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Boeing 12,000lb Chemical Laser Set to Fry Targets
coondoggie writes "Boeing this week completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations."
But, can you use it to make popcorn?
Whoa, that's bright!
... they'd go after Wal*Marts first. Or Target Frys.
I'll bet that in the original design, they painted it up as a shark and they mounted the fricken' laser on its fricken' head.
Dr. Evil: You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!
Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly? Throw me a bone here! What do we have?
Number Two: Sea Bass.
Dr. Evil: [pause] Right.
Number Two: They're mutated sea bass.
Dr. Evil: Are they ill tempered?
Number Two: Absolutely.
Dr. Evil: Oh well, that's a start.
Mandatory: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118655/
I wonder what the peaceful applications of this could be? It bothers me that so much money is spent on military technology having so many other issues that could be addressed. I'm guessing that soldering might be one good use, with a scaled down model but can't think of much else at the moment. On the other hand if they are going to research more ways to destroy stuff I'd like to see a true laser hand pistol...
Oh, I almost forgot the meme: Sharks!
+Raider of the lost BBS
And by 'little collateral damage', they mean only the little 'eyeball bits' of people within a couple of hundred yards who happen to be looking at the target when it is hit (unless DoD have promised to only target unshiny bad guys).
Little or no collateral damage? Depends on the accuracy really.
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
If they relly want to destroy thing on hte ground why dont they enclose some high explosives in a steel container with a fuse set to go off when it hits an object. They could then drop this from the plane.
just an idea.
Old COBOL programmers never die. They just code in C.
Without reading the article, this sure as hell sounds like every sadists "ant and magnifying glass" dream come true.
Laslo: I figure you've increased the power output to six megawatts?
Chris: Yeah, about that.
Laslo: Well what would you use that for?
Ick: Making Swiss cheese?
Mitch: The applications are unlimited.
Laslo: No. With the fuel you've come up with the beam would last for what...15 seconds. Well what good is that?
Chris: Oh Laslo. That doesn't matter. I respect you but I graduated.
Mitch: Yeah, let the engineers figure out a use for it. That's not our concern.
Laslo: Maybe somebody already has a use for it. One for which it is specifically designed.
Jordan: You mean Dr. Hathaway had something in mind all along?
Laslo: Look at the facts! Very high powered, portable, limited firing power, unlimited range. (Chris stops smiling.) All's you'd need is a tracking system, and a large spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.
(Mitch glances at Chris.)
Chris: This is not good.
meep!
"Kent. This is God. Stop playing with yourself."
Sorry, but the summary reminded me of the movie "Real Genius."
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
Urban operations, eh? Sounds scary. Shows you the military's REAL target is the civilian population.
...unless we can bring down their shields. All forces target the shield generators!
You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
We are one step closer to having an X wing
....what does it sound like...movies always told us that laser will make cool sounds when fired. I vote it makes that 'Ptsui!' sound.
A C-130H might not have the sleek looks but it's a step in the right direction.
My next question is
that me being 12000lbs would come in handy one day!
Oh, sweet Jesus God, a death ray from the skies! It just doesn't get any better than that!
Flash Gordon: "Ming, you'll never get away with this!"
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Is it too late to order one in time for Christmas? I just looked on Newegg, but I didn't see this item. This would make a great stocking stuffer.
- Laser to fry targets
- Non-lethal version
- Less than lethal version given to cops.
- "Don't fry me bro!" song, world mega-hit.
- Cops get white plastic armors to reflect criminal's lasers.
- Stormtroopers raid the rebel ship...
1) How do they solve the problem with Bremsstrahlung?
2) Anyone got the rated power of that laser-beast? I guess they put 2-4kWh into that 5 second burst which leaves it at 1.4 - 2.8 MW. Which is a helluva lot more than the previous 20kW reported http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1221397
Break the sound barrier - bring the noise.
I think I worked next door to this when it was the chemical iodine laser. Way back in the days. They made us leave our lab with the nmr/esr; tests were of the "you don't want to be in the building" variety. Ha. What they didn't know what we were doing....
I presume a splash of of highly reflective metal (or metallic heat-resistant plastic) will work wonders for defence against these things.
Ask me about repetitive DNA
Call me paranoid and mod me down if you like, but I can't help being suspicious that every cool new weapon will be used on us sooner or later. Can't outrun or dodge a laser, no sir.
One of the most interesting things for future military historians will be how the US, and to a lesser extent the UK, have believed in the effecitveness of action at a distance warfare. "Bomber" Harris in WW2 tried to destroy Nazi Germany by air bombing of cities. Didn't work, half bankrupted the British economy, while the Army and Navy were screaming for convoy escorts and air support. Germany still had to be fought over to end the war. (Meanwhile Hitler spent a fortune on V-weapons whose total effect for the entire war was less than two large RAF night raids.) The lessons had been learnt so well that in Vietnam the US spent a fortune bombing the jungle - then in Cambodia. There was a brief success in the first Gulf War where the fleeing Iraqis obligingly went down the same road and got bombed and shelled to pieces in a local action, so in GW2 Iraq was bombed back to the stone age, which brought the Iraqi war to an abrupt halt (not).
So the US Government continues its development of bigger and better spears, still fantasising that one day they will develop the big one that will stop anyone, anywhere, from upsetting them. And forgetting that, no matter what firepower you put on a mobile weapons platform, it is still vulnerable to fixed weapons, and usually to small mobile weapons that cost relatively little to make and deploy.
