US Congress Funds Laser Weapons 423
An anonymous reader writes "The Washington Post reports that the US Congress is funding laser weapons for use in the near future. Low-power lasers called 'dazzlers' are already being used in Iraq to temporarily reduce a person's vision. High-power laser weapons would allow precision attacks that minimize civilian casualties. From the Post: 'The science board said tactical laser systems could be developed for broader use because they "enable precision ground attack to minimize collateral damage in urban conflicts." The report suggested, for example, that "future gunships could provide extended precision lethality and sensing." The board also proposed using lasers to protect against rockets, artillery, mortars and unmanned airborne vehicles by blasting them out of the sky. Last month, the Army awarded Boeing $36 million to continue development of a high-energy laser mounted on a truck that could hit overhead targets. But deployment is not expected until 2016, even if all goes well.'"
Re:Cue Shark Jokes in 3 2 1 (Score:5, Informative)
Cue
2. anything that excites to action; stimulus.
8. to insert, or direct to come in, in a specific place in a musical or dramatic performance (usually fol. by in or into): to cue in a lighting effect.
Gotta love Grammar nazis though. Though "Queue" also works.
Re:Cue Shark Jokes in 3 2 1 (Score:4, Informative)
Nothing new here... (Score:5, Informative)
Shagadelic Jumbo Jet with laser! (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1 [wikipedia.org]
Oh, behave!
Misleading Summary, we ALREADY fund Lasers... (Score:5, Informative)
Tm
Re:Umm, fund how? (Score:3, Informative)
They printed it yesterday.
Re:compact=gitmo (Score:2, Informative)
Only if very nearly perfectly reflective at the laser wavelength, and then only if kept perfectly clean.
Something like this would be far more difficult for a low-tech insurgent to deploy than, say, a PIC [yahoo.com], a cellphone, some vectorboard, a length of det cord, and a hunk of C4.
Actually, we spend a lot less than in Ike's day (Score:5, Informative)
And your history and math are wrong. Ike warned of the military industrial complex, not on the use of the military, which he obviously supported, you know, having led the largest invasion in world history. But anti-military types just love to misquote Ike.
The US spends *much less* of its GDP than it did in Ike's time, much less.
The left should be pleased that defense spending as a percentage of the federal budget has steadily declined during the past decades. In the early 1960s the Department of Defense constituted 45 percent of federal spending, whereas this year it will constitute an estimated 17 percent, according to the Office of Management and Budget. Source [csmonitor.com]
As the article points out, the real scandal is the ever-increasing entitlement pending that is going to bankrupt America.
Re:Treasury's Bailout Package (Score:0, Informative)
Sec. 8. Review.
Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.
Let's give the Treasury Sec. (who used to work for Goldman Sachs) the ability to give $700 billion to his criminal friends without any oversight, ever. Great idea.
OLD Friggen news this is so 1980's! (Score:3, Informative)
This is old news not new. The military (Air Force) was testing pulse lasers back in the 1980's. They mounted them inside the back of a C-130 aircraft. They could only get about 5 - 6 shots before the battery packs would be drained. As soon as they had their first sucessful tests, suddenly the Air Force said they were shutting down their development because they said the pulse lasers tended to blind the enemy. Hmmm contradictory to this story on the vision thing.... But this is fact not fiction, they had these things in the 1980's.. This is first hand knowledge....
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Re:A sick world (Score:3, Informative)
Either you're a leftist troll, or somebody with a big heart who has simply been seriously deceived by the Establishment. You might want to check out this [wikipedia.org] pie chart. We spend about 2/3 of our budget on "programs of [pretended] social uplift." These programs do not, for the most part, "uplift" people. But they do ensure that Democrats keep getting elected. Which is their real purpose.
There are programs designed to ensure Republicans get re-elected too. They're just as evil, but not nearly as expensive.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Informative)
With the ATL (AC-130/chemlaser described above)... If you get hit by the beam, you're pretty much dead. Current RoE prohibit using a laser to intentionally blind or maim someone. ATL is really intended for attacks on physical targets where explosive munitions are either too noisy/obvious, or they can cause too much collateral damage.
Consider a case where insurgents or rebellious forces have taken over an anthrax factory. You don't really want to drop a JDAM on top of it. Or if they've set up near a culturally significant mosque. For political reasons, you don't want to drop a JDAM on their equipment.
Re:Battlefield Use (Score:5, Informative)
This is an oft-repeated and untrue myth. It is not illegal to shoot a human target with a
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1573 [professionalsoldiers.com]
This is your JAG speaking:
.50 cal is not contrary to the Law of War, anymore than use of 7.62/.308 or 5.56/.223.
.50 cal, do it. If you can just as well smother an objective with 7.62 and save those few & heavy .50 cal MLB for your M2's in favor of lighter 7.62 1-4, save the heavy duty ammo for when you need it.
.50 cal bulls--t before, along with comments that the following are prohibited by "Geneva Conventions":
Greenhat is absolutely correct. Use of a
If you need to shoot with a
What is contrary to the Law of War (and the Principle of War - Economy of Force) is using more than you need to, given the choice, wasting a limited supply of ammo and endangering civlians or good guys who may be miles away.
I've heard this
- handcuffing prisoners of war.
- blindfolding prisoners of war.
