Real-Life Equivalents of Video Game Weapons

antdude writes "This GamesRadar article compares a bunch of fantastic video game weapons and their real-life equivalents: 'There are certain things we just accept in video games. An overweight pipe technician can jump five times his own height. A first aid kit will instantly heal bullet wounds and replace lost blood. And any theoretical physics model can be cleanly packaged into a lightweight, handheld weapon with a minimum of fuss. But in certain cases, that last one isn't too far off the truth. As guano loopy as most game weaponry is, some of it definitely isn't implausible. In fact, some of it exists already. Kind of.'"

Comments

Re:Screw guns from video games

[GigaplexNZ]

You mean like the Orgasmo Ray from the movie Orgasmo?

What the military actually has is more impressive

[Animats]

The U.S. military has some weapons which are much better than many video game weapons. Video games need "balance", so players aren't given weapons that are too "powerful". DoD doesn't have that limitation.

• The Grid Square Removal Service. When a Multiple Launch Rocket System unit is loaded up with rockets with submunitions, it fires 12 rockets, each of which carries 518 submunitions, each of which explodes into a rain of fragments. This kills anything unarmored in a 1km grid square. In the U.S. Army inventory for years. Some Iraqi army units were wiped out with those things.
• The FireFinder radar. Shoot at a U.S. Army unit with an indirect fire weapon, and one of these will see the incoming projectiles, calculate the location of the gun, and pass that information to the U.S. Army guns, which will duly plaster the shooter. Within one minute. Standard equipment for Army and USMC artillery units. The technology dates from the 1970s, but in newer versions, it's been shrunk down to a size a HUMMV can carry.
• The XM-25 "smart" grenade launcher. Useful when someone is shooting at you from behind cover or from a window. Just point at the side of the window, and click a button to get the range with the laser rangefinder. Then fire a round though the window. The round goes through the window, and, with its timer set automatically, explodes 1-2 meters just inside, in the right place for killing the sniper. Finally, a practical weapon that shoots around corners.
• The Combat Engineer Vehicle, another reason the "Dune" approach to desert warfare won't work. These are tank chassis, with the armor, equipped with a bulldozer blade. They're used for removing obstacles. In the first Gulf War, they were used in Kuwait against dug-in Iraqi troops. They didn't bother shooting at them. They just bulldozed sand over their fighting holes, burying them alive.

"If you can see it, you can hit it. If you can hit it, you can kill it." As insurgent groups have figured out, the only way to succeed against a modern military force is to have a population in which to hide, one which the US isn't willing to exterminate.