It's worth remembering that one of the most asymmetric military actions of WW2 was a French resistance girl who visited a German tank base on her bicycle, wandered around putting grease loaded with carborundum into track bearings, and disabled a battalion, riding off home again for lunch.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Isn't being lasered to death pretty much being burnt alive?
How is this weapon even legal?
Oh man, now if they put this on an AC-130, it'd seriously make anyone regret having made the decision to be anywhere on the battlefield. It'd make Dr. Evil tear a bit.
Lasers of that power aren't harmless. Even the reflected light can still fry your retina.
Can we just have it target Fry's Electronics stores?
Leave a white shirt out in the sun all day, and you know what you get? A hot white shirt. It's the same story on arrow versus armor that it has been for more than a thousand years: given equal technology, the arrow wins. (And the US Air Force is categorically not planning to "fight fair" when it comes to comparing technology bases. Hello, Mr. Third World Tinpot Dictator. Do your Revolutionary Guards have access to MIT's materials engineering department? No? Oh, what a pity... because their physics department works for us.)
When in doubt, the arrow scales more-or-less linearly (bump up the juice on the laser, problem solved), the armor ceases to scale very rapidly (try adding another 9 to the string of 99.999% reflectivity index).
I'd be much more worried, for the first few iterations of the system, of it being compromised by less-than-ideal environmental conditions (smoke, dust, smog, haze, clouds, intervening terrain in an urban situation, etc) than by enemy preparations. Besides, if the enemy has decided to put on his Armor of Laser Resistance +1, you can always just go back to Plan A and drop a really big bomb on his head.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
people of the world !!!
They WILL use it against you one day, sooner or later.
Let's find a good name for your project. Bang, bong.. hmm not quite. Oh OK. I found it. Let's call it a BOMB!
echo 'cat sig | sh' > sig
They wouldn't have much room to keep moving in the C130. Baby sharks?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
When he realized what he was doing, he quit his job to become a pig farmer.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I remember reading about these in concept in a Popular Science back in 1997... I thought that this would be some more vaporware, like the Titanic 2 they were talking about.
Karma is for whores
Electronics Frys Fry's Electronics.
God spoke to me.
73 comments and NO mention of the death star?!?
It's possible, of course, that it's a myth, but the fact is that it would work. Seizing a track bearing will throw a track.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The statement that there will be little or no collateral damage seems to originate from an unproven premise that they can aim the thing properly in the first place.
It flies. It flies slowly (it's not a fighter plane). It flies nearby (range is up to 20km, and let's hope the adversaries don't have any smoke grenades handy). Yet aim is 100% accurate?
"No collateral damage" - from the club with the two dog film (Barney and Blair)..
Insert
Unless you count friendly fire incidents. Or if they miss. Or if they have the wrong target. Or 2 miles north of the border rather than 2 miles south. Or...
OK, thanks for your opinion and all. But I'd rather hear from people who actually live in Taiwan, South Korea or Israel, or Japan. I'd be very interested to hear how many share your opinion.
I don't doubt some do, but I can certainly imagine that people who don't have quite the same level of trust in America (given their rhetoric and actions over the last few years) might feel somewhat more comfortable if America could actually be held accountable for their actions, rather than just having to hope their current president (and advisers) have more than just their own best interests at heart this year.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
As is obvious from numerous movies - it makes them look more evil
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
Or maybe they'll target Target and end up frying Frys.
(I seem to have this reflex for delivering straight lines.)
Just go under water, im sure 10ft of water will stop the beam
or perhaps tonnes of smoke 500ft high should help, but your reaction time will probably be too slow and you will fry.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
From the future article: "Scientists today discovered what they belief was the reason for the Earth splitting event in early 2010. The remains of an old fashioned airplane (a thing early man used to fly) with what seems to have been a laser type weapon was found in..."
Need an ISP in South Africa?
Your comment would have been the funniest I've read all week, but unfortunately, you were edged out by this guy. Kudos for runner up though.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
... the really tricky thing is incorporating that into a meme.
Sharks with frickin' steel containers, filled with frickin' high explosives and a frickin fuse, all tied to their heads, while being dropped out of a frickin' plane.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
We spend approximately 21% of our budget on National Defense. Nearly half the budget is lost to entitlements.
Now where would *I* get all the money to spend on good projects? Earmarks buried in the various bills that pass Congress. There were over 2000 (two thousand) earmarks in the Defense budget alone. This is money being spent by Congress, not the DOD, but charged as part of the defense budget. How many monunments (read research centers, bridges, etc) do we need named for LIVING members of Congress?
We spend an amazing amount on education but efforts to improve it are thwarted by Teacher Union's, Special Interest Groups, and Politicians. If you want to improve education don't look to Washington, get involved at the local level. You will see the wall first hand.
Improved Infrastucture? Look, we already budget more than enough to fix and maintain what we have. The problem is that Congress takes the money allocated and redirects it to new projects. You then have government incompetence at the state level as well. Ever wonder why a certain bridge disaster disappeared from the news so quickly? Because it was exposing the system that is failing. You cannot just throw more money at a failing system and expect good results. If that were the case we would have best schools and roads in the world!
