Laser Takes Out Truck Engine From a Mile Away 274
MutualFun (1730480) writes Aerospace company Lockheed Martin has used a laser to obliterate the engine of a small truck from more than a mile away. (Finally, Star Wars is making a comeback!) The company says, "The demonstration marked the first field testing of an integrated 30-kilowatt, single-mode fiber laser weapon system prototype. Through a technique called spectral beam combining, multiple fiber laser modules form a single, powerful, high-quality beam that provides greater efficiency and lethality than multiple individual 10-kilowatt lasers used in other systems."
One million dollars (Score:5, Funny)
But can they be mounted on sharks? That is the real question...
Re:One million dollars (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One million dollars (Score:4, Funny)
This is Jesus.
Stop playing with yourself.
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Right. Because everybody wants to rule the world...
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Sorry man, the thing is, he wants /. to be like it was and not how it is now, which is like reddit, with movie quotes and in-jokes. Don't be too hard on the old timers. I get that we need to evolve and talk about Pokeyman and make references to '10 era teen comedies or whatever but we have a hard time with that :-/
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Local man passionate defender of what he imagines Slashdot to be.
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The government gives big corporations tax dollars to kill people and destroy their property. Since it is done with secrecy, citizens can't have any control. Killing people is the most profitable business in the United States. And... Many of the citizens joke about the killing. Don't they realize that killing people is theft from their pocketbooks?
No, of course they don't. The American people, on average, don't know much. See my sig for further insight.
Re:NOT a joking matter: Moths in your pocketbook. (Score:4, Insightful)
But there are other governments/organizations paying other corporations a lot of currency to come up with weapons to kill us.
The nice thing about Lasers is that it is a directed weapon so you can hit your target, and not hurt what is around it.
how much it took (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it took a week to make a small hole, that's an important detail.
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Maybe it took a week to make a small hole, that's an important detail.
And what did it cost compared to firing a single armor piercing bullet?
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0.1% of the kill rate of an A10 Warthog, for only 1000 times the cost. But hey, somebody's making a lot of money here, so we can't complain.
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Don't forget the uranium in the bullets it sprays all over the place.
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Interesting)
0.1% of the kill rate of an A10 Warthog, for only 1000 times the cost. But hey, somebody's making a lot of money here, so we can't complain.
Speed-of-light weapons that have virtually linear trajectories certainly have the potential to change warfare though.
Put it this way - if you pointed that A10 cannon upwards at an aircraft at 70k feet, you'd be hard-pressed to hit it at all. On the other hand, a laser would have relatively little difficulty hitting the aircraft even if it were in geosync orbit, or even on the surface of the moon.
Stick something like this on a plane and you could use it to shoot down incoming missiles, shoot artillery shells in mid-flight, shoot aircraft, and so on.
Sure, the technology is immature, but it certainly is a capability that is valuable for a military to posses.
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A geo synch orbit is about a tenth of a light second away (actually a bit more).
The object in such an orbit is moving with ~3km/sec, that is over 300m in the time a laser beam needs from the ground towards it.
So: hitting it with a laser without artificial aiming/tracking aids is impossible.
Re:how much it took (Score:5, Interesting)
Imagine a satellite ( or something like the ISS ) based weapon that will fire an invisible high-kilowatt ( or even megawatt ) beam on any target it can see from orbit. Maybe combine a few of these satellites onto the same target for even more power output.
Then realize you can pretty much incinerate any human target on the planet, instantly. From orbit. Crank the power output up enough and you can do the same with aircraft, other satellites, light vehicles, ICBM's, etc. The puppet you installed during your regime change a decade ago giving you shit ? No problem. Hope they remember to wear their SPF-10000 today . . . .
On the ground, the target will just heat up, catch fire and die horribly. No collateral damage, nor explanation as to wtf just happened.
Is the tech clumsy today ? Sure it is. All tech starts that way. Compare computers from 20-30 years ago with what is common today if you want to see tech evolution in action.
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Imagine a satellite ( or something like the ISS ) based weapon that will fire an invisible high-kilowatt ( or even megawatt ) beam on any target it can see from orbit. Maybe combine a few of these satellites onto the same target for even more power output.
