DARPA Developing Defensive Plasma Shield

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.'"

Lasers?

Any chance we can put them on sharks? I believe that would greatly increase the lethality of the lasers.

Why the toys???

This seems like pretty typical Pentagon. Hey troops, don't worry about the fact you have insufficient low-tech tools. Don't worry that you have to go scrounging through dumpsters for scrap metal to make armour http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/200 [boston.com]

Re:Why the toys???

You know the Pentagon has different people who do different things, right?

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.

Re:Why the toys???

Modded 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.

Re:Why the toys???

AK-47 is obsoleted by AK-74 (which can use NATO ammo, BTW).

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.

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The AK-74 and its variants fire 5.45x39. "NATO ammo" would be 5.56x45, so, no, an AK-74 wouldn't be able to chamber let alone safely fire NATO ammo. I've heard some 74s were converted by former east bloc countries to shoot 5.56 once they joined NATO.

You

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It's a nonsense statement, then, since with modification most guns can fire pretty much any ammo.

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 i

Re:Why the toys???

Well, what you are really suggesting is that limited warfare does not work.

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.

Re:Why the toys???

"Geneva Convention "war". Works pretty well. Won in WWII and Korea."

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.

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It should have, but the people in charge convinced themselves that all the new toys invented in the intervening three decades would be silver bullets that would guarantee success. Their plan could have been written by the Underpants Gnomes:

1. Cleanly knock

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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

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As another poster in the same grouping as yours pointed out, AK-47's are still great for close quarters/urban warfare, where ranges are typically anywhere between 15 - 20 meters or less (effective range on the AK-47 is 300 meters), and where stopping power

"disorientate"?

God forbid they should be terminatated.

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I imagine it would be used for crowd control or hostage situations. There are many situations where non-lethal force is needed against an enemy.

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plus disorienting may be more valuable when it comes to groups you cannot guarantee an instant kill on.

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 m

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A bird? A plane? No! It's low-flying joke!

Disorientating

And using lethal force on crowds that inadvertantly gets innocent people will anger the international community.
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 wher

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When ordinary people protest, they chant slogans and carry signs. Listen to their slogans, read their signs, and you'll get a general idea of what they're trying to protest.
If it's not clear what a group is protesting, it probably isn't a protest--it's j

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"I read it in the papers, it must be true!"

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 t

ASMD Shock Rifle

Unreal Tournament-esque Shock Rifle [youtube.com], anyone?

I'd better get one, too

If there is to be a balance of power of any kind.

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'I don't think any government would sell something like that to its citizens.'

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 co

Re:I'd better get one, too

if you're wearing your tin foil hat you may be able to reflect the beam back at the shooter

New products

Fresh from the R&D of UAC, we today present you with... THE FUTURE. BEHOLD THE BFG-9000! The future of all warfare, never again will the people of your country stand a chance of usurping your power even if they are the majority! I for one welcome our

Lasers efficient at killing?

I thought lasers made inefficient weapons because they cauterize the wounds they create.

Dan East

Re:Lasers efficient at killing?

Depends on what the laser is tuned for. If it's tuned for cutting, then yes, it will leave a cauterized hole. But if it's tuned for energy transfer (think: turning water to steam), it's more like being shot with an exploding bullet.

Re:Lasers efficient at killing?

imagione a whol appearing anywhere in your torso. Now does it really matter if it keeps bleeding through the hole?

You are screwed.

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To say nothing of the mayhem they cause due to some of the beam reflecting off the target, or missing it partly or completely. As I recall, this was deemed a major drawback to the airborne laser discussed here about a year ago. Also, the lasers require ver

Re:Lasers efficient at killing?

The high inherent accuracy of a laser means that if you can see 'em, you can kill 'em, first shot. This is a considerable advantage over current weapons in some situations. It's cheaper than a guided rocket, more accurate than a rifle. Possibly an ideal sniper/assassination weapon.

Laser rifle

It's amazing to imagine how much something like the laser rifle would change the military. Sniper school spends a lot of time on the details of a bullet's behavior over time with the obvious affects of gravity and the wind, especially when you're dealing with a moving target. To be able to shoot a laser without really any of those constraints, that travels at the speed of light... A sniper's job will become a whole lot easier... unless you want to get into the fact that the majority of a sniper's job is about getting in and then hopefully back out.

