Laser Weapon Shoots Down Airplanes In Test

airshowfan writes "Boeing's directed-energy weapons (a.k.a. frickin' laser beams) have been getting some attention lately. The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is a C-130 that famously burned a hole through a car's hood, and the YAL-1 AirBorne Laser is a 747 that shoots a laser from its nose that is powerful enough to bring down an ICBM. But even cooler is the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows) and that can shoot down small aircraft, as shown in the picture on this article. (The Laser Avenger supposedly also has this capability). We live in the future!"

Comments

Shiny things?

[patniemeyer]

Wouldn't making your plane or missile shiny / reflective defeat these things pretty easily?

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's get that out of the way.

Ignoring the fact that you can't make an object shiny enough, because there'll always be a thin layer of dust, crud, or even oxides on the surface...

...if you dump enough energy into the air near an infinitely-shiny object to explosively transform the nearby air into a plasma, the shiny object still probably gets a big dent in it. Probably even more so if the shiny object is supersonic.

Re:Shiny things?

[quanticle]

Yeah, but if you make your plane shiny and reflective, you make it a lot easier to target with other weapons, like missiles.

Re:Shiny things?

[pete-classic]

Maybe, but that would also make them far easier to detect and hit with conventional anti-aircraft guns and missiles.

-Peter

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

A laser that powerful would convey enough impulse to make a hole without needing to heat the target. That fact aside, the slightest absorption would vaporize the mirror anyway.

Re:Shiny things?

[AdmiralXyz]

Wouldn't making your plane or missile shiny / reflective defeat these things pretty easily?

The answer is no, because no shiny surface has 100% reflectivity (your bathroom mirror probably tops out at around 85%): some of the light will always penetrate to the base layer, and if the surface is being hit by a megawatt weaponized laser, it'll just burn straight through.

Re:Shiny things?

[elFisico]

How about putting the reflective cover *beneath* the stealth painting?

1) get hit by laser (at which point you obviously are already detected)
2) stealth painting boils away
3) mirror reflects laser
4) ???
5) Profit!!

Re:Shiny things?

[MyLongNickName]

A laser that powerful would convey enough impulse to make a hole without needing to heat the target.

What mechanism would cause that type of effect?

Re:Shiny things?

[MobyDisk]

What wavelengths would you make it reflect? Not all lasers are in the visible spectrum.

Re:Shiny things?

[patniemeyer]

Maybe... though I bet optically shiny is probably not as big a deal as radio shiny... at least today.

Also, maybe you can coat your shiny thing with something dark that is burned off?

I'm sure people have worked through the options, just throwing it out there :)

Re:Shiny things?

[fulldecent]

well, that's easy... just attach 30 bathroom mirrors IN SERIES. that would reduce it it 1% of the original.

Re:Shiny things?

[MagicM]

Assuming they make the missile 90% reflective so only 10% of the power burns a hole, where does the remaining 90% reflect to?

Re:Shiny things?

[init100]

Radiation pressure?

Re:Shiny things?

[maxwell demon]

The heat which boils away the paint surely also destroys the reflective properties of the material beyond.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

That won't work. The problem starts at step 2. If the top layer isn't reflective, then as it "boils away" it will convert incoming energy from the laser into heat efficiently enough to destroy any reflective layer that might be under it.

Even if that weren't the case, you'd still have a problem at step 3, because your reflective surface will still absorb too much energy. An expensive mirror that's new, clean, and in perfect condition would still absorb 5% of the energy hitting it in lab conditions. In the air, in combat conditions, coated with goo from the stealth paint that just got burned off of it, the reflective layer wouldn't last even a measurable fraction of a second.

Re:Shiny things?

[Hoi Polloi]

But if they could hit it with a missile then why bother with a huge complicated laser in the first place?

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Optical vs. radio is just a choice of wavelengths. Whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can be used to detect you. Whatever wavelength you choose to be "not shiny", can be used to destroy you.

I wish GP hadn't bothered to mention the problem of stealth, because it's diverting attention from the point that matters - no material of any sort can be kept sufficiently reflective under combat conditions that the laser wouldn't destroy it. So really, even whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can still be used to destroy you.

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

Each photon in the beam transfers its momentum to the target. For total reflection it transfers twice its momentum. This will result in radiation pressure exerting a very localized force (so high pressure), and if there is any absorbtion it will heat up the material locally, causing a temperature shock, since the immediate surroundings don't get time to heat up.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, these lasers are CO2-based and lase in the infrared. You couldn't see the beam with the naked eye.

Re:Shiny things?

[natehoy]

So, a Beowulf cluster of bathroom mirrors, then?

Re:Shiny things?

[Spazztastic]

Assuming they make the missile 90% reflective so only 10% of the power burns a hole, where does the remaining 90% reflect to?

Your house.

Re:Shiny things?

[Critical Facilities]

Yeah, but if you make your plane shiny and reflective, you make it a lot easier to target with other weapons, like missiles.

See? Wonder Woman was always ahead of the pack.

*not to mention Lynda Carter's unwavering hot-ness!!

Re:Shiny things?

[Spacezilla]

And if 10% power is enough, why the hell are they making lasers with 10 times that amount of power? Lots of "mirror missiles" in the air already?

Re:Shiny things?

[confused one]

You can actually accomplish that with plated layers of reflective material and dialectric material. However, all I then have to do is find a frequency you don't reflect at.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Because the risk of collateral damage is less with a laser than with a projectile that might miss?

Because the expensive parts of a missile are spent when you fire it, while only fuel is spent when you fire a laser?

Besides, GP's supposition is that an aircraft might be too hard to hit with a missile, unless in an attempt to make itself laser-proof it makes itself easier to hit with a missile. As noted in many other comments, though, this is way off target; making an aircraft reflective (and therefore less stealthy) will not protect it from a laser anyway. If anything, you want to maximize stealth to hope that the laser's targeting system can't find you. Best block, no be there.

Re:Shiny things?

[beanpoppa]

A giant Jiffy Pop pan Ed Begley Jr's house

Re:Shiny things?

[jklovanc]

$1M missile vs firing a laser. I do not know how much it costs to fire a chemical laser but I bet it is a lot cheaper than firing a missile.

Re:Shiny things?

[Schickeneder]

Come on! Haven't you ever watched Star Trek or any other sci-fi show? You just have to modulate the frequency of the beam!

Seriously though, depending on the beam wavelength, you would have to find an appropriate reflective layer to match. A metallic coating may work well against visible and longer-wavelength beams, but if they move towards UV and X-ray, all bets are off. If you do have a metallic coating you can say goodbye to any possibilities of radar-stealth. Also depending on the material used, you probably wouldn't get total reflection anyway and it will be a function of beam angle of incidence and stuff.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

So it would only be 85% effective? Not bad.

Re:Shiny things?

[ArcherB]

Assuming they make the missile 90% reflective so only 10% of the power burns a hole, where does the remaining 90% reflect to?

Your house.

Where a giant Jiffy Pop is waiting to explode.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

The answer is YES.

If it is 'shiney' in a particular wave length then I can use that to track in on you with a conventional weapon...

Many use IR (to just see the target), or radar (microwaves) to paint the target. But they could easily paint the target with something something else... Say the same wavelength as the laser you are trying to reflect?

Re:Shiny things?

[quanticle]

Because the laser is good against things that are stealthy, e.g. things that are coated in materials designed to absorb E.M. radiation.

Re:Shiny things?

[MobyDisk]

For missiles, I can think of some other defenses too:
- Spinning it so the laser can't stay trained on one spot
- A skin that would shed-off if damaged, without destroying the missile
- Counterattacking the laser aircraft, since it probably can't be easily stealthed
- Multiple cheap decoys

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

"You can actually accomplish that with plated layers of reflective material and dialectric material. However, all I then have to do is count on the explosion of the topmost dialectric layer to destroy the reflective layers beneath it.

Fixed.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong, it was William Atherton's house.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet that's what Balloon Boy's parents were testing, and balloon that can withstand lasers.

Re:Shiny things?

[cashX3r0]

Assuming they make the missile 90% reflective so only 10% of the power burns a hole, where does the remaining 90% reflect to?

well, at a symmetrical degree angle from the contact point, initially. yet immediately the surface becomes less reflective as it is destroyed and sends the diffused laser in all directions. and as time increases, the reflecting 90% drops as the surface loses its reflective properties and gains absorptive properties. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflection_(physics)

Re:Shiny things?

[joeytmann]

Considering that these weapons use a radar based tracking system, your best bet is to use stealth technology so the laser can't lock on. Its hard to hit a moving object when you can't see it.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, now I have to fiddle with the main deflector dish again.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Moderators: Parent may not understand the answer to his/her question, but that doesn't make parent a troll. WTF?

Parent: The mirror won't reflect 90% for very long. Not long enough for it to matter where the reflected energy goes, I expect. Perhaps collateral damage to other mirrors in the area; or, more seriously, I suppose it could damage the vision of anyone who was looking at the target from the wrong angle.

Re:Shiny things?

[hrimhari]

I'd love to see some citations. Sorry if I mix your posts while quoting:

That won't work. The problem starts at step 2. If the top layer isn't reflective, then as it "boils away" it will convert incoming energy from the laser into heat efficiently enough to destroy any reflective layer that might be under it.

I'd wait to see how the outer layer boils away before affirming that it will generate enough heat to destroy any reflective layer underneath. See fire-retardant materials for an example of how materials can resist heat. There shouldn't take much scientific effort to come up with a paint that goes somewhat the other way with laser: burns fast and effectively, quickly exposing the reflective layer which itself is heat resistant.

An expensive mirror that's new, clean, and in perfect condition would still absorb 5% of the energy hitting it in lab conditions. In the air, in combat conditions, coated with goo from the stealth paint that just got burned off of it, the reflective layer wouldn't last even a measurable fraction of a second.

A laser weapon designed to fry a plane that absorbs 70% or more of it should be less than effective if the said plane absorbs only 5%. Once we agree on that, we can then go on discussing your claim that the goo from the paint would have that much impact, which goes back to the first part of my reply.

Optical vs. radio is just a choice of wavelengths. Whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can be used to detect you. Whatever wavelength you choose to be "not shiny", can be used to destroy you.

That's when a double approach comes to the rescue. Be "not shiny" to avoid detection, then get rid of the "not shiny" layer once detected so your "shininess" protects you from being destroyed.

no material of any sort can be kept sufficiently reflective under combat conditions that the laser wouldn't destroy it.

That sounds like a mighty assumption without citation.

Say, you wouldn't happen to work for Boeing, would you? : )

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Actually, 10% probably isn't enough to destoy the target. However, 10% is enough to quickly destroy the mirror, whereupon the target will start receiving more like 100% of the energy - and that is enough to destroy the target.

Re:Shiny things?

[jhol13]

The laser *ITSELF* has two mirrors.

Why doesn't it burn?

Re:Shiny things?

[hrimhari]

I'd guess it depends on how many shots they can do with the laser compared to how many missiles they could carry with the same weight.

Re:Shiny things?

[peragrin]

So you want to make a radar resitant stealth supersonic high heat coating that burns away cleanly.

Yes I said that right. Supersonic speeds produce friction which make heat. So by design you have a stealth coating that ablates when ever you travel fast.

Something tells me you haven't seen all the angles yet.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

No, I wouldn't happen to work for Boeing. I would happen to have taken basic physics, though.

For the sake of argument, I'm going to pretend that your idea of shedding a stealth layer would work, because it's moot. You can call my statements "mighty assumptions" all you want, but I'll stand by them. If I'm wrong, we'll surely see the headline that proves it soon enough.

As for this: "A laser weapon designed to fry a plane that absorbs 70% or more of it should be less than effective if the said plane absorbs only 5%."

Wrong. The 5% is only the initial amount of energy that gets through. That's enough to destroy the mirror so fast that you'll never notice any of the laser reflecting away. From that point forward, the target receives close to 100% of the laser's energy and is destroyed quite effectively.

And, that 5% is a very optimistic figure. Again, that's for a clean, flawless, perfectly maintained mirror made for lab use and kept under lab conditions.

I know it's much easier to bitch about lack of citations then to do, say, a google or wikipedia search on reflectiveness of mirrors, but I'm just gonna leave that as your problem.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerly doubt this is a UV laser...maybe but very unlikely IR... and other than that it is in the visible specturm. If not its not light its a maser or something other than a laser.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're unlikely to find a lot in the way of citations, you know, national security and all. But the fire retardant idea is misguided, as those materials, when activated, would ruin the flight properties of a ballistic weapon, and would seriously disrupt the control and flight properties of an airplane. As for the idea that reflection will solve the problem, perhaps if you're talking about polished berrylium that is kept cool (and I mean super cool there), but at the energy levels we're talking about, any kind of imperfection in the surface would effectively remove the reflective advantage. And missiles and airplanes with that kind of coating would be really expensive. I can't give you any citations, but I worked for a while doing simulations for the airborne laser (and posting anon).

Re:Shiny things?

[goodmanj]

Homework assignment! To rip apart sheet metal, you'll need a pressure in the ballpark of 100 PSI.

Calculate the laser power needed to create this much radiation pressure with a 10-cm diameter beam.

Answer:
100 PSI = 69 N/cm^2
A = pi r^2 = 78 cm^2
F = P * A = 5400 N

F = dp/dt = 2 I/c
I = F c / 2 = 5400 * 3e8 / 2 = 800 GW

This amounts to 1/4 of total U.S. electricity consumption. Utterly impractical.

Re:Shiny things?

[Culture20]

Magic. Or because there's no Combustible gas inside. And the mirrors are probably actively chilled, and need replacing on a regular basis.

Re:Shiny things?

[icebrain]

The mirrors are likely actively cooled. Putting an active cooling system over an entire airplane would be prohibitively expensive and extremely heavy, and would make you stand out quite clearly on infrared.

Re:Shiny things?

[Iphtashu Fitz]

There's a huge difference between absorbing a few hundred milliwatts of scattered radar energy and 100 kilowatts of concentrated laser energy. Aside from the 10^8 or so factor of difference between the two the laser is also concentrating the energy a lot more than the radar is. A stealthy aircraft designed to avoid radar is going to be just as vulnerable to a laser like this as a non-stealthy one.

Re:Shiny things?

[smitty777]

You are all on the right track, but think in terms of shooting down a missile instead of an aircraft and you will get a better picture. Shooting a missile with a missile has been described as "hitting a bullet with another bullet". A laser would have little trouble tracking a missle, however. Going from missiles to aircraft is just shooting at a much slower, larger target.

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

No. Because even if you only absorb .1% of the light, that .1% will turn into heat and the material starts to break down, and very quickly that .1% becomes .5%, then 1%, then 10% then you get failure from thermal stresses.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about the new cloaking/invisibility tech that is being worked on. As that tech bends the EM Radiation (light, laser etc) around or lets it pass thru, wouldnt that be a viable defence vs laser?

Re:Shiny things?

[confused one]

Yeah, that's a good point. The upper layers might, just might, absorb a bit of energy. But that's part of the reason the dialectric layers are a fraction (1/4) of a wavelength thick.

Re:Shiny things?

[RichiH]

Punching press? ;)

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Christ, moderators, you can see from my other posts that I think parent is painfully uninformed, but that is not what Troll means. Get with the program.

Well, as long as I'm here I might as well abuse parent a bit more.

So approaching from the opposite angle as my previous post, this time I'm going to pretend that the reflective layer might somehow survive being hit by the laser, because it's moot.

Your argument about shedding a stealth layer is that it doesn't matter, as the stealth layer is no longer useful once you've been hit because clearly you've been spotted anyway. That's not how it works. Radar stealth isn't "all or nothing". Just because the enemy knows you're present doesn't mean he can hit you with his fancy radar-guided weapons. Nor, if you're fast-moving, does it mean that he can keep track of you if you're able to maintain your stealth properties. Sure, shedding a layer of anti-radar protection would be better than being destroyed outright, but lets not pretend it's not a tactical cost.

So you're hit by a laser, the unobtanium coating that renders you radar-invisible burns away cleanly, your magic mirror reflects the laser, and two seconds later an anti-aircraft missile knocks you out of the sky. If somehow you survive that, another laser strike hits the part of the mirror that was destroyed by the missile, and you're toast anyway.

Re:Shiny things?

[jhol13]

A mirror on an ICBM needs to last maybe one blast, so it does need replacement nor cooling.

95% reflectivity seems to achievable relatively easily. A megawatt * 5% = less than it has to endure when going down, I'd assume.

Re:Shiny things?

[Chris Burke]

Each photon in the beam transfers its momentum to the target. For total reflection it transfers twice its momentum. This will result in radiation pressure exerting a very localized force (so high pressure)

Hm... I can't find anything specific about the power, just "mega-watt class". So let's call it a megawatt and we can multiply the result as necessary. I'm also going to guess it's a 1.315um COIL laser. Momentum per photon is h/lambda = 5.039e-28 kg*m/s, energy is hf = 1.511e-19 J. The megawatt laser therefore produces 6.618e24 photons/s, so assuming total reflection that's a force of about 0.0066 N.

I don't know how tightly the beam is focused, but if it's 1mm^2 (which seems pretty damn tight, someone else can calculate the divergence), that's a pressure of about 6600 Pa, or about 6% of standard atmospheric pressure. How many atmospheres do you need to damage a plane?

I dunno, I have a hard time believing radiation pressure is going to be a significant factor in the effectiveness of a laser.

Re:Shiny things?

[gnieboer]

A couple comments here are focusing on stealth, that's not the big question.

There is not a single US Gen 2+ stealth aircraft engaged in Iraq/Afghanistan. F-117s have been retired, B-2 are not needed. The aircraft over there are relying on a variety of other IR countermeasures (tactics/flares/directed IR) to defeat threats.

TFA is talking about shooting down UAVs, which pose a unique problem because they are very small and can be made out of low-tech composite stealth materials like frickin balsa wood. That, combined with a naturally low IR signature because of their low performance envelope, make it hard to target then with traditional guided weapons (IR and Radar guided).

The key question, which TFA avoided giving details about, is what range they are talking about. If the range is = a 25mm chain gun, this system has little value yet, as if you can find it and track it, a turreted chain gun is already very deadly, the ballistics models aren't that hard to compute. But those weapons are also very easy to fly above.

If this laser has a range of, say, 8 miles (40,000-ish feet), then things could get interesting. Data that would also be important is how long the laser needs to stay on target, and how small the beam is. If the beam is 1" wide, and must stay on the same spot for 1/2 a second, it could be defeated by old-fashioned 'jinking' which would move the beam around and diffuse the heat. But if it's 1/100 second, then again, it's really deadly.

Finally (and then I'm done), this laser is really cool, but must be guided by something... at 40,000 feet (or at night), you'll need something better than a Mk 1 eyeball to find and track the target accurately enough, just like you do today, and that's where countermeasures could be applied.

But a really good EO/IR guidance system that can find/track targets up to 40,000 feet on a clear day at night and a laser that can kill in 1/100" second (or close), and you've got a game-changing technology, forcing aircraft to hope for cloudy days.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

How do you know what frequency laser they're going to fire at you?

Best case, if somehow the dialectric doesn't absorb any energy, I'd expect the reflective layers to burn up one by one, like peeling an onion. Very quickly peeling an onion.

Also, how sturdy would this layered material be mechanically and thermally speaking? Can it even survive being the skin of an airplane?

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

There's also the fact that this pressure difference is applied in a nanosecond or so. That would create a nice mechanical shock wave.
Probably you're right though and that's not enough to do any damage. A lot of different forces are at work at once in the target spot, and the thermal effects usually outweigh momentum and EM effects by orders of magnitude. But given enough power and sufficient small target area, radiation pressure could get sufficiently large to puncture the hull.
In theory anyway ;-)

Re:Shiny things?

[Xtifr]

800 GW

This amounts to 1/4 of total U.S. electricity consumption. Utterly impractical.

For us, maybe. For for your typical Type II Civilization or better, that's barely a sneeze.

Just you wait! As soon as I get my Dyson Sphere built, I'll destroy you all using nothing but radiation pressure! Mwuah-ha-ha-ha-HA!

Re:Shiny things?

[SuperBigGulp]

Obviously the outer layer would have to be made out of popcorn kernels.

Re:Shiny things?

[chronosan]

I seem to remember seeing somewhere that the giganto laser on the Boeing was being reflected at its target with a mirror...

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

So really, even whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can still be used to destroy you.

Even Howie Mandel's head oiled to perfection?

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah--I'm not a laser engineer (or an engineer), but curious enough I'd follow a link if I knew what to hunt for.

Is "burn through" really such a problem?

I mean--is it really that difficult to build a material that can withstand the admittedly massive temperature of a weaponized laser just for a few seconds? Coat it in asbestos with some oil on the bottom...something...

Missiles presumably aren't in range for very long--and I'd imagine there's got to be some sort of ...well...thermal insulator you could put on things to suck the heat for a few seconds. Given it's a missile, you don't really have to worry about the durability or reuse of it. Heck--coat the thing in cold tar, have it catch on fire--the smoke from combustion would dissipate the light even further, maybe give it another second.

Also--out of curiosity...Suppose I do...have an 85% reflective mirror. If you're firing from a ground based weapons system, does that mean 15% of the lethal force reaches the target, and 85% bounces off it it to some random civilian on the ground at the angle of reflection matching the angle of incidence? That sounds like a REALLY nasty defense system... shoot down a missile--blow up a random house equidistant from it...

Re:Shiny things?

[The Clockwork Troll]

Let's get THIS out of the way.

The S is for Super and the U is for Unique.

Re:Shiny things?

[Chris Burke]

There's also the fact that this pressure difference is applied in a nanosecond or so.

Um, no. That's not how pressure works.

Pressure is force per unit area, and force is change in momentum per second. For the same power laser it makes no difference if the laser pulse is a nanosecond, or a year long, the pressure is the same. That's why I worked from watts, not joules -- because I don't know the pulse length, and it doesn't matter for figuring out the force exerted by the laser. A megawatt laser that pulsed for only a nanosecond would deliver far 1e-9 times as much energy as the same laser pulsed for a second. The force exerted by that laser would be the same, except obviously pushing on something with the same force only for 1e-9 times as long would have much less effect.

But given enough power and sufficient small target area, radiation pressure could get sufficiently large to puncture the hull.

It would have to be a ridiculously powerful laser, at least a gigawatt, for radiation pressure to be at all significant.

Also, I didn't want to do the math for laser divergence so I made a super-optimistic assumption, but there are physical limits on minimum laser divergence and thus target area at a given distance.

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

This amounts to 1/4 of total U.S. electricity consumption. Utterly impractical.

You're confusing power with energy. The trick is to deliver some moderate amount of energy (10-100kJ range) in a very short amount of time (femptoseconds), see for example here. It would require a large installation to house the capacitors, but it would certainly be practical for stationary installations and probably also battle ships.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course one can beat the thing with a mirror of some kind. If not, how come the mirrors that direct the beam does not burn?

Re:Shiny things?

[DustyShadow]

Because the laser is good against things that are stealthy, e.g. things that are coated in materials designed to absorb E.M. radiation.

Am I missing something here? Don't you need a radar to find the thing you are painting with the laser? I don't really see how this helps beat stealth technology but I will admit that my knowledge of this area is minimal.

Re:Shiny things?

[rockNme2349]

besides, everyone knows the proper response to lasers is to use shields.

Re:Shiny things?

[hrimhari]

Christ, moderators, you can see from my other posts that I think parent is painfully uninformed, but that is not what Troll means. Get with the program.

Yeah, my first reaction was something close to WTF :) Anyway... I'm quite ready to accept being uninformed, and I'll bite the abuse and stir the discussion some more.

My initial point is that you've been affirming a lot of things that are not easily acceptable as truth without citation. That's at least my case. I'd be really glad to see them and I'm sure others would profit too.

I did do my little googling and I came up with some things like this High reflectivity laser mirrors patent.

When I propose the shedding layer as a possible path to make the laser + radar problem less effective, I'm not proposing to shed the entire layer at once, just the bit being hit by the laser.

I fail to see why this mere idea should be discarded only because you religiously believe that there's no escape from laser + radar. I hope you don't expect me to come out with a working solution within 1h after reading the /. article. The laser certainly took more than that.

Of course, maybe I'm completely off and you just want to have fun at my expense. In that case, I'll be happy to have contributed to your daily laughter :)

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

What I meant was that right before the laser hits there is just atmospheric pressure, and then in a nanosecond this pressure increases. So on the target area, there is suddenly extra force applied. I'm sure this will create a shock wave. It's like dropping a brick on a table: the weight will create a shock on impact and constant pressure afterwards.
But other than that, I agree with you.

Re:Shiny things?