If any nation had one and started using it in the ways you suggest, how long before opposed nations would knock it down.
After all, what is its defense against a ground based laser shooting back at it?
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And how many billion for development of this laser ?
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How many billions of dollars of development for the A-10 and the cannon it carries?
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$159,279,888 [globalsecurity.org] in 1973 or ~$837M is 2015 dollars for the A-10. The GAU-8A develop cost was $49.7M [gao.gov] in 1974 or $235M in 2015 dollars for a total system development cost of just over $1B.
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Funny)
Keeping the 300 A-10s operational costs over $800M per year. That's a lot of money for a plane that can only do one thing under specific circumstances. Newer, more flexible systems can take over those missions at little additional cost. The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years, but Congress won't let them.
Yes, the A-10 appeals to the inner 12 year old in all of us. But the days of a pilot flying slowly in a straight line directly towards its target are behind us.
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" a plane that can only do one thing under specific circumstances."
But it is the best at doing that one thing , and that one thing (supporting ground troops) is something that we still need to do in the esrs we are hoing to be fighting (against ISIS and Al Qaeda who do not have an air force.) we don't need fast, stealthy fighters like the F35 aginst terrorists.
And we are not going to be fighting a conventional war against China or Russia where we would need the F35.
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Informative)
The reality is that the Air Force, Army, and Marines want the A-10 kept alive
You should talk to the Secretary of the Air Force. They're saying otherwise.
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/213844-ayotte-rips-air-force-for-defending-a-10-retirement
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Hardly billions. The technology that goes into fibre lasers is very cheap and efficient. My guess is that this was made form mostly off the shelf components.
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Hardly billions. The technology that goes into fibre lasers is very cheap and efficient. My guess is that this was made form mostly off the shelf components.
Maybe it *could* be made from off the shelf components - I have no idea. But I bet the government spent 100x that to develop their own customized (expensive) stuff...
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Similar system for 40 million dollars.
http://www.industrytap.com/40-... [industrytap.com]
Is it just me or are /. passive aggressively feigning stupidity today?
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Do you have any idea what the actual cost of development of this program is, then the cost of actually operating the laser, or are you just going to assume it's in the billions and then try and compare it with the A10 program? Have you made any attempt at research? Or are you "just asking questions?"
I love the A10 as much as anyone, but it's pretty difficult to compare a laser program with the A10. The A10 does not exactly excel at shooting down rockets in flight, and the entire purpose of the laser prog
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A similar system was developed for about 40 million
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
So the answer is ~.04 'billions'
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Informative)
The article said "The ground-based laser prototype burned through the engine manifold of a mounted truck in mere seconds." so at least two seconds and less than a minute, but you are correct the longer it takes the less practical it would be to use it against a moving target.
Re:how much it took (Score:5, Funny)
They should do some tests to see how many seconds a 120mm shell fired from an M1A1 at ~1700m/s needs to be in contact with the truck to disable it.
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They should do some tests to see how many seconds a 120mm shell fired from an M1A1 at ~1700m/s needs to be in contact with the truck to disable it.
It'd be much like comparing a musket loading firing line to guys with long bows and seeing who had a better firing and kill rate. You could get off a lot more arrows for a long time before guns were improved to the point that the bow was only valuable when you couldn't get your hands on a gun.
If lasers can be improved to parity in damage, they will be immeasurably more useful when attached to something a like a naval nuke. You get a firing rate only limited by your cooldown, and never need ammo for the year
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Finally naval warships will be able to attack and defend itself from the armadas of pickup trucks that might attack it on the high seas...
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There are two real questions to ask here:
1) is if the laser is in visible light or not. If you can't see the red dot source a mile off, you can't evade it.
2) what is the range of the weapon. The range matters mostly inside the atmostphere. This weapon mounted on a spacecraft (satellite, etc) would have almost unlimited range, since the density of space is so minimal. Inside the atmosphere is another issue.
Let x = number of seconds to disable a target.
Let x > 2.