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Not to mention the fact that it will be that much harder to locate the sniper. At least a gun produces a muzzle-flash and sound.

Re:Laser rifle

A laser of this size is likely to provide a flash of light and sound (not stunning as in the other technology). This is due to the laser ionizing the air it travels through (creating the same sort of plasma as the other part of the story). I would expect the path to be very visible to anyone looking in the right direction at the right moment.

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.

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Actually, despite other errors in the GP post, you're missing something important. Scattering even by molecules of air is significant at power levels much lower than this thing operates at. Watch videos at http://www.wickedlasers.com/ [wickedlasers.com]. Their 100mw pen

Re:Laser rifle

A sniper's job will become a whole lot easier... unless you want to get into the fact that the majority of a sniper's job is about getting in and then hopefully back out.

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

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1.) As was already pointed out, a pulsed laser strong enough to kill is strong enough to ionize the air it travels through, generating a glowing line straight from the firer to the victim. Even seeing that line for a fraction of a second allows people to d

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There have been theoretical weapon designs that let a laser ionize the path to the target and then send huge amounts of electricity through that path...

Crossed my mind too, as several posters mentioned ionization of air along the beam: instead of relying o

Non-lethal application

I noted that they could ionize the air with a non-lethal laser, and that they were suggesting that there might be non-lethal uses for the laser rifle. This might allow for a usage essentially essentially similar to a long-range version of a Taser.

Basicall

Ancient Chinese Secret, Huh?

"It uses a programmed pattern of rapid plasma events to create a sort of wall of bright lights and reports (bangs) over the coverage area," says Keith Braun of the US Army's Advanced Energy Armaments Systems Division at Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey, US, where the system is being tested.

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

According to an article at New Scientist, DARPA is developing a plasma shield that would allow troops to stun and disorientate enemies

Not as much as I was disorientated by that spelling...

flash and bang?

Sounds like something you would want to put in a grenade rather than use as a shield. Plasma Grenades...Schweet...

Knowing is half the battle

Extensive documentaries of GI Joe vs Cobra battles during the early 80's show laser weapons have a complete inability to hit anything of value.

.agrippa.

Re:Knowing is half the battle

Extensive documentary footage of old A-Team episodes show that automatic rifles ( especially M-16s ) are useless at ANY range, except for maybe giving the enemy's jeep a flat tire. It is much more effective to simply drop the rifles and bludgeon the enemy into unconsciousness with your fists.

Also, FTA...

... is a way to change the laser rifle's intensity, and thus, its lethality. Yeah, I envision settings for STUN and KILL. Shark mount optional.

Rifle or field oven?

How long after laser "rifles" are deployed before troops figure out how to use them to heat food?

"Comrade, I see fireflies in the woods and smell burnt popcorn."
"Prepare for battle, the running dog Americans are here!"

Misread...

My first time through, I thought it mentioned as one of the advantages that one can hit a target *moving at the speed of light*. And here I was wondering what target we could want to hit that would be moving at the speed of light when I realized the actual phrasing.

Excellent...

... just what we need to win the War on Terror. A truly worthwhile project. Really makes you feel good about paying taxes.

Better buy stock in Highly polished mirrors

I can see it now, terrorists running around cities with multi-faceted segmented mirrors all over their bodies...

This is gonna sound silly

But I'm reminded of John Titor here. You know, the guy who was posting on Usenet saying he was from the future? Bollocks, I'm sure, but he did have some interesting things to say, and one of them was something to the effect (I don't have the quote in front of me): "Pay attention when the government starts talking about non-lethal weapons to use against the enemy. When they start talking about that, the enemy they're talking about YOU. You don't really think they're going into hostile territory under RPG fire and jumping out of a helicopter with these 'non lethal' toys, do you?"

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.

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Over the course of a mile, a bullet would drop by about ~18 feet over that distance. As well as taking a couple of seconds to arrive at the target. A laser would take a small fraction of the time and not drop at all.

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"curing world diseases and poverty, maybe so many people wouldn't want to attack and kill us in the first place."

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