Lets hit your next category. Medical research. The private sector is doing amazing things in this area - why? Because by not taking Federal money for all lines of research they are left with options they would lose otherwise. Getting the Feds involved handcuffs researchers in more ways than you can count. Medical research is big money, the risks are great but the rewards are great. Keeping people living longer means more money for the companies that can provide it. The government has no interest in you living longer as you cost them more money when you do. (remember that entitlement section of the budget? Nearly half directly spent there)
New power alternatives. We already have seen where Congress is going. Ethanol. Why? The FARM industry. Earmarks out the wahzoo for a fix that may cause more problems than it solves. Less food for the world and more pollutants of a different sort. Wind farms you say? Sure, just don't put them in some Congressman's backyard! Nuclear? No member of Congress has the willpower to stand behind this industry. Simply put it does not get them votes. The money is high and tied too much to a small area. Whereas ethanol allows for tax money to be spread around garnishing lots of votes!
Yes the military spends a lot of money. Yes a lot is wasted. However that same military is the reason why we can bitch about the state of our country and the world with near impunity. We don't have to worry about tanks rolling over our demonstrations, we don't have to worry about family members being disappeared overnight because a relative spoke out in university, and we don't go to the market worried about some whacko with a bomb on his chest.
My sole criteria for the next election is, who will cut the BUDGET the most. The taking from Americans is extreme. Bush was anything but a conservative, having grown the government to sizes beyond reason. There is no reason to have so many people dependant on the government to survive. By creating such a situation we doom the future generations. Where will be the innovations and great strides in society when its people don't have to do so as someone else will foot the bill and tuck them in?
Getting the government off our backs is the first step to having a great country. Our government should be here to serve us, not indenture us.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Where will I go for affordable yet decent housewares?
"And then I visited Wikipedia
"Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations, Boeing said."
and then a bit later on.
"The system doesn't so much evaporate its target as melts or damages it rendering it useless. In the case of using it against missiles, the missle is typically weakened and then explodes, experts said."
1. define target.
2. define collateral.
3. define damage.
My only suspicion is that they are going for some manner of enhanced targeting accuracy with the laser. It sounds like in the absence of really good targeting identification that it is just another way to fry folk from afar, which mind you, is a fine avocation. The world would be so much simpler if we could go back to sticks and sharpened rocks.
You have the story slightly wrong. The grease was put into the bearings of railway cars carrying the tanks. Not the tanks themselves. The tanks were stranded and the railway line blocked. Yes, it is an interesting story.
Arm VP Cheney, and let him protect his President. Anyone who isn't a moron can use a modern shotgun safely and effectively.
The beam will be subject to refraction so making accurate pin-point targeting impossible, especially from 20Km
Twinkle Twinkle little star!!
Why are people like this? Dunno. But an AF officer isn't going to make much rank if he isn't convinced 24/7 that airpower is the best answer to whatever problem they have that day. And "collateral damage" (i.e. brown or yellow people who I don't have to care about) just isn't important.
From day one of the Iraq war/occupation/whatever I've said we should let cameram crews walk around the areas we've bombed. You support war? Fine--here are the pictures of the children you killed today. How's that moral clarity working out for you?
Even today, supporters of the war are crowing about how "improved" Iraq is. Fine. My problem is that I mentally transfer the car bombs and dozens of sectarian killings every day, along with the imprisonment without trial, govt-backed death squads, lack of clean water, lack of medicine, etc, to, say, Houston, and wonder how wonderful we'd consider it. We'd be horrified, and there's no way we'd be happy if another country imposed that on us, especially with ~150K troops and mercenaries on our part of the earth but with complete immunity from our laws and even their own damned laws (at least in the case of the mercs). People's insouciance is due simply to the fact that it isn't them.
If the AF blew up the school across from their house and they were picking up body parts from their front lawn, a pro forma apology and a speech by the foreign president that "things are looking up" wouldn't fly. 80% of us would be working for the insurgency. Once you just ask the seemingly obvious question "how would we feel in their place?" the BS you see on Fox and Fox Lite (i.e. the other TV channels) rings a bit hollow.
And even if it's a beautiful still day, no humidity, your targets are stationary and without smoke grenades - how do you know they're actually legitimate targets, and not another Chinese embassy?
I'm still a little fuzzy on how building infrastructure in Iraq is okay, but building infrastructure in the USA is socialism. Are we foisting socialism on the Iraqis?
Would be a pretty crappy laser if it was slower than the speed of sound.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
How could it miss? Its laser targeted!
So is the latest one much better than the old ones which required hauling around a truckload of toxic chemicals and burning up a few million dollars to get a split second laser burst?
...or behind this curtain, A BIG FRICKIN' LASER!
Defense is possible if you can quickly aim the mirror orthogonal to the light source...ie, beaming back 80% will probably annoy the attacker.
unfinished: (adj.)
"Frying" implies contact with, or immersion in, liquid fat heated well above the boiling point of water. It works by direct heat transfer. Similar heat transfer cooking methods include baking/roasting (air molecules) steaming (water vapor) and poaching/boiling (liquid water).
Cooking by radiant heat is called "broiling".
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And call me an idealist, but isn't it more likely we'd get the natives cooperation a whole lot easier and cheaper if we dropped like food and medicine and maybe a well-drilling kit?
In fact, if the Germans found such a consignment and worked out what it was for they would have been worried - do we stop everything and inspect the bearings?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Lasers on a plane > Snakes on a plane
Easy. From now on, the target identification is a large sign "Chinese embassy".