Let y = range of laser in miles.
l
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I"m pretty sure a regular mirror would not be employed.
But here's some hand-wavy math.
If a mirror reflects 99% of the light that hits it at the laser frequency (remember, there's only one frequency to be covered), and the light that hits it can heat proportional to 30 kw (however one figures that), then the mirror is absorbing a 300 watt equivalent and reflecting the rest unless the reflective surface fails.
If the reflective surface is highly heat conductive and the beam isn't all that tightly collimated, l
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They should do some tests to see how many seconds a 120mm shell fired from an M1A1 at ~1700m/s needs to be in contact with the truck to disable it.
Perhaps a more important question is how long the laser has to be pointed at the 120mm shell in-flight from the M1A1 at 1700m/s before the shell does nothing on contact with the target.
Blowing up targets sitting still on a range has been a solved problem for centuries. That doesn't mean that an Aegis air defense system has no more value than a medieval cannon.
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... the longer it takes the less practical it would be to use it against a moving target.
Certainly true, but given that light is (near as makes no difference) instantaneous in this case, having the target in your sights and hitting it are the same thing. If the range is increased enough, I suspect that this would be a much easier weapon to use than, say, projectiles, as there's no possibility of evasion.
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It's not going to be easy to keep a target in sight, when both yourself and the target are moving and vibrating. And by the looks of the burn marks on car, the laser spot is less than a few inches wide, so you'd need to be really accurate. And while the laser is near instantaneous, your targeting system still needs some time to identify the movement and compensate for it.
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Interesting)
It took "mere seconds" to burn through the engine manifold.
Paint it white (specifically, something with high albedo in whatever frequency range the attacker favors) and you can probably increase that time by a factor of ten. Paint it with that retroreflective paint that they make street markings out of and you've blinded anyone near the firing station.
Laser weapons look effective now because nobody's taking rudimentary countermeasures against them (because they don't need to). But if these things start appearing on battlefields, there are some simple countermeasures that will make their life a lot more difficult.
Re:how much it took (Score:5, Informative)
Paint it white (specifically, something with high albedo in whatever frequency range the attacker favors) and you can probably increase that time by a factor of ten.
Well won't you be embarrassed when you actually click on the article and note the color of the target vehicle.
Re:how much it took (Score:4, Informative)
Even near perfect mirroring makes damn near zero difference to a cutting laser so I doubt this attack laser would be any different.
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Because plasma doesn't mirror very well ... but if you have say a rotating rocket this effect is going to be much reduced with a continuous wave laser, you probably won't get to the evaporation temperature necessary to really get the ball rolling.
I think for use against rockets you're going at the very least need a hybrid pulse/continuous system ... with the pulses doing only superficial damage but destroying the mirroring properties of the metal shell so the power from the continuous laser will actually be
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Paint it white (specifically, something with high albedo in whatever frequency range the attacker favors) and you can probably increase that time by
Basically nothing.
Paint it with that retroreflective paint that they make street markings out of and
Basically nothing special will happen.
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The article said "The ground-based laser prototype burned through the engine manifold of a mounted truck in mere seconds." so at least two seconds and less than a minute, but you are correct the longer it takes the less practical it would be to use it against a moving target.
...until they develop an equally impressive tracking and targeting system...
...unless they already have...(yes, this would likely be the classified part you're not supposed to be thinking of)
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Retro-mirrors anyone? (Score:2)
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But it will take longer... it's already taking seconds. If you reflect 95% of the incoming beam, it's going to take a minute of careful aim.
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The laser defense systems aren't finished yet either. Mirrors can be stacked and cooled.
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Probably not.
First of all, the target wasn't matte black, so it was already reflecting a good bit of the incoming beam. I don't know what the IR reflectivity of the hood paint and underlying steel was at the laser's wavelength, so I don't know how much.
Second of all, while a mirror layer would be more reflective, it would also be thinner and less durable than a truck's sheet-metal. So, even if it's absorbing less energy, it's also less able to dissipate it.
It is interesting to consider the conflicting deman
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Second of all, while a mirror layer would be more reflective, it would also be thinner and less durable than a truck's sheet-metal.