- photographing prisoners of war.
- males searching female prisoners of war.
- use of silenced weapons.
In fact, of course, none of the above are prohibited.
If you don't trust this source, then try asking your own JAG. Don't just ask random soldiers or superiors you work with, but go straight to a trustworthy source of information on these laws.
Re:Berserk Home Militia Idiots (Score:3, Informative)
The background check isn't really minimal, and you can only be transferred a gun in your state of residence. Unless your "Mexican Drug Lord" is also a legal US citizen, it's not going to happen. Not without the hollywood style "gun shop ignores the rules" style dealer, which generally doesn't happen. Gun store owners have been hit up with so much legal nonsense these days that they're afraid to breath around a customer for fear of not getting the paperwork straight (of which one incident can shut them down forever, and resulting in jail time for themselves).
Re:Again with the lasers (Score:3, Informative)
"The "precision" argument is Pentagon bullshit. "
No, the bullshit is what you are spewing.
1) The size and weight of laser weapon systems on the drawing boards right now are meant for C-130s and F-35s. Not helicopters. The size and weight are prohibitive.
2) Beam precision is are defined by the optics. In the case of the laser weapons being produced, that is accomplished by deformable mirrors.
3) A laser weapon is not "on" for very long. They are pulsed lasers with target dwell times on the order of a couple seconds. There will be no "raking" of unintended targets.
4) "until the chopper moves outside the range of the pointing device" You have no idea what real aerospace engineering involves.
5) Light scattering? Perhaps you should look at the videos of prototype tests of these lasers. Oddly enough, the cameras, which were right next to the targets, were not destroyed.
The astute reader will use their education, knowledge, facts, and reasoning to understand the actual science and engineering behind this, instead of listening to someone who demonstrates that they have no real knowledge base in physics or engineering. Yes, I am an aerospace engineer, and I have published papers on directed energy weapon systems.
Re:compact=gitmo (Score:5, Informative)
A mirror will reflect some percentage of light that hits it, and absorb the rest. A sufficiently high-power laser will mean that the absorbed percentage is high enough to melt or burn the mirror.
If you put a mirror in the sun on a hot day then the back of it will become warmer than the surrounding air, which acts as a demonstration of this. The density of energy from the sun is quite small in comparison, however. Most anti-laser designs involve rotating mirrors, so that the mirror only has to survive a small fraction of a second before being the laser starts hitting a different part.
If you shoot a mirror (or anything other than a perfect black body) with such a laser then there will be some reflection, which is roughly analogous to a ricochet from a bullet. How much energy is contained in this depends on the intensity of the beam, the reflectiveness of the mirror, and the shape of the object at the point where it's hit (if it's not flat then the energy will be the same, but it will be dispersed or focussed).
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:5, Informative)
This is simply wrong. The peak of civilian killing was WWII, when entire cities were targeted because that's as accurate as the bombers could get. Not only did this culminate in the complete destruction of two Japanese cities, but the US had already killed far more civilians with firebombs than it managed to kill with nukes. And the Japanese were hardly in a position to complain after their own actions in Korea and China.
Now we have weapons that are precisely targeted. So much so we can use bombs filled with concrete to destroy AA installations parked in civilian neighborhoods without killing people in the house next door. That AA position would surely have been destroyed in earlier wars as well, and it would have been done with 2000 pound bombs dropped on the entire neighborhood, or, more recently, a more precisely targeted 500 pound bomb that destroyed the AA installation because it was accurate enough to hit the house next door. Which is worse, do you think?
The laser would give us the option to be very precise, to the point where we could destroy vehicle tracks on an advancing armored column without injuring the soldiers inside. Someday that will be SOP, where countries that inflict unnecessary losses on enemy soldiers will be roundly criticized.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, and it is even more concerning because the eye's blink reflex will not occur, increasing the damage. Infrared laser == nasty.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
The peak of civilian killing was WWII, when entire cities were targeted because that's as accurate as the bombers could get.
I've been surprised to find out that people weren't aware that Hitler fired (not personally, I believe) large rockets right into the middle of London, as well as just dropping tonnes of high explosives randomly over major cities [wikipedia.org]. Everyone used to run into air-raid shelters, or down the Underground stations, meaning that only 43,000 were killed.
Children were sent from the cities to live with random strangers in the countryside [wikipedia.org], to protect the next generation, I assume.
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:2, Informative)
Yes, and it is even more concerning because the eye's blink reflex will not occur, increasing the damage. Infrared laser == nasty.
It depends on the wavelength... The closer you get to the visible spectrum the more dangerous for the eye. However, there is a generally accepted cut-off in the near infrared region where you really stop worrying about it being to "bright" for your eyes to handle. At that cut-off point if the reflection or even direct beam isn't strong enough burn/vaporize flesh your good.
-bc
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Mod tags up, pls [offtopic, obviously] (Score:2, Informative)
I know that tags are in BETA (BTW, is that Goggle's Beta or Plain Old Beta?) but I wish I could mod tags up.
I mean, pewpewpew and sharkswithfrickinlasers would certainly deserve that :)
Re:Cartoon battlefield (Score:3, Informative)
Shrapnel already happens with high-powered bullets; and most bullet or laser shrapnel is small enough to generally not cause serious injury or death.