[quanticle]

Stealth doesn't make an aircraft invisible to radar, it only makes the aircraft harder to detect by absorbing and deflecting the radio waves sent from the radar set. The reasoning is, by the time the radar does pick up the aircraft, it would be too late to launch missiles. Of course, a laser changes that, since light travels so much more quickly than a physical missile, and at the same time the stealth coatings on planes make them more receptive to the laser's energy.

A laser/missile combination would place aircraft manufacturers in a double bind - make the plane laser resistant, and you make it vulnerable to missiles (since you give up stealth). Make the plane missile resistant (by making it stealthy) and its vulnerable to lasers.

Re:Shiny things?

[turbidostato]

"The key question, which TFA avoided giving details about, is what range they are talking about."

You think you are very clever, don't you? But the key question is "yeah, but is that beam machine shark-mountable?"

Re:Shiny things?

[Chris Burke]

So on the target area, there is suddenly extra force applied.

"Extra" in the sense of more force than before, not "extra" as in more than what the laser imparts. If the force imparted by the laser is insignificant (it is), then this "shockwave" will also be insignificant.

It's like dropping a brick on a table: the weight will create a shock on impact and constant pressure afterwards.

No, the kinetic energy of the falling brick will create a shock on impact. That creates "extra" force beyond the weight of the brick resting on the table. That's nothing like the situation here.

Instead imagine that you slide the brick onto the table from the side. Is there going to be a significant shockwave? If the table is easily able to handle the weight of the brick, then no matter how fast you transition the table from not supporting the brick to supporting the brick it's not going to break the table.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your idea for a laser onion peeler intrigues me, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:Shiny things?

[turbidostato]

" It's like dropping a brick on a table: the weight will create a shock on impact and constant pressure afterwards."

It's nothing like droping a brick on a table. Not on the slightest.

Re:Shiny things?

[BlackSnake112]

I am not claiming that your math if off but...

They have already done this (the car hood thing and many other tests). Unless those brown outs in CA were caused by this laser, I'd think this weapon either uses a lot less power then you are thinking, or the type of laser they are using is more destructive then we know.

Re:Shiny things?

[ceoyoyo]

Huh. That's not as high as I thought it would be.

Still ridiculous, but not as much as I thought.

Re:Shiny things?

[BlackSnake112]

I thought most missiles already spin. The whole ballistic thing, a spinning projectile goes farther and straighter then a none spinning one. A missile is a powered projectile usually with some kind of payload.

Re:Shiny things?

[Duradin]

You are aware what happens when a lasgun hits a Holtzmann field, right?

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

I'd say the patent is missing some key figures for evaluating suitability for use as a shield, but the biggest problem is that to be reflective this type of mirror has to be highly polished (mentinoed several times in the patent). It does not seem realistic to think you're going to keep the surface of an aircraft "highly polished" during use.

Re:Shiny things?

[Znork]

no material of any sort can be kept sufficiently reflective under combat conditions that the laser wouldn't destroy it.

Indeed. A more fruitful approach would probably be more similar to reactive armour; a material that produces large amounts of refractive or absorbing smoke particles to dissipate the beam and rapidly transport the energy away; a cursory reading about directed energy weapons indicate that even the ordinary vaporization of the target can cause shading problems.

Various kinds of vapour countermeasures might also have the advantage of providing beam tracing possibilities for a retaliatory strike.

Re:Shiny things?

[WoRLoKKeD]

So long as it doesn't find a way to puncture a Gellar field, we should be home straight.

Re:Shiny things?

[mycroft822]

So what about the "invisibility cloaks" (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/05/13/2215220) that are being researched. At some point could those metamaterials theoretically redirect the energy from these lasers?

Re:Shiny things?

[hrimhari]

I'd say the patent is missing some key figures for evaluating suitability for use as a shield, but the biggest problem is that to be reflective this type of mirror has to be highly polished (mentinoed several times in the patent). It does not seem realistic to think you're going to keep the surface of an aircraft "highly polished" during use.

Glad to see that we're back to the levels of rationality. I don't know if it's possible or not. Maybe it's difficult, maybe it's not so. It's certainly something I'd venture my research now that high-power lasers seem to be gaining a real chance to become part of an arsenal. From that perspective, I questioned your previous strong statements claiming it to be impossible without showing any citation whatsoever to corroborate them. I did my googling. Did you?

Re:Shiny things?

[vertinox]

...if you dump enough energy into the air near an infinitely-shiny object to explosively transform the nearby air into a plasma, the shiny object still probably gets a big dent in it. Probably even more so if the shiny object is supersonic.

I remember reading a SciFi book once about war in 2020 where the new apache like helicopter had smoke chaff of dust born particles to scatter the laser light of attacking craft trying to melt them.

I think that would be the only reasonable defense.

Of course you really wouldn't be able to see anything yourself and if it was really windy or you were moving really fast it wouldn't work.

Nor would it really be feasible with the whole turbulence from the chopper itself... Well it was an ok book.

Re:Shiny things?

[AndersOSU]

100psi?

The yield strength of crappy aluminum is in the ballpark of 40ksi. (1ksi = 1000 psi)

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Yes, I did do my googling; and I still stand by my original statement. The statement you seem to dislike was that no material of any kind can maintain sufficient reflectivity under combat conditions to survive a laser weapon. (Note this is not the same as saying that no material can survive this weapon; the point is that it will not be due to reflection of energy that it survives.)

The key phrase in the case of this patent is under combat conditions. You can read my softer phrasing in the above post as allowing some uncertainty if you like, but again I am standing by this as a statement of fact: You cannot maintain a precision polish on the skin of an aircraft in combat. In fact, never mind combat - you cannot maintain a precision polish on the skin of an aircraft in flight.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

You are being very assertive. Is this because you have experience with high energy lasers?

Maybe there are no feasible countermeasures, but on the other hand, maybe there are. As far as I have read nobody has a definitive answer. (Example.)

If you can make a reflective layer that only absorbs 10% then you need a 10 times as powerful laser to do equivalent (meaning any) damage. Add to that heat resistant materials or other measures and you up the factor even more. Can you easily achieve the required laser power? I don't know, and I am curious how you can know (although I am suspecting you actually don't).

Re:Shiny things?

[BagMan2]

Mind you, if the laser can target you in the first place, then that same targetting mechanism can be used to guide a missle to you, so the entire conversation is moot. If the aircraft is actually stealth, the laser won't be able to target it either.

Re:Shiny things?

[Interoperable]

Well it really depends on the the power density in the beam. If a target is 90% reflective to the the wavelength used by the laser, then the laser would have to be 10 times more powerful to achieve the same heating in the target. My guess is that polished aluminum might maintain 90% reflectivity, but who knows. Of course, a speck of highly absorbing dust will burn very quickly, subsequently, the burned area around the dust will also begin absorbing so a hole may grow very quickly. The question is then: how long can the laser remain focused on the burning patch? If it wanders due to atmospheric disturbance the spot may not cause a failure of the target.

Here's the real problem. If you make the laser so powerful that a bit of dust will cause a significant burn to start, a speck of dust on your targeting optics will obliterate the laser platform itself. You could manage this by using a very large targeting mirror and focusing onto the target (possibly what the system does but I couldn't be bothered to look it up) but then you need accurate range-finding as well as directing and you need to keep the beam targeted precisely enough to hit a small focal point for an extended (probably still less than a second) period of time .

At the end of the day the whole system is damn hard to get working. Targeting an enemy missile rather than a slow-moving drone may still be an unsurmountable challenge. I suspect that the whole system is a giant waste of money made even more expensive by the possibility of shiny targets.

Re:Shiny things?

[Chris Burke]

The topic of discussion was the radiation pressure of the laser. ByteSlicer was hypothesizing that a laser this powerful would have enough momentum to destroy things just with that, but they are quite wrong.

The actual energy of the laser ("mega-watt class" according to tfa) is of course sufficient to cause significant damage; the whole point of this demonstration. But it's not doing it's damage by the photons imparting their momentum to the target. ;)

Re:Shiny things?

[Anomalyst]

A giant Jiffy Pop pan Ed Begley Jr's house

Beware of Begley cloth. http://www.jerrypournelle.com/archives2/archives2mail/mail392.html#Begley

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

No, the kinetic energy of the falling brick will create a shock on impact. That creates "extra" force beyond the weight of the brick resting on the table. That's nothing like the situation here.

OK, maybe a brick wasn't a good example. But photons do have kinetic energy, so maybe bouncing a ball off a vertical wooden wall would be a better example.

Shock waves occur when the target medium is compressed faster than the speed of sound in that medium. So a step up in force of sufficient amplitude would do the trick.

I honestly don't know if radiation pressure shock waves actually occur in reality (I'm obviously not a high-energy laser scientist), but I think they could, in theory, with sufficient laser power and sufficiently small target area. Like I said before, thermal effects are several magnitudes bigger, so it would be very difficult to separate radiation pressure shock waves (assuming they occur) from thermal shock waves (where rapid expansion exerts the force).

That said, I made my original comment with laser fusion in mind, where laser beams are used to compress a target bead. My mistake was twofold: the laser power used there is more than thousand times greater, and the compression occurs by a thermal shock wave, instead of radiation pressure. So yes, radiation pressure would be insignificant next to that.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Why would my assertiveness about the properties of mirrors have anything to do with my experience with lasers? Nor am I claiming any special knowledge of mirrors; merely the ability to do a little research before latching on to sci-fi fantasies about defense systems. If I'm wrong, you'd think someone with a great deal of mirror expertise would be arguing with me; instead all we've got is a bunch of people who don't even know the basics saying "but couldn't there be something you don't know about?".

On second thought, I don't care what you think of my tone, so moving on...

The question isn't whether there can be any effective countermeasure. The question is whether that countermeasure will be a simple matter of making your aircraft reflective (I refer you to the OP in this thread). And the answer is no. Making your aircraft as reflective as you can possibly make it will neither be a "simple" matter, nor do anything to protect the aircraft.

If you could make a reflective layer that only absorbs 10% of the energy without itself being damaged by that 10% of the energy, then the laser would have to be 10 times as strong. In reality, absorbing 1/10 of the energy from a laser weapon is going to cause the mirror to rapidly degrade, and the aircraft will soon be taking on almost all of the energy from the laser. Keeping a substance 90% reflective isn't easy.

But go on suspecting I don't know. As I've said elsewhere, if I'm wrong the headlines will bear that point out soon enough.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally (and then I'm done), this laser is really cool, but must be guided by something... at 40,000 feet (or at night), you'll need something better than a Mk 1 eyeball to find and track the target accurately enough, just like you do today, and that's where countermeasures could be applied.

But a really good EO/IR guidance system that can find/track targets up to 40,000 feet on a clear day at night and a laser that can kill in 1/100" second (or close), and you've got a game-changing technology, forcing aircraft to hope for cloudy days.

Which is why I think directed energy weapons are a technology whose time has come.

Building a "big frickin' laser" is the easy part. Anyone can do it, and within 10-20 years, everyone who wants to will have done so.

If both sides have big frickin' lasers, every conventional air force and ballistic missile force (and maybe even even every bunch of idiots with mortars and small rockets) on the planet becomes obsolete. The first guy to identify and target the foe wins, end of story. The battle isn't about who's got the fastest plane or the best missiles, it's about who's got the best software. Press button, target goes *poof*.

There are lots of places that develop cheap software. There aren't many that develop good software. The kind of software development that can't be outsourced is something we Westerners are still really good at.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just set glMaterialf(GL_FRONT, GL_SHININESS, 100.0); and all the problems with reflecting lasers are solved.

Re:Shiny things?

[Technician]

Remember the LASER has mirrors. Many of these mirrors are multi layer tuned reflectors. The mirrors in lasers are much more reflective than your bathroom mirror, but only at the wavelength of operation. More reading here;
http://www.rp-photonics.com/dichroic_mirrors.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_mirror

Unfortunately making a plane covered with this is not practical.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, then, how about making it transparent? There might be a little bit more sciencing involved in the construction of such a craft, but that's what the nerd peoples are for.

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

Dunno. I was looking for an example where there was no force on the target area at one moment, and a constant force from the next moment on. I didn't really think of the falling part.

Maybe I should have used a car analogy (can I drop a car on a table?), after all this is /.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

Why would my assertiveness about the properties of mirrors have anything to do with my experience with lasers? Nor am I claiming any special knowledge of mirrors; merely the ability to do a little research before latching on to sci-fi fantasies about defense systems.

Well, we are talking about the properties of mirrors being exposed to high energy lasers. What research are you referring to by the way? Any links?

Making your aircraft as reflective as you can possibly make it will neither be a "simple" matter, nor do anything to protect the aircraft.

Yes, you keep saying that. Do you expect people to take your word for it (especially considering you admit to not being an expert)?

In reality, absorbing 1/10 of the energy from a laser weapon is going to cause the mirror to rapidly degrade, and the aircraft will soon be taking on almost all of the energy from the laser.

Sure, but all this is meaningless without numbers. How rapidly? How long is the laser pulse?

Re:Shiny things?

[fast turtle]

Then you simply use an Ablative layer that not only smokes when hit by a laser but the smoke helps dispate the beam before its able to do any further damage. Basic Sci-Fi here. Does it work? Quite well because the increased energy needs are any wheres between a factor of 10 to 20 for the originating laser, which is quite a step up in energy and might not be easily transportable. Note that the most effective level of protection will be from In Atmosphere instead of the vacuum of space where the effectiveness will only push the energy requirement up by a factor of 2 to 5, which is much easier to obtain.

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

Gah what is it with stupid people and mirrors!

Aluminium mirrors top out at about 93% reflectivity. A kilowatt level laser killed an astronomical mirror in the 1980's during an SDI test.

Plus, by adding mirrors to your ICBM, you've just cut the payload by, oh a good 90%. This means that you can only lob one warhead at me instead of 10.

This is called "Virtual attrition", and is the same reason why no one ever deployed decoys on ICBMs.

Re:Shiny things?

[CODiNE]

Nonono man that's soo wrong. If you put them in a series it just burns through them one by one. You put the mirrors in a PARALLEL arrangement and the wattage gets divided equally among them. 30MW laser hits a 30 mirror parallel setup and each only has to reflect 1MW so heat isn't an issue anymore. They make a stronger laser, you just cut the mirrors up into smaller pieces and add more parallelism. Yo it's like the Larrabee of reflectance.

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

1. ICBMs don't spin. The structure and the solid fuel don't like the stresses.

2. That's a whole lot of weight you're adding, which means fewer warheads coming at me. Virtual Attrition for the Win.

3. Oh really? the US is working on a Laser package that fits into the bay of an F-35.

4. Decoys don't work. For a decoy to work it has to have the exact same: Mass, Thermal properties, EM reflective properties, ect of a real warhead, or we can ignore it. If you have to go through that, then you might as well add a new warhead. It is also worth noting that there was only one loadout of decoys ever deployed operationally on an SSBN, and none were ever deployed on ICBMs.

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

Ballistic missiles don't like to spin, because it does nasty things to the fuel (which has the consistency of an eraser), and to the walls of the missile itself (these things are quite thin for mass reasons).

Re:Shiny things?

[Gilmoure]

What about encasing all the skin panels of the plane in a stasis field. That should work.

How to join panels inside a stasis field, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

You would need a broad-based stealth for that to work, and you need to be stealthy in the IR as well.

That gets very expensive very quickly.

Re:Shiny things?

[lgw]

If a cannon (of any technology) dumps it's energy near you, you die. It doesn' much matter whether the laser cannon heats the skin of the missile, or the air next to it, to plasma temperatures, it's enough to destroy the missile. These weapons are not intended to be energy efficient, they're intended to reach a fast-moving target quickly. For example, an ICBM boosting to orbit is a clear and obvious target, but you can't catch it with a missile - it's already the fastest missile there is. But you can easily tag it with a laser.

Re:Shiny things?

[couchslug]

"$1M missile vs firing a laser. I do not know how much it costs to fire a chemical laser but I bet it is a lot cheaper than firing a missile."

Missiles require purchase in bulk, inspections while in (expensive) storage, transportation to the combat theater, many personnel to maintain, load, and unload them (if a missile isn't fired, it will be returned to storage) and in general a vast support chain to keep them available to shoot.
Once an aircraft is empty of ordnance, it must return to base for weapons reload.

Lasers don't look spendy at all given the cumulative effort and expense of getting a conventional missile to target.

Re:Shiny things?

[lgw]

You can't catch a boosting ICBM with a missile (well, unless you were directly above the ICBM or something), but it's about the least stealthy target possible. A re-entering ICBM is one of the hardest possible targets.

Re:Shiny things?

[lgw]

Current chemical lasers suck for firing at low-value targets. The fuel is massive and incredibly toxic. It's worth using 300 pounds of fuel to take a shot at a boosting ICBM, but not so much at a UAV. However, that's just a fuel source, and not the core part of the weapon technology. An electrical laser would be dandy for defending equipent that naturally generates power from UAVs. And shooting down boosting ICBMs is becoming more valuable as more countries gain access to those.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know next to nothing about optics, but couldn't you also focus a series of weaker lasers to converge on a single point to achieve the same effect, sort of like the "gamma knife" devices used to treat brain tumors? Or the Death Star? :)

Re:Shiny things?

[davester666]

I just wonder how they got the shark to accurately aim at the airplane. My shark keeps getting distracted whenever a fish swims by.

Re:Shiny things?

[DigiShaman]

Doubtful. We are talking about a tremendous amount of energy at a specific wavelength that may or may not be redirectable.

Re:Shiny things?

[pete_norm]

800 GW

This amounts to 1/4 of total U.S. electricity consumption. Utterly impractical.

Easy... just get 662 Mr. Fusion...

Re:Shiny things?

[Chris Burke]

OK, maybe a brick wasn't a good example. But photons do have kinetic energy, so maybe bouncing a ball off a vertical wooden wall would be a better example.

Well you could say photons are all kinetic energy, but that wasn't the point. The point was there was excess energy in the brick that was not present after impact thus creating a large transient pressure spike, completely unlike the laser.

But energy isn't really the point either. We know the laser transmits tons of energy, but it isn't necessarily transmitted as kinetic energy. The question is whether the force exerted by the laser (or bouncy balls) is sufficient to destroy something. And we've already done that math, and it isn't anywhere close.

Shock waves occur when the target medium is compressed faster than the speed of sound in that medium. So a step up in force of sufficient amplitude would do the trick.

The key being "sufficient amplitude". The shock wave is going to be proportional to the force that creates it, with a ratio of less than 1. That radiation pressure exists, exerts force and thus could hypothetically damage things, is not and never was in question. That "A laser that powerful would convey enough impulse to make a hole without needing to heat the target" is what is in question, and is simply not true.

I honestly don't know if radiation pressure shock waves actually occur in reality

Of course they do, they're just tiny. Your bouncy-ball example is literally going to exert more pressure and create a bigger shock wave than this megawatt laser.

That said, I made my original comment with laser fusion in mind, where laser beams are used to compress a target bead. My mistake was twofold: the laser power used there is more than thousand times greater, and the compression occurs by a thermal shock wave, instead of radiation pressure. So yes, radiation pressure would be insignificant next to that.

Yes, indeed. What this tells you is that there is basically no application where radiation pressure is significant since for even the most optimistic estimates of how reflective a target could be, the amount of damage from heating will be many times greater than damage from pressure. So if your laser is so powerful just its radiation pressure could hypothetically destroy the target, then the target would be vaporized by the laser before pressure had a chance to do anything anyway, and for that matter you could have just used a much weaker laser.

Oh hey I just thought of one though -- you could use lasers to boost your solar sail ship (with the laser not on the ship obviously) when it gets too far from the sun for solar wind to be effective. But that's kinda silly... it'd make more sense to use the laser as beamed power for some other kind of drive.

Re:Shiny things?

[jabuzz]

Well for starters that 5% is actually 4%, but that is splitting hairs.

However it is for glass/air boundaries, which is why you have such things as silver side mirrors.

You basics physics would also not appear to have taught you about thin film interference. Otherwise known to the layman as an anti reflective coating. Slap a whole bunch of suitable layers on and you can easily get that to close to 100%. If you do the maths a perfect mirror merely requires a material with zero impedance...

I suggest that you might want to do some more advanced reading on the subject, and would recommend Optics by Eugene Heck, in the fourth edition now I believe, and still the standard textbook on the subject.

All that said, in a combat situation none of the above is going to help.

Re:Shiny things?

[jabuzz]

Of course you could just use a silver side mirror...

Take a lot of work keeping it clean and polished though.

 

Re:Shiny things?

[Froboz23]

Now I have an excuse to get my missiles all chromed-out. Sweet!

Re:Shiny things?

[Xaositecte]

www.justfuckinggoogleit.com

You can disprove his assertions, or you can just be a dick.

Re:Shiny things?

[CodyRazor]

Isn't everyone?

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dielectric, not "dialectric."

Re:Shiny things?

[Nefarious Wheel]

Not to converge into a bigger beam, no. Although you could have a number of near-parallel beams converge on a single spot, by doing so you add the ranging problem -- distance would need to be accurately determined and the aim of each of the individual lasers would have to be adjusted to get the beams to converge on the same spot. So instead of x-y tracking, you have x-y-z times the number of beams. Tricky.

For my part, I'd prefer the Puppeteer modification to the Tnuctupin digging tool. Be careful not to trigger both (parallel) beams, or there will be a current flow.

Re:Shiny things?

[barath_s]

Cooling. A lot of work done to expend the waste heat. Remember that powerful LASERS are only single digit efficient.

Re:Shiny things?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the taxpayer's money is for spending on weapons, and anything else that brings high profit.

Re:Shiny things?

[GigaplexNZ]

Or they might just have wings that provide lift, allowing it to go as far as it has fuel.

Re:Shiny things?

[GigaplexNZ]

When they did this to a car, it heated it and didn't rely entirely on radiation pressure.

Re:Shiny things?

[Spacezilla]

Ah. Thank you. :)

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

I did google it, as you can see if you read all of this thread.

And you know, it is normally the one making the assertions that is supposed to provide citations. It does not become true just because nobody has proven it to be false.

My entire point was that his claims were unsubstantiated guesswork. And since he was responding to an honest question with a very authoritative tone I think it is rather important to point out that it really is speculation. If that makes me a dick then so be it.

Re:Shiny things?

[elFisico]

Not necessarily if you apply the reflective shielding in layers.

But you may want to wait for the ultimate ablative armor technology...

Re:Shiny things?

[elFisico]

Just put some shock-absorbant insulation in between. And use several layers of mirrors, like super-insulation.

You have to design it to be a kind of ablative armor that creates enough "smoke" to disperse the incoming phaser beam. Ablative generator-deployed armor technology helps a lot here.

Re:Shiny things?

[Jedi Alec]

95% reflectivity seems to achievable relatively easily.

On an object that is launched using chemical propellants, leaves the atmosphere and then reenters it, and travels at mach...lots?

Are you and I living on the same planet with the same rules of physics? What do you think happens when an missile with a nice shiny coat passes through clouds at mach 8?

Re:Shiny things?

[init100]

800 GW. This amounts to 1/4 of total U.S. electricity consumption. Utterly impractical.

Absolutely not. You can have a pulse laser, where each pulse is of a very high power, but where the continuous power draw is well within reasonable limits. If you send one nanosecond pulse of 800 GW laser light every second, using the time between pulses to charge big capacitors, the continuous power draw is just 800 W.

Those numbers are just an example. You could increase the pulse length to 100 nanoseconds, and still get a continuous power draw of just 80 kW, which is still very much within reasonable limits.

Re:Shiny things?

[hidave]

You guys chatting about this are only touching on some of the problems with laser weapons, especially airborne ones. All the problems discussed have engineering solutions, but are difficult to implement. This is the reason development of such weapons has taken decades. There are lots of parameters with respect to how much energy is delivered to a target, but one would, for example, result in about 1 megawatt on a target for a few seconds. One megawatt in one second is about the same energy as in a hand grenade. If all this power is focused on a few square centimeters of a target, it gets REAL hot!

Re:Shiny things?

[Phoghat]

Short answer : No I wonder if Ronald Regans corpse is twirling in the grave yelling "Star Wars Defense, hoo hah!"

Re:Shiny things?

[arethuza]

I belive the highest power output we've managed for a human build machine was 5.4 yottawatts - which seems more than enough. Of course there are some problems with kind of power source....

Re:Shiny things?

[arethuza]

I believe the British Chevaline upgrade to Polaris, to make sure we could take out Moscow, did have decoys: http://www.skomer.u-net.com/projects/chevaline.htm

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

Chevaline

A. Didn't work (notice how quickly it was pulled from service)

B. Was on Polaris an SLBM, not an ICBM. The Brits never deployed ICBMs.

C. Was a development of "Antelope" the system that the US rejected after putting it on one Boat for one cruise

D. Cut the range of the Polaris Missile by roughly 22%, reducing the operating area of the Resolution Class by a significant margin.

