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The Army Is 3D Printing Warheads
Jason Koebler writes: In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost, the army is planning to print warhead components, according to the latest issue of Army Technology (PDF). "3D printing of warheads will allow us to have better design control and utilize geometries and patterns that previously could not be produced or manufactured," James Zunino, a researcher at the Armament Research, Engineering and Design Center said. "Warheads could be designed to meet specific mission requirements whether it is to improve safety to meet an Insensitive Munitions requirement, or it could have tailorable effects, better control, and be scalable to achieve desired lethality."
Cannot be used for weapon manufacturing or mass surveillance... or anything defined as 'evil' by a FSF committee.
I don't want to be part of the evil masterplans of those basards.
Currently 'patent protection' is defined as evil. But I think most of us agree there are more fundamental evil for which our software can be used...
Wake up RMS!
In any other context the scriptor of those words would be considered a mass murderer/psychopath.
I'm all for efficient killing... wouldn't want to break a nail.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
How about ones that don't explode?
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I know of other groups who would be very interested in being able to print warheads... and might not be able to build anything but primitive warheads with their current technology. I hope they're better at keeping secrets than other branches of government.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
For a long time it hasn't been about how to "kill more people" but rather how to kill "the right people" more efficiently.
We put a huge amount of effort and money into weapon systems that will minimize collateral damage.
As much as it is popular to vilify the US- none of our opponents seem to care as much who they blow up.
Cannot be used for weapon manufacturing or mass surveillance... or anything defined as 'evil' by a FSF committee.
Unpredictable and self-righteous. It would utterly destroy GPLv4 as a viable open source license and the ripple effect would be devastating,
How about ones that don't explode?
Oddly enough, training shells were used by desperate gunners during the battle of Jutland. The normal shells weren't penetrating the armour of the German ships, but the concrete filled training shells were punching right through, dealing surprisingly heavy damage.
You *do* know what the purpose of an army is, right?
What other choices would you prefer? The army shouldn't kill people? The army should kill people inefficiently?
>> In its latest bid to kill more people, more efficiently, and at less cost
> Isn't this what we want all government agencies to strive for? When the military's actual job is to figure out how to kill people and destroy things with maximum effectiveness
In WWII the US military wanted to kill more people, more efficiently. They were pretty good at it.
Since then, it seems the challenge has been to find ways to kill the FEWEST possible number of people, while achieving a strategic goal. We tried to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis. Germans - we just blew them up.
It's not odd, they're known as "Kinetic Energy Weapons". In Iraq the US dropped concrete bombs on military equipment near civilian populations (AA gun battery located in a neighborhood, for example). Equipment is destroyed, but an explosion doesn't take out the surrounding homes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_penetrator
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/10/07/world/us-wields-defter-weapon-against-iraq-concrete-bomb.html
In its latest bid to kill more people
Let me know when you have an objective article I can read. Also, thanks for showing your bias instantly in the summary so I knew not to bother clicking on anything.
"Germans - we just blew them up." Ignoring, of course, everything leading up to our entry.
Sure there are reasons that our methods have changed, of course. That's just not really related to the point I was making. TFS claims that the military is trying to find ways to kill more people, and that's simply the opposite of the truth. They've been working on ways to only blow up a specific room rather than blowing up a building or a city block. Secondly, IF they wanted to kill lots of people, they wouldn't need need to work on methods to do so. They've had the B-52 for 60 years or so. A single B-52 could kill thousands of people per day if you wanted it to. We COULD have wiped out Iraq in about a day and half. Building a democracy in Iraq is much, much more difficult than killing them would be.
You are mistaken. The US actually tried to minimize civilian casualties at the cost of greater US casualties. For example the US bombers generally conducted daytime raids so they could better identify targets and do precision bombing.
