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How The Latest in High Tech Works
Popular Science has up a feature looking at "how it works", examining the innards of several new technology-based innovations. We've talked about the Sayaka endoscope in a pill, but did you know it captures images in 360 degrees? We've discussed the adorable little Pleo dino-bot, but did you know how adaptive it is to stimuli? And what about the tank-burning laser that can be fired from an airplane? Well, we haven't discussed that but I'm at a loss as to explain why. "A kind of reverse telescope called the beam expander inside a retractable, swiveling pod called the turret widens the beam to 20 inches and aims it. The laser's computer determines the distance to the target and adjusts the beam so it condenses into a focused point at just the right spot. Tracking computers help make microscopic adjustments to compensate for both the airplane's and the target's movement. A burst of a few seconds' duration will burn a several-inch-wide hole in whatever it hits."
The laser would make a great assassination weapon. Though I find the idea of assassinating enemy leaders remotely somewhat distasteful it would be better if they could just take them out, and not them together with their family and next-door neighbours as seems to happen sometimes with the drone missiles.
Thank god, cause I'd much rather be dead than blind.
But if you are burning holes in vehicles there is the possiblity that you end up maiming someone inside when the beam penetrates. I think that a few issues are being side-stepped here!
Not all parts of a tank are appropriate for your twigs, sod, tin foil and white paint defense. For example, what about the tracks (or tires for that matter)? Sooner or later, the laser would hit something that was important and not easily made shiny.
I suppose the vehicles could travel underneath giant mirrors, but that would create a new set of problems. At that point, all you have to do is can cut off the enemy's supply of Windex and paper towels. Seriously, I think the reflective surfaces would have to be kept clean and shiny -- not so easy in a war zone.