:-) /sarcasm
Can't go wrong then. First, off it would no longer be an accident, secondly, it would stop anyone labelling a building "Chinese embassy" and thirdly we can assume a 100% hit rate based on past statistics.
Seems like a win win to me
Insert
Since when is "pounds" a useful unit of measurement applicable to a laser?
A much cheaper method for developing a 12,000 pound laser would be to embed a presentation pointer in a big concrete slab. Think the DoD would go for it?
Dear .
/sarcasm
Please find, as ordered, your latest shipment of laser pointers, to be handed out to all the kids in the area of your critical infrastructure. Regretfully we have no answer to some kids enjoying burning the retinas of their friends, your local soldiers are reputed to enjoy repleting the local child stock anyway.
The abundance of laser ID points will confuse the targeting system of the US weapon, forcing it into proximity to target properly, and you can then use regular air defence systems.
Please consider the further stack of large signs a gift for doing business with us. Should you find any troops of other nations, simply stick this sign "Chinese embassy" on their premises and the US will kindly take care of them for you under the internationally approved "collateral damage" excuse - all they want is to shoot, the type of target is less important.
Rest assured of our respect for your money^h^h^h^h^hbusiness, and I look forward to hear from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
W Eapons-Handler
Insert
Why would anyone want to destroy Targets at this time of year? They're much nicer than Wal-Mart in my opinion. Why don't people think a bit more about the subject/title line.
You could achieve much the same ends by dousing the target in kerosene, lighting it, then stoking the resulting blaze with bundles of thousand-dollar bills. Boys and their toys!
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
...Hamas (the democratically elected terriorists/government/aid agency/prisoners/scapegoats) today ordered the streets and roof tops of the west bank paved with with shards of broken mirrors.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
There are no weapons that don't kill innocents. It's as simple as that, come to grips with it already. You want to play war, you're gonna kill people.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Iraq only became a shithole after the UN sanctions, and then a hellhole after our invasion. The USA has historically had no problem with nations that were politically repressive, even brutal (Indonesia, anyone? Saudi Arabia? UAE?) as long as they did business with US companies, allowing us to profit from their brutality. I agree that Saddam was a dictator, but saying they have us to "thank" for "democracy" is a bit cheeky. Can they thank us for arming him, or for cutting off medical supplies? How about selling him components for chemical weapons in the 80s?
As for Iraq being a democracy, stop acting as if they have self-determination. Over 150K troops and mercenaries on your soil, enjoying complete immunity from Iraqi law, with the ability to shoot you at will, isn't what I'd call a democracy. Would you favor letting the Iraqis vote next week on whether US military members and mercenaries should be subject to Iraqi law? Would you consider the referendum binding? If not, they aren't much of a soverign nation, are they?
Actually, don't they already have a conventional version of the C-130 that flies around in circles well away from its target, which can systematically and extremely accurately pick of its target (I'm not a military person, so I do not know the plane, I just know I've seen some of the videos of it over the past several years)? If they can do that with something that has to consider a bullet flying through the air, I do not see why it would be very difficult for a laser which does not have to worry about resistance. It seems like that would almost be a point-and-click-kill type of system.
Heck, if they have laser targeting systems that can even just occasionally knock a missile out of the sky with another missile, a stationary target on the ground targeted by a slow moving aircraft seems trivial. Developing the laser should really be the hard part of this equation.
Didn't they find out that the old ALL (Advanced Laser Lab) thats now retired at Wright-Patterson (arrived 1988) didn't work too well - the problem of tracking and hitting a target small moving at superconic speeds. Why not use the money NOT annoying the neighbours so you don't need these multi-billion dollar 'anti-weapons'
Given that the delivery mechanism for this weapon is instantaneous (i.e., no time for evasive maneouvers or counter attacks) wouldn't the aircrafts carrying these lasers be a particularly susceptible targets themselves? They even talk about using the system against missile attacks, so one would imagine that the targetting system for hitting a massive, slower moving plane would be a lot easier to manage. This of course assumes that the enemy possesses the same technology (which is a big if).
to be used as weapons...
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons
I wish I remember what convention it originally was... sometime in the 60ies.
Iranian mirror shops are experiencing a massive increase in sales this week.
Here's to hoping it'll only be used for peaceful purposes...
No, it did not. US had its own share of rioting scum — Los Angeles in 1992, Seattle in 1999...
Wherever the scum riots, they are easily suppressed by real determination (which the mayors of the cities listed evidently lacked). When the Los Angeles scum moved to trash another neighborhood, for example, they were stopped by armed citizens (thank you, Second Amendment!), and, eventually, by police and National Guard...
You don't need a flying super-laser to suppress a riot.
If true, that's a very good thing. But it has nothing to do with maintaining our military's edge against adversaries.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'm using phasers!
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
The airwing that gets deployed with these permanently needs to change it's logo to sharks with fricken lazers on their heads. :)
for more than 0.05s? Altitute + vibration + cloud cover ... Not very effective against an AA battery if you have to fly it in clear weather at a low alititude.
;)
And does that weight include the power source? How long?