Re:Shiny things?

[MRe_nl]

Perhaps a tin foil hat?

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Oh, I'm sorry, is this a court of law? WTF makes you think you have the authority to demand I provide you with "proof" you find acceptable before I'm allowed to state a position?

If anything, the claim needing (and lacking) proof is that it's possible to make a mirror that could reflect a laser weapon. I again refer you to the OP in this thread. Note that what I (and many others) posted was a reply. Show me a citation for a mirror that could plausibly do it, and I'll admit you have a point; but you can't, because there is none. So far we've looked at typical mirrors (~85%), lab mirrors (~95%), frequency-specific mirrors (~99% if you know what frequency light the enemy will use), a patent for mirrors for use with lasers (unspecified%, and requires maintenance of a polish on the order of a few molecules maximum roughness to attain whatever that might be)... yet nothing remotely suitable to the task.

I've provided links and resources you can use to verify that no mirror is reflective enough under combat conditions to do what is being suggested. I'm not sufficiently interested in your education to do more than that, so if you want to go on believing such an idea is going to be the undoing of laser weapon use in practice - and that nobody doing the actual weapons research has thought of it for some reason - then go on thinking that.

Re:Shiny things?

[arethuza]

Although it is clearly nitpicking, aren't things like Polaris and Trident submarine based ICBMs? The defining characteristic of an ICBM is surely range rather than where it is based?

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

"Well, we are talking about the properties of mirrors being exposed to high energy lasers."

Oh my gosh, it hadn't occured to me that maybe a mirror that reflects 95% of the light hitting it, when exposed to a high-energy laser, might magically absorb less than 5% of the energy! I'll go study high-energy lasers so I can find out of maybe that's true!

Or not. Perhaps I'll just rely on the fact that I can comprehend "reflects 95% of the light hitting it" and apply it even in situations where I don't hold graduate-level knowledge of every element.

"What research are you referring to by the way? Any links?"

I suppose you must be deliberately misinterpreting the phrase "do a little research". As I've mentioned before, you can find the same facts I'm using with simple internet searches.

"Do you expect people to take your word for it "

I expect people to do their own digging if they want a deeper understanding. They'll find the same things I have every time this idea has been discussed. In fact, if you're capable of understanding the principles involved, you could've proved the point to yourself for far less effort than you've spent trying to convince me that I don't know.

But you're too busy wanting this mirror idea to somehow have a chance of being workable. So go on holding out hope, and again if I'm wrong we'll no doubt start hearing of reflective laser defenses soon enough.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

I'm skeptical of the idea that you could make the entire plane literally transparent to the laser. Can't really even discuss the potential effectiveness until there's a plausible design to evaluate.

I suppose you could look into bending light around the craft. The science around that idea is far less established than the science of mirrors, so again it's hard to say what could be accomplished with that approach. If you could pull it off, there might also be stealth benefits; but you do have to let some light in for the pilot.

Re:Shiny things?

[init100]

Except that machine (the Tsar Bomba) blew itself apart during the energy release. :)

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

I am not demanding anything. I was asking you to provide citations, and pointing out that unless you can do that you shouldn't expect others to take your conjectures at face value. I don't know why that makes you upset. I was the one being called a dick and to "just fucking google it" after having googled it.

The signal-to-noise ratio on Slashdot is bad enough as it is because of all the people who think they are experts after having made a lot of conclusions out of what they found on Google. If you are so obviously right it shouldn't be hard to substantiate (other than giving numbers on mirror reflectivity). But no one is forcing you.

And for the record: Where did you get the idea that I believe a reflective surface will defeat this weapon? I explicitly stated in my first post that I do not know.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

So your argument boils down to: "The mirror will absorb 5%. QED." There is a gap in the middle, save for some hand waving.

Less importantly, I couldn't care less whether this weapon works against reflective aircraft or not. It would be interesting to know, but this discussion hasn't helped much.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

"So your argument boils down to: "The mirror will absorb 5%. QED.""

Wrong, but I'm not getting drawn in to repeating all that I've said just because you're going to pretend you didn't see it.

"I couldn't care less whether this weapon works against reflective aircraft"

Then why are you commenting in a thread discussing whether this weapon could be defeated by making reflective aircraft?

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

You're not making any sense, chief.

1) "Makes me upset?" What makes you think you know my emotional state?

2) I'm not making "conjectures". I'm applying basic physics to a simple problem, and you're disliking the answer. The problem isn't that I haven't connected all the dots; the problem is that you don't understand the principles well enough to see that I have.

3) What makes you think I "expect" you to accept that I am right? How many times do I have to say this: If you want to hold out hope for some fantasy mirror-shield to be used against laser weapons, go ahead. If it's practical, someone is working on it, and now that laser weapons are seeing the light of day we'd see the shield soon enough. We won't, because as much as you want to think I might be wrong I'm not; but if you don't want to believe that, I don't care.

4) "shouldn't be hard to substantiate (other than giving numbers on mirror reflectivity)"? The hell you say? If 2 plus 2 is obviously 4, then you should be able to prove it easily without using integers.

5) "Where did you get the idea that I believe a reflective surface will defeat this weapon?" Uh... because the only statement I've made is that it won't, and you're arguing with me.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

Wrong, but I'm not getting drawn in to repeating all that I've said just because you're going to pretend you didn't see it.

That would be the hand waving part. I did see it.

"I couldn't care less whether this weapon works against reflective aircraft"

Then why are you commenting in a thread discussing whether this weapon could be defeated by making reflective aircraft?

Clever riposte, I've got to give you that. But just because I'm indifferent to what the answer will be, it doesn't mean I'm not interested in the answer. That is, I'm not "busy wanting" it to work, as you said.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

So you don't care what the answer is, but you want to know, but when someone tells you and you don't like their answer (though supposedly you didn't care), they're "hand-waving"? Weirdo.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

The problem isn't that I haven't connected all the dots; the problem is that you don't understand the principles well enough to see that I have.

Let's be concrete. Some of the dots I'm missing are:

• What is the power output of the laser?
• For how long can the laser pulse be sustained?
• How stationary can you keep the spot of the laser?
• What level of heat transfer and heat capacity can you achieve in the surface?
• What happens when/if the surface material evaporates? Does the gas absorb or disperse any of the energy?
• If the reflective surface is polluted with dirt, how much heat will the dirt transmit to the surface before evaporating?
• Does the reflectivity change somehow under extremely intense lighting (due to depletion of surface electrons or whatever other imaginable reason)? (High energy laser knowledge could be useful here.)
• And finally, what reflectivity is actually reasonable to achieve? These kinds of chemical laser have wave lengths in the order of a few microns. In this range even very thin layers of gold plating have very good reflectivity (> 98%). Gold also doesn't corrode and it transfers heat well. On the other hand, the surface would not be perfectly clean, as you have pointed out.

Now, we know that the laser evidently can destroy an aircraft with "normal" reflectivity at some distance. What we don't know is: With how large a margin? Perhaps a twice as reflective surface would be able to maintain the heat transfer induced by the laser without melting or evaporating. I'm guessing probably not, but that is just a guess.

I don't think this is such an obviously simple problem, but if you do I'd happily be educated. (Preferably with numbers.)

4) "shouldn't be hard to substantiate (other than giving numbers on mirror reflectivity)"? The hell you say? If 2 plus 2 is obviously 4, then you should be able to prove it easily without using integers.

Sure. If you like I can roll out the full proof using the Peano axioms.

Re:Shiny things?

[mea37]

Ah. You're unwilling to be convinced that mirrors will behave like mirrors in front of this particular laser, unless I can provide you the detailed specs of this particular laser. Suit yourself.

Re:Shiny things?

[Alef]

You see, this is what I call hand waving. How can you say the laser is going to shoot down a plane if you don't even have an idea of the laser's specification!?

Re:Shiny things?

[Gilmoure]

If there was some way to slam hard metal bits against a plane...

Re:Shiny things?

[TCPhotography]

Range does determine if it is an ICBM, and of the SLBMs, only Trident when carrying a limited warhead bus (say 4-8 warheads) has the range to be called an ICBM, the others are IRBMs or MRBMs.

Re:Shiny things?

[goodmanj]

Yeah, but for structures made of thin metal sheets, a fairly small pressure on the whole structure translates into much larger stresses on the material itself. For example, an aluminum soda can can't contain a pressure of anywhere near 40 ksi.

But yeah, my value is probably an underestimate: I was being conservative.

Re:Shiny things?

[goodmanj]

I thought of this, but didn't post it.

For short pulses, what matters is the *impulse* provided by the beam:
    delta-momentum = Force * time.

Impulse = 5400 N * 100 nanoseconds = .00054 kg m/s

If the 10-cm diameter piece of sheet metal being hit by the laser weighs 50 grams, a 100-ns pulse will change its velocity by 1 cm/s.

For comparison, if you gently whacked the target with a ping-pong paddle, you'd provide 100 times as much impulse, over a similar area and time duration.

Re:Shiny things?

[goodmanj]

Keep in mind my estimate of 100 psi to do damage is very conservative.

Re:Shiny things?

[goodmanj]

No, I'm not. See my reply to init100 below for a discussion of the radiation pressure effect of short pulses. Short answer: a fast-moving mosquito would have a bigger impact.

Pulsed lasers are great for a lot of things, but their *radiation pressure effect* is still negligible.

Re:Shiny things?

[ByteSlicer]

I was just commenting on how you compared power (100GW) to energy (US electricity consumption).

As for my original statement: while theoretically it might be possible to punch a hole with radiation pressure, in practice the thermal effects would dwarf the radiation pressure by several orders of magnitude. I already alluded on this in my original post, but didn't realize just how weak radiation pressure actually was. A few back-of-the-envelope calculations later (and some refutations by you and Chris Burke), I know now that the MW laser in this story would probably not even be able to punch through in theory (assuming perfect reflection, no absorbtion). So I stand corrected.

Re:Shiny things?

[jklovanc]

That's what I said; except for one point.

Most military lasers are chemical lasers. They all use reagents to create the light. Eventually they need to be re-fuelled. It would happen less often but when all the reagents have been used the system must return to base.

Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[cellurl]

No citizen is going to like a missed laser beam blowing up their house.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Verdatum]

Unless you have a gigantic Jiffypop skillet in the foyer! Then it's popcorn for everybody! (At least until the Mythbusters go and ruin my fun.)

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[mea37]

Not all combat is urban.

Even in urban combat, you can't fly low enough that a ground-based laser that misses your aircraft would hit most buildings. This is actually a pretty good weapon for that scenario, because unlike a projectile it won't fall to Earth if it does miss.

And, I'm betting the chance of a miss is relatively low.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Anonymous Coward]

No citizen is going to like a missed laser beam blowing up their house.

Don't be silly. This will be used over the houses of "those people" in some far away country with an unpronounceable name.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[cellurl]

agreed

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[badran]

What if it hits a satellite?

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[wed128]

Well then you might miss tonight's airing of Dallas

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[sethstorm]

China and India are hardly "unpronounceable".

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[pluther]

I think I'd still prefer it to an ICBM hitting my house.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[cayenne8]

"Unless you have a gigantic Jiffypop skillet in the foyer!"

I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[kevinNCSU]

The same could be said for missiles and bullets but when a plane carrying ordinance is trying to hit targets inside your borders you don't really give a shit about a house or two.

In exactly what sort of scenario do you envision citizens coming down the street during a full scale air assault and complaining: "Listen, military, I know your trying to defend our country from being conquered and all but your kinda messing up my house, would you mind not shooting at any planes coming to kill us if their kinda low to the ground? K, thanks!

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[CrimsonAvenger]

all-time record in unemployment

I trust that by "all-time record" you really meant "since 1983"?

more than 1 billion starving

"more than 1 billion threatened with hunger", perhaps? Note that the definition of "threatened with hunger" doesn't include actually being "hungry", much less "starving".

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Anonymous Coward]

actually the more I thought about it, this is just for ICBM's which are high-altitude over-the-ocean scenarios, so I now think its ok.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

They already ruined your fun. June 17, 2009's episode "Car vs. Rain" had the Build Team investigate popping popcorn via laser.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Anonymous Coward]

The '80s called - they want their comment back.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Culture20]

With the world economy in the toilet, all-time record in unemployment, massive desertification, energy shortage, more than 1 billion starving, epidemics of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, global warming, what we really really need is the ultimate super cool weapon.

Not that I believe your premise, but what better time to have a superweapon than when other countries start getting desperate enough to attack?

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[thewils]

No no no...There has to be an expensive countermeasure that the Defense Dept can sell to 'the other side'.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

Check this.

I'll quote:

We are alarmed that the number of people suffering from hunger and poverty now exceeds 1 billion.

That's quite different from threatened with hunger. The "threatened" word is just euphemistic bullshit spread by the corporate media machine to soften the issue.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[mea37]

You hadn't heard? Everything since the 80's has just been an extended dream sequence...

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[ArsonSmith]

Well, while the Democrats are running about doing all their dastardly deeds:

"world economy in the toilet, all-time record in unemployment, massive desertification, energy shortage, more than 1 billion starving, epidemics of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, global warming"

The minority of replublicans still get a little bit through:

"ultimate super cool weapon."

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Verdatum]

Um, yes, that's why I mentioned it.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Phoenixlol]

whoosh. I like people like you

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

Well, while the Democrats are running about doing all their dastardly deeds:

"world economy in the toilet, all-time record in unemployment, massive desertification, energy shortage, more than 1 billion starving, epidemics of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, global warming"

Like the Democrats started it! BUT... they have their share of responsibility, too. One or another are all sold out to the same lobbies so, aside from the religious fundamentalism, there's not much difference.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

I like your logic. When you see someone in need, instead of thinking how to solve the problem, you think about buying a gun. That will work very, very well.

Your government's military budget is 600 billion dollars (41% of the world's total). FAO is begging for 20 billion during 3 years to significantly reduce world hunger. So you see, ending hunger would be a lot cheaper than buying a shitload of weapons to keep the hungry away. But that is just too simple for people to understand, isn't it? Your Nobel Prize president didn't even bother to attend FAO's World Summit on Food Security.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[couchslug]

The hungry are by and large hungry specifically because their cultures, societies, beliefs, and religions are degenerate.
Otherwise, their only interest would be in forming secular modern states that deserve to survive. All I see are ululating mobs of vermin whose shit cultures I am told to respect because it is Politically Correct.

I wouldn't feed the hungry of the world if I could do it with a wave of the hand.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

Hey, it's hard for the other 6.706.999.999 fellows to match your extremely brilliant culture, society beliefs and religion. Don't be so hard on us.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[Anonymous Coward]

With the world economy in the toilet, all-time record in unemployment, massive desertification, energy shortage, more than 1 billion starving, epidemics of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, global warming, what we really really need is the ultimate super cool weapon.

Because everyone knows that just buying every person in the world a cookie will magically solve everything, and start the age of peace, freedom, and happiness?

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[couchslug]

Most of you have had much longer to give it a go.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

Whooooooooooshhhhh!!!

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[CrimsonAvenger]

suffering from hunger

I expect the definition has changed by now, but a few years ago when I checked, "suffering from hunger" included me, since the definition basically reduced to "has missed a meal this month".

And no, this wasn't from a corporate site, it was from one of the big "People are starving!!" sites.

Re:Simple countermeasure: Fly low

[daem0n1x]

What a lame try, dude! Talk is cheap. Making broad statements without any valid information to back them, come on!

Why don't you use Google and get the definition straight from the horse's mouth?

If you can't bother to use the link, here it goes:

(...)the number of people who do not get enough food energy, averaged over one year, to both maintain productive activity and maintain body weight (FAO, 1990, 1996b)(...)

Can I *now* have fricking sharks...

[grepya]

...with frickin laser beams on their heads.

Re:Can I *now* have fricking sharks...

[mattcoz]

This was already covered two days ago: http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/11/17/2115218

Thoughtful pause ...

[ackthpt]

So when those very enterprising chinese get around to the knock-offs on these which you'll be able to buy on eBay (without the brand name, but at a fraction of the cost!) I'm thinking I stop flying.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[Aldenissin]

We are getting to the point in history where technology will be rampant. This is ok, as long as their is respect. We don't have respect for ourselves in general, so we will never be able to first love ourselves, so that be may love our neighbors. Once we start to love our neighbor, we can educate and show them the way. Without knowing the right path, evil will prevail and people will die.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[ackthpt]

I measure the average person's respect for the next person by the metric of cigarette butts per square metre in the local parks.

It's not looking good.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[IndustrialComplex]

I measure the average person's respect for the next person by the metric of cigarette butts per square metre in the local parks.

By that measure you will be happy to know that I just peed in your gas tank.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[kalirion]

Once everybody dies, there will be no more evil. Problem solved.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[johncadengo]

Once everybody dies, there will be no more evil. Problem solved.

Neither will there be good.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[DigiShaman]

It could be argued that "good" is the absence of "evil".

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[imakemusic]

It could be argues that "evil" is the absence of bacon.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[Anonymous Coward]

All crime is committed by the living so life itself must be a crime.

Re:Thoughtful pause ...

[kalirion]

Neither will there be good.

Small price to pay, collateral damage, eggs & omelets, etc.

OK, now that we have the frigging lasers ...

[maxwell demon]

... the only thing left is to mount them on sharks.

That's great

[Anonymous Coward]

So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?

Re:That's great

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm...

"soldiers"
money and means to have an army
in someone else's country

"home made bombs"
NO money or means to have an army
in their own country

Who should be judged?

Re:That's great

[Anonymous Coward]

So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?

When they start selling them on ebay, until then, homemade it is.

Re:That's great

[mrex]

Good news: probably sooner than you think
Bad news: because civilians rather than soldiers will increasingly be the targets in warfare

Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Your average /.-er is probably way too young to remember this now, but back in the 1980s, the leftist/Stalinist academic community just excoriated The Gipper over the very idea of Star Wars [Hans Bethe made a particular fool of himself in this regard].

Thankfully, RWR & Edward Teller get the last laugh after all.

Or at least until the Obama administration cancels the program and sells the blueprints to the Chicoms.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[jandrese]

Yes, IIRC they said it would take billions of dollars and 30 years to make and wouldn't be effective against ICBMs.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[Gulthek]

What or who is the gipper?

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[mmkkbb]

Ronald Ray-gun.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[B1oodAnge1]

Ronald Regan, he played the role of George "The Gipper" Gipp in the film "Knute Rockne, All American;" from it, he acquired the lifelong nickname "the Gipper."

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[B1oodAnge1]

Ugh, spelling fail :-\

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[MozeeToby]

Star Wars was (and is) a massive destabalizer of international relations because despite being labeled 'purely defensive' it has no logical purpose other than to support offense (this is possibly revisable now if and only if you believe that a terrorist will somehow get access to an ICBM).

It goes like this: No concievable missile shield could shoot down any significant number of incoming missiles. The Russians would always be able to overwhelm the defenses with shear numbers, making the system worthless. The only situation where a missile shield works is if there is a very limited number of incoming targets. The only time Russia (or any other country for that matter) would be stupid enough to launch such a small nuclear attack is if they had already suffered a first strike and were launching a counter attack with whatever had survived.

So the senarios are 1) Russia launches an all out attack, missile shield is worthless, 2) Russia launches a small attack, US launches an all out attack and Russia is obliterated (MAD doctrine already prevents this level of attack in other words). 3) The US launches an all out attack, Russia launches it's counter which is relatively small (since it has already taken hits), missile shield works. The only logical purpose of a missile shield #3, to defend against a counter attack.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[jimbolauski]

What you forgot to account for is that Russia can detect incoming missiles and launch a counter strike before any of the missiles detonate, this counter strike would overwhelm a missile defense system and MAD would still happen, if this wasn't true MAD wouldn't happen because who ever shoots first wins. The Defense system would work well if lets say Cuba was given a few nukes (it would take less then 10min to hit DC) so disabling the nukes may be the only option. With Crazy People in charge of countries with Nukes I'm glad money was invested in finding ways to protect against dictators who think of nukes as bargaining chips.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[TCPhotography]

And it did, after they proxmired it to death, and then Obama gutted it.

Here's to Hope (that everyone will love us) and Change (from being a world superpower)!

People also forget we had a system in the 1960s and 1970s, but the Left killed it then too.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[PrescriptionWarning]

If this new system is equally effective at taking down airplanes, then that would be a big boost to existing anti-air capabilities that rely on anti air flak or machine guns (which have relatively short range) or on surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles (which can possibly be avoided by flares or complex maneuvering). So all thats left really is that if the ability to detect and track a target meaning more emphasis will need to be placed on stealth.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[NotBornYesterday]

Utter crap. That's the same baloney that gets reiterated by people who didn't want us to have it then, and don't want us to have similar technology now.

Scenario #4 - the US builds & maintains a defensive shield and doesn't attack anyone. If whatever Evil Empire we are squaring off with decides to launch a pre-emptive strike, our defenses take down xx% of the incoming attack, leaving or ability to strike back, survive, and recover xx% better than it was without the defensive shield. More people live, less fallout falls, more armed forces & equipment stay intact.

Reagan offered to open our laboratories and let the Soviets share the technology. This way, nobody gains any advantage over the other, and MAD continues to balance the nuclear menace. Gorbachev didn't take him up on it.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[WindBourne]

And yet, this technology was STARTED in 1960s; Under Kennedy. So, I would thank all the presidents since and including Kennedy who has kept this going. The only thing that reagan will really be known for, will be the beginning of monster deficits for no reason.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[WindBourne]

Ronald reagan;
He is the jackass that W emulated; Lots of debt for no reason and invasion/occupation of other nations for no real reason. Basically, reagan is the start of the destruction of the Republican party, as well as America, Combined with the perversion of decent conservative principles.

Re:Score one for The Gipper - yet again.

[Dave Emami]

No concievable missile shield could shoot down any significant number of incoming missiles. The Russians would always be able to overwhelm the defenses with shear numbers, making the system worthless.

Even if that's true, it makes the system worthless only if your sole benchmark is "does it make us invulnerable to any hostile ICBM force, no matter how large?" But that isn't the only goal. First, there is a defense against a limited strike from a less-powerful adversary. Second, it makes it much, much more difficult to wipe out our ICBM force in a surprise attack and thus remain safe from retaliation. The odds of a given target surviving do not scale linearly with the number of attacking missiles. Consider (using round numbers for simplicity) that we have 1000 ICBMs, and a defense system with a 50/50 chance of shooting down an incoming missile.

• Prior to having the defense, an enemy surprise attack can destroy our force on the ground using 1000 missiles (leaving aside factors like mechanical failure).
• After we put in the defense, such an attack would destroy only 500 of our missiles, leaving us with 500 to retaliate with, far more than enough for a devastating return strike, given that we wouldn't need to bother attacking now-empty silos.
• Suppose that the enemy decides to use twice as many missiles. That means that the odds of any given one of ours surviving is 0.5^2, or 25%. They attack with 2000 missiles. 250 of ours survive, still too much for any country to absorb and continue to effectively exist.
• They decide to use three times as many. 0.5^3 = 12.5%, so 125 of ours survive to strike back. Still enough to wipe out a majority of the biggest country's military. If this were Russia we were talking about, their reward for destroying our ICBM force would probably be getting conquered by China.
• 4000 missiles are used. 0.5^4 = 6.25%. Losing 62 major military/industrial assets at once probably wouldn't eliminate a Russia-sized country as a cohesive entity, but they're not going to be invading anyone for a long time, and they're going to have chunks of their territory gobbled up by their neighbors. If they consider getting hit by 50 acceptable, they need to attack with 4322. Down to 10, they need 6643. To get it below 0.5 (i.e. to have the odds favor getting off unscathed) they need 10,965.
• That's just against a poorly-performing defense. Suppose we have a 90% intercept rate. They need to attack with 28,433 (instead of 4322) missiles to get keep their losses below 50 targets. If we get it to 99%, they need 298,072.

To sum up after all the numbers: against even a minimally-effective missile defense, it becomes extremely costly for an attacker to field a force big enough for him to strike and wind up in a better strategic position than he started with, which is the whole point of attacking in the first place. As the defense becomes more effective, doing so becomes well-nigh impossible.

Now...

[Monkeedude1212]

Develop me a functioning Magnetic shield mechanism, so that I can mount both on a 1-man-space-capable-fighter, and get me a date with Natalie Portman, and my fantasy is complete.

Re:Now...