If people are going to design anti-laser mirrors, they're not going to make them super thin.
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Yes, but they're very cheap. They'll melt eventually but, in the meantime, should deliver enough power back to the attacker to screw up eyeballs and sensors.
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Retro-mirrors anyone? Then it bounces off me and sticks to you!
How about covering the vehicle with laser rated photovoltaics? Use that energy to your advantage.
No more OJ car chases (Score:3)
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Doubt cars are going to stay still....
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You'd still have to have a mechanism to see where the target is going, and keep hitting the exact same spot.
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I suspect the laser light scattered by the hood would just blind the driver anyway. One way or another, the chase would end.
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The concerns you are citing are equally vexing to traditional ordinance, so not much of a change here.
Point #2 is a trivial concern, considering the fact that current targeting systems can solve parabolic firing solutions thousands of times a second and update the firing solution based on the pitching of a ship. Modern tanks can fire while on the move and their firing solutions have little difficulty tracking that motion too. So how much easier will it be to calculate linear firing solutions? Multi-targe
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Modern tanks can fire while on the move and their firing solutions have little difficulty tracking that motion too
Tanks don't need 2 inch accuracy over multiple seconds.
Deployed version will of course be cheaper.
Of course. Just like the Joint Strike Fighter.
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Tanks don't need 2 inch accuracy over multiple seconds.
Do understand that the reason a tank is less accurate while under motion, it isn't because the computer can't keep up? It takes time between when the computer commands a fire, and the projectile exiting the barrel, and during that time, external conditions or the attitude of the vehicle might change, and nothing can be done to compensate since the projectile is in motion. Tanks also deal with wind, air density, and other factors that are difficult to measure accurately on the move. All non-issues to a la
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Affix one of these to a police helicopter and that will be the end of police chases. Pinpointing the hood of fleeing vehicle for take out will be trivial.
Put one of these in the hands of criminals, and it'll be the end of police helicopters -- it's got to be easier to take down a lightweight fiberglass clad helicopter than a car.
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Helicopters would have insufficient power generation capability without becoming too heavy to take off. So far these laser systems are being loaded up things as bug as 747's or warships where coming up with a few megawatts is not on insurmountable hurdle.
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30KW getting scattered doesn't really compare well to accidentally pointing your green laser pointer at something shiny and seeing speckles for a minute - More like "everything even remotely flammable within 50ft ignites".
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It won't even ignite things 2m away, assuming uniform diffuse reflections in the half-volume facing the surface:
30 kW / (2 pi r^2) = 1200 watts per square meter = sunlight.
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There are plenty of reflections that aren't diffuse. Also, according to some people the real system will be orders of magnitude more powerful.
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Vid or STFU (Score:4, Funny)
Words are cheap, we wanna see shit BURN!
Obliterate? (Score:2)
Defense? (Score:3)
Of course, I don't expect to have the local police or military shooting at me (although we do seem to be moving towards a police state); but thugs and gangsters are always able to get their hands on powerful, illegal weapons.
What can the average person do if some whackjob starts running around the city or a shopping mall with one of these things targeting innocent people?
Do we start wearing fire-resistant foil suits? [nbfire.com]
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I don't think you have to worry about people wielding such powerful lasers. One little mistake where you aim the laser at something reflective, and you'd blind yourself.
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Plus, carrying around the house sized power supplies would make you a bit conspicuous.
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One little mistake where you aim the laser at something reflective, and you'd blind yourself.
One little mistake where you hit something reflective, and you'd kill yourself. A 50 KW laser may take seconds to burn through a iron engine block but will burn through soft flesh and bone MUCH faster. TFTFY
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Ordinary mirrors just don't work against that sort of power - they still absorb a small fraction of the energy of the light hitting them, which at 30KW would vaporize anything wearable in milliseconds.
Realistically, you'd need some sort of ablative armor, but anything you could actually carry would only buy you a few seconds at best - And keep in mind that whole "equal and opposite reaction" thing - Blocking a 30KW lase
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Of course, I don't expect to have the local police or military shooting at me (although we do seem to be moving towards a police state); but thugs and gangsters are always able to get their hands on powerful, illegal weapons.