On the plus side, when you're out of power, you just drop the laser on target
I don't know about the japanese or the taiwanese, but from a south korean point of view, the ability to shoot down ICBMs is not worth a single penny to spend on. Currently, there are about 11 thousand cannons (yes cannons, not missiles) pointed at Seoul, the Capital city of Korea. In case of a war breakout, these cannons will completely wipe out Seoul within 15 minutes. Unlike missiles, the cannons can't be stopped. It takes 5 minutes to wipe out the korean army guarding the border, and it will take us 15 minutes to send out bombers to target the cannon sites. So, shooting down ICBMs come into play after my capital's covered in fire, and my people are killed. Only the americans would be excited to have an excuse to attack north korea and use my country as their battle ground. Shooting down ICBMs is really the least of concern. But, I sure do hope you americans have something to shoot down ICBMs with nuclear warheads. Because if those things get launched, they are not landing on us. They are landing on you.
the terrorists blow up-up
The terrorists blow up
Just a few joules of power helps the terrorists blow up
In a most delightful way....er, wait, was that a hospital?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
hummus
I win
There was some effort to destroy Germany's sources of oil. Germany developed synthetic fuels partly as a response.
Because I smell barbecue.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Hmmmm. That would be true, if we could safely assume the gadget is aimed at genuine enemy targets only. In practice, there are two main reasons for collateral damage.
1. Bombs tend to fall up to several miles away from the intended target.
2. The intended target is, in fact, the wrong one.
In the second category we have celebrated incidents such as the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, which was hit fair and square just as intended. In that sense, there was no collateral damage. Unfortunately, some halfwits had screwed up and the intended target was not what it was thought to be.
We also have the many "safe houses" in which Saddam Hussein was reported to be hiding in the early days of the current war in Iraq. Night after night, we were told that the US armed forces had dropped their bombs with surgical precision on the exact house where the accursed dictator was known to be skulking. As we now know, however, Saddam escaped every single one of those "precision strikes", and was found live and kicking long after.
So who *was* in those not-very-safe-houses? Innocent civilians, that's who.
Which is why there will continue to be "collateral damage". Only now the innocent civilians will be burned or vaporised instead of being burned or blasted.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
I'm a bit concerned about the word "targets". Just how many shots do you get from a 12,000 pound payload? One, two? Is the destructive power better than 12,000 lb of high explosive ('cus the stuff they push through the laser is pretty nasty all by itself.) Would there be more damage done if you just fly the plane into the building?
My mom works for one of the divisions of Boeing that makes lasers like this. I don't know if they make this one, because she can't really talk about it. But I do know a little about the capabilities and accuracy of some of the systems, you know, "hypothetically, if they had something like that, what could it do?" Let's just say that one of the test systems was a servo that could keep a laser spot painted on a ping pong ball while people were playing.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Our shields can't repel firepower of that magnitude!!!
Much of our laser tech has come from the push by the military. A lot of of our long distance comm is because of trying to increase the power of lasers,masers, etc. But if you want one simple use, NASA developed a simple laser drill for drilling on mars (or other planets). Colorado S.O.Mines has it now, and they are working at improving it. Now, I know that others will question its use and say that it is only for oil, but wells are needed for many other uses. For example, here in the west, we have LOADS of geothermal power generation potential. This will allow a quick well to be drilled and tested. But once this gets small enough, a much better use is for drilling 60'/(20m) wells to use for home heating and cooling. Right now, America makes heavy use of AC and EU/canada use heating for their homes. The ACs are inefficent, but so is the use of coal, oil, natural gas for heating. So, instead, we use heat pumps but with the coils in the ground (temp of 55F/12C).
So, how useful is this to civilian? VERY.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Damn I wish I had mod points!!
The AC-130U Spectre (code-named "Spooky") has been a very accurate weapon of war. It flies really slowly, which increases its accuracy when firing on ground targets. It can loiter over its target for hours. The latest versions of the aircraft have gyro-stabilized mounts for its weapons, and advanced night optics that can see through smoke grenades. Its radar can track the 40mm and 105mm shells it shoots and feedback the information to the aircraft to adjust the aim of later rounds. The aircraft can accurately attack two targets up to a kilometer away at the same time. Accurately aiming a weapon fired from a AC-130U at a ground target has been a problem that has been adequately addressed for some time already.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/ac-130.htm
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
You obviously haven't seen much of the military's capabilities. Ever seen a C-130 gunship? There are videos on the internet.
A C-130 gunship can repeatedly barrage targets accurately from a distance. We have missiles and laser-guided bombs that can literally find doorways. We have destroyers that *in WWII* could drop rounds into a barrel from thousands of yards away. We also have tanks like the Abrams that can fire and hit its target while on the move.
No, targeting is *certainly not* a problem - in fact I'd wager it's easier with light. Light is practically instantaneous and doesn't have any discernable trajectory or flight path. The problem is fitting a C-130 with a fricking laser beam that actually is capable of melting a target of military interest (not whether you can accurately point it at something).
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
1. RIAA
2. MPAA
3. MAFIAA
Any other suggestions
Anyone else give up reading the article a couple paragraphs in? The final straw for me was when I read - "Both systems employ a Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL) that is made by combining a bunch of nasty chemicals". Ahh yes, a "bunch of nasty chemicals" that sounds very scientific. I realize that they listed a few of them after that... but the silliness of that in conjunction with the fact that the first few paragraphs barely made sense makes me sad. It seems like no one proofreads anymore... it's like journalism has turned into the slashdot discussion area.
