Article

2007-05-01 Science & Technology

Ray guns and plasma force fields -- this must be the 21st century!

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Posted by Mike 2007-05-01 16:10|| || Front Page|| [11131 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Set phasers on stun!

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-05-01 16:45|| 2007-05-01 16:45|| Front Page Top

#2 Set rifles to liquefy!

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-05-01 16:45|| 2007-05-01 16:45|| Front Page Top

#3 I said set phazers to stun, Scotty! Not vaporize!

Posted by Grumenk Philalzabod0723 2007-05-01 16:46|| 2007-05-01 16:46|| Front Page Top

#4 It would be interesting if these guns could be set to a mode that would permanently blind the target. I'm pretty sure the US would use them mostly on combatants with weapons in hand. I wonder how many Innocent Civilians(TM) will suddenly show up blind after that. Make them a burden to their society. They would be a constant obvious visual reminder of the rest of their society as to why terrorism doesn't pay.

Posted by gorb 2007-05-01 17:13|| 2007-05-01 17:13|| Front Page Top

#5 this is so old-hat Unreal Tournament has had that ability with the plasma rifle since '02 :-)

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2007-05-01 17:14|| 2007-05-01 17:14|| Front Page Top

#6 gorb, IIRC, a few years ago there was a movement among a bunch of eye doctors to prevent the use of lasers in combat because it would leave many people permanently blind. I guess it's ok to kill them, just don't leave them blind. Personally, although I would hate to be blind, I would much rather be blind than dead.

Posted by Rambler">Rambler 2007-05-01 17:35|| 2007-05-01 17:35|| Front Page Top

#7 I remember something like taht. But I think doctors should stay on the sidelines here. Everyone knows war means injury and death. I don't know why they feel they need to tell us something we already know and have opted for. Given that lasers can only blind you if they are tightly focused, I figure if someone is blinded by a laser in battle against US military forces, they were asking for it. What's cool about doing things this way is that it is low cost to coalition forces, they immediately become a burden to the terrorists around them and to their terrorist families later, they don't get killed, which means they will forevermore be a reminder to not screw with modern industrial societies, nobody in their shallow societies are going to want to marry them or have much to do with them, and sniping these guys with an optical weapon would be like shooting fish in a barrel! I don't see a problem with Geneva Conventions because it "beats" dying, and fleeing civilians would be at low or no risk of being blinded because nobody would target them because they weren't carrying a weapon. If people are bringing up Geneva Conventions to try to stop us from using lasers on the battlefield, I would say ignore them because they don't know what they are talking about. You could get video of every incident like this, and if anyone complained, dredge it up and show people what really happened. Hard to fight something like that. I wouldn't want to use this kind of weapon against someone who wasn't armed, and I'm sure most others wouldn't either. Once this tactic is adopted, they'll have to figure out what the next generation of war will be because it would remove the human shield aspect of fighting with terrorists, which is the only thing that protects them now. If I were in charge, I would be pouring money into this as fast as I could to get it on the battlefield as soon as possible.

Posted by gorb 2007-05-01 17:57|| 2007-05-01 17:57|| Front Page Top

#8 Will the new weapons render the enemy sterile?

Posted by JohnQC 2007-05-01 19:26|| 2007-05-01 19:26|| Front Page Top

#9 Will the new weapons render the enemy sterile?

Posted by JohnQC 2007-05-01 19:26|| 2007-05-01 19:26|| Front Page Top

#10 Given that lasers can only blind you if they are tightly focused, I figure if someone is blinded by a laser in battle against US military forces, they were asking for it.

One problem with lasers is that if you miss the beam can travel a LOT farther than a bullet would under similar circumstances. Unintended injuries are highly likely if they are deployed against people except in open countryside with no non-combatants around.

Same issue exists with aircraft and the use of tactical high energy lasers, by the way. THELs are proven in tests against rocket, artillery and mortar attack, but ... there is a large potential for friendly fire casualties unless most of the aircraft are unmanned and swarming under shared computer control and the THELs are similarly linked in and controlled.

We're not there yet re: unmanned aircraft so there isn't a big push to deploy THELs at this point. (Power is an issue as well, both for THELs and for individual soldier-fired laser weapons.)

