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DARPA Developing Defensive Plasma Shield
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Apr 27, 2007 06:31 PM
from the now-we-just-need-blasters dept.
from the now-we-just-need-blasters dept.
galactic_grub writes "According to an article at New Scientist, DARPA is developing a plasma shield that would allow troops to stun and disorientate enemies. The system will use a technology known as dynamic pulse detonation (DPD), which involves producing a ball of plasma with an intense laser pulse, and then a supersonic shockwave within the plasma using another pulse. The result is a gigantic flash and a loud bang in a the air. 'The company has also pitched a portable laser rifle, which would be lethal, to the US Army. It would weigh about fifteen kilograms, would have a range of more than a mile, and could have numerous advantages over existing rifles - better accuracy and the ability to hit a moving target at the speed of light.'"
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Lasers? (Score:5, Funny)
Why the toys??? (Score:2, Insightful)
Please ignore all that folks. Don't worry, in the future we'll have a bunch of
Re:Why the toys??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Now, if the adminstration would handle the war properly, those issues could be resolved. Until that is done, those troops are fucked. I know a lot of high ranking people have quit because they can't get what they want for the troops.
You want to help? keep writing your reps, the paper, orginize a protest to get the troops what they need.
The best way to do that is with oversight committees.
I didn't want to invade Iraq, and I think we were wrong in doing so, but I sure as hell don't want our troops unprepared.
Parent
Re:Why the toys??? (Score:5, Insightful)
Insightful would have done some real research and found the "scrounged" armor was a very short term issue and there have been 8+ major uparmoring mods and more than 70,000 fully armored vehicles in Iraq/Afghanistan now.
Insightful would have known the "underarmored" vehicles were HUMMVs which were replacements for Jeeps. You know, Jeeps, those open-sided and open-topped vehicles.
Insightful would know the true status of the M-16. Same story, bud. The first ones, 40 years ago, were rushed into use and there have been a huge number of modifications. The AK-47 isn't that great. It's not good at a distance, there's less control of the bullet's destination and the vast majority of them were made very, very sloppily which means they spray bullets almost randomly. Read your own link, it says some American troops are using captured AK-47s because the ammunition is so available. Why might that be? Do a little research on calibre and interoperability of ammunition. Just because ammunition is available doesn't mean it's more useful than an M-16 nor does it mean it's preferred over the M-16. Gad, your comment shows you don't really know much about the weapons or tactics.
Parent
Re:Why the toys??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Besides, accuracy at a great distance usually means nothing in city warfare. You almost never have ranges larger than 15-20 meters and AK-47 works great at these distances.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You can also get 7.62x39 AK uppers for AR-type rifles and I guess Alexander Arms made 5.45x39 uppers as well, but still, box stock AK-74s and M16s and variants are not capable of shooting each other's ammo.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Saying an AK-74 fires NATO standard rounds with modification is really like saying AK-74 doesn't fire NATO rounds without modification, and with modification it can fire pretty much any round.
Re:Why the toys??? (Score:5, Interesting)
Now the question is, when can we afford to use troops in the following situtations:
1. Limited, humane "war". Oxymoron if their ever was one. Usually a failure, re: Vietnam.
2. Geneva Convention "war". Works pretty well. Won in WWII and Korea.
3. Total war. Pre-Convention war, no quarter given, civilization at risk. This is the long history of warfare and is true war.
We are fighting an enemy using level 3 warfare while we remain at level 1.
Level one is total stupidity. If that is all that was needed, you should have used other means like special forces hit and run. Don't send in long term troops unless you are ready to fight level 2.
So go to level 2, or get out and wait for them to sack Washington.
The scary thing for me is that as they get nukes, and they will one way or another, there is no way to do MAD style containment. They are not going to launch anything at us because they don't have the technology. So they sneak it in and detonate. Meanwhile, because we are so hung up on national boundries they don't really recognize, we don't know who to nuke.
And we lost our ablity to fight as a civilization, like Rome, and just nuke the barbarians, period.
I really don't see a way out until we shake out of our lethergy and understand that they want us all dead or converted to Islam. Anything else is al-Taqiyya.
Parent
Re:Why the toys??? (Score:5, Informative)
The Korean war was a limited war because it was restricted to Korea itself despite the fact that China directly intervened by sending huge numbers of men who directly fought against UN forces, and defeated them on a number of occasions, inflicting heavy casualties in the process. In a WWII-style conflict, this would have resulted in massive retaliation against China itself, probably by dropping atomic bombs on Chinese cities, which MacArthur was seriously considering before being replaced (the fact that China had no airforce would have made this a low-risk affair in a military sense, but the possibility of direct USSR intervention meant that it was very politically risky).
Note also that we (i.e. the UN forces which were predominantly but far from exclusively US forces) did not win the Korean war, because it ended in a stalemate which culminated in a ceasefire agreement that essentially established the same North / South border that had been in place before the war. This ceasefire is still in place, so the war hasn't officially ended, hence a half century long armed stand-off between the two opposing sides. This wasn't the goal of the US / UN side, or the one the North Koreans had, although it does seem to have been what China wanted (the Chinese didn't intervene until UN forces were near to their borders with North Korea; they'd warned the UN that this would happen on several occasions, but the CIA told Truman they were bluffing, so the warnings were ignored). It would therefore be fair to say that the only true winner was China, while both the UN / US and North Korea can be regarded as net losers because neither managed to realise their military or political goals.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I've already done a combat tour and a second tour at a three-letter agency.