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
Insurgents? Screw that! I'm heading to the Amazon. Think of the ants you can fry with that bad boy! Yeeeeeha! When your kid gets old enough to cook 'em with a magnifying glass you can pull him aside and say, "lemme show you how you'll fry ants when you're a MAN son."
You are using English. Please learn the difference between loose and lose; they're, there, and their; your and you're.
I guess that those Honor Guard chrome helmets are going to be on every domestic terrorist's Christmas list this year
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
Just look up!
The problem with China marching "over Taiwan and Japan" is that pesky ocean. "The word kamikaze originated as the name of major typhoons in 1274 and 1281, which dispersed Mongolian invasion fleets" (ref). Then, you had to depend on the lucky wind for defense. Compare the similar fate of Spain again England - with another body of water to cross and a wind in the wrong direction that day. But with more modern armaments, and independence from wind, you get Germany against Britain. Islands are defensible with just a bit of luck, or with modern weapons to hinder incoming ships.
Then look at the size of the navy the Allies launched from Britain to take the Continent back. They did that by stealth, because if Germany noticed it, it could have bombed it before it was launched. Do you think China could amass a similarly-sized fleet of landing craft before Taiwan or Japan could take them out? Taiwan and Japan both are fully equipped with America's best defensive weapons (even if we pretend that Taiwan's been hobbled a bit in deference to the Mainland - the Mainland doesn't believe that, because it's mostly not true).
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Oh, wait, I forgot to put in a smiley face. Now there's no possibility that anyone will understand that this is a joke! How cursed be this fate!
Bow-ties are cool.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
I think that nuclear equilibrium is much more complicated than your simple scenarios. But, I agree with your statement that anti-nukes alter the current equilibrium and thus create less stable nuclear relationships. Any alteration of the MAD doctrine requires finding a new equilibrium doctrine. The problem is that the road to nuclear equilibrium has many potentially dangerous situations (see the Cuban Missile Crisis).
As mentioned in another reply, the ACs are still around to take care of the big hardware, but this could work well as a tactical "angel", to provide point defense against SAMs, mortar rounds, and possibly RPGs (if fired vs helicopters/aircraft). The acft would have to have one heck of a targeting/tracking system to hit a mortar in flight, but it might link into the LAIRCM/DIRCM systems already installed on many SOF C-130s. I'm not sure what damage the laser could do to the mortar or missile launchers, but it could seriously cook those standing next to one...
Impetuous! Homeric!
I don't have much to say about your post except to protest your quote on Medical companies, because it's an area where I have very strong opinions.
Medical research. The private sector is doing amazing things in this area - why? Because by not taking Federal money for all lines of research they are left with options they would lose otherwise. Getting the Feds involved handcuffs researchers in more ways than you can count. Medical research is big money, the risks are great but the rewards are great. Keeping people living longer means more money for the companies that can provide it. The government has no interest in you living longer as you cost them more money when you do. (remember that entitlement section of the budget? Nearly half directly spent there).Think about what you wrote here. The government wants old people to die because they cost the government too much money. I hardly think they are that callous, especially since most of the people in the government are old men! But even if they did, think about what this means for the motivation of the private medical corporations. They want you old AND SICK!
And this is where my distrust of privatized medical research comes into play.
I ask you, why would a private midical research facility research a medicine that cures an illness? Why would a medical company fund research for a cure they can sell once when you can develop a treatment they can sell to the same patient continuously? Have you ever wondered why there are effective treatments for HIV/AIDS but no cure? Why spend money on developing a cure when there is so much more money to be had by treating HIV/AIDS patients indefinitely.
In recent year there has been no development of new types of penicillin. Why? Becuase it is very expensive to develop a new strain and they become obsoleted (the bacteria they kill become immune) rather quickly. So what is the result? If no new variants of penicillin are made within the next few years, within a decade or so people will start dying from ordinary infections. Operations will become so dangerous to perform that people will elect not to have them made. If you prick your finger on a rusty nail and get blood poisoning, you will perhaps die.
Privately funded research is a bad idea. You cannot have a company that has to make a profit and have the peoples best interest at heart all the time. Especially not in these days of daytrading, where the bottom line is how much profit you can make. Until shareholders start demanding cures for illnesses instead of a quick cashin, the medical companies will continue as they do.
And this is no conspiracy theory. This is just common sense. The money flow here comes from companies that want to maximize their profits. It's not hard to see when they fight tooth and nail to have pirated AIDS-medicines stopped when those pirated medicines are helping people in Africa to poor to buy their expensive medicines in the first place.
Also, remember that an amazing amount (I've heard figures as high as 80%) of a medical company's budget goes to advertising, buying trips for doctors to write out their brand of medicine. If the government funded all medical research, i doubt that 80% of the funds would go to waste even in a very corrupt system. Think about the price cuts if you could get the cost of medicine down 80%, how much cheaper would government spending be? How many more people could get medicine?
Badgers, we don't need no stinking badgers! - UHF
Q: What if this thing crashes?
A: It creates a 1 mile radius kill zone from the chemicals.
Q: Where do those chemicals go when it is fired?
A: They are just vented outside.
ANNOUNCER: The Crossbow Project. There's no defense like a good offense.
Example? Spend billions propping up Saudi dictators, overthrow local gov't (Iran, etc), and generally being nasty to the locals. Set up a base in their holy land. What happens? A bunch of assholes spend $40 on plastic box cutters and the next thing you know 3000 people are dead, and the USA shits itself spending trillions on even more defence.