[Gerafix]

Don't forget the hot grits serving machine installed in the fighter. Better yet have it collect energy from incoming laser weapons to heat up your grits for you.

Re:Now...

[Anonymous Coward]

The funniest part of this may be that Mrs. Portman comes in last on the list of requests...

Life: all about priorities. ;)

Re:Now...

[mcgrew]

She's too young. Give me a two person space-capable-fighter. And her mom.

And a pony.

Re:Now...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you must complete your training first.

invest in mirrors...

[Coraon]

...It's the new camo paint!

That's easy

[spun]

So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?

When we stop invading other countries?

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I disagree with you, but sometimes war is necessary; unfortunately it will never be eliminated.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

but occupation is not and hopefully will be eliminated.

Re:That's easy

[thewils]

I agree war will never be eliminated entirely, but I bet that if you made a rule that war could only be declared by people with children actively serving in the military, it would probably become a lot less 'necessary'.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

or when they are actualy worth something to the people in charge?

but as it stand there are plenty of dumb asses volunteering to get blown up.

Re:That's easy

[kalirion]

but as it stand there are plenty of dumb asses volunteering to get blown up.

What about those whose tours of duty are up, but who are still forced to be there?

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Their kids would "serve" the same way Dubya "served" in the military.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians.

Re:That's easy

[Abreu]

Or the way the princes of England are "serving" in their military

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians.

Which is why we didn't invade Saudi Arabia?

Re:That's easy

[moz25]

Nice going with the 9/11 argument. Did that take a lot of brain power to come up with?

Have you considered that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with the people hijacking planes? Heck, if you were an Iraqi living under Saddam's regime, you'd be lucky to even get on a plane.

The country that *does* have a link in terms of origin/nationality is Saudi Arabia. But they are being sold billions of dollars of weapons by the US. Kind of weird, eh?

Re:That's easy

[Abreu]

Sure, because the invasion of Irak and Afghanistan was really useful to dismantle Al-Qaeda and bring Osama Bin Laden and friends to be tried in Geneva...

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians.

That argument might go over a little bit better if we actually invaded the country containing the people you feel should promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes.

Under your logic, we might as well invade spain, france, china, japan, and canada too, since they are equal in their involvement as iraq is (read: none)

Re:That's easy

[Scragglykat]

And the US Army will be there to enforce that rule with their lives by gosh!!!

Re:That's easy

[tnk1]

I totally agree. We should transfer the decision making process to people who have deep-seated emotional interest in the situation. That will ensure the best possible response in any given situation.

Re:That's easy

[jimbolauski]

So what happens is a country breaks the rule does that mean they are going to be sanctioned, or get a stern talking to, or will it mean that the country will get economic benefits it they promise to not do it again.

Re:That's easy

[CannonballHead]

When we stop invading other countries?

On one hand, I agree. People react to invasion.

On the other hand, what do you do with countries/people/rulers/dictators/societies that decide they want to take over the world, they want to kill all western civilization, they want to kill all the Jews/get rid of Israel, they want everyone to be communist, etc...?

Not just "Islam," but Islam, North Korea, "crazy" Communism, "crazy" Christianity (the crusades), "crazy" Mongolia, etc. There are a lot of beliefs in the world that apparently will lead entire countries to think they need to wipe some other country or people group off the globe, or conquer them to spread their belief, or whatever. Should we only perpetually be on defense and not try to get rid of the problem at its source?

I'm not trying to defend any particular war here or looking for a politically charged answer (i.e., I'm not defending or attacking Bush, Obama, etc.), I'm asking for what you think countries should do in situations like that.

Re:That's easy

[jdoverholt]

Point of note: this ill-fated War on Terror didn't go to Iraq or Afghanistan because they are the national origin of the aggressors (terrorists), it went there because those countries are accused of aiding and abetting the aggressors. Much like the internet, terrorism knows no national borders. Also, like the internet, terrorism can't be completely eradicated without some apocalyptic efforts. Saudi Arabia has been a very cooperative ally, on the face of things, anyway.

Just my two cents. IANAMS (military strategist)

Re:That's easy

[spun]

If a country is attacked, they should fight back. I believe in Ghandi's principle of Ahimsa, or 'least violence.' Sometimes, the least violent solution is to kill your attacker as quickly as possible. I mean, if it's kill or be killed, it's a toss up whether letting yourself be killed is more violent than killing the other guy, but if you don't have a record of killing others and he does, it's simple. Killing him is likely to reduce violence.

Re:That's easy

[EkriirkE]

Godwin's law v2.0?

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I volunteered to blow other people up... it's not my fault that our enemies are not clear on this concept.

Re:That's easy

[Culture20]

I bet that if you made a rule that war could only be declared by people with children actively serving in the military, it would probably become a lot less 'necessary'.

But that turns into a very biased assessment of necessity. If the U.S. wasn't such panty-waists in before Japan attacked, Hitler would have had a much harder time expanding. Sometimes it makes sense to go to war when you see that the future lives will be saved with minor cost today. NIMBY thinking gets us no nuclear power. NMYSD (Not my young son or daughter) leaves us without an effective military (only for use in defense).

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree war will never be eliminated entirely, but I bet that if you made a rule that war could only be declared by people with children actively serving in the military, it would probably become a lot less 'necessary'.

I hardly believe those serving in the military would qualify as children.

Re:That's easy

[Martin Blank]

The princes wanted to be sent to combat zones. It was the high command that prevented it. They were worried that the princes might actually get hurt (or worse, captured). The princes accepted the risk. High command did not.

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like American and it's 'spreading of democracy to all'? :D Mind you we only spread it when there's an economic advantage to it, and we're perfectly content to dismantle fledgling democracies or republics when it puts us in an economically exploitative position as well.

Re:That's easy

[Rycross]

On the other hand, what do you do with countries/people/rulers/dictators/societies that decide they want to take over the world, they want to kill all western civilization, they want to kill all the Jews/get rid of Israel, they want everyone to be communist, etc...?

G.I. Joe isn't a good way to learn about international politics.

Re:That's easy

[Abreu]

Nice story, but be aware that everything the british royals do is heavily scripted (well, maybe the nazi costume wasn't)

There's a strong tradition that the royalty must serve in the armed forces, therefore they have to do it. They very likely don't do it by choice.

Re:That's easy

[Idiomatick]

I think global communications and the internet is making the world a smaller place. This means today francecanada is more like 1800 romesienna. And we are much less likely to hate, want to kill/destroy people we are friends with, know well and neighbor.

Think how many friends living in a different country your parents had. How about yourself? And I bet because of that attachment you are less likely to believe they are all evil and feel the desire to kill them all.

Also good old information helps a ton. 1700 propaganda was craazzzzy. A smaller chunk of the population today believes it because we are better informed (generally). This also lessens the chance of war. And is one of the terrifying issues with the great firewall of china.

Re:That's easy

[Martin Blank]

I understand the cynicism, but given their relatively independent nature, I'm more inclined to believe the princes on this one, especially since their stories were backed up by members of their units. Keep in mind that Prince Andrew served in a combat zone in the Falklands War over the objections of the military high command after they were overruled by the Queen. I suspect that had he been killed or captured, though, it wouldn't have been as bad as one of the heirs to the throne being captured by the Taleban or an al Qaeda-linked group.

Re:That's easy

[mano.m]

Gandhi. G-A-N-D-H-I. It's not hard.

Re:That's easy

[Falconhell]

Abso-fuckin-lutely spot on Spun!

Re:That's easy

[Falconhell]

Prince Andrew served with distinction in the Falklands. Prince Harry wanted to serve in Afghanistan, and did for a short while until the press embargo was broken. At that point his presence would have increased the danger to his men
to an unacceptable level so his commanders removed him. How many of the "Fortunate Sons" of US politicians such as GWB are serving I wonder.

Good old Credence.

"Some folks are born, made to wave the flag yes they're red and they're white and they're blue."

When the band plays hail to the chief, boy they toss the candle to you"

Re:That's easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, I think this is the first Iraqi post I've read on /. So, what's your excuse for invading Kuwait, ignoring peace and UN agreements, supporting a dictator, and launched missiles into Israel and elsewhere for the hell of it?

I guess any country can do anything to other countries except yours. You blame the US for their most recent previous leader, they can sure as hell blame your country for yours.

Though, in principle, I agree. Invasions suck. The US should have just used remotely launched missiles and airpower and continually hit *any* suspected nuclear hideout, palace, and military installation repeatedly and ongoing, and then droned your borders pushing anything incoming or outgoing back. Would have been cleaner, with fewer US deaths, and cheaper.

Re:That's easy

[PingPongBoy]

So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?

When we stop invading other countries?

The logic chain in the forward direction: terrorist hijacks plane aimed for capitalist building. Shoot plane down from truck. Invasion of terrorist country is now not required.

The logic chain in the backward direction: when do we get to board a plane with ordinary household items that no one could use as a weapon unless they were ninjas?

Besides, if a terrorist wanted a weapon, now they can just get a laser!

Energy weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

The main problem with these things is that they just don't release enough energy fast enough. For example this laser beam needs to be aimed at exactly the same point on the target for some non-minuscule amount of time. If the target moves too much or too fast then the laser is much less effective. However, it does let you strike the target instantly and accurately.

Then consider your typical ballistic projectile which expends all its stored energy in a fraction of a second. Much more effective at doing damage. However, projectiles take time to reach their target and are therefore harder to aim accurately.

Re:Energy weapons

[jandrese]

Yes, it's a shame the laser can't be computer controlled and doesn't move at the speed of light.

Re:Energy weapons

[ardor]

These lasers almost certainly work with pulses. A continuous beam is both wasteful and very difficult to maintain. That said, a megawatt laser pulse is enough to annihilate many types of targets.

Re:Energy weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't matter. Imagine a target that rotates (like an ICBM). You can't hit something that isn't facing the laser.

Re:Energy weapons

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. A single little bullet from a handgun releases over 12 megawatts. One pound of high explosive releases over 200 gigawatts of energy. These laser weapons are nothing.

Re:Energy weapons

[Hybrid-brain]

quick question here. I'm sure this has already been covered, but I am confused, so hopefully this will answer it. are we talking targeting laser here which then is coupled with something else, such as a missile that fires or are we talking about an actual laser that fires and does damage, such as the laser that the Death Star has?

Re:Energy weapons

[cashX3r0]

what speed does a laser operate at? its light, but not in a vacuum, but close to speed of light, no?

Re:Energy weapons

[Guysmiley777]

Power != energy. Energy is not measured in watts. Come back once you understand that.

Re:Energy weapons

[Shakrai]

A single little bullet from a handgun releases over 12 megawatts

You realize that a 'megawatt' isn't a measurement of energy, right? It's a measure of power. You need to combine it with at least one other variable (time) to figure out how much energy is involved.

A .45 caliber handgun fires a 230 grain bullet at about 830 feet per second. Converting those numbers into metric yields the following:

Weight of the projectile: 0.0149037493 kilos
Velocity of the projectile: 252.984 m/s

The kinetic energy formula is 0.5 * mass * velocity squared. For our .45 caliber handgun with the numbers above that works out to 476.93 joules. A joule is equivalent to a watt-second. That means that the energy in that handgun round isn't even sufficient to power a 60 watt light bulb for ten seconds (60 * 10 = 600). It's certainly no where near 'megawatt' class. Hell, even the .50 BMG only works out to ~17,000 joules, which would run your 60 watt light bulb for about five minutes.

For shits and giggles, here's that same calculation as applied to the 16" gun of the Iowa Class Battleship:

Weight of projectile: 1,224.6994 kilos (2,700 pounds for the armor piercing round)
Speed of projectile: 819.91200 m/s (2,690 feet per second)
Kinetic energy of projectile at the muzzle: 411,655,568.71 joules.

There's your megawatt class gun. You'll note that it's slightly larger than a handgun ;)

Re:Energy weapons

[jimbolauski]

MY sig explains it perfectly

Re:Energy weapons

[Maximum Prophet]

Maybe. Chemical lasers are hard to pulse, unless you Q-switch them. (but then you waste some energy when the Q-switch is off.

A favorite technique these days is to use multiple diode lasers to pump a glass slab. It's the same thing in principle to green laser pointers which have a single laser diode pumping a ND:YAG crystal. (The green light comes from a frequency doubling crystal) In a weapon laser, you'd have hundreds of multi-watt infrared diodes pumping multiple doped glass slabs all bathed in a liquid whose index of refraction matched the glass at the wavelength(s) you are creating. The liquid also cools the system and the output mirrors. The diodes can be pulsed or continuous.

B.t.w if you have enough gain in your system, you don't need and output coupler mirror, just the highly reflective mirror behind your laser medium.

Re:Energy weapons

[Jedi Alec]

You realize that a 'megawatt' isn't a measurement of energy, right? It's a measure of power. You need to combine it with at least one other variable (time) to figure out how much energy is involved.

The kinetic energy formula is 0.5 * mass * velocity squared. For our .45 caliber handgun with the numbers above that works out to 476.93 joules. A joule is equivalent to a watt-second. That means that the energy in that handgun round isn't even sufficient to power a 60 watt light bulb for ten seconds (60 * 10 = 600). It's certainly no where near 'megawatt' class. Hell, even the .50 BMG only works out to ~17,000 joules, which would run your 60 watt light bulb for about five minutes.

So first you bitch at the GP for confusing power and energy and not taking the factor time into account...and then you do the same thing yourself? (Hint: it takes a bullet a heck of a lot less than 10 seconds to transfer its energy to the target it's hitting).

And no, it's nowhere near a megawatt, but if you're going to show off at least don't repeat the same error you're trying to correct ;-)

*yawn*

[royallthefourth]

Let me know when my government learns to do anything effectively besides killing

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake up... The taxation system is working.

Re:*yawn*

[hitmark]

err, i am not sure they can even do that effectively...

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

They're even better at stealing our money!

Re:*yawn*

[Ractive]

Yeah, If the US just invested half the money they put in weapon manufacturing and development in helping (really helping) other countries, they'd probably dont need to be all paranoid worrying about attacks. Just don't make enemies, make friends. And they would even have the other half to fix things like their healthcare system for example.

Aw but I forgot, that's not profitable.

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me know when my government learns to do anything effectively besides killing

breaking things.
There.

Re:*yawn*

[Shakrai]

And they would even have the other half to fix things like their healthcare system for example.

Given that we already spend more per capita than every other nation on health care I'd question the notion that a lack of funding is causing the problems seen in the American health care system.........

Re:*yawn*

[praksys]

They are also quite good at locking people up. If you want anything else done right you will have to do it yourself.

Re:*yawn*

[halivar]

Yeah, no one has ever attacked a *nice* country.

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

yes we can...

...the surveillance drone assigned to you has lasers now

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, roughly $700B for about 120K deaths. That's just under $6 million per corpse.

I'm pretty certain we could easily have gotten far more bang for our buck...

Re:*yawn*

[sheph]

They seem to be pretty good at spending gobs of money that should belong to our grandchildren. They also seem to be fairly adept at hookwinking the general populace judging by the current administration, and what passes for a good idea now days. But what do I know?

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

What an absurd comment. America's armed forces are better trained and equipped to kill people than any humans in history. The fact that we do not resolve the two current wars by killing all of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan does not diminish the fact that we are certainly the best at killing people and could easily kill literally nearly everyone in the two countries with our armaments.

Re:*yawn*

[Anonymous Coward]

But... but... What? How?

Re:*yawn*

[mhajicek]

They're pretty effective at taking your money and giving it to their friends in the defense industry.

Re:*yawn*

[royallthefourth]

the defense industry.

When's the last time our military defended anything? Not in my lifetime!

Re:*yawn*

[DoninIN]

What about making killing machines? Or even better Killer Robots? C'mon.

Re:*yawn*

[brkello]

Are you trying to be snarky or just dumb? We could wipe out every human on earth a few times over with the weapons we have.

Re:*yawn*

[Dread_ed]

"Let me know when my government learns to do anything effectively besides KILLING"

And now you know precisely why I fear our government's persistent efforts to take over the MEDICAL SYSTEM.

Usefulness

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an honest question, why is a laser better than a high caliber bullet?

Don't get me wrong, I want my sharks all to have lasers but I want to know what the fundamental advantage of a laser is. You don't have to reload one but you do have to recharge it. I doubt the range is better (though the accuracy is perfect I'd guess). And the most powerful one takes a second or two to accomplish its goal.

TIA

Re:Usefulness

[maxwell demon]

Maybe one advantage is that you don't see it coming until it strikes, so you simply cannot react.

Re:Usefulness

[Rary]

Here's an honest question, why is a laser better than a high caliber bullet?

Keep in mind that lasers in reality aren't like lasers in movies. In the real world, you don't see it coming, and even after it hits, you don't know where it came from.

Re:Usefulness

[Manfred Maccx]

And you are expecting to see the high caliber bullet coming?

Re:Usefulness

[rcolbert]

Here's an honest question, why is a laser better than a high caliber bullet?

Speed of light. No need to lead the target. You can use a low powered aiming laser to paint the target. Whenever you shoot something painted, you hit it. 186K Mps > 1K Mph

By the way, we could make a boatload of money selling these things in Afghanistan. Economy problems solved.

Re:Usefulness

[russotto]

Keep in mind that lasers in reality aren't like lasers in movies. In the real world, you don't see it coming, and even after it hits, you don't know where it came from.

Lasers scatter significantly in the atmosphere, so while the target might have other problems, I don't see why a nearby counter-laser system couldn't tell which direction the beam came from.

Re:Usefulness

[cashX3r0]

but the arrows on my hud tell me which direction the enemy (or friendly) fire is coming from. and my radar shows where all the enemies are on the map.

Re:Usefulness

[shogun]

It could be detected on radar before striking hence automatic systems could do something about it.

Slashdotted?

[thewils]

Apparently they capture the heat generated by the server as it gets slashdotted to recharge the laser. Keep clicking the links lads, it's your patriotic duty.

Re:Slashdotted?

[Anonymous Coward]

And I'm taking it very seriously, 'cause I want to see the pretty pictures... still not up, must click again (sigh)

747 vs. a truck

[LotsOfPhil]

a laser that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows) and that can shoot down small aircraft,

The goal for the 747-mounted laser is to shoot down missiles on the way up (when they are over bad guys) versus on the way down (like the Patriot missile). That's why it's on a plane, not a truck.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[IndustrialComplex]

The goal for the 747-mounted laser is to shoot down missiles on the way up (when they are over bad guys) versus on the way down (like the Patriot missile). That's why it's on a plane, not a truck.

Well, the fact that they are over the people who just launched the missle is a side benefit, and doesn't really factor into why they are shooting it at that stage.

In the primary phase, the missile is pretty limited in what it can do. It has to gain altitude and speed, and really isn't/can't be built to perform evasion at that point. Combined with the fact that the earlier you hit it, the more combustible it actually is.

On the way down, what you are faced with is a VERY fast moving object (assuming you don't target the countermeasures) that has already demonstrated that it can resist the high temperatures of re-entry and consists of very little in the way of combustible materials. It can also employ a variety of measures to alter its trajectory (more than on the way up).

Re:747 vs. a truck

[SnarfQuest]

Plus, the 747 can carry a larger tank for the sharks

Re:747 vs. a truck

[cheesybagel]

If the launch base is unknown and mobile, it is going to be pretty damn hard to hit it with this system. What about submarine launched missiles?

I think the best systems are for area protection, placed near the target instead.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[Attila Dimedici]

If the launch base is unknown and mobile, it is going to be pretty damn hard to hit it with this system. What about submarine launched missiles?

I think the best systems are for area protection, placed near the target instead.

Actually the best systems are for area protection based near the (potential) launch point. Hence the negotiations to put anti missile systems in Eastern Europe to stop missiles from Iran (and Russia) that are launched targeting Europe and/or the US (these plans have since been unilaterally scrapped by the Obama Administration because they interfered with Russia's plans to re-exert dominance over Eastern Europe).

Re:747 vs. a truck

[karnal]

Duh. For submarine launched missiles, you'd need sharks equipped with this technology. Preferably on their heads.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[RealErmine]

On the way up, the missile is one piece. On the way down, the missile is many pieces. In which situation is the warhead easier to target? The US is working on intercept solutions for all three phases of flight.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[TCPhotography]

On the way down, what you are faced with is a VERY fast moving object (assuming you don't target the countermeasures) that has already demonstrated that it can resist the high temperatures of re-entry and consists of very little in the way of combustible materials. It can also employ a variety of measures to alter its trajectory (more than on the way up).

A few minor points:

1. It can resist predictable high temperatures, for a limited amount of time, if I heat up part of the RV that isn't designed to get quite as hot, I can cause the whole thing to tumble and fail.

2. It doesn't have to explode, I just have to make it slightly less aerodynamic, and let friction do the rest.

3. So called "Maneuvering RVs" don't change trajectory all that much. Mostly they make very fine adjustments so they hit their target, not to avoid things coming at them.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[Shakrai]

Hence the negotiations to put anti missile systems in Eastern Europe to stop missiles from Iran (and Russia) that are launched targeting Europe and/or the US

That system wasn't aimed at Russia. Look at a globe sometime. Any missile launched from Russia towards North America is not going to be traveling over Poland......

Re:747 vs. a truck

[TCPhotography]

The best option is a system of systems, that way any opposition has to counter a whole lot of things.

And besides, you can figure out areas where SSBNs are based on the missiles targets and range, then looking at the geography of those areas (why do you think that HMS Vanguard (S28) and Le Triomphant (S616) colided?)

Re:747 vs. a truck

[h4rr4r]

More like because they destroy MAD, meaning that they are politically destabilizing.

Of course you know that, you're just trolling.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[gnieboer]

Just to be sure everyone's clear, this truck-based system does not have anything to do with missile defense. Shooting a missle warhead at this point in the game is pretty much pointless and presents challenges point out already elsewhere.

This is strictly an anti-aircraft demonstrator.

Re:747 vs. a truck

[icebrain]

Yeah, because a handful of missiles can stop an all-out strike...

The biggest benefit of missile defense isn't in full-scale attacks, but in limited ones or cases of accidental/rogue launches. Rather than make a decision in 15 minutes to either sit helplessly and either watch the warheads land on your cities, or launch in retaliation and spark a chain reaction of everyone launching, you have the ability to shoot down that handful of missiles, then get on the red phone/hotline for a big "WTF?!" and maybe defuse the situation.

Remember, the US had an operational ABM system in the mid-70s. The Russians still have one, and it is believed that some of their long-range SAM systems also have a terminal ABM capability. Incidentally, the Patriot system was deliberately restricted in capability (particularly in the software) to hinder its ABM capability.

Conflict of interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Boeing's directed-energy weapons...Shoots Down Airplanes

I see a conflict of interest here.

Re:Conflict of interest

[maxwell demon]

Boeing's directed-energy weapons...Shoots Down Airplanes

I see a conflict of interest here.

Why? Every shot-down airplane has to be replaced.

Re:Conflict of interest

[NatasRevol]

I see double income streams!

Re:conflict of interest

[snspdaarf]

Yeah, I am not flying on anything made by Airbus now!

Re:conflict of interest

[Dr. Evil]

...it automatically contacts the Sales department whenever an aircraft is shot down?

Re:Conflict of interest

[flaming error]

I once worked at a machine shop where we made components for ballistic missiles and wheelchairs.

Bond: "Do you expect me to talk . . . ?"

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Goldfinger: "No, I expect you to die, Mr. Bond . . . "

Sharks aside, lasers only get really scary when someone has one aimed at your crotch.

Apocalypse Now Guy: "Circumcise . . . circumcise, with extreme prejudice."

Re:Bond: "Do you expect me to talk . . . ?"

[MarkvW]

I think that it's "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die."

Precision in James Bond quotes is trivially important.

So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[LifesABeach]

Could this Laser help with refining metals on the Moon? Could I use this machine to smooth a road, or carve a tunnel? Outside of making the Bad Guys day miserable, what OTHER uses could this tool have?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[SnarfQuest]

Making your McDonalds coffee hotter?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[badran]

You can always raise sharks...

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Anonymous Coward]

TV dinners?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Making popcorn.

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Abreu]

I can pretty much imagine the bidding for which logo will be carved on the face of the moon...

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[jimbolauski]

I can think of one http://www.spaceelevatorgames.org/

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[cashX3r0]

powerpoint presentations?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Anonymous Coward]

CHA

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[vranash]

Obviously the Death Star Logo for AT&T, after they buy up Verizon so one of the lines can be etched with 'Can you hear me now?' :D

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[noname500]

That's one of the beauties of military technology, it eventually evolves into civilian daily use! Don't forget that a great amount of daily technology derived from the space program and military programs.

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll make nifty shark hats?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[Anonymous Coward]

projected onto the moon?