Posted by occasional observer 2007-05-01 19:39|| 2007-05-01 19:39|| Front Page Top

#11 The US does not use lasers to blind. The Soviets did use them against US pilots in the 1980's but just before the collapse, the US and USSR signed an agreement not to use them. More recently, the Chinese and North Koreans have used them against US pilots, resulting in some retinal damage. There was move to add narrow pass filters for the most likely laser wavelengths to pilot helmets. I don't know what the current status is.

Here is what the F-35 pilot's helmet looks like.

Posted by ed 2007-05-01 19:48|| 2007-05-01 19:48|| Front Page Top

#12 Regardless of operability, there will be Command Officers, Enlisted, and of course Pols, etc. whom will look wid disfavor upon these kinds of advanced techs simply becuz its alters = or makes obsolete the Regulations, Bureaucracies, Economics and Realities of Warfare [ read - out of a job].

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-05-01 22:35|| 2007-05-01 22:35|| Front Page Top

#13 Regardless of operability, there will be Command Officers, Enlisted, and of course Pols, etc. whom will look wid disfavor upon these kinds of advanced techs simply becuz its alters = or makes obsolete the Regulations, Bureaucracies, Economics and Realities of Warfare [ read - out of a job].

Posted by JosephMendiola 2007-05-01 22:36|| 2007-05-01 22:36|| Front Page Top

#14 "Move PASS setting to puree, Scotty!"

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2007-05-01 22:43|| 2007-05-01 22:43|| Front Page Top

#15 It would be interesting if these guns could be set to a mode that would permanently blind the target.

There was an Army weapon designed in the 1980's called CCLAW:

The Laser Weapons Technology program for fiscal year 1982 continued to emphasize early demonstration of laser weapon concepts and advancement of the high-energy laser technology base. Primary technology accomplishments were the initiation of ultraviolet preionization laser experiments, construction of a propagation cell for performing in-house experiments, assessment of in-band laser damage, continuation of prime power development at MICOM (U.S. Army Missile Command) in conjunction with MERADCOM (Mobility Equipment Research and Development Command) and ERADCOM (Electronics Research and Development Command), and the conduct of joint Army-Navy hot spot tracking experiments.

Two contractors, Hughes and TRW, continued with the competitive preliminary design for the forward area laser weapon, demonstrator (FALW-D), but Congress cut the funding for the program, causing its suspension.

A contract was let to Westinghouse on 1 April 1982 for the design and fabrication of the Roadrunner, which will demonstrate the close combat laser assault weapon (CCLAW) concept. The preliminary design review was held in September 1982. On 29 July 1982 the House Armed Services Committee blocked a request to move CCLAW to a separate program and added the funds to the laser weapons technology program. The authorization bill of 8 September 1982 affirmed this action.

Curiously, it was easier to find a link to an old Rantburg thread where I brought this weapon up. My position still remains the same then as now:

AC,.com, do either of you remember the Army's CCLAW project? It was a counter civilian tank-based laser designed to blind all unprotected people within sight. Public furor halted further development of the idea.

Back in that time, I arrived at the conclusion (as alluded to by SR-71) that America needed to develop battlefield weapons so horrific and lethal that our enemy's troops would simply refuse to fight against our forces and mutiny. I'm not talking about nerve gas or other slow-death atrocities.

What I want is for American troops to have arms that are so simultaneously irresistible and irreversibly fatal that little if any hope can be held of productively engaging our soldiers. I am sick and tired of our warriors risking precious life and limb against unworthy opponents.

Ramp up those shoulder launched F/A projectiles that selectively collapse buildings. Enhance our precision guided ordnance. Do whatever it takes to instill panic in our foes the instant we appear on the scene. Better yet, as mentioned before, intervene from afar and kill them all in their barracks before they even deploy against us.

The psychotic enemies we face need to be denuded of their fighting age men. Not just to cripple their military forces, but to inhibit genetic reproduction of cultural mindsets that oppose freedom and equality.

Posted by Zenster">Zenster 2007-05-01 23:36|| 2007-05-01 23:36|| Front Page Top

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