So sure - buy the fucking laser cannon. Mount it on sharks for all I care - it's not going to matter when (god ferbid) some gang of poorly armed dickwads blows up the water pipes for LA or takes out the holland tunnel or the LNG tanks in New Jersey. The WAR is not a BATTLE any more - it's a War for Resources (Klare) that is highly asymmetric and inherently unwinnable from a military stand point.
The only way the USA is going to "win" the war in the Middle East is to tell its fat assed bible thumping mouth breathing drooling retard citizenry that NO they can't drive the SUV, NO they can't live in some McMansion in the Exurbs, NO they can't continue living this completely unsustainable existence, and YES They MUST get up off the fucking couch and YES they MUST become responsible citizens of the planet and YES they MUST change their lifestyle immediately or face the consequences. They may not care about "The Environment" but what these jackasses don't understand is "The Environment" doesn't care about them either, and in the battle between obese TV addicted talentless clueless financial assistants who sit around watching TV and eating partially hydrogenated crap all day "living the American Dream", versus "The Environment" - I'll tell ya something: "The Environment" WINS EVERY FUCKING TIME. MORON.
Cheney said the American Way of life is not negotiable. Fine. Don't negotiate. DIE OFF. The Environment will breathe a sigh of relief and the rest of the human project will rip the USA out of the history books and toss into the scrap heap of history as just another failed Empire.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
They strapped a big rocket engine to it, and then made the rock explode.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That would be an airplane, and anyone within a couple hundred yards of an anti-missile laser destroying an ICBM has bigger problems than retinal damage. Never mind that they wouldn't be in direct line-of-fire to the laser, which is the only way you can get any eye damage from lasers.
Target Fry's and Fry Targets.
I'm gonna carve my name on the moon, bitch!
They are not to be used to blind people, you can still kill them with one.
Just like certain types of Ammo isn't allowed, and bayonet length was shortened. You can kill them, bu intentionally injurying someone isn't allow.
For the record, if I am in a war and someone decides to injury me instead of kill me, I'll keep it a secret.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Should I put a mirrored dome on top of the building?
> "Boeing this week completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft.
> Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will
> destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the
> battlefield and in urban operations."
Nerf the US. They're getting too far ahead in their tech research tree!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The use of laser pointing devices will have you ejected from the game...crap!
Gears of War may be closer than we think...
Are some peoples lives better now than they were before? Yes.
Are some peoples lives worse now than they were before? Yes.
Does one outweigh the other? I have no idea, and you don't either, so quit pretending like you do. Dogma? You're just throwing random words with bad connotations?
I do know which outweighs the other: They live in a war zone where deadly car bombs are NORMAL, that's a net negative.
They live in a country where foreign mercenaries are above the law, for crying out loud!
You can't take the sky from me...
You should know by now intelligent observations like that one aren't welcome around here.
The administrative decision process (read: the execution of existing law..under NEPA) will probably approve it as the most environmentally friendly (human and physical) alternative when compared with traditional bombing. They are required to discuss, document, and publish that decision (and response to criticism) before reaching a decision/deploying the tech. Once they do, they will request funding for operations because it _may_ be cost effective for deployment based on lower production costs over time, dual use savings, and savings from less area damage (both economic and political). However, I don't think this will see widespread deployment at the tank level for a very long time--unless that tank is in the city it would probably be more cost effective to bomb it.
I should note that the decision process in our government/political system will not account for systemic costs (additional warfare acceptance due to less collateral damage) and they will probably gloss over some of the environmental issues of the laser system (because long term effects are only partially understood). I don't know what the final analysis will be, I'm just guessing, but you really don't want post-war environmental problems...for both humanitarian and image reasons (sadly, we tend to get that wrong).
Disclaimer: My knowledge of defense laser projects comes from research into public involvement systems. During that research I read a couple defense environmental impact statements (and 70 other ones)--standardized administrative decision documents that look at economic, environmental, and human costs to make recommendations on Federal action. You can find information about the ADL at some libraries and they are currently required, by law, to involve the public in future decisions about these programs. I don't believe they have started the operational decision process (it should still be in the testing/development phase). Interestingly, they can also be sued and stopped (or delayed) for making uninformed or irrational decisions...but the ADL and their partner projects (such as the ATL mentioned here) seem to make sense to me. The ADL was for hitting rockets in the booster stage if i recall...and it was obvious from day one that they'd go offensive if the initial research was successful.
best,
-b, m.p.a.
What do you honestly suppose would happen if the US were to completely disarm tomorrow? Lay out what you think is a likely scenario. I highly doubt anyone would mount an immediate invasion. Any dictators out there would already have made a move, seeing as how we are completely tied up in a three front war right now. I know it must make you proud to think that America brings nothing but peace and prosperity to the world, but much of the rest of the world sees us as a brutal bully. They don't want to kill us all, they just want us to stop supporting the people who are killing them.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The other obvious way that springs to mind is kill them all, and bring in settlers and oil companies to get even more oil for those inefficient American SUVs.
At least in the parts with oil there are no significant natural terrain features to hide in, and with the existing cities demolished and population destroyed there is no way for any remaining enemies to blend in or hide effectively.