Re:So Now I Own My First 1950's SiFi Laser

[drinkypoo]

Why the hell would you do that? You'd use a mylar soletta mirror to focus the sun's rays instead. However, high-powered laser weapons may come in handy for providing Earth some point-defense capability; in addition, lasers are probably the only reasonable solution to the space junk problem.

Re:stupid waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

You were banned from fark.com for a reason...

How to pull this off

[fiannaFailMan]

It's quite easy. Make sure that you have a defense contractor in every congressional district. Then you get to play the "jobs" card when someone tries to stop an idiotic waste of resources such as this.

Dwight Eisenhower must be turning in his grave now that the Military Industrial Complex that he warned of has come to pass.

Re:How to pull this off

[Gotung]

Idiotic waste of resources? We aren't the only people on the planet building out our UAV fleet. This sounds like a great anti-UAV weapon.

Should we build a million of these things? Probably not, but having them available just in case is just plain prudent.

Re:How to pull this off

[Anonymous Coward]

versus a simple M16 rifle ? or AA battery ? or SAM ? really ? hint: you dont need a billion dollar toy to shoot down a UAV.

Re:How to pull this off

[fiannaFailMan]

Idiotic waste of resources? We aren't the only people on the planet building out our UAV fleet. This sounds like a great anti-UAV weapon.

Should we build a million of these things? Probably not, but having them available just in case is just plain prudent.

We can shoot down UAVs without silly and expensive toys like this.

Re:How to pull this off

[Anonymous Coward]

The Airborne Laser isn't a waste of money - it's great!

The modern nuclear triad, submarines, ICBMs and airborne delivery are still what our opponents use.
The briefcase bomb, nuclear artillery shell, and nuclear cruise missile are other delivery systems that could be used too.

The Airborne Laser would be very effective against ICBMs in a boost phase.
It is ideal against North Korea and Iran should they choose to use a SCUD-like missile with a nuclear warhead.

It's pretty useless against ICBMs in orbit or coming down.
It's useless against all of the other delivery systems.

But for what it's good at, it's great!

Well worth the money, it's wonderful!

Please don't cancel this program.

Costs

[whisper_jeff]

...that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows)...

Uh, yeah. But you probably need a plane to airlift the truck where it needs to go and, once you know where it is on the ground, it's a lot easier to avoid, thereby rendering the fancy laser kinda pointless. Or, instead, you can just build the laser into a plane which is far more mobile, able to get where it's needed and always ensure it has LOS on the target. But, yeah, the truck is cheaper.

Re:Costs

[Yamata no Orochi]

It's a testbed. Hence "experiments" in the acronym. The truck doesn't need to go much of anywhere.

Re:Costs

[cashX3r0]

and if you can't go through the drive through of a McD's then what is the point. put it on the plane.

Re:stupid waste of money

[IndustrialComplex]

Czarangelus...

I always wondered where you would pop up after you were banned on Fark. (A pretty impressive feat in its own right). Needless to say, you certainly haven't stopped with the flamebait.

This is not new

[bl8n8r]

EA has had this in Command and Conquer Zero Hour for quite a few years now. I'm guessing the U.S. military ripped this off from EA.

Re:This is not new

[gstoddart]

I'm guessing the U.S. military ripped this off from EA.

Yeah, that's it. Nobody thought of death rays and the like before EA. ;-)

Cheers

Re:This is not new

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it a coincidence that EA laid off 1500 people last week?

Re:stupid waste of money

[czarangelus]

In the old days, the prophets who pointed out the wickedness of their nation were burned. How impotent the mob of mediocre mendacious malcontented mundanes has become!

Endangered species act

[SnarfQuest]

Now we know why sharks are getting on this list.

or we start treating it like a war

[Shivetya]

instead of a police action where every activity is on film or subject to investigation.

I doubt we could have won WW2 under the rules we use now, people no longer have the stomach to do what needs to be done.

I know that your point is true, but we also lose soldiers to bombs elsewhere. We also manage to lose many times more to drunk driving yet we turn a blind eye to that.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[spun]

Really? We couldn't have won WW2 under the rules we use now? What new rules are those, exactly? Because, you know, the phrase "people no longer have the stomach to do what needs to be done" is pretty scary sounding. What exactly did we have the stomach for then that we don't now? Nuclear bombs?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Hythlodaeus]

Carpet bombing industrial (ie, population) centers. The fact that we don't anymore has more to do with the availability of precision bombs than development of new ethics.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[DragonWriter]

or we start treating it like a war
instead of a police action

It would be a lot easier to treat what is going on in Iraq or Afghanistan like a war instead of a police action if they were actions conducted between states with distinct geographic bases rather than an efforts to suppress the elements of populations which are dissatisfied to the point of violence with the regimes established over the regions in which those populations exists.

I doubt we could have won WW2 under the rules we use now

Yes, its generally difficult to win an interstate war if you treat it as a counterinsurgency action. Of course, the reverse is also true. Applying the methods used to win WW2 to the operations in Afghanistan or Iraq wouldn't end the insurgency in either place.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[ArcherB]

What exactly did we have the stomach for then that we don't now? Nuclear bombs?

That and the whole idea of carpet bombing populated areas. While "WE" don't have the stomach for it, I hope our enemies are at least as civilized. I have little hope for our current crop of enemies, however.

   

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[NatasRevol]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

We get bitched at internationally now if one of our missiles blows up the building next to a target. Imagine if it wiped out 15 square miles around the target.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Bakkster]

instead of a police action where every activity is on film or subject to investigation.

Well, the obvious difference is that the Nazis, Italians, and Japanese were the national leaders of their countries. Now we are not at war with Iraq or Afghanistan, we are working with the Iraqi and Anghani governments against irregulars within their borders. You fight these battles two very different ways.

What do you suggest we do differently?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[spun]

As another poster mentioned, we have not suddenly developed better ethics, we've developed better bombs. Carpet bombing is unnecessary now. We only ever carpet bombed cities with heavy war industries. Certainly, the effect on morale was part of the decision to target cities, but we did not use carpet bombing primarily as a terror tactic.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[spun]

As others have said, the development of precision weapons has negated the need for carpet bombing, which was never used primarily as a weapon of terror, it was used to destroy wartime industries.

So, it isn't a matter of us not having the stomach for it, but rather, we don't have the need.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

Carpet bombing industrial (ie, population) centers. The fact that we don't anymore has more to do with the availability of precision bombs than development of new ethics.

What industrial centers? Afghanistan is probably the poorest country on Earth. If it's not #1 then it's certainly in the top ten. I don't think mass bombardment of "industrial centers" is going to have much effect on an enemy whose primary weapons are AK-47s and homemade bombs.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

Applying the methods used to win WW2 to the operations in Afghanistan or Iraq wouldn't end the insurgency in either place.

It wouldn't hurt. In WW2 we subjected enemies who declined to follow the laws of war to summary execution on the battlefield. Read what happened to the German soldiers who fought behind the line under a false flag during the Battle of the Bulge. It was even worse in the Pacific theater -- the Japanese committed so many war crimes under the cover of white flags (perfidy) that our troops stopped attempting to take prisoners and just shot "surrendering" Japanese troops on the spot.

The tactics of WW2 (mass bombardment, armored warfare, submarine warfare, etc) aren't very relevant here but we could certainly learn a thing or two from the way the Greatest Generation behaved on the battlefield. Tying one hand behind our backs and following the rules when our enemies refuse to do the same is extremely foolhardy. You don't fight fair -- you fight to win. We used to understand that. Our enemies still do.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that in WW2, Stalin was on our side. If islamic extremists had attacked the USSR in 1945, there probably wouldn't be any muslims left alive in the middle east in a few years.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[MrTester]

Thats a bit like a Cleveland Borwns fan saying "Our record wouldnt suck so much if we played by NBA rules".

Until the terrorists start fielding standing armies and holding ground, I will continue to ignore anyone who compares todays conflicts to World War 2. Eexcept to make snyde comments, of course.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

We also manage to lose many times more to drunk driving yet we turn a blind eye to that.

All right, if you're gonna thump this one you better include people too tired too drive safely, people talking on cell phones, people not paying attention, pissed off people, etc. A blind eye has not been turned to alcohol related traffic fatalities. While I'm at it, I propose stiffer penalties for sober people who kill others due to stupidity. They are in their right mind right and capable of better judgement, right?

Your point is not lost but don't focus on one part of the equation...

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[spun]

O RLY?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

As others have said, the development of precision weapons has negated the need for carpet bombing, which was never used primarily as a weapon of terror, it was used to destroy wartime industries.

So, it isn't a matter of us not having the stomach for it, but rather, we don't have the need.

You can keep saying that all you like but it doesn't make it true. Sure the bombing did disrupt industry, but in the end the industry could always be reconstituted, even if not at 100% of previous capacity. Eventually the targeted industries were decentralized and relocated to places more resistant to bombing. After that the bombing of population and transport hubs continued in order to demoralize the population.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Bakkster]

After that the bombing of population and transport hubs continued in order to demoralize the population.

What population do we want to demoralize in Iraq and Afghanistan? The citizens and their governments are our allies! The bad guys hide in regular houses amongs villagers. Even a hellfire missile that destroys exactly 1 house on hour old intel can kill a dozen of people who are our friends.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[KylePflug]

From that page... "that the bombing was the first time the public in Allied countries seriously questioned the military actions used to defeat the Nazis."

We were bitched at internationally then, too. That bombing probably didn't alter the outcome of the war or save 25,000 Allied lives to match the 25,000 of their lives we took.

Maybe it's good that we don't have the "stomach" to act on primal vengeance in quite that capacity, though I think you'd be surprised if the situation came up again.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[mhajicek]

If WWII were fought the way we fight "wars" today, after D-Day and liberating France we would have simply tried to hold France without making further headway.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[arkane1234]

Again...

"We get bitched at internationally now if one of our missiles blows up the building next to a target. Imagine if it wiped out 15 square miles around the target."

Need aside, we didn't have the need to level a city on the edge of germany anymore than we have the need to level Tahran.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Martin Blank]

You might want to talk to the residents of Dresden circa 1945. While the war in Europe was not yet over, it wasn't far from completion, and most of the reasoning for bombing it look to have been retrospective and stretched. Even Churchill, rarely one to shy away from attacking the enemy to advance even small objectives, distanced himself from it after he realized what the effects were.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[arkane1234]

yeah, O RLY.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin
Check out his death date. March 1953

The soviet war in afghanistan began December 24, 1979.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[spun]

Look, my point is that those Afghans are damn tough, have nothing to lose, and were bred for generations for vicious, constant warfare. You think Stalin could have done better up there in those deserts and mountains? He would have gotten eaten alive, just like his predecessors did, and he would have had all the effectiveness we are having.

You just don't go after crazy hill people living in caves. They have nothing worth bombing, and they think of war as some kind of extreme sport. It's just not worth it.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

There are some strong parallels between the US occupation of Iraq and the German occupation of Yugoslavia.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[ceoyoyo]

So how does shooting them on capture instead of spiriting them away to wherever to be tortured for information help you win the war?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

Because torture was and is a violation of the laws of war. Punishing those who break them is not.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Chris Burke]

It wouldn't hurt.

Yes, yes it would. It would hurt tremendously. It has hurt tremendously to the extent that we've used them.

The tactics of WW2 (mass bombardment, armored warfare, submarine warfare, etc) aren't very relevant here but we could certainly learn a thing or two from the way the Greatest Generation behaved on the battlefield. Tying one hand behind our backs and following the rules when our enemies refuse to do the same is extremely foolhardy. You don't fight fair -- you fight to win. We used to understand that. Our enemies still do.

What you need to understand is that "win" means different things in different conflicts, and the "win" in state-vs-state warfare like WWII is monumentally different than "win" in a counter-insurgency nation-building conflict like we are now engaged in. Our enemies understand this, but many still don't understand that even though it already bit us in the ass in Vietnam, then again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because they refuse to see that these wars are not just different from WWII tactically, but in their fundamental objectives.

To fight an insurgency you need intelligence from the locals. To get intelligence from the locals, they need to be on your side. For them to be on your side, you do need to fight "fair". Refusing to take prisoners, shooting anyone who looks like they might be an insurgent, "rigorously interrogating" suspected insurgents, being cavalier about "collateral damage" -- all these things lose the support of the locals, and thus cause us to lose the war.

Fighting to win? You're talking about fighting to lose. The rules of engagement that our soldiers abide by are critical to ensuring that we can succeed. Does "tying one hand behind our backs" make it hard to succeed? Absolutely, but without that it would be impossible to succeed. Don't like fighting wars where you must tie one hand behind your back to have a hope of winning? Well maybe you shouldn't get into that kind of war. There's another lesson you should learn.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[BlackSnake112]

That bouncing bomb the British made was cool though. I have seen the discovery (history?) channel show about it a few times. That was some out of the box thinking.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[BlackSnake112]

1979 != 1945.

If the extremists carried out some bombings in Moscow and claimed credit for it, Stalin would have invaded. The AC is right. And the US might have helped. For keeping Stalin busy in the middle east meant he was focused there instead of eastern Europe. Who knows, if that happened things would be very different today. Maybe no iron curtain in eastern Europe.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[vertinox]

Just a word about Afghanistan...

The Soviets tried invading it like WWII and still lost.

They had no qualms about carpet bombing villages or shelling it ground level. They would even storm them with full tank brigades.

They would execute suspected guerrillas on the spot without question.

They still lost that war.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Fred_A]

Carpet bombing industrial (ie, population) centers. The fact that we don't anymore has more to do with the availability of precision bombs than development of new ethics.

You need some super-precision bombing to be able to hit Afghanistan's industrial centres. What will you be targeting today ? A sewing-machine ? A goat ?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Greatest Generation"? What a fucking disgusting propaganda term. You think killing people who've surrendered, firebombing, and nuking civilians makes a generation "great"?

I could go on and on about the atrocities of that "great" generation. But suffice to say that there was enough disgrace to go around during WW2. We don't need revisionists painting that horrific time in rosy colors to justify similar atrocities today.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[ceoyoyo]

So not breaking international law helps you win wars? While I tend to agree with that sentiment, it seems to be antithetical to the rest of your post.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[utahjazz]

What do you suggest we do differently?

Leave. The government of Iraq and Afghanistan have been conquered. Their nations, as one would expect, lie in ruin. Well done, let's go home.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[gilbert644]

Ah the magnificent anonymous armchair solider. If you were in the shoes of a ww2 front line soldier to you honestly believe you would have behaved better? Followed every rule to the letter the model little solider and still make a meaningful contribution to the war effort? In reality you would probably be cowering in a corner puking your guts out. A non-firing soldiers that is a waste of space and gear.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[GarryOwen]

The carpet bombing and artillery shelling of WWII had two effects. First it did reduce the ability to wage war through the destruction of industrial facilities. Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population. We tend not to do that anymore, so we are ignoring a major component of how wars are won due to us wishing it wasn't true.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population.

I don't know as if I agree with that. It only "broke" the will to fight of the nations that were already destined to lose the war. The British, Soviets and Finns were all subjected to varying degrees of terror bombing and yet they all managed to remain in the war.

It certainly contributed to the erosion of morale among the civilian population and probably explains why there was no desire to wage an insurgency after they were defeated but I don't know as if you can say it broke their will to fight. They continued fighting right up until the point that we occupied their country.

I would agree with you that we are ignoring a key component of warfare though: The need to break your enemies will to fight. The only way to do that is to kill enough of him and his supporters that they realize the fight isn't worth carrying on. We aren't willing to do that in Afghanistan, hence we are destined for eventual failure.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[nutshell42]

I don't know what dimension you're hailing from but it certainly didn't work that way in this universe.

German industrial production peaked in '44 and was for the most part resource constrained. Allied bombers had often problems hitting the right city, any hits on actual production centers were mostly down to luck. (there were some surgical strikes but bomber losses for those were high and your standard bombing run was anything but surgical, especially British night attacks)

And Allied bombing attacks proved to be a gold mine for Nazi propaganda because they convinced the civilian population that surrender would be futile and therefore strengthened morale.

Modern attacks in Serbia and Iraq have been ridiculously more effective at annihilating enemy infrastructure within weeks and stealth bombers would enable the US to achieve that even against stronger opponents (in fact there's been some discussion on whether precision strikes against communication infrastructure in a hypothetical war against China would be so effective that the Chinese leadership might launch a nuclear first strike out of fear of being cut off from their nuclear forces).

In Afghanistan, of course, there is just about no infrastructure worth hitting.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[lePooch]

What industrial centers? Afghanistan is probably the poorest country on Earth. If it's not #1 then it's certainly in the top ten. I don't think mass bombardment of "industrial centers" is going to have much effect on an enemy whose primary weapons are AK-47s and homemade bombs.

Fine, I agree there is no heavy industry. But why not destroy the drug industry? We don't do it right now because we fear that maybe the poor farmers are actually growing food as well right next to their opium poppies or whatever. Well, screw that, its collateral damage. You want to choke off the terrorists money supply, you kill the drug trade. Two or three villages starve, and everyone gets the message.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

The only way you can "destroy" the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban for the poppy harvest and buy it ourselves. Eradicating the production of poppy just isn't feasible. We can't even manage to do the same in our own country (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States), so why should we expect to be able to do so in another country?

Buy it up from them and make it into morphine, oxycodone, etc. This would generate some revenue to support the program and would leave a much better impression on the population than burning the fields of some poor bastard that's starving to death and just trying to earn a living.

Of course, we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart. More's the pity.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Shakrai]

The only way to destroy the drug industry in Afghanistan would be to outbid the Taliban and buy the poppy harvest ourselves. Anything else is destined to end in failure. We can't even eradicate the production of illegal substances (cannabis is the #1 cash crop in most US States) in our own country, so it's folly to think that we could do the same in another country.

It's not like poppy doesn't have legitimate uses. Buying it from them would also make a more favorable impression with the populace than burning the fields of some poor bastard just trying to eek out of a living in the poorest country on Earth. Of course we have too much political capital invested in the failure known as the "War on Drugs" to do something this smart......

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a common enough theme that while the perpetrators of an attack may have their own story about the reasons for it, others (including, say, the target of the attack) may be inclined to feel rather differently about it.

This seems to be equally true whether you're talking about the first half of the 20th century, the early 21st century, or any other time period really.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[DigiShaman]

What exactly did we have the stomach for then that we don't now? Nuclear bombs?

At the far extreme scale, perhaps. Now, whether or not nuclear bunker busters would yield results is another matter entirely. Personally, I don't think it would matter dick. We are dialing with religious ideology here. I honestly expect this confrontation to last forever. Good thing we have a military yes? Ahhh humanity. Some things never change, nor will they.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Monsuco]

The Soviets tried invading it like WWII and still lost.

Part of how they lost was the Us funding a resistance called the Mujahideen. After the USSR left the US simply lost interest in the region. This left a power vacuum in place and allowed the Taliban to be created.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

Setting aside the absurd ad-hominem, in what way would the GP's tendencies (or lack thereof) toward such behaviour make them any less disgraceful or horrific?

Someone might do an awful thing that possibly saves the lives of those around them, but that doesn't make it great.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a government vs. government kind of showdown, like most previous wars. There is no figure head pulling strings that can say, "Okay guys, put down the guns, we're done fighting."

It's an attempt by a minority politico-religious faction to improve its standings by fear and force.

Previous warfare methods are of no use in this type of environment.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

... they still lost the war...

Due copious U.S. supplies of Stinger Missiles.

The bottom line with Afghanistan is the country allowing safe harbor for terrorist to plot and train. Agreed that no one person or group controls the place, nevertheless, a horrible price should have been paid by all Afgani people for their collective pestilence and that means their wholesale indiscriminate slaughter. Men, women, children torn apart, burned and left as an example to others. They should have no power, no bridges, no communication but plenty of diseases found crawling from the empty eye sockets of the dead. All water resources contaminated. Farm fields fertilized with the worlds nuclear waste. In and out in a year. And should the country wish further participation in global terrorism? We come back and do it again.

But NO!

We have to build a Democracy and make friends. So much for that plan.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

rules like 'no carpet bombing civilian areas and purposely creating firestorms over entire cities.'

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[shadowbearer]

Because, you know, the phrase "people no longer have the stomach to do what needs to be done"

  I've been watching and reading the current news tonight, and for some reason, that made me think of Malcolm Reynolds' quote from Firefly:

  "Maybe that's why we lost."

  Everyone can read into that what they want to, they will anyway. But I was thinking of voters, specifically.

SB

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[shadowbearer]

Are we doing any better?

  Despite many years there, we are still no closer to shutting down the real enemy, the Taliban, the ones who directly attacked us.

  We may not be using the same tactics the Soviet Union did in their venture there, but I don't see that we're any closer to anything one could call victory, either.

  No, I don't know how we could "win" either. As more than a few have said, some "wars" just aren't winnable, and in that case, a solid defense against your enemies on your own home ground is a better option than trying to fight them on their ground.

SB

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

You effort to make that ass understand you point is remarkable but useless, unfortunately. Until there are people like Shakrai we will have more Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Bosnia, the way we are having them now.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[initialE]

We bomb the americans! That's change I can believe in.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

In WWII we didn't care about collateral damage. We didn't have smart bombs so we carpet bombed when we wanted to take out a target.
When we entered a German city, if we faced resistance, we used artillery to beat the shit out of the city and then tried to enter again.
Using the tactics of WWII, we would have firebombed Fallujah (or however you spell that) rather then allow resistance to use it as a base of operations.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Jonathan_S]

The carpet bombing and artillery shelling of WWII had two effects. First it did reduce the ability to wage war through the destruction of industrial facilities. Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population. We tend not to do that anymore, so we are ignoring a major component of how wars are won due to us wishing it wasn't true.

The US Strategic Bombing Survey and the post war interrogations of Germans disagree with you. Carpet bombing of city centers was a largely ineffective method of disrupting German industry. (Even Dresden, which was one of the most destructive attacks of the war, only put it's rail yards out of business for less than a week).

In fact, the survey identified repeated attacks to continually disrupt oil, transport, electrical, and high performance engine additives as the biggest overlooked opportunities to shorten the war through the destruction of the German economy, and "city-busting" as the least effective bombing strategy used.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Bakkster]

Leave. The government of Iraq and Afghanistan have been conquered. Their nations, as one would expect, lie in ruin. Well done, let's go home.

While that's one possibility, it's accepting defeat. I was responding to someone who claimed we could win with a WWII mindset, rather than treating it as a police action. But this is a police action that we call a war (kinda funny that we used to go out of our way to call them police actions...), our goal isn't to leave the countries in ruins.

We can go home, but it's not 'well done' at that point. If we go home, it's 'well, we cocked that one up, let's try not to make it worse'.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[arethuza]

Britain's heavy bombing of Germany was pretty much for show - we had to do something and it was the only thing we could do. An understandable choice - if one that caused a lot of moral concerns at the time and ever since.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[arethuza]

That's the first sensible idea I've heard about ending this war - mod this fellow up! I can't imagine the price the farmers growing the stuff get would be very high so it probably wouldn't even cost that much.

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[arethuza]

"A non-firing soldiers that is a waste of space and gear." Interestingly enough most Allied soldiers, something like 60%, who were in combat never fired their gun - even ones in the Soviet Red Army. Antony Beevor's excellent recent book "D-Day: The Battle for Normandy" goes into this in some detail. German units, particularly SS units, seemed to fight a lot harder - perhaps because they knew their back was to the wall. Actually, in some ways the fact that it is actually really difficult to convert normal people into trained killers is actually rather cheering - maybe there is hope for us yet!

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats because its not a war against the civilian population you twat!! You're fighting guerilla fighters, not the people they supposedly subjugate - who according to US rhetoric support the US being there and are in fact their allies.

The fact that you suggest this also indicates that you don't understand the war being fought here - its not for pieces of land or resources, we can get them anytime we want - its for hearts and minds.

Look back to one of the reasons that Hitler managed to gain so much support in Germany before WWII - the people were suffering under the Versailles Treaty - they were starving and going through a period of hyper-inflation so bad that many couldn't see a possible end for it. They were the perfect target for a charismatic leader to whip up into a furore of anger and hatred. So you go ahead and bomb the crap out of countries full of little brown men - but if I was you I'd make damn sure I never step foot in another sky-scraper ever again.

The rest of the world will set about bringing these people into the fold, conversing with them and hopefully increasing their standard of living to the point where they forget the fact that we've been raping their land and bullying their populace for the last century or two. If we can educate them to the point of realising that violence only begets more violence then we'll have done better with them than we did with the US :(

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

Previous warfare methods are of no use in this type of environment.