So when's the last time you were pinned down by machine gun fire from a thug/gangster? How much body armor do you wear for that?
How about a drone attack with a Hellfire missile? 155m artillery round? 500 pound bombs from an aircraft? Battleship 16" shell?
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What can the average person do if some whackjob starts running around the city or a shopping mall with one of these things targeting innocent people?
Probably the same damn thing you're going to do if some whackjob starts running around shooting an AR-15 rifle.
Duck and run.
Sorry, but even most bulletproof vests don't stop high-powered rifle rounds, so you've no more defense today against a 40-year old AR-15 platform than you do this brand-new thing.
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Right...
*bad mobster accent" "No sir officer, nothing illegal here. We're just three guys going for an afternoon drive in our truck.
Oh, the trailer? The one with the 30kw laser assembly and diesel generator to power it? The 30 foot long double wide trailer that weighs 20 tons? Oh, that's my grandma's. We're just delivering it for her. Why, is a tail light out?"
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What can the average person do if some whackjob starts running around the city or a shopping mall with one of these things targeting innocent people?
Absolutely nothing. That guy is a goddamned superman, and he could crush you into a thin paste with his bare hands. Make peace with your maker, you're coming to meet him.
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Bulletproof vest/self defense training/protective eyewear for protection against those types of attacks - although I think that you were referring to the laser wielding whackjob being attacked in that case.
Terminator at gun shop... (Score:5, Funny)
Terminator: Phased plasma rifle in the 50-watt range.
Owner: Hey, just what you see here pal!
Terminator : Uzi 9 millimeter
Owner: You really know your guns, this baby is perfect for home defense....
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Forty watt range
One good thing about star wars weapons (Score:3)
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Actually phasers leave a trail so moviegoers can follow the action in battles.
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Farscape did this best:
Crichton: "Don't move! Or I'll fill you full of....little yellow bolts of light!"
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The regular lead bullets from even a small caliber short barrel weapon is too fast for eyes to see. But the speed of light phasers being fired by the storm troopers leave a neat clean visible tracer lines. That leads straight back to the location of the gun which helps Harrison Ford ample time to find good spot to dive into, no antique plane needed.
I can't believe I'm replying to a joke post but... (a) you're mixing your movies, phasers are Star Trek and blasters are Star Wars. (b) Blasters supposedly shoot charged plasma - you fill them with gas, they excite it to a plasma somehow, and the glowing plasma is what's shot at the targets. Don't ask me about turbo lasers on capital ships.
(Cue a follow-on stream of comments correcting mistakes I've made, lol.)
oh great (Score:2)
Scat (Score:2)
Great Success! (Score:2)
seen this before (Score:2)
"Through a technique called spectral beam combining, multiple fiber laser modules form a single, powerful, high-quality beam"
this sounds really familiar [wordpress.com]
Nerds make the impossible possible. (Score:2)
You can't hit a moving bullet with another moving bullet. It simply can't be done.
What are you talking about? You can't hit it from behind with the same kind of bullet fired under the same conditions, but that's not the same thing. We have the ability to intercept missiles with limited but significant success; intercepting a bullet is a harder problem, but that doesn't mean it's undoable.
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There is a calculable number of variables in bullet trajectory, so with the correct algorithms one could theoretically hit a bullet with another bullet.
Furthermore, one of these is a laser, which is traveling at the speed of light, reducing the complexity of the formulas involved by almost negating the effects of velocity and gravity on that projectile.
Who said science and math cant be fun?
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Congress comes to mind.
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Through a technique called spectral beam combining, multiple fiber laser modules form a single, powerful, high-quality beam that provides greater efficiency and lethality than multiple individual 10-kilowatt lasers used in other systems."
Hmm, what does that remind me of... [gifsoup.com]
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Must've taken a Real Genius to build a laser system like that.
Yes, and it's probably a pretty sound assumption that the "spinning mirror" order has been placed as well.