Whew, you scared me. At first I thought you meant "four-letter agency", and I was scared shitless of the RIAA. Anyways, the M16A2 isn't terrible, but I do think we could do better, and I'd definitely be pissed if it was my only option. Did you see the weight of this "portable" laser rifle they're talking about, though? 15 kilos! Ever hump a 249 anywhere? They weigh about 7 bare, and you'd be hard-pressed to get one up to 10 kg with a rail, scope, heat shield, and talking power ranger doll.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
"disorientate"? (Score:4, Funny)
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in other words, disorient then kill if necessary, a kill shot is not a guarantee but if you can keep them from taking any real action you open yourself more options, which includes a few important seconds to kill the baddies. think hostages, who cares if you give the hostage a headache or such, its better than the baddies getting shots off at him if you only wound one.
let alone the fact that the public se
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Disorientating (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes, it's obvious why a crowd needs controlling or a hostage-taker is taking hostages. What would you have the military do in cases where we know what the hostage-taker wants but do not want to give it to him? Hostages make great shields.
In those cases where it's not made obvious, by the time you figure out why it's being done, it's often too late to do anything. The crowd has dismantle
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If it's not clear what a group is protesting, it probably isn't a protest--it's just a riot.
US journalists get targeted because that's sometimes the only way to catch the attention of other US journalists. US journalists rarely go deep into international affairs even when it involves very important or very helpless foreigners, and ra
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I recall a Slashdot post from a while back in which a British citizen poked fun at our American use of the word "burglarized." A burglar burgles! There's no need for the extra syllable! (The reason I remember this was the humorous follow-up of, "You're right; we apogle.")
Seeing a word in the dictionary doesn't automatically make it a good word. Sure, it's in use, sure some group of people decided it should be put there, but that doesn't make it any less foolish
ASMD Shock Rifle (Score:5, Funny)
I'd better get one, too (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If governments wanted the people to have power (utlimately all power is derived from force) our rebel leader forefathers wouldn't have had to put the right to bear arms in the constitution. It exists precisely because power must be distributed and a disarmed citizenry only have power at the mercy of the government.
Re:I'd better get one, too (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
New products (Score:2, Funny)
Lasers efficient at killing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Dan East
Re:Lasers efficient at killing? (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Lasers efficient at killing? (Score:4, Funny)
You are screwed.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lasers efficient at killing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Laser rifle (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Laser rifle (Score:4, Interesting)
33kg is not a light weapon, and not something a sniper could simply hold up for precision firing with his hands. You would probably need a tripod, etc. So in the end you are looking at a not-very-sniper-like weapon.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Laser rifle (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, this would be a win from that standpoint as well. Current sniper bullets are always supersonic, and thus there is a loud *CRACK* sound that helps indicate the location of the sniper. The laser beam would be silent.
(If you are interested in snipers, you ought to read the book Marine Sniper [amazon.com], a biography of Carlos Hathcock [wikipedia.org]. Hathcock commented that a sniper usually gets one free shot, because no one is expecting the shot, and surprised people don't do a good job of figuring out where the shot came from; if the sniper fires a second shot, all the people in the area will start looking in the correct direction, because this time they are expecting something. So he figured it was better to get close enough to get a guaranteed one-shot kill; even though he would be closer, he would be much harder to find than if he had to take a second shot.)
Imagine a sniper killing someone, and the only sound is the body falling over. Kind of creepy. The sniper might be able to kill the person without other people in the area even noticing!
On the other hand, assuming a high-tech enemy, it might be possible to track the sniper by waste heat from the laser. If you are putting enough energy to kill out of a laser rifle, there will be nontrivial amounts of waste heat. So there might be a special "sniper model" battlefield laser weapon that contains the heat somehow (cartridges with compressed gases, and you use the expanding gas to cancel the waste heat?). Thus the sniper model would probably be the heaviest model.
(Or perhaps the heaviest model would be the "squad automatic" laser, which could be fired many times rapidly...)
Actually, a physics question: would there be a trail in the air, caused by the laser traveling through the air, that could be seen with some sort of vision enhancer goggles? Would the air molecules be ionized or something, and could that be used to track a sniper? If so, there would be a line drawn in the air pointing from the target straight back at the sniper. But I really have no idea if that is possible.
steveha
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
2.) I'm not entirely sure about this one, but I think that the ionized air gives off a fizzing sound, which means that yes, it becomes possible to identify a laser sn
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Crossed my mind too, as several posters mentioned ionization of air along the beam: instead of relying on conversion of stored charge into current, then into light, to deliver destructive energy on target, just create an ionized channel and pour all the stored charge down on target. The show stopper is, of course, a possible "short circuit" discharge between
Non-lethal application (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically, if you can ionize the air, you should have a conductive path. You could then send a high-voltage current down that path to incapacitate the person struck.
Ancient Chinese Secret, Huh? (Score:4, Funny)
So.... they've invented fireworks, then. Finally. I mean, the Chinese military has had access to fireworks technology since the freakin' Han Dynasty! Glad to see our boys in blue are getting with the times!
Woah (Score:2, Funny)
Not as much as I was disorientated by that spelling...
flash and bang? (Score:2)
Knowing is half the battle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Knowing is half the battle (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Also, FTA... (Score:3, Interesting)
Rifle or field oven? (Score:3, Funny)
"Comrade, I see fireflies in the woods and smell burnt popcorn."
"Prepare for battle, the running dog Americans are here!"
Misread... (Score:3, Funny)
Excellent... (Score:3, Insightful)
Better buy stock in Highly polished mirrors (Score:4, Funny)
This is gonna sound silly (Score:5, Interesting)
And, well, I had to admit there was a point there. Maybe we should find it disturbing that so much research is being put into this kind of thing.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a more common phrasing of this argument: "Your money or your life."
The idea that we have to fix all the problems of people who are busy killing each other when they aren't trying to kill us, so that they won't try to kill us, is stupid, immoral, and ineffective.