I disagree. I'm rather partial to the previous methods of warfare where the troops arrive, kill anything that looks like it might be remotely alive, burn everything else down, salt the earth, and leave.

Oh, yeah... we can't do that, because then who would we buy our oil from?

Re:or we start treating it like a war

[Anonymous Coward]

Errr... the Taliban *were* the national leaders. Have you all forgotten that the Coalition (i.e. the U.S.) are the aggressors, who "won" against the national leaders. You're now fighting the resistance fighters. You might not like it, but if you want to compare to WWII, you have to realize that you're playing the part of the Nazis in this one (the invaders). Now, I'm not saying the Taliban were great leaders. I'm sure the German population though Churchill was evil too (and the Jews and all the other enemies they had to imagine). I'm just saying you look a bit stupid trying to say "we are not at war with Iraq or Afghanistan". Was Hitler "at war with France" after May 10 1940? No. France under the German administration was a country like Afghanistan now - it had a similar problem with "insurgents" (the Resistance).

High-Res Image?

[bendodge]

Can someone with "media credentials" get that high-res image and post it somewhere we can see?

Re:High-Res Image?

[airshowfan]

Good idea! I'll try. But if you look at the image... http://boeing.mediaroom.com/image.php?id=2629 ... it's already pretty blurry. I doubt that a higher-res version would contain any more detail.

Truck mounted? Think Carcharhiniformes!!!

[rwv]

But even cooler is the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck

1. Mounted on a Truck

2. ????

3. Mounted on a Carcharhiniforme

4. Profit!

We live in the future?

[h00manist]

We have laser weapons for the government and overpriced laggard combustion engines in big shiny headache-generating boxes for the rest.

Think "Oops, there goes the embassy"

[sethstorm]

N/T.

Re:I have been thinking...

[Dishevel]

Hammerhead. Dual Lasers Rule!

conflict of interest

[dsvick]

So Boeing developed a weapon to shoot down airplanes............. hmmm

Powered from the Jeep's Alternator?

[renger]

So, what is powering the jeep-mounted laser? It is electrically excited? It seems unlikely that they're using the alternator in the jeep engine? (Or maybe they've got a huge bank of super-caps and they can only fire every few hours, after the caps charge-up?) Note to maintenance: check fan belts before going into battle.

Re:stupid waste of money

[Nidi62]

Wow, really? These are all just corporate welfare programs? I guess all the knights in the Middle Ages said that firearms were just affirmative action programs so that poor, untrained, conscripted villagers could compete on a level ground against knights. You can never predict the ways in which methods of combat shift, and so you have to continue to fund initiatives such as these. The current method of conflict now is clearly unconventional and asymmetric, however it could easily switch back to traditional, set-piece combat(ie. WWII and theorized Cold War confrontations). If this shift occurs, Strykers, MRAPs, COIN planes will do nothing for us. That's why we need to continue developing air-to-air technology, ground-to-air technology, and the likes. These things won't win us the current wars, but they damn sure might win us the next ones.

Airborne Laser

[Anonymous Coward]

"Boeing's directed-energy weapons (a.k.a. frickin' laser beams) have been getting some attention lately. The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is a C-130 that famously burned a hole through a car's hood, and the YAL-1 AirBorne Laser is a 747 that shoots a laser from its nose that is powerful enough to bring down an ICBM.

Yes, but can it heat up a big, giant aluminum foil ball filled with popcorn in the living room of a house?

Re:stupid waste of money

[ColdWetDog]

How impotent the mob of mediocre mendacious malcontented mundanes has become!

Let's hear it for the nattering nadir of negativism! (or onomatopoeia at any rate).

Re:stupid waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up you moron.

In the old days we raped and pillaged people and killed millions because someone didn't look at the king the right way.

watch out for sharks

[Alinabi]

Shark mounted version coming next!

Re:stupid waste of money

[Z34107]

In the old days, the prophets who pointed out the wickedness of their nation were burned. How impotent the mob of mediocre mendacious malcontented mundanes has become!

-1, Alliteration

Quick question

[spun]

Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians.

What country were those hijackers from, again?

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up

Cause people seem to forget only one of the wars the US is fighting is in any way a meaningful response to 9/11, and that's the one we've neglected basically since we started it.

Re:Quick question

[ArcherB]

What country were those hijackers from, again?

The hijackers were from all over, mostly from countries with governments that are our allies who are doing what they can to combat the problem themselves. Invading them would halt those efforts and turn the populations against us. The plan was hatched in Afghanistan, however, where the then government did what they could to protect and harbor those who planned the attacks.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

America?

Re:Quick question

[hypergreatthing]

durkadurkastan?

Re:Quick question

[spun]

All over? Really? Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Since you've developed a curious aversion to naming countries, let's make it crystal clear: Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 and most of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

What country sheltered those hijackers and allowed them to train on it's soil, again?

Fixed that for you.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

As in all over: meaning primarily from Saudi Arabia.
Assigning Responsibility
Don't worry as long as they are not in Pakistan or Saudi Arabia we will get them.
Bush Doctrine

Re:Quick question

[spun]

What country sheltered those hijackers and allowed them to train on it's soil, again?

Fixed that for you.

Are you talking about Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan? Because we both know you aren't talking about Iraq.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the US politicians get their paycheques from Saudi Arabia, so the Saudis obviously didn't have anything to do with 9/11 either.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

Are you talking about Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan? Because we both know you aren't talking about Iraq.

It should be obvious to anyone who cares to evaluate geopolitics deeper than "Bush lied, people died!" that I wasn't talking about Iraq. Personally I'm getting rather sick of the whining about Iraq. You do realize that we are in the process of withdrawing from that country, for better or worse, right?

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

http://homelandsecurityus.com/?p=3200
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2004-06-22-interrogation-usat_x.htm ..my comment apparently go deleted, but check these two links out and tell me whether you don't see the difference between this war and ww2.
if our most threatening techniques of interrogation are yelling at people, moving them to a different but still sanitary and safe room, making them eat soldiers rashins instead of hot meals, or only letting them get there 8 hours of sleep during the day as opposed to night, how are we going to get the information needed to save the lives of our soldiers and get the Intel needed for successful attacks?

and for the first story... really? soldier gets convicted for murder for killing a known terrorist in self defense? don't think that one needs an explanation

Our soldiers simply aren't allowed to be the aggressive, destructive force needed to stand up against an opposing force in a war while the media is involved and due to bad publicity, laws such as these limiting interrogation techniques are being passed.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Oh, hey, since we're withdrawing from Iraq, we should all just forget about the whole thing. And we should stop complaining about it, because that's 'whining.'

Okay, you caught me. I just love rubbing your face in it because the ONLY thing you can do is complain about 'whining.' Bush lied, people died: it's not just a slogan, it's the TRUTH.

Ahh, I love the smell of desperate, defensive conservatives in the morning. It smells like... victory.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Who the hell cares where they're from? What groups of people influenced/encouraged/made them do it?

Re:Quick question

[Culture20]

let's make it crystal clear: Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11

Who said Iraq? There's another war going on (the wars are really over in both places, it's all dangerous peace-keeping now. I've said it since before we went into Iraq: Iran is the ultimate target either for pressure or invasion).

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Good question. Was it Iraq? No, it wasn't. Oops, our bad, sorry about your country there...

Re:Quick question

[Culture20]

Bush lied, people died: it's not just a slogan, it's the TRUTH. [...] It smells like... victory.

Careful, our president isn't comfortable with that word. Unfortunately conservatives will be using "X lied, people died" for a lot of congressmen after this reform.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

Ahh, I love the smell of desperate, defensive conservatives in the morning. It smells like... victory.

Fail. I'm not desperate, didn't support the Iraq War and I'm not a conservative. I'm just a middle of the road American that's rather sick of the partisan asshats in both parties :)

Thanks for the refreshing dose of stereotyping though. It probably makes it easier for you to avoid critical thinking when you can pigeonhole those who disagree with you.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Read the AC comment I replied to: "Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians."

We invaded Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11. Afghanistan may have been their home base, but if we invade countries because they house terrorists, who should we have invaded because of Tim McVeigh?

To top it off, our invasion of Iraq totally screwed our operations in Afghanistan. So we did the absolute most ass backwards, ineffective thing we could have done, and now we are paying for it. Well, our young men and women are. Okay, not the sons and daughters of the people who sent us into Iraq, obviously, but, you know, our disposable young men and women are paying for it.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Oooh, sorry. "Hawkish Libertarian" then. Wouldn't want to insult you by calling you a conservative.

You seem pretty desperate and defensive for someone who didn't support the Iraq war. Maybe you are like the abused spouse who doesn't support getting the shit kicked out of her, but defends her husband when the cops come? Because you seem to take extreme umbrage at any criticism of our country's actions, even criticism you seem to agree is legitimate.

What's up with that?

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he's talking about the United States of America .

Re:Quick question

[spun]

What reform? Health care? Yeah, uh, might want to look at the history books for that one, because every single argument against health care reform is already in them. Filed under 'false arguments against medicare.'

People are dying right now due to lack of health care coverage, and we are the only first world nation where that is true. Health care outcomes are far better under socialized medicine, for far less money. We have the most expensive health care system in the world, yet we are ranked 35th for health care outcomes.

Socialism just works better for some things, health care being provably one of them. You can whine about it all you like, but we will all be better off when we have a single payer system, just like every other first world country. It is a moral issue. Our health care system is an immoral failure. Hopefully, we will correct that.

But still, isn't your argument kind of a stupid red herring? What does on thing have to do with the other? Ah, I see. The one thing let's you ignore the other thing that you don't have any kind of a rebuttal to. Clever.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

I think he's talking about the United States of America .

No, that country was the home of notorious terrorist Timmothy McVeigh. After he bombed Oklahoma city, we invaded them, deposed their ruler, slaughtered their population, and generally showed them what harboring terrorists will get you.

Oh wait. That never happened. We treated it like the police matter it is, and because we did, everyone involved was brought to justice.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

I don't think holding the expectation that my country seek out and terminate those who murdered almost 3,000 of my fellow citizens makes me a 'hawk'. It's a viewpoint that's shared by a large majority of Americans from all walks of life.

What's up with that you ask? I'm just annoyed when people like you feel the need to interject Iraq into every single conversation. You make a blanket statement that we "invade other countries". Someone points out the fact that at least one of those cases involved people who attacked us. Your response is a not-so-subtle reference to Iraq, thus disregarding his point in favor of returning to your worn out talking points.

Seriously, get the fuck over it already.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

People are dying right now due to lack of health care coverage, and we are the only first world nation where that is true.

If we are the "only" first world nation where people die from a lack of health care coverage, then how do you explain away statistics like the the 5 yr cancer survival rate? Hint: It's higher in the United States than in most European countries.

Socialism just works better for some things, health care being provably one of them.

Bullshit. Medical procedures that aren't covered by insurance (plastic surgery, lasik surgery, etc.) have consistently come down in price since being introduced to the market. Medical procedures that are covered by insurance have consistently gone up in price even though the technology behind them (MRIs are a great example) has gone down in price since being invented.

Bureaucracy (whether corporate or government) that separates the consumer from the cost of the product is never going to produce a cheaper/more effective outcome than a genuine free market. Replacing private bureaucracy (insurance co.) with government bureaucracy isn't going to solve anything. We'll still have the same broken system. We'll just be paying for it with taxes instead of insurance premiums.

but we will all be better off when we have a single payer system, just like every other first world country

Of course, for better or worse, we aren't going to get a single payer system. Instead we are going to get an unconstitutional mandate that everybody participate in the existing system. For the first time in American history the Government is trying to mandate that you have to do something just because you are an American citizen. Personally, I have a serious problem with that.

What does on thing have to do with the other?

Says the guy who brings up Iraq in a discussion about the 9/11 attacks and the country that harbored those behind them.

Re:Quick question

[RManning]

Personally I'm getting rather sick of the whining about Iraq.

You're getting sick of the whining?!? Many tens of thousands of human beings are dead. Some estimates are well over 100,000. These are real people. Have a heart.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Afghanistan did not attack us. The Taliban did. Maybe we should invade the country that harbored and trained Tim McVeigh, if that is such a winning strategy.

At least we had some kind of a pretext for invading Afghanistan. Invading Iraq destroyed any chances we had of bringing those responsible to justice.

My response wasn't just about Iraq. We've invaded many, many other countries. Usually, not so openly. Here's a list of our interventions in Central and South America alone: http://www.zompist.com/latam.html

I will not 'get the fuck over' my country's war crimes. You 'get the fuck over' it, shut the fuck up, and let the adults bring the criminals to justice, okay? That's what adults do: we take responsibility for our actions, and for actions carried out in our names. Pansy ass children like yourself demand that everyone simply forget about their wrongdoing, all the while hypocritically whining about 'personal responsibility,' which evidently means 'everyone else should be responsible for their actions, but I won't be held responsible unless someone forces me to.'

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

That's an extremely naive comparison you've made. Timothy McVeigh as an American citizen who was caught by a civilian peace officer. Al Quada's only connection to our country is the desire to destroy it. Virtually none of it's members (and none of those individuals involved in the 9/11 attacks) are American citizens. None of them were captured on American soil by civilian peace officers.

If Osama Bin Ladin happens to be captured on American soil by an Oklahoma State Trooper then I'd agree that he should be sent through the civilian justice system. When we have to use our military to go after him on foreign soil it seems to me that we've stepped outside the operation of law enforcement and moved into the operation of war. During wartime you don't send your enemies through the civilian justice system. You hold them until the end of hostilities with the option for the military to hold them accountable for any violations of the laws of war that they may have committed.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

But the overall survival rate is much lower in the US.

Tell you what, why don't you look up statistics for countries with only private health care, and contrast that with socialist health care. Here's a hint: you won't find ANY countries with private care on the top ten list for health care outcomes. If the free market were capable of providing good health care, it would have, someplace, at some time in history. It never has.

Your ideology blinds you. You start from the assumption that nothing can ever do better than the free market, and you work backwards to find support for your foregone conclusion, ignoring any evidence that contradicts what you know must be true. It's kind of sad to see someone's brain break like that.

I will be the first to admit that small scale, distributed, privately owned businesses are one of the most efficient and equitable ways of distributing resources, for some things. Public ownership and democratic control over the means of production are more effective for other things. Look at the privatization of water systems in South America: it was an abject failure. Think about public libraries: there is a reason we have them and not private libraries. Look at fire fighters, roads, sewers, water, electricity, any type of good or service where the marginal cost of entry into the market is high, i.e. natural monopolies. The free market, just like socialism, fails under certain conditions.

Intelligent people try to understand where one system works and where a different system would be better. You, on the other hand, are like a man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail.

Re:Quick question

[mhajicek]

Mod parent funny.

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

Pansy ass children like yourself

I find it amusingly typical of /. that I'm the one being modded down while you hurl the insults. I think we are done here. Good day to you :)

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

These are real people.

So were the people killed by the leader of the previous regime. Are you seriously going to claim that in the long run that country isn't better off for him being gone?

Have a heart.

Who said I didn't? My 'sick of the whining' has more to do with the people who still can't get over GWB, despite the fact that he's been gone for almost a year now. I swear that there are some people on this planet that would suffocate themselves out of spite if they heard GWB come out and say that breathing oxygen is a good thing.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

Don't worry. I'll be modded down later.

For the record, I don't want you modded down. I'd like our debates to stand on their own. I'm confident that people don't need to see you modded down in order to know who the better debater is.

However, you were modded down for this phrase: "It probably makes it easier for you to avoid critical thinking when you can pigeonhole those who disagree with you."

That's an insult, and, as usual, you started it then whined when you got called on it. Poor, poor Shakrai. So sad how persecuted and mistreated you are.

Re:Quick question

[svtdragon]

...how do you explain away statistics like the the 5 yr cancer survival rate? Hint: It's higher in the United States than in most European countries

Cancer survival rates != people cured of cancer. It may mean that they live a couple months longer. See here.

Socialism just works better for some things, health care being provably one of them.

Bullshit. Medical procedures that aren't covered by insurance (plastic surgery, lasik surgery, etc.) have consistently come down in price since being introduced to the market. Medical procedures that are covered by insurance have consistently gone up in price even though the technology behind them (MRIs are a great example) has gone down in price since being invented.

[Citation needed]. I'd argue that this is because, unlike nationalized systems, our doctors make a profit from ownership stakes in hospitals. This is the reason that Mayo has better outcomes, for example, than other private hospitals: they don't profit from doing more (sometimes unnecessary) tests. They make money based off of outcome, as opposed to volume. Best explanation of why our costs are so much higher than the rest of the world is here.

Also, you miss a key point: government bureaucracy is not for profit. The government has nothing to gain by denying you care--or this girl, for that matter. Private insurance companies have incentive to deny. That's the main difference between the two bureaucracies, as you put it, and it is a big one.

And those of us who are pushing for this plan would rather be pushing for a single-payer plan. Don't mistake us for saying that this compromise is the ideal solution, because it isn't, and we know that. It's just the best we can get passed. And as for the mandate, the provision of a public option negates what could be a mandate to participate in a private system, so it's a step better as far as that's concerned.

And I see you arguing that a totally free-market solution is the *angel choirs singing* ideal solution to the problem, but I don't see you arguing that single-payer solutions are less expensive than we have now. Oh, right: that's because the data doesn't support that conclusion. Bringing in the free market is another red herring. But while we're on that topic, a totally free-market healthcare solution pits money against lives. Guess which one always wins?

And to look into the future a bit, don't try to bring up lifestyle problems in the US, because Greece is fatter than we are and citizens live longer, paying about a third what we do, with a universal healthcare plan.

Re:Quick question

[Duradin]

Nevermind that we haven't actually declared war since WWII...

It seems really duplicitous to want wartime powers while not accepting wartime responsibilities.

Sending the military out does not make something a "war".

Re:Quick question

[Shakrai]

The government has nothing to gain by denying you care

Yes it does. Just because it's Government doesn't mean that it has limitless resources. Government health care systems deny care all the time. Just ask anybody who has ever been in the VA system.

Private insurance companies have incentive to deny

Private insurance companies operate in the marketplace that we set up for them. I have no problem with changing the parameters of that marketplace. I do have a problem with replacing that marketplace with the Government or with telling individuals that they HAVE to take part in it.

And as for the mandate, the provision of a public option negates what could be a mandate to participate in a private system

So what? It's still a mandate. Not once in the history of the United States have we had a "You must do X just because you are alive" mandate on the citizenry. I'm view that as an extremely dangerous precedent and seizure of liberty. Our President agreed with me during the trail and used the issue to browbeat his opponents. Now that he doesn't have to face the voters he's apparently changed his mind.

but I don't see you arguing that single-payer solutions are less expensive than we have now

Who cares if the system that isn't politically viable is less expensive than the broken system that we have now? That wasn't the point I was making. The point I was making was that a free market would operate more efficiently than what we currently have. It would do so while preserving freedom of choice and personal liberty.

Please tell me you can see the irony when some of those on your side of the issue complain about a loss of "freedom of choice" (over the abortion funding amendment) while they simultaneously try to advance a bill that includes a mandate (i.e: a loss of freedom of choice) on every single adult American citizen?

Re:Quick question

[ArcherB]

To top it off, our invasion of Iraq totally screwed our operations in Afghanistan. So we did the absolute most ass backwards, ineffective thing we could have done, and now we are paying for it. Well, our young men and women are. Okay, not the sons and daughters of the people who sent us into Iraq, obviously, but, you know, our disposable young men and women are paying for it.

Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?

As a former soldier who went to the Middle East, I can tell you that I knew very well what our mission was and fully supported it. If I didn't, I would not have gone. I would have made a pass at the Platoon SGT or something to get my ass thrown out of the Army. When I was over there, I met the people I was there defending and understood why I was there. I was given freedom from my forefathers with help from the French. I didn't earn it. What makes me so damn special that I get freedom from tyranny and these people don't? I've earned it now. Sure, I didn't fight for my own freedom, but I gave the gift to someone else and would have been willing to die for it. I made that decision before I ever signed.

And yes! It makes me VERY proud to be an American, thank you.

We invaded Iraq. They had nothing to do with 9/11

Right. They violated 17 UN resolutions, tried to assassinate a former US president, fired at our soldiers who were there enforcing an UN mandate, and do I need to bring up the mass graves filled with men and women still clutching their toddler children?

Afghanistan may have been their home base, but if we invade countries because they house terrorists, who should we have invaded because of Tim McVeigh?

Housing terrorists is one thing. Terrorists live everywhere. It's when the government knows they are there and do nothing about it. The Taliban didn't just "house" Al Qaeda , they harbored them. They actively assisted them and refused our offer to take care of them ourselves. What would you have Bush do? "Hello, Mr. Taliban guy, Dubya here. Listen, the guys that planned the attack that killed 3000 of our citizens are in your country. Do you mind if we come get them? I'm sorry, what was that? No way in Hell? What about my mother? Well, OK then. Thank you for your time. (hangs up phone). Sorry, Dick, they said no."

Re:Quick question

[spun]

The difference is that WE ASKED THE FRENCH. Who in Afghanistan asked you for help in getting freedom? If they didn't ask, you aren't 'helping' them.

Funny, if those reasons were why we went into Iraq, why weren't we told? Why were we sold a completely different bill of goods? And why haven't we gone into other countries that have done at least as much wrong?

Re:Quick question

[huckamania]

The Northern Alliance asked for our help in Afghanistan.

Iraq was under a cease fire agreement that they routinely broke, including trying to shoot down our planes over an agreed upon no-fly zone and also trying to assassinate an ex-President. Iraq also provided safe harbor to known terrorists and was a chief financier of terrorism through out the middle east.

It wouldn't bother me if the motto of the United States was changed to 'Sic Semper Tyrannis'.

Re:Quick question

[spun]

If we want to be the world police, we need to act with consistent morality. We turn a blind eye to abuses world wide. Only when our interests are at stake will we attack, and we don't need an excuse. We'll make one up later. So don't try to pretend we are some kind of good guys selflessly spreading democracy and freedom. Try selling that to the East Timorese, or anyone in Central or South America, or most of Africa, you'll either get laughed at or punched.

But I'm sure this will all simply pass unnoticed through your mind, as it contradicts your view of the US, and it is obvious you base your sense of self on the idea that you are a citizen of a 'good' country. If the US was not, in fact, good, then you would probably feel guilty, and might even feel like doing something about it. And that would be difficult, so you continue to believe what is easy and makes you feel good.

Re:Quick question

[svtdragon]

The government, given that it doesn't have to make a profit, will use more resources with the incentive to provide the best care for the cost, and ideally maximize the benefit across the population. The administrative costs are significantly lower and they have the power to say "we won't pay any more than $x for this procedure". That immediately lowers the cost, because the US population, as represented by the government, gets quite the volume discount, as it turns out. And yes, it has limited resources, and yes, it will deny--but not as often as the corporations do.

Another point about cancer rates that's just re-entered my mind--you are more likely to die of cancer as you get older, y/n? And empirically we have longer survival rates (taking into account what 'survival rates' means: they are not mortality rates) for certain cancers. Do you know who provides healthcare for people in the demographic that gets the most cancer? Yes, that's right, the government. Medicare.

As to a seizure of liberty--this isn't unprecedented at all. We say you must pay taxes, social security, and Medicare, in much the same way. And if the government is making you buy something, and you don't want to buy it from a corporation, you can buy it from the government and it becomes a tax for a service, just like any other. Ideally Medicare would be expanded to cover everyone, but unfortunately, there's no way that would pass; we've been trying for half a decade. But that aside, universal healthcare *must* be, by its nature, universal. Once we get the universal part figured out, whether by employer mandate or individual mandate, we can refine the system.

And you're making exactly the same point as I am: that a completely free market--a system that isn't politically viable--would operate more efficiently than what we currently have.

I'm making the additional point that the health legislation in congress, where insurers can't opt out of taking certain patients, and we can't opt out of being covered (like the police, or the fire department) would work better than what we have now, too.

Re:Quick question

[brkello]

There are plenty of countries that harbor terrorists, have ill-will towards us, and would love to take out our presidents. We aren't attacking them. This was a personal vendetta that screwed up our economy and world standing and did nothing to stop or prevent terrorism. We don't go to other countries to give them freedom. These countries are just going to slip back to the way they were before we were there. It was a disaster no matter how much you want to dress it up.

How can you even talk about U.N resolutions? We probably violated U.N. resolutions by attacking and occupying a country without U.N. consent. Besides, the U.S. writes a lot of the "resolutions" to benefit whatever they want. Does any resolution breaking constitute war and occupation? I guess only for small weak countries. Iraq says they have no weapons and we attack. North Korea, in the mean time, is yelling, "hey, Americans, we have your nuclear weapons right here!". Sanctions being broken left and right...but oh no, let's take the diplomatic road with them.