Don't misunderstand the US intentions during WWII. The theory going into the war was that air power alone could destroy a country's infrastructure and win the war alone. Obviously, that turned out in hindsight to be wildly optimistic, but they did put a lot of additional pressure on industrial production. The idea was to more effectively damage war industries. I don't recall seeing evidence that avoiding civilian casualties was a significant goal. Cities were avoided early in the war simply for fear of retaliation, but once a single accidental bombing triggered reciprocal bombings by the British, both allies and axis forces bombed civilians with gusto. The US was simply fortunate to be too far away to be attacked effectively, although the Japanese certainly tried *.
Look up the Dresden or Tokyo firebombings. The scale of destruction in those attacks was comparable to an atomic bomb attack of the time. In short, they were horrific events, and supposedly, even the hardened Winston Churchill supposedly blanched when he saw the damage that had been done in those attacks. Curtis LeMay, head of the US army air corp, once remarked that he probably would have been tried as a war criminal had the US lost the war. That being said, we have to be fair - there WERE no such things as "smart" weapons (the Germans had the only one, as I recall), so there simply was no way to really avoid civilian casualties. The Japanese, in particular, utilized a lot of small, widely dispersed cottage industries, so there was little chance of precision strikes anyhow.
I think it's hard for modern civilians to put ourselves into the mindset of that war. Had we not bombed the Japanese into surrender, some US planners estimated that our troops would have suffered anywhere from half a million to several million casualties attempting to take the Japanese mainland, and up to 10 million Japanese would likely have perished, having demonstrated a frighting propensity for defending to the death. What's more, it's possible the Soviet Union would have invaded as well, and Japan may well have been split into communist and western spheres, like so many other post-war nations. Interesting fact from Wikipedia: We manufactured so many purple hearts in anticipation of that invasion (500,000) that we were able to use that stockpile of combat medals for the next 50+ years. We probably have about a hundred thousand or so left until we have to make a new batch.
As horrible as it sounds, the hammer blows of the nuclear bombs may have saved millions of lives, including Japanese lives. There was no real evidence that the Japanese were entertaining surrender at that time. Dropping a nuke on inhabited cities is neither something to be proud of, nor should we expect forgiveness for it, but it's important to see the actions in their proper context. It was an ugly finish to an ugly war, and we should be glad we haven't seen anything like it since.
I don't mean to belittle those who feel strongly against weapon development (ok, maybe just a bit of teasing). After all, if more people felt like them, the world would probably be a better place for everyone. Even so, I think it's best to keep a realistic view of the current world situation, and to keep a broader historical perspective in mind.
* We had our own wacky bomb project designed to strike back at Japan, but unlike the Japanese balloon bombs, the project never saw fruition. Likewise, the British had
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Did I just read people want to design warheads to improve safety? Whoever said that should be locked up in a mental institution.
Yes, safer would be more accurate to reach an intended target. Perhaps" farther" would be a consideration as well. Greater damage upon impact would be a nice goal of efficiency, as well.
I wonder if there are some designs for printing bullets to reload in MY guns, based on this concept. That would be awesome.
Perhaps dimpling them like a golf ball, or adding an explosive payload inside....
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Democracy bombs should have been outlawed in Geneva. What a horrible thing to do to another country! It's like giving others venereal warts on purpose.
There needs to be a vaccine for democrazy.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The normal shells weren't penetrating the armour of the German ships, but the concrete filled training shells were punching right through, dealing surprisingly heavy damage.
That's because in their training the Germans were only exposed to abstract shells.
Oh poppycock. It wasn't until well after the battle from second hand observations of the Germans boasting about how crappy the British shells were that it was known how bad they truly were. And if you believe during even a lengthy battle as this that it was determined that somehow Xlbs of concrete rather than Xlbs of AP shell would be better I've a bridge to sell you.
I'm not saying that. What I am saying is "gunners were seeing their shells were hitting but not doing anything, so they thought something along the lines of "Fuck it, lets use the concrete ones instead, they couldn't be any more useless than the normal ones!" and found out that they were rather more effective.
In a stand up fight, "smashing through armour with something that shouldn't be able to do that" beats "barely scratching armour with something that is supposed to get through" any day.