi movie Training donkeys to help soldiers with carrying provisions : REJECTED A million dollar noisy and entertaining robotized donkey, looks like those big quadruped machines on Hot in Episode VI - ACCEPTED Laser beams shooting out of airplanes, like on space ships - ACCEPTED Light mattery to replace bullet proof vests - REJECTED Robotized cyborg-like appendages, makes soldiers look exactly like Robocop - ACCEPTED Machine gun that shoots of RPG-s targeted at tanks - REJECTED Mysterious Force field repelling RPG-s - ACCEPTED
Not all programmers are peacenik hippies, you know. Even Linux ones.
I know of several Linux programmers that would probably slaver over the opportunity to program a giant killing machine. (Although perhaps only if it walked and shot lasers and was 50 feet tall. They might not be down with programming an uncool killing machine. I'll have to ask.)
On a more serious note, do you really think that IBM, HP, Sun, and all the rest of the companies that have paid into and supported this Linux thing would continue to do so if there was such a 'no military use' clause? If you think so, then you have no idea how much of many of those companies revenues come from government contracts, particularly defense ones. Do you think the NSA would help to secure it? I bet even NASA wouldn't touch it. (Most of their contractors who do the majority of the work wouldn't be able to, since a lot of them do a ton of military work on the side.)
And what is "military use" anyway? Is running a logistics or inventory management system 'military use,' if the inventory being managed is bombs and bullets? What if it's just MREs? What if it's a payroll system for military personnel? How about civilian contractors? Could you use it to run a firewall--if that firewall was in a missile silo?
Anyone who wanted to make a commercial software product and even had the dimmest hopes of ever selling it to government wouldn't be able to use any code under such a license.
Not to mention the public-image damage you'd do by associating Linux with yet another political philosophy; as if Free Software isn't controversial enough to sell to management, you want to make sure that there's absolutely no chance that it's taken seriously?
It would be the best thing in the world for BSD, though...
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
My fellow war supporters, here's the situation - all of the reasons we gave for invading Iraq before the war turned out to be hogwash. Whether it was due to lying, incompetence, or (most likely) over-enthusiasm and spin by certain parties best left unmentioned, Iraq posed no signifigant threat to the US in any way. So how do we salvage our dignity? We have to make the war look like a humanitarian effort.
First - The image of the enemy - we have to make Saddam look as evil as possible. He can't be just another petty dictator, like so many others that we aren't fighting, he has to be Hitler. So give all the grusome details about the evil he's done, but don't put it in perspective to other places, or he won't stand out like we need him to.
Second - The image of ourselves - we have to make it look like the choice was between waging war and doing nothing - people will always go for a hands-on bad solution over a hands-off good solution. So the fairly effective inspectors and embargos should be dismissed as peacenick-hippie daydreams, and only then can a long, destabalizing war be seen as good. (Especially after our promises of a fast, painless war.)
Remember the idea we're trying to plant - something had to be done, nobody else had any better ideas, and by golly, we did something. And damn the consquences.