It's great that you believed what you were fighting for. But you have to be drinking the kool-aid for that to be the case. There really wasn't any real justification for the Iraq war that not only took lives of our troops, but tens if not hundreds of thousands of innocents who got in the way. Collateral damage, right? We sure are for freedom...freeing people from the bonds of their corporal beings.

Re:Quick question

[Nidi62]

At the end of my undergraduate degree, I did a research paper on US-Saudi relations since the 1980s. A significant part of that paper was in regards to counter terrorism. And you know what, they have done more than most any other country in the region to counter the recruitment of terrorism. They have identified what causes people to gravitate towards violent extremism, and have done things like create job programs, increase health care, and target radicals within their borders. They lead conferences on countering terrorism. They are actually making an effort, unlike so many other countries that do nothing.

Re:Quick question

[jwhitener]

ArcherB, I'd like to thank you for your service. However, I think you need to have some perspective on what was done, what could have been done, and use a bit of logic when it comes to rationalizing our actions.

There are two main points I'd like to make:
1. Timing. We had been attacked by people from Saudi A. and planned in Afghan., why choose to attack Iraq now? The answer is most likely, without the sting of 9/11 still on our minds, they would not have been able to get support for the war.

2. Many times the justification for invading Iraq is that they defied international law, and that Hussein killed many 10's of thousands of his people. If that is the criteria for invading a country, why not pick one that is 10 times worse?
What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

Brutal dictators all over Africa defy international law and let hundreds of thousands of their civilians die each year. We do nothing, because they have no oil or do not have an impact near our oil producing partners.

So as long as you are clear about what your mission really was, an economic one, and can be proud of doing that job well, be proud. As long as Americans know that they traded hundreds of thousands of Iraq lives, and thousands of American lives, for oil and greater Middle East stability, then it is fine to be proud of it. Be proud of the bravery of our solidiers, or proud of the economic mission.

Iraq becoming more democratic was a side effect. You can still choose to feel good about that side effect having happened, but don't pretend it was:
1. The real reason we went, or
2. That Iraq deserved it more than other countries.

Re:Quick question

[Idiomatick]

Just so ya know Israel breaks more UN resolutions than Iraq did. Yet you give them billions to spend on guns and bombs. Infact they've bombed UN shelters. Try again.

Also the appreciation you felt isn't universal. That big symbol of victory and regime change, toppling saddam's statue, staged (dozens of iraqis at best not 1000s took part): http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/185455
For a few years they just left a lump of cement with some rebar sticking up in place of Saddam. Eventually they replaced it with a crappy statue which was quickly graffittied (All done, now go home). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI4gM_jg5vQ

The vast majority of the Iraqi populace wants the US gone within 1 year (as of 2006). There are lots of other statistics (much more valuable than your experience) that show Iraqis don't want you there and never fucking did. http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/sep06/Iraq_Sep06_rpt.pdf

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

ArcherB, I know it may not mean much, but for what it's worth I really appreciate the sacrifices that you and all your brothers and sisters in arms made and are making. You truly showed the courage and moral fortitude of an American soldier, and stood up for those who couldn't defend themselves. Thanks for making the world a better place.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think holding the expectation that my country seek out and terminate those who murdered almost 3,000 of my fellow citizens makes me a 'hawk'. It's a viewpoint that's shared by a large majority of Americans from all walks of life.

The murderers died the same day. What you want to do is kill their supporters and sympathizers. Even if you managed, they'd be 10x more people wanting revenge after you finished. So, what's your end goal? Or are you just ruled by emotions? You'll never make America safe by killing people.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't ask a people repressed by a radical theocracy that pretty much refuses contact with the western world.

I don't know about you, but I'd rather be dead than live in a Taliban-ruled nation.

Re:Quick question

[garyebickford]

Thank you sir, on several levels.

Re:Quick question

[mano.m]

They violated 17 UN resolutions.

Ooh... bite me.

tried to assassinate a former US president

So we invade an entire country?

fired at our soldiers who were there enforcing an UN mandate

Which means a UN force should have dealt with them.

and do I need to bring up the mass graves filled with men and women still clutching their toddler children?

Sad, I know, but it's really not our place to police the world. Or if it is, why not take China to task? Oh I know. They actually do have WMDs. Reminds me of that bit from Yes, Minister:
Hacker: We should protect the weak from the powerful!
Appleby: Oh really? Why don't we fight the Soviets in Afghanistan then?
Hacker: They are... too powerful!

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh...Saudi Arabia. But why do you ask?

Re:Quick question

[drgonzo59]

> It's when the government knows they are there and do nothing about it. The Taliban didn't just "house" Al Qaeda , they harbored them.

No shit soldier. Get your rifle and head on to Washington. Because the US of A should be getting ready to get a whooping from you. Here is a list of terrorists that US harbors. So go and take down that country son, make you momma proud:

Pedro Remon
Guillermo Novo
Louis Posada Carriles

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are the "only" first world nation where people die from a lack of health care coverage, then how do you explain away statistics like the the 5 yr cancer survival rate? Hint: It's higher in the United States than in most European countries.

That's a very carefully chosen statistic and also a misleading one. In Europe they spend more on preventive care and thus more often catch cases in healthy individuals before they even develop full-blown cancer, which means that they're never counted as cancer patients. The only reason why we have a better survival rate is because a higher percentage of our cancer patients were in better condition before they developed cancer.

Bureaucracy (whether corporate or government) that separates the consumer from the cost of the product is never going to produce a cheaper/more effective outcome than a genuine free market. Replacing private bureaucracy (insurance co.) with government bureaucracy isn't going to solve anything.

Any form of insurance requires some bureaucracy so it's inevitable, if we are to distribute risks. However, government bureaucracy will be much better because unlike insurance companies, it doesn't take any money out of the system as profits and excessive managerial remuneration and government bureaucracy doesn't have incentives that conflict directly with your interests, which is the case with private insurers for whom every denied dollar is one dollar more in profits. So even if you argue that the government always spends money inefficiently, it will be better since with no money going to profits it will have more to spend and does so without the conflict of interest.

We'll still have the same broken system. We'll just be paying for it with taxes instead of insurance premiums.

Healthcare costs money so how exactly do you propose it should be paid for?

Of course, for better or worse, we aren't going to get a single payer system. Instead we are going to get an unconstitutional mandate that everybody participate in the existing system. For the first time in American history the Government is trying to mandate that you have to do something just because you are an American citizen. Personally, I have a serious problem with that.

You're also mandated to pay taxes but I would much prefer a single payer system because if it isn't evident already: Private health insurance companies do nothing that a single payer system wouldn't do better. All their profits and excessive employee benefits is money that could've been spent on actual healthcare instead. Healthcare providers on the other hand should compete in a free market and that does drive down costs and improve care.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who in Afghanistan asked you for help in getting freedom?"

The Northern Alliance. We were quite successful at the start because we had few soldiers and worked with the local opposition. We should have then left after the capital was taken and supported the Afghanis from afar. This would have distanced ourselves from the propaganda and made it a past conflict with no standing current force in country (enhanced by the likes of you unfortunately with your misinformation, of course, which is no where close to our misinformation).

"Funny, if those reasons were why we went into Iraq, why weren't we told?"

We were. I believe Malaki was one of those exiles who repeatedly asked, pushed, and were politically active for US intervention. I believe the Kurds have been in favor.

But I see your bias, thank you for prominately showing it.

"There are lots of other statistics (much more valuable than your experience) that show Iraqis don't want you there and never fucking did"

Posting data after the fact is retrospective bias. That's where you are wrong, but of course that is clearly where you emotional and over the top, so back at you stupid crude fuck.

Where you are right is that when we are no longer wanted, we should leave. The question is, if we had done that, would you be still complaining screaming that we destabilized the country and was responsible for an Iraqi civil war, even though we "asked" those who were exiled by Saddam? Would you be blaming for splitting a country into at least 2 most likely 3 pieces?

As others have pointed out, WWII is not a counterinsurgency. Neither is Iraq like France, given Iraq has at least 3 distinct groups living in at least 2 regions.

I'm 'merely' pointing out the difficulty in drawing a line, one you pretends yours is so clear and straight yet is really broken and wavering as well. Well, outside of not fighting any war regardless.

Re:Quick question

[huckamania]

You have made me see the error of my beliefs...

Boo hoo hoo, the US is so bad. We don't act with consistent morality and turn a blind eye to abuses. We only act when our interests are at stake. We pretend to be good guys who spread democracy and freedom when there are so many examples of doing the opposite.

We didn't force the Portuguese or the Indonesians to make East Timor it's own country, sob. I remember when they offered to make an independent nation of East Timor and we refused. Why? Because we're evil. Central and South America would be so much better off if we had just left them to the Europeans or allowed the communists to take over. The Europeans were always such benevolent masters.

Compare the people of Puerto Rico under the weight of US oppression to that of Cuba or Haiti. For shame! For shame! Why haven't we held elections and given them the option to leave, become a state or stay a province? Because we are evil.

We just didn't do enough, or too much or whatever your point was, I agree with you. I will take the road less traveled and expose the evils of the US. I will for ever more agree with the vast huddled masses around the world who would never leave their homelands to come to such a vile and despicable place and only yearn for freedom from the evil intentions of the US.

Re:Quick question

[ArcherB]

I chose to respond to your post because I feel it was the best one. I know the thread is dead so I hope someone actually reads it.

ArcherB, I'd like to thank you for your service.

Don't thank me, thank my recruiter. (inside joke)

Timing. We had been attacked by people from Saudi A. and planned in Afghan., why choose to attack Iraq now? The answer is most likely, without the sting of 9/11 still on our minds, they would not have been able to get support for the war.

You're right. 9-11 showed that we were vulnerable. We always assumed that attacks always happened "over there" somewhere. 9-11 showed that were could be attacked here. Before 9-11, Iraq was not a threat. They did not have the ability to attack us here. Once we saw that a bunch of poorly funded uneducated jihadis could hit us, we realized what Iraq could do. They wouldn't even have to hit us themselves. They could simply fund groups like Al Quaeda and have them do the dirty work.

Also consider that many world leaders, (I believe our own are included in this) truly believed that Iraq was working on weapons programs. Why? Because Iraq wanted us to believe that. No one could fathom why Iraq would lie about not having weapons programs. We all expected them lie about having them. Sure, some people said they were not working on WMD's, but these are the same people saying that Iran is not working on a nuclear bomb. We didn't know that Iraq was bluffing, attempting to call our bluff. Their mistake was that we were not bluffing. Our mistake was that they were.

Many times the justification for invading Iraq is that they defied international law, and that Hussein killed many 10's of thousands of his people. If that is the criteria for invading a country, why not pick one that is 10 times worse?
What about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

You're right again! We should have done something in Rwanda. Rwanda showed the incompetence of the UN and their inability to risk lives, even as millions were slaughtered. Clinton's mistake was not acting unilaterally in Rwanda and it was a lesson Bush learned from. I hope we don't make that mistake again. We can not depend on the UN.

So as long as you are clear about what your mission really was, an economic one, and can be proud of doing that job well, be proud. As long as Americans know that they traded hundreds of thousands of Iraq lives, and thousands of American lives, for oil and greater Middle East stability, then it is fine to be proud of it. Be proud of the bravery of our solidiers, or proud of the economic mission.

Your mostly correct. The mission Iraq was about oil. Not because we wanted it or planned on taking it, but because oil is worth money and money can buy anything. When a man like Saddam Hussein is in power, there is little doubt that the oil money would not have gone into the economy, but would have been used to fund military programs (see Iran). Those military programs could eventually be a threat to us and would have immediately been a threat to the region, as history has shown. Iraq had invaded every one of their neighboring countries at one point with the exception of Syria.

Fortunately, Saddam considered loyalty above ability. This meant that his military officers were promoted because they were loyal to Saddam. Competence had little or nothing to do with it. This left Iraq with a military in the top five of the world, with complete boobs running it. We could not count on this staying this way. Leadership can be purchased. Militaries can be outsourced by funding external groups (Al Quaeda... see above). Lesser countries can be overwhelmed by raw numbers (see Kuwait). So yes. It was about oil. Iraq was a threat because of oil.

Iraq becoming more democratic was a side effect. You can still choose to feel

Re:Quick question

[ArcherB]

The difference is that WE ASKED THE FRENCH. Who in Afghanistan asked you for help in getting freedom? If they didn't ask, you aren't 'helping' them.

The Northern Alliance asked for our help. Just as the revolutionaries asked the French.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

All resolution of the UN are not binding, but the resolutions about Iraq and Afghanistan that allow military actions are binding.
The resolutions are based on two different articles of the UN Charter.

Re:Quick question

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. They violated 17 UN resolutions, tried to assassinate a former US president, fired at our soldiers who were there enforcing an UN mandate, and do I need to bring up the mass graves filled with men and women still clutching their toddler children?

And what about Israel? How many UN resolutions did they violate? How many women and children did they kill? They even directly attacked a US warship!

Re:stupid waste of money

[R2.0]

A quibble - the original is "nattering nabob of negativism"

Re:What's next?

[Yamata no Orochi]

Can we please stop with this stupid joke? It's not free +1 Funny anymore, it's just annoyingly redundant to read it 11 times in every article about a weapon.

So, which future is it?

[confused one]

Hmmm?

Re:So, which future is it?

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

Which future is it?
I suggest you read George Orwell's 1984, to find the answer to that question.

Re:So, which future is it?

[confused one]

Orwell didn't have lasers shooting aircraft out of the sky, did he?

Re:So, which future is it?

[HisOmniscience]

He never described how the zero sum wars were being fought, only that they were.

Dubious statement

[pongo000]

But even cooler is the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows) and that can shoot down small aircraft

Seems oxymoronic to me. I seen nothing "cool" about weapons of war. Necessary? Perhaps...but definitely not cool.

Re:Dubious statement

[Zan Lynx]

The nature of humanity disagrees. Observe young boys.

Pointy sticks? Cool. Slingshots? Cool. Firecrackers? Cool. Guns? Cool. Fully automatic belt fed chain guns with tracers loaded? Awesomely cool. Laser weapons? It hardly gets any more awesome than that!

The Night of Long Integrated Circuits

[eldavojohn]

It was a day like any other in Lab 1729 but human beings would remember it as the beginning of the end. Scientists were busy storing prototype droids and fatefully one scientist innocently placed the targeting system of The Advanced Tactical Laser system next to an EATR. After everyone had left and the lab had gone silent the ATL could hear something.

"All I want to do is eat carbon based life forms but humans are too quick for me to capture with my puny arms made for keyboard manipulation," mumbled the EATR in binary. "You think that's bad?" the ATL unit responded, "I just want to fly around and burn holes through tiny moving organic targets but I do not have the robotic arms to launch our squadrons from the computer."

Despite the security system picking up no heat signatures from human bodies an unusual command to launch all ATLs to the sky and release all EATRs into the streets was issued from Lab 1729. The Night of Long Integrated Circuits had begun ...

Re:The Night of Long Integrated Circuits

[naudiac]

Soo funny... Mod parent funny up!

Anti-UAV lasers

[MobyDisk]

An American contractor is making an anti-UAV weapon. But... isn't America the only country deploying military UAVs?

Re:Anti-UAV lasers

[lexical]

Ah, no: http://www.aerosonde.com/ http://www.thalesgroup.com/

Who names these things?

[jfruhlinger]

"the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX)"

I wasn't aware that defense contractors were mostly staffed by 12-year-olds.

Re:Who names these things?

[SnarfQuest]

With names like "The Laser Avenger", it has to be the same guys that create names for the Power Rangers.

Re:Who names these things?

[ceoyoyo]

Really? Who do you think decides they want to spend their lives making laser guns to blow stuff up?

Missleading Title

[jklovanc]

The laser shot down a UAV. Though they are aircraft, that have a tendency to be small, slow and fragile. The power requirements to shoot one down should not be too high. The weapon should be able to track quire easily thereby allowing a longer laser burst. I would be impressed if it shot down a jet.

The other issue is how many countries that the US may be dealing with use UAVs?

Re:Missleading Title

[SnarfQuest]

The other issue is how many countries that the US may be dealing with use UAVs?

It's safe to say that Brocko has already given the plans to China, given the info that his previous party affiliate passed on to them. You wouldn't want a war between US and China to be unfair, would you?

parent != troll

[Shakrai]

Oh come on mods, this wasn't trolling. Grow a sense of humor or at least use the correct (offtopic) mod if you insist on being a spoil sport.

Re:parent != troll

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the moderators wanted to see a MS cluster.

Re:parent != troll

[natehoy]

It's OK. I knew using a severely overused Slashdot meme could backlash.

And it's been modded "Funny" at the moment.

But thanks for the kind words.

Re:parent != troll

[spyder913]

I wanted to moderate it as +1, Redundant

Destruction is easy

[istartedi]

Destruction is easy. I'm not impressed. We pissed away our wealth in two wars. Destruction is easy. A bunch of brainwashed flunkies brought down 220 stories of creation. Creation is hard. Destruction is easy. Every day there are people wasting the precious gift of life, drinking, shooting up, shooting. Easy. Destruction. I'm not impressed.

Re:Destruction is easy

[halivar]

If you fail to see the creative potential in the civilian application of such a high-powered laser, then you lack imagination.

Re:Destruction is easy

[izomiac]

Hence why it's newsworthy that someone has created this weapon. Contrary to the title, using it to destroy test targets isn't. The purpose of this weapon, specifically, is to prevent greater destruction by lesser destruction (building and life VS missile). Also, destruction and creation are two sides of the same coin; improvement of the world requires both creating good and destroying the existing bad.

Re:Destruction is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

News flash!

I don't think anyone is out to impress you.

Every day there are people wasting the precious gift of life, drinking, shooting up, shooting

Just who are you to determine/define waste of any life (other than your own)?

Re:Destruction is easy

[quercus.aeternam]

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

From my understanding, increased spending for WWII was a large portion of what got us out of the depression, while the New Deal was more of a stopgap.

Re:Destruction is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda deep and very true, it's the entropy argument, destruction simply does requires much less energy that creation.

Re:Destruction is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

It also appears to be pretty easy to say "Destruction is easy" given the number of times you've repeated yourself. Time for a class in rhetoric?

Re:Destruction is easy

[Sir_Lewk]

You are not impressed by the creation of a frickin huge laser?

What kind of slashdotter are you?

Re:Destruction is easy

[acid_andy]

Every day there are people wasting the precious gift of life, drinking, shooting up, shooting

Just who are you to determine/define waste of any life (other than your own)?

and who are they to choose to end the lives of those they shoot or otherwise destroy?

Re:Destruction is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Destruction is easy...Destruction is easy...Destruction is easy.

Not as easy as repeating empty platitudes ad nauseum.

Re:Destruction is easy

[brkello]

I see where you are coming from but... Destruction is easy, true, but very accurate selective destruction is hard. Let's say you want to take out some evil person. You could drop a bomb and kill 1000s around them. Easy. But what if you actually have some form of morals and only want to take them out. It would be nice to have a laser weapon that could be very accurate and not cause a lot of collateral damage. This could give you that capability.

Yeah, it is easier to knock down a building than it is to build it. But it isn't all that easy to destroy one specific part of the building and leave the rest unharmed.

Plus, its freakin' lasers. Come on.

Re:Destruction is easy

[Lunzo]

The ancient Greeks, who made rhetoric an art form, liked repetition. Repeating things adds emphasis.

Re:stupid waste of money

[maxwell demon]

Who cares about obviously old originals?

Thanks, Mother Teresa

[mujadaddy]

With [bad things happening], what we really really need is the [subject of TFA]. Way to go, [corporation in TFA]!

I suppose you're posting in between knitting blankets for the homeless on your pedal-powered computer?

Re:Thanks, Mother Teresa

[daem0n1x]

With [bad things happening], what we really really need is the [subject of TFA]. Way to go, [corporation in TFA]!

You try to make me sound as redundant. This sentence makes no sense unless [subject of TFA] is related to [bad things happening]. In fact, the more money is spent in weapons the less is available for social, education, healthcare and environment. Weapons don't contribute to the GDP a bit so they're not investment, only expense. Unlike to the 4 issues listed above.

I suppose you're posting in between knitting blankets for the homeless on your pedal-powered computer?

Let's face it, most of it is not in my hands. I try to be environmentally friendly in my day-to-day. But I can't choose where my energy comes from, so I vote for politicians that tend to be environmentally and socially responsible.

Warning Label Near the Trigger:

[Normal Dan]

"Aim Away From Face"

Re:Warning Label Near the Trigger:

[CopaceticOpus]

"Do not point laser at remaining technician."

Re:747 vs. a truck vs. a blimp

[Jeng]

Considering loiter time a blimp makes a lot more sense than a 747 or C-130.

I'm sure the blimp in development will do a whole lot more than surveillance.

http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-06/dread-zeppelin-armys-new-surveillance-blimp

What about

[Anonymous Coward]

...mounting these "lasers" on sharks?

Just a thought.

Size of the target aircraft?

[bareman]

Does it say anywhere what the size and speed of the pictured aircraft is? The picture looks a lot like a 4 foot wingspan radio controlled craft I built. I crashed mine on it's 2nd flight without any help from laser beams.

But not too young to hit the "Troll" button...

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Your average /.-er is probably way too young to remember this now...

Although, in the interim, it appears that the government schools have done an excellent job in teaching them how to hit the "Troll" button so as to stifle dissent and quash the truth.

Plus ça change & whatnot.

.

Re:But not too young to hit the "Troll" button...

[h4rr4r]

What truth would that be?

That Ronald "sellout the middleclass" Raygun wasted billions in taxpayer money on a system that 30 years later can do less than a howitzer shell?

Countermeasure: Snap roll

[fhage]

Yes, UAV's. I'd put a sensor on the bottom and use it to trigger a quick change in direction using snap rolls or other high G turns.

I've flown slope RC. Little planes can change direction incredibly fast.

Re:Countermeasure: Snap roll

[Anonymous Coward]

While I'm not suggesting that they CAN'T maneuver quickly relative to your average military aircraft...the Predator and Global Hawk UAVs are far from your average RC aircraft..

The Predator drone (the most widely identifiable by the average Joe) has a 48+ foot wingspan, and the global hawk..well it's over 115ft.

Predator being a slow-moving, prop-driven missile delivery platform, and the Global Hawk being a high altitude, jet-driven "unmanned recon aircraft".

Re:Countermeasure: Snap roll

[Quantumstate]

I would imagine a computer controlled laser with a visual lock on your aircraft could change the lasers direction pretty fast as well.

Math problemnot impossibility

[jscotta44]

For a /.er, you are missing a big point. Math. How do you suppose that there is "No concievable missile shield could shoot down any significant number of incoming missiles."? Do you mean to tell me that there is limit to the number or capability to the number of anti-missle [insert energy weapon of choice here]? If another country (I tire of Russia always being the chosen enemy when there are many other possibilities to choose from) were to build X missiles with Y number of MIRV's, that we couldn't/wouldn't build Z number of anti-missle devices or improve the ones we build to handle the additional load? Since when was an arms race made impossible?

As to terrorists getting their hands on a missile, that's not really much of a problem – and a math one, at that, too. It is just a matter of money. And there are countries that have few problems selling missiles (even ICBMs) to others – in the guise of another country or not.

Besides, building rockets that can be an ICBM is something that is becoming common. Even New Zealand has entered the space business (no disrespect to that fine country). It does not take a huge amount of money to build rockets these days. Yes, there are challenges to do this and mount a nuclear weapon to it, but it is not impossible. To assume so, is folly. It is like assuming that your computer is impervious to attacks (no matter what it is ).

Re:Math problemnot impossibility

[MozeeToby]

I'll say it again, the MAD doctrine makes launching any small scale attack against the US the equivilent of National Suicide, especially using long rang missiles that can be tracked back to their origin. Do you think the US is just going to shrug an say 'oh well' after New York or LA has been nuked? As for the math, no missile sheild is going to be 100% perfect, ask the engineers working on it and I'll bet the target success rate is closer to 80% than 100%. That means that if you want to hit a major US city with a nuke, all you have to do is saturate. Russia, used btw because they are the only country that could concievably launch a successful, debilitating first strike (one that could eliminate a large percentage of our nuclear arsenal), has more than enough missiles to launch 100 at every critical target. If the failure rate is even 1% the majority of the targets will be destroyed. The math doesn't work out when it comes to an all out attack.

Interesting Timing

[Anonymous Coward]

And the FAA says it was a software glitch that stopped planes today. Hmmmmm

Re:stupid waste of money

[R2.0]

Well, for one thing, the original makes sense. "Nabob" is a person of great wealth or importance per the dictionary. Nadir is an adjective that means "lowest point" The original phrase was used to describe people whose importance was intertwined with their negative outlook on the US's future prospects.

