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DARPA Successfully Demonstrates Self-Guiding Bullets

Posted by Soulskill on from the jerks-with-aim-bots dept.

Lucas123 writes: A DARPA-funded project has successfully developed a .50 caliber sniper round capable of maneuvering during flight in order to remain on target. The self-guiding EXACTO bullet, as it's being called, is optically guided by a laser that must remain on target for the bullet to track. The EXACTO round is capable of accurately tracking a target up to 1.2 miles away, DARPA stated. The technology, which is being developed by Teledyne Scientific and Imaging, is targeted at helping snipers remain at longer distances from targets as well as improving night shots. While DARPA's tracking bullet is the first to use a standard, small-arms caliber round, in 2012 Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) successfully demonstrated a prototype self-guided bullet that was more like like a four-inch dart.

10 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Alternate use for this technology by MobyDisk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Imagine a round that *avoids* a target. No more friendly fire!

    1. Re:Alternate use for this technology by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Rest assured that a hack is already in the making.

      I don't get the US. I mean, by now you should have noticed that the bigger and more complicated the technology, the more you play into your opponent's hands. First of all, you're using high tech weapons in a low tech war. You can't really fire any round anymore that doesn't cost you more than what your target cost your enemy. Welcome to asymmetric warfare. I don't know why I have to say it, I thought it's obvious: You're essentially in the unfunny situation the British were in when you had your fight for independence. And on top of it you also have to pose as the good guy, you can't even simply level the land and bury what's living under the rubble.

      In basically all the wars the US had gotten into lately, they had the superior technology and the inferior position. Let's look at the stats. The US is fighting an enemy who not only doesn't give half a shit about collateral damage (the US at least have to pretend they care, so they can't use the aforementioned "scorched earth" tactics), an enemy that does not identify itself as such (so pretty much anyone and everyone could be hostile), while at the same time those that are NOT hostile may not be touched (since the US want to be the "good" guy and the backlash is considerable when something surfaces). And unlike the average US soldier, the enemy doesn't even give a shit whether he survives the war.

      That's not a position from which you can win a war. The US loses unless they win, their enemy wins as long as they don't lose. That cannot be won in a scenario where your enemy is in a position where it does not matter to him how many resources he loses as long as he can inflict damage on you.

      Precision bombing and precision shooting is a fine thing if you have a target. That's the main problem the US is facing today. It's trivial for them to eliminate any target anywhere on the planet. The problem is FINDING it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:Alternate use for this technology by harrkev · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't get the US. I mean, by now you should have noticed that the bigger and more complicated the technology, the more you play into your opponent's hands. First of all, you're using high tech weapons in a low tech war. You can't really fire any round anymore that doesn't cost you more than what your target cost your enemy.

      Off topic, I admit, but this reminds me of the current Isreal/Hamaas conflict. Just launch simple, dumb, and cheap unguided rockets from the Gaza Strip. Isreal has an "Iron Dome" defense system that is supposedly pretty effective at stopping them -- at $1,000,000 per shot. Great way to bankrupt an enemy...

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    3. Re:Alternate use for this technology by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 1, Insightful

      "The Israelis have caged a bunch of humans"

      Bullshit. Take a look at a map. You notice there's a country bordering Gaza called Egypt? The Israelis are stopping them from going to and from Egypt? Looks like a pretty leaky cage.

      And he's a clue for you.......if "Palestinian" Muslims don't want to be be treated like animals, maybe they ought to stop acting like animals.

      --
      "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    4. Re:Alternate use for this technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And thats why "hearts and minds" is so important, something few of the soldiers will accept despite it being part of their fucking orders. The only way to win is to get the population to turn against the antagonists who are hiding amongst them, rather than sheltering them and providing them with supplies.

  2. Re:Creepy by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seriously, the only way this could be spoof-proof is to modulate the laser with some type of crypto.

    In practice, by the time you realize that a sniper was targeting you, it is too late to start spoofing.

  3. Further Cowardice Encouragement by scarboni888 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Or as Roger Waters put it: The Bravery of Being Out of Range.

  4. Re:We are winning! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Its cheaper, but less effective.

    American "soft power" has been used across the world for decade and the sad truth is, in some places, it just doesn't work (in some places, it works fantastically). Even if you feed them, cloth them, house them and provide free healthcare, its not good enough. Some of them, they want jobs. Some of them, they want power. Some of them, they want to get the fuck out because they can't see themselves making a life for themselves there.

  5. Re:We are winning! by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you Americans simply had taken out the bad apples and left, this would have been a minimal affair. Instead the Gleichgeschaltete Propaganda of the American Imperium told people that "now we have to build schools, and hospitals and and and".

    If you don't build schools, the "bad apples" will be back in less than a generation. In a society that's so fucked up, people will inevitably turn to radical ideologies that blame all their troubles on external enemies.

  6. Re:Creepy by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No one is going to waste a $250 smart bullet attached to a $5000 weapon system on some kid.

    The Iraq war has killed an estimated 300,000, and we have spent about $500 BILLION to do it. That comes out to about $1.7 million per kill, and MANY of them were kids. $250, or even $5000, is an infinitesimal sliver of a rounding error when it comes to the cost of a war.