Its not a nice answer, or one the rest of the world would support, but there's a lot of historical basis that if you are willing to kill enough of them it will work. (Of course the long term impact of all that extra oil use on the planet is another issue seperate from the outcome of the war)
So much for brand loyalty.
- Eddy_D
- I stole your sig.
"in urban environments".
"with little to no collateral damage"
Right. I'll buy that for a dollar.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The Protocol bans weapons which are designed, as their sole or one of their primary functions, to blind people with unenhanced vision (i.e. the naked eye):
Not that the Geneva Conventions seem to have much relevance these days... sigh.
Read Pynchon.
You son of a bitch, I palindrome I...
Look, it sadly appears I have to make it explicitly clear I've been royally taken the piss out of the whole thing. Or, to translate this, I was kidding. Geddit?
I just happen to be well aware of military capacity as I've been dealing with sensor to shooter in a NEC configuration (which is much more entertaining than single force work because it involves external sync and a bucket full of politics), and I know full well how target acquisition works for teh various effects (somewhere between "a bit of a b*tch" and "impossible" if said target is airborne, happens to move around at Mach 6 and your sensor is in another force, but I digress). But that doesn't stop me amusing myself, it's just funny so many people failed to spot that. I was hoping the 'Chinese Embassy' sign would give you a clue, but that was apparently still too subtle. Ah well, that's life.
Next time I'll put a sign up, OK?
Insert
Oh dear, did I stand on some toes?
I was partly kidding, apart from one thing: collateral damage is not just defined by an ability to track and lock onto a target. It's also about identifying the correct target in the first place which does not depend on technology.
The human part needs taking care of as well, which is why I made the further joke about laser pointers. It depends on the method of target acquisition if this becomes an effective weapon or just a faster way for blue on blue.
Someone stated that because it's a laser it'll use a camera - I don't agree that the one follows from the other. A variety of target acquisition methods is probably best, it's sometimes easier to get a local to light up a target than it is to use imagery.
And I still wonder what atmospheric conditions will do to the energy delivery. Will a cloud layer just vaporise?
Insert
I kind of think huge powerful lasers are cool and they will certainly make powerful weapons in the future, BUT, I think that anyone who thinks that China and possibly Russia are sitting still and not doing any laser weapson research themselves is just delusional. The Soviet Union was developing laser weapons 20 years ago, and while Russia went through a load of decline in the 90s, that has been stopped and Russia could (or does already) continue laser and beam particle weapons research. They still have all the old data. The Chinese even have a laser that is designed to blind optics and humans that is standard armament on onw of its tanks and just about everyone assumes that they're researching high powered weapons as well.
The end result: Another (very) costly superpower stalemate.
The only advantage is that lasers look good on sharks.
The article doesn't mention this. Is it true that Cyberdyne Systems help design the laser?
Maybe it's a false memory on my part, but hasn't a laser weapon already been used in Afghanistan? I seem to recall an article earlier this year where a chemical laser in a modified spectre gunship was used against a high value personnel target. It seems vivid in my mind, because I can remember thinking, "Holy crap, we killed guy with a laser!" Of course now, I can find no references to it. Which would normally make me think that it didn't happen, but considering the times... anyway, anyone else remember this?
Ica tell you, yes, what i can tell you is the truth and nothing else, and is that this laser has been used, and not just now, the truth is that it is yhhhgzzz---QJJAAAAAHHHHHH!!!---....
Puff_is_Here
I am always amazed to see people so easily suggesting nuclear war. Japan has already been subjected to the A-bomb, and I doubt even 60 years later they will have forgotten what that was like. And that kind of killing -- genocide really -- like, is that a good thing?
Tony
If the answer is war, you are asking the wrong question
I shop at Target sometimes. Did they say which ones they'd be aiming at?
Well, the question has been asked. And we both know that if the Iraqi parliment tried to vote on it--well, scratch that, they did. Even Maliki says they don't need us. We just ignore them. So let's not act as if the Iraqis are clamoring for us to stay. Most Iraqis want us out. Most Americans want us out. Even most of the US military wants us out. It's just the bitter-enders in the current administration, along with their ideological allies, pretending that the Iraqis want us there and the American public wants us there and the US military wants to be there. Reality has been tested, and is not what the administration says it is.
And as soon as the AIRBORN LASER misses one of it's AIRBORN TARGETS, something in the distance is getting fried -- maybe a tree, maybe a house, maybe the moon. Lasers ALWAYS hit SOMETHING. Anyway, they've already got this technology. Any "new" military technology has already been in use for at least 10 years.
Who the hell said they'd be firing this thing from 20Km away? That's up in the stratosphere somewhere. This would be used much, much closer.
The C-130 probably isn't the final, intended platform for this anyway. Probably something more nimble, and lower altitude like the Osprey.
The ATL is intended to disable things we'd rather not blow up, like Scud launchers.
Obviously, the collateral damage from a laser is far less than bombing a dirty Scud.
This isn't just a creative attempt to kill people in new ways. It isn't going to end wars any quicker either, but it's still worth the research.
Purely as a curiosity, isn't this a one shot weapon?
I mean, you fire it once, and every enemy battery in the immediate area locks onto this incredibly bright energy source in the sky and a couple of a seconds later, thousands of heat/light seeking AA drones obliterate the laser carrier plane... I mean, the enemy target has to be line of sight, by definition, which means the enemy has line of sight on the plane carrying the weapon as well.