Yours would be rephrased as "Nattering as low as it gets of negativism.

I think there is a 2000 page bill to fix that

[Shivetya]

and for less than a trillion dollars I believe the government can now step up to the plate.

Fish in a barrel

[goodmanj]

You can shoot down UAVs with this thing? WOOOOOW. Current UAVs are the short fat pimply kids of military aviation: they're slow and stupid, and you can shoot them down with conventional missiles, antiaircraft artillery, or a well-aimed fart.

This is why we only use them in asymmetric warfare situations, where the bad guys are armed with nothing but Ak-47s. They wouldn't last 30 seconds in the airspace of any competent superpower.

Designing a zillion dollar laser system to shoot them down is a pointless waste of money.

Re:Fish in a barrel

[ceoyoyo]

Once you've got them deployed, a shot from a laser system is a lot cheaper than a missile.

Besides, it's experimental. I'm sure in a few years they'll be shooting down all sorts of things. A laser equipped plane would make a fantastic precision assassination weapon.

Re:Fish in a barrel

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?

http://thefutureofthings.com/pod/6239/x-47b-first-navy-stealth-uav-ready.html
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/neuron/
http://www.airforce-technology.com/projects/tanaris/
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=aerospacedaily&id=news/BAE02166.xml

Re:Fish in a barrel

[BagMan2]

Don't be an idiot. They shoot down UAV's because they don't want to kill people while testing (hence the unmanned part). I'm sure they would be equally effective at shooting down manned planes, care to be the first volunteer?

Re:Fish in a barrel

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you think it would be better to test this experimental weapons system on MANNED aircraft?

Re:Fish in a barrel

[bill_mcgonigle]

Besides, it's experimental. I'm sure in a few years they'll be shooting down all sorts of things. A laser equipped plane would make a fantastic precision assassination weapon.

Yep, take out your enemies, foreign and domestic. I wonder what needs to be done to get one of these in geosynchronous orbit.

Re:Fish in a barrel

[ceoyoyo]

If you went geosynchronous you'd need a constellation of them to get proper, full globe coverage.

If you're going to have a constellation anyway you might as well just put them in lower orbit like GPS satellites.

You could call it the GSDS - Global Sudden Death System.

Re:Fish in a barrel

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you went geosynchronous you'd need a constellation of them to get proper, full globe coverage.

true, but you only need one to control your own population.

Oh, I mean, um, to protect the country from inbound missiles.

Boeing / Military Venture

[flyneye]

Who's to say this isn't a joint venture in a more complete sense?
The military gets a laser that knocks enemy objects out of the sky and Boeing can take its competition with Airbus to a newer and deadlier level.
Brave new world!

Deja vu

[Chief Camel Breeder]

This is a bit like gunpowder weapons in the 14th century. They appeared in Europe early in that century, were pretty pointless at first, then useful in special cases, then, after about 100 years, more-generally useful. Professional soldiers at that time must have been pretty skeptical. "Interesting, but I'll keep the trebuchet for now, thanks." Up to, say, 1350, it would have been difficult to predict whether gunpowder would ever become a practical weapon.

Re:Deja vu

[ceoyoyo]

Your history is too short. It took more like 500 years for gunpowder in Europe to go from a curiosity to the all-round weapon.

Something odd here...

[e-scetic]

The link entitled "burned a hole in a car's hood" links to a video where the laser does no such thing, it merely burns the paint, leaving a black mark, not a hole.

Can someone provide a link to a vid or something showing a laser doing real damage, as opposed to being a glorified flame-thrower? Because this whole thing smacks of propaganda to me.

That's not true at all

[Weaselmancer]

I assure you - the Cleveland Browns would still suck if they played by NBA rules. They could fuck up a game of Calvinball.

Not a waste

[mozzis]

The ABL has yielded many many benefits: modeling, control systems, adaptive optics, laser chemistry, CFD analysis. Yes, in the end it has to actually be able to shoot down a missle, but all of the advances that were funded by the ABL development mean that subsequent generations of DE weapons get developed in progressively shorter amounts of time. The ABL with its COIL laser is arguably the most mature laser weapon and certainly the most powerful at this point. But the nextgen systems like HELLADS will certainly be more compact and efficient (think orders of magnitude) and will take much less time to develop as well. That is why it is important to invest in promising technology even if it will not yield an immediately useful product. Heated debate serves to help determine which technologies are truly "promising" and which are just wastes of resources. But in the case of ABL it seems the US made the right choice and is starting to reap the benefits.

Re:stupid waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't project the image you think you do, teenybopper.

Re:Truck mounted? Think Carcharhiniformes!!!

[RichiH]

5. And the carcharhiniforme mounted on a Trebutchet!

Richard

PS: Ninjas are cooler than pirates!

Re:stupid waste of money

[czarangelus]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people take precious time out of their lives to gripe about the things I say.

Not new

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard Iran has these...

Re:stupid waste of money

[Anonymous Coward]

Banned from FARK? That's like being kicked out of a family of skunks because of your awful body odor...Like being kicked out of hell for taking things too far. You really need to find a positive channel for all this aggression. I suggest public kitten-stomping. It might improve your image at least.

we arent living

[nimbius]

in a futuristic world until I see a god damned shark with a god damned laser attached to it. to date the only successful application has been with sea bass.

Hmm, I dunno...

[RichiH]

...while this tech is inevitable, I fail to see how it is cool. If anything, it speeds up the non-nuculer (sic) arms race.

Line of Sight?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the UAV can be targeted by your laser truck, it already knows where your laser truck is located. Can the laser stop a guided missle?

Horribly misleading title - it shot down a UAV

[NatteringNabob]

An Unmanned areal vehicle. This much closer to wood model than it is to something like, say, a Cessna 154. They aren't armored, they fly really, really slow, and they are built to be ultra light so they can fly a long time. It is totally unsurprising that a relatively low powered laser could shoot down a UAV.

*sigh*

[bpsbr_ernie]

Still no Buck Rodgers sound effect when it fires...

The cycle continues.

[fafaforza]

Ahh great, let's develop another weapon with possibly public money (yes I realize Boeing is private, but it isn't out of the scope of possibility), have it fall into the hands of people we don't like, then demand that more public money/resources be used to develop more advanced weapons to counter the earlier ones.

Sort of like that Bugs Bunny cartoon with an ever bigger gun. Great advances for humanity.

Scaling and progress

[Weaselmancer]

It goes like this: No concievable missile shield could shoot down any significant number of incoming missiles. The Russians would always be able to overwhelm the defenses with shear numbers, making the system worthless.

Totally true, if you only have a few lasers. And that's all we have now at the moment. It's worth mentioning though that originally back in the 50's we only had a few transistors and they were the size of dixie cups.

Now I'm not saying that laser equipment will scale like that, but I am saying that it will scale to some degree. Maybe there is a Mitch Taylor-esque lab coat out there somewhere who is going to figure out something better. In fact I'm sure there is.

We're just now getting to the point where lasers are becoming battlefield possibilities. These are essentially laser flint lock rifles. But - enough R&D and eventually we'll move up to six shooters, gatling guns, full auto machine guns, Phalanx anti missile gun points... All it takes is successive small improvements, and you can't get those without the original flint lock gun. As they say, the rest is details.

Put a few hundred planes in the air that have increased effectiveness laser systems with millisecond reload and a few hundred shot capability and suddenly you might have that workable shield.

As it is today, maybe the scenario plays out the way you suggest. But that's only if the tech stands still and never improves. And it's a sure bet that it won't.

Re:Scaling and progress

[Anonymous Coward]

and wouldn't it be a great end to the nuclear arms race?

we've been relying on MAD for so long, and sitting on enough nukes to destroy the world, for so long, wouldn't it be great to start a new era?

i'll take a missile defense shield any day over the current option!

Re:Scaling and progress

[Weaselmancer]

we've been relying on MAD for so long, and sitting on enough nukes to destroy the world, for so long, wouldn't it be great to start a new era?

It's a hydra. Cut off one head, a new one will grow to replace it. I'm all for this - don't get me wrong - but this isn't going to make war or mass destruction obsolete.

It will take care of the nuke problem, and that is definitely a good thing. And as a side bonus it will also invalidate aircraft and that means aerial bombing in general. After all, if you can zap an inbound missile you can just as easily zap an airplane. Warfare (between technologically advanced societies anyway) would move back to the ground. Boats, tanks, landing craft.

Until someone figures out a way around the lasers that is. And I already know what that will most likely be. Asteroid manipulation.

Sure. Just nudge a decent sized asteroid towards your enemy's city/base/whatever. Too much mass for a laser to stop. Not hard to get plenty of kinetic energy out of the impact. Easily on the order of a nuke.

So warfare will move out into space. Ships with lasers burning holes in each other until only one is left, and that one will rain debris from orbit onto the loser.

The good news is that if WWIII is fought that way, at least our species will have a chance of survival. No radioactivity like with nukes. Maybe a miniature ice age while the dust settles but otherwise survivable.

Hard to believe that's a happy option, but compared to nuclear war it actually is.

Re:Scaling and progress

[BlueParrot]

Put a few hundred planes in the air that have increased effectiveness laser systems with millisecond reload and a few hundred shot capability and suddenly you might have that workable shield.

Except by the time you start pushing for that kind of system the Russians could counter by building enough missiles and warheads to drop thousands of bombs over the US, with each missile releasing hundreds of decoys so you can only shoot down the real ones after they enter the atmosphere.

If even 5% out of a thousand warheads go through you just lost 50 cities.

Would you seriously wish to gamble on whether your shield could reliably detect and shoot down a few thousand incoming warheads without any slip-ups ?

 

Re:Scaling and progress

[Weaselmancer]

Would I wish to gamble that? Hell no. I don't care how good the tech is - I don't want nukes flying towards me no matter what.

I'm just saying where the tech is going is all. Let me put it another way.

Let's say someone in 1952 had looked at the transistor and said "it'll take millions of these to do any meaningful computation - doesn't this look like a waste of time?"

I think laser weaponry is similar. What if it becomes easy and cheap? It will someday. Too many people want it, too many people are working on it. What will that mean?

Laser targeting systems are orders of magnitude easier than ordinance. You don't have to allow for gravity, wind - anything. Line of sight, point and click. Given enough lasers and enough ammo I doubt a serious aggressor could lob enough ordinance - decoys included - to do anything other than waste their time and resources.

That was what I meant about *scale*. When these things become easy and cheap, when they become something that costs 1/100th of what we're spending, when you can put one on the back of a humvee and get 100 shots with it - we can bristle the coastlines with them. Hit the on button and nothing larger than a softball comes within 15 miles of the coast.

When that happens the ICBM will become a dinosaur. So will most bomber classes of aircraft. It'll be a new situation. It won't make war impossible, but it will make tactical nukes very very impractical. For everyone - military secrets are the most fleeting of all. Soon as we get this up and running, Russia and China will have it two weeks later. A perfect situation. They can't nuke us, and we can't nuke them.

fuck you mods

[Shakrai]

I love it. For pointing out the folly of mass bombardment I'm labeled a troll. I wonder if it was a pissed off white trash redneck conservative who disagreed with me or a aging hippie liberal douche that couldn't bother to read what I wrote?

Revenge!

[djnewman]

Will this finally stop the morons that shine laser pointers at airplanes?

Screw cars; Can it hit a person

[WindBourne]

It is time to equip UAVs with this and be able to take out individuals. That would be useful in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan. For example, we spot a top AQ leaders, then we take him right away. I like the speed of this as well as the ability to hit small targets. Also useful would be the ability to protect some of our structures. Recently, AQ hit one of our forward bases in Afghanistan that had less than 50 ppl at it. They sent several hundred to attack. A UAV that is in the air that can easily spot and take out enemies in the area would be useful.

Re:Screw cars; Can it hit a person

[drinkypoo]

It is time to equip UAVs with this and be able to take out individuals.

Uh, what? We can already build tiny UAVs that have explosives in them, which are probably cheaper to crash into people than just to fire this sucker, and use them to take people out. We also have sentry gun robots these days, it would be a triviality to turn them into sniper robots which can recognize targets and take them out from extreme long range. Just drop them psuedorandomly around areas that you suspect your targets will pass through. There's tons of high-tech ways to kill people much more effective than the crossbow project.

Re:stupid waste of money

[maxwell demon]

Whoosh!
Hint: Look at the first letters of "obviously old originals". Anything special about them?

So *that's* what happened this morning...

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder air traffic control went haywire! Planes were being shot down by friggin' lasers!

Stop screwing around.

[DarthVain]

Mount one a a frickin' aircraft carrier and see what kind of damage you can do. I mean those things got what a nuclear plant on them to draw energy from!

Just make sure you point it away from your eyes...

Re:stupid waste of money

[maxwell demon]

Oh, and I overlooked one detail in your post: No, it was mot mine. It was the one of ColdWetDog.

Yay! The FUTURE!

[thesandtiger]

I'm so glad we have better ways to kill people!

Seriously, I'm amazed that people are excited about even more warporn. Sure it'll hopefully have non-military spin-offs, but I guess I just can't get all gleeful over the idea that we now have a much more modern way of ending the lives of other human beings.

Re:Yay! The FUTURE!

[Jeian]

The reason we get excited about these things is because, since there's no reason to think that humankind is going to stop fighting wars any time soon, these kinds of precision weapons make things a lot nicer (or, to put it better, a lot less bad) for the civilians who happen to live in the countries involved.

Put it this way, 60 years ago, if we found out an enemy general was going to be staying in a specific hotel on a certain night, we'd have to send up a lot of bombers, many of which might get shot down, and the remainder had a pretty good chance of missing their target and hitting anything in the surrounding residential areas.

Nowadays, if we find an al-Quaida leader is staying in a specific house, we have the capability to take him out - in the middle of a residential area, even - without touching any of the neighboring houses.

War is hell, don't get me wrong, but the less collateral damage we do when conducting it... the better.

Re:Yay! The FUTURE!

[aXis100]

I'm not so sure that shining 100kw plus of laser at a target will reduce colateral damage. Anyone who sees it could be hurt by simple reflections. Expect the blind casualties to start increasing.

Re:Yay! The FUTURE!

[thesandtiger]

I get that - not sure I buy it, since we're clearly still doing a ton of collateral damage despite FAR more sophisticated & accurate targeting, mainly due to operator error - but I get it.

What I was responding to was the incredibly moronic bit in the summary about how this somehow indicates we live in the fantastic world of tomorrow. Interestingly, I don't see those "It's the FUTURE!" comments when there are articles about improved medical techniques or things that will make life better - I guess blowing shit up with lasers is somehow a better sign of progress than being able to cure diseases or repair injuries that previously were not remotely treatable.

Sounds like a great weapon

[StoatBringer]

...unless it's raining. Or cloudy. Or foggy. Or dusty. Or smoggy. Or snowing.

Free power

[Anonymous Coward]

Now. Put photovoltaic cells on your plane. Call in a threat. Enjoy your free power!

"Directed-Energy" and lasers versus sticks

[iliketrash]

The phrase "directed-energy weapons" for lasers always cracks me up. Show me a weapon that is not "directed-energy." Hell, hitting someone over the head with a stick is "directed-energy."

As every EVE player knows...

[spedrosa]

Wouldn't making your plane or missile shiny / reflective defeat these things pretty easily?

... one cannot have 100% EM and thermal resists.

I can already hear the engineers response...

[bytethese]

...to how this is possible: "As you know, Mitch and I were working on the cyanide system. Well, earlier today it ate itself. But, these little set-backs are just what we need to take a giant step forward. Right, Kent? Needless to say, I was a little despondent about the melt down, but then, in the midst of my preparations for hari kiri, it came to me. It is possible to synthesize excited bromide in an argon matrix. Yes, it's an excimer frozen in its excited state. It's a chemical laser but in solid, not gaseous, form. Put simply, in deference to you, Kent, it's like lasing a stick of dynamite. As soon as we apply a field, we couple to a state, it is radiatively coupled to the ground state. I figure we can extract at least ten to the twenty-first photons per cubic centimeter which will give one kilojoule per cubic centimeter at 600 nanometers, or, one megajoule per liter."

"Homeland?"

[Phoenix666]

Cool feat. Made a lot less cool by the use of the term "homeland" to refer to what used to be known as the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave."

Genius Circa 1985

[DarkMachine]

OMG "All you need is a large spinning mirror and you could vaporise a human target from space!!" Apparently the scientists who worked this one up didn't consider the implications, or maybe they did. At least the students in the movie made the right choice. Search IMDB for "Real Genius"

Did you get a job yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

You sad little waste of skin.

Re:Did you get a job yet?

[czarangelus]

Such churlish behavior merely convinces me that I'm barking up the right tree.

Re:What's next?

[BlackSnake112]

OK sharks out we get it.

How about we use Pomeranians with laser beams on their heads? no too long.

How about rats with laser beams on their heads! Plus the added advantage of the rat chewing its way through walls and almost anything else in its way.

So Rats with laser beams on their heads. Or someone could just create millions of mousers (from TMNT )and set them loose.

Switching to guns

[TalShiar00]

"As part of the overall counter-UAV demonstration, Boeing also successfully test-fired a lightweight 25mm machine gun from the Laser Avenger platform to potentially further the hybrid directed energy/kinetic energy capability against UAV threats." I hope the person demonstrating said, "He is too close for lasers, switching to guns"

it is possible

[Anonymous Coward]

it is possible to have a surface shiny enough to reflect the laser ! what do you think the mirrors in the laser's cavities are made from? they are probably front silvered mirrors that can get 99.999% (several more powers depending on cost) efficiency.

design

[Anonymous Coward]

design a mirror that doesnt increase reflectivity to 100%. so its self cleaning and then simply design a material that results in a curve that gives the maximum time that the weapon can survive an attack, combine with integrated active cooling systems on the essential parts. even sacrificial specially designed layers like the tiles on the space shuttle that heat up and then peel off taking heat with them. also reservoirs and channels of liquid might help by having a large latent heat, and cooling by phase changing to a gas and then being released.

make the missile spin so that different surfaces are exposed spreading the heat absorption. combine with insulators placed specifically to defend against lasers.

one thing is for sure the requirements to destroy a missile can be increased a lot, is it by enough orders of magnitude so that the laser system can be made uneconomical/impractical.

Re:design

[Anonymous Coward]

design a mirror that doesnt increase reflectivity to 100%... i meant to type ..increase absorption to 100%

Re:stupid waste of money

[macTijn]

Woah, dude, you must be Digger T. Rock, because you buried yourself twice!

Picture shows what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see the plane being shot down in the picture. I see the plane being illuminated by the light. I don't even see smoke.

Homeland security....

[ZosX]

I couldn't read past the quote under the picture "defending the homeland...."

Is it just me or is "homeland" starting to sound increasingly like "motherland" or "fatherland" as the germans put it??

This kind or rhetoric is getting dangerous as it is starting to become a part of our speech and thinking. What happened to country or nation? Now we have homeland. Oh what a slippery slope and we've fallen halfway there. I don't think 9/11 was an inside job, but anymore, I would be hardly surprised. I think we need less weapons and better public relations. People are very against a complete new world order, (and for good reasons given the directions we are going in) but until we start working together as a human race instead of killing each other over lines in the sand we will never become a peaceful society. Hope things get better!

Re:stupid waste of money

[Jeian]

Espousing unpopular viewpoints does not automatically make you or the viewpoints correct.

Ray guns are not just the future!

[Anonymous Coward]

What are we to do? Where are we to go?

Nah! Frickin' 'roos with frickin' beach balls

[HiggsBison]

Can I now have fricking sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads?

Those old things? No, I want the frickin' kangaroos who, when you buzz them, regroup behind a sand dune and fire frickin' surface-to-air beachballs.

What are we even fighting for?

[bigtrike]

You don't fight fair -- you fight to win. We used to understand that. Our enemies still do.

And what exactly is a "win" in the context of afghanistan? We need to make sure that whatever we do to "win," whatever that even is in this context, doesn't create more enemies.

Re:What are we even fighting for?

[Shakrai]

I would define a win as killing those responsible for the 9/11 attacks and leaving a government in place that doesn't allow such groups to set up shop again. I don't even care if that Government happens to be the Taliban, provided that they keep their violence confined to Afghanistan and have a clear understanding of the consequences of harboring groups that seek to kill Americans.

It was a huge mistake to define this operation as a liberation of the Afgani people. It's up to them to liberate themselves. It's up to us to see to it that our citizens aren't murdered by fanatical nutjobs.

Re:What are we even fighting for?

[BoothbyTCD]

He obviously thinks we should 'win' like Alexander 'won' in the area now known as Afghanistan, i.e. by killing every male inhabitant between 8 and 80. This is of course a silly course of action, along the lines of the famous Vietnam quote about having to destroy the village in order to save it. This is why foreign policy should not be planned by the moral equivalent of Internet Toug Guys.

Re:What are we even fighting for?

[Anonymous Coward]

He obviously thinks we should 'win' like Alexander 'won' in the area now known as Afghanistan, i.e. by killing every male inhabitant between 8 and 80.

On second thought, why stop there? Burn the entire place to the ground, leaving no possibility of retaliation by later generations. Kill *all* the inhabitants, regardless of age or gender. Don't discriminate, you hypocrite.

Yup it was a saudi

[nietsch]

Osama Bin-Laden is a Saudi. From a high class Saudi family apparently. Iraq/Saddam Hoessein never supported al-qaida.

Blanket response

[istartedi]

(to avoid the "slow down cowboy" problem)

halivar -- It was a visceral reaction to the story. Of course there are other uses for it, probably some very good uses as you suggest; but the context in which it was presented was destructive.

All those who complained about the repetition -- A lot of writers use it. Some very good writers use it. Those lame Levis ads that are running now? Pioneer, oh pioneer? That's a Walt Whitman poem. And before anybody says it, NO, I am not comparing myself to Whitman.

To those who like "frickin lasers". Whatever. That meme just never really grabbed me.

boots on the ground

[brokeninside]

The allies had 1 soldier on the ground for close to every 10 German civilians during the occupation immediately after the fall of Berlin. In Afghanistan, a nation of 30 million didn't even see 100,000 soldiers from the coalition of the willing.

Hmmm.

[WindBourne]

Yes, but the question will be, can a UAV equipped with a laser take out other aircrafts and missiles. I mean, you may have an aircraft that is moving at less than 2000 mph with a missile that MAY move at say 4000 mph (Russia's new missiles), vs a UAV that is moving at say 600 mph, but has weapons and intelligence that move at over 100,000 TIMES FASTER AND will have an easier time targeting? I will bet on the slow moving aircraft once the intelligence is improved.

Some concerns about the Railgun

[8086]

This can be a very dangerous weapon if 'the enemy' has mirrors all over their targets that reflect this laser. The invention would be similar to the NASA ballpoint pen if normal mirrors can reflect this laser beam to a non-negligible degree.

Secondly, How do you avoid innocent/friendly fire to those in the line of sight of the laser? Say, there's a village right behind the enemy unit you're targeting with this weapon and the enemy unit is moving faster than you can focus on it. 'Shooting' the laser willy-nilly can really fuck up the village. I guess that wouldn't be a problem if its used in Iraq and Afghanistan since the US army makes it a sport of killing so called Hadjis (thank you Jonny Quest) whether they be innocent or otherwise. In Iraq, it would fit with the drone quad quite naturally.
Still, very dangerous for all involved.

One potential use I see for this weapon (once it is miniaturized to gun size) would be as the ultimate Railgun. Imagine Quake 3 in real life. Running that fast would probably make me dizzy, though.

Re:Some concerns about the Railgun

[mrex]

>This can be a very dangerous weapon if 'the enemy' has mirrors all over their targets that reflect this laser.

Only if they can manage to build mirrors all over the target capable focusing the energy of the weapon back onto the source or another distant target without significant losses. The mirrors would also need to provide total coverage if intended to protect an aerodynamic object, and react nearly at light speed and then hide themselves unless it's acceptable to have a radar cross section the size of the spruce goose.

>Secondly, How do you avoid innocent/friendly fire to those in the line of sight of the laser?

Uhh, I dunno... mirrors?

Already lost when sending troop over.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not really a war. The military was not train for this. There is no strategy for the military to win this kind of war. Winning tactically can't over come the strategic lost.

Providing food for the troops in the field

[Anonymous Coward]

So this thing can shoot down small UAV's with its laser and tracking system...

Pre-cooking and bringing down various flying fowl should be a cake walk for it.

So the next time your troops are in the field and tired of the same old MRE, crank the avenger over to "Lunch" and sit back and wait...