Israelis Sue Government For Laser Cannons 736
An anonymous reader writes "Residents of a southern Israeli town want a real-life laser cannon to protect them against Palestinian rocket attacks. And they're suing the national government, for failing to provide the ray gun defense.
The U.S.-Israeli Tactical High Energy Laser project was widely considered to be the most successful energy weapon ever built. But the toxic chemicals needed to generate THEL's megawatts of power made the thing a logistical nightmare. It was scrapped. Now, the residents of Sderot want it back. And they're taking Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to court to make it happen."
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Interesting)
They have. We also invaded at least one country because of it*. Do you suggest that Israel invade and take more territory to solve this problem?
They're also not suing the Palestinians over this, instead are suing their own government for failing to provide a defense.
It's a circle of violence that is not restricted to one side, and the only way to break it is for one side to just stop. Unfortunately, the Palestinian side is probably too disorganised to commonly decide on anything. That means the only hope is for Israel to stop it, but I'm not too hopeful that will happen.
I have to agree, but I'll also point out that going by quite a bit of the propaganda on the Palestinian side says that there won't be any peace until all Israelites are 'pushed into the sea'.
History in the area generally shows that any ceasing of aggression on Israel's part is seen more of a sign of impending victory, time to push forward even more.
Maybe something like this laser system might push them to enough despair to actually give it up.
*I figure Iraq wasn't caused by 9/11, but delayed by it. But I know some disagree.
I worked on this project (Score:5, Interesting)
A few months later, hezbollah in Lebanon started firing katyushas again, oh well.
It was the most awesome project I've worked on so far. I actually got to see it take out mortars in flight on monitors while sitting in command and control 5 km away. (The system in new mexico doesn't have very good output scrubbers, so to avoid NF3 poisoning, humans have to be 5km away while it is firing.)
There's also more problems with it than just chemicals. For instance, the glass window in the front that the beam exits from costs 1 million dollars and takes a year to make (got to withstand a vacuum and a very powerful laser).
And the biggest problem is, they overwhelm it by sending lots of rockets, and then send several directly at the device itself. One rocket gets through, and there goes years of work and millions of dollars.
Anyway, thought the slashdot crowd might find some of that interesting.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a workable solution (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-RAM [wikipedia.org]
I won't say anything about its specifics, but I can tell you that it DOES work. It IS loud and you WILL crap your pants every time it goes off without warning, but that's a small price to pay for a WORKING product that shoots mortars and rockets out of the sky. This would be the perfect solution to their problem and frankly I'm surprised that I haven't heard more about it. Ah, I just answered my own question from my wiki link- it looks like they are in fact looking into these. Good for them.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847389509&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FPrinter [jpost.com]
I don't know what the retail is on these things, but I'm sure we could squeeze a few into the multi-billion-dollar defense support that we give to Israel every year.
-b
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Sweet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Rather, the Israelis are seeking an option that 'doesn't require them to shoot back' much like the United States was seeking an option that 'didn't require them to shoot back' in Star Wars and BMD.
They'll shoot back anyway, all right, but none of what's aimed at them will get through.
Re:I worked on this project (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Sweet! (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds good to me! The terrorists shooting rockets at civilians, including school children, get killed and the women, children and other non-combatants aren't harmed. Do you have a problem with that?
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Interesting)
They evacuated the country and collaborated with Egypt to exterminate their former neighbors. The Arabs who stayed in Israel rather than doing that became citizens and continue to hold full civil rights, as do their descendants.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
Before the Arab states invaded Israel in 1948, they announced to the Arabs living in Israel that if they left Israel and helped the Arab states invade Israel, they would get the Jews' land once the Jews were forced into the sea. Instead, the Jews won. Since then, a bunch of Arabs are being held in refugee camps for generation after generation, while still others settled in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which themselves were part of Jordan and Egypt, respectively, until those territories were used as staging areas for invading Israel in another attempt to exterminate the Jews in the 1960's.
Israel didn't have a problem with Arabs living there, and still don't: the Arabs who didn't take Jordan, Egypt, and Syria up on their offer stayed in Israel and remain full citizens.
Re:I have a workable solution (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose you also believe that an F-16 can empty its cannon in under a few seconds, too, right? Do you really think this thing just spews bullets in a steady stream? Or that it cannot be loaded via belt from larger magazines? Or that it can't be reloaded during a fight? Or that the gun systems aren't arranged on a grid with ~40% overlap of coverage to ensure a killed target?
There are no long, continued attacks with mortars and rockets. The first mortar you shoot gives away your position down to the meter. You will be dead soon. That is how the game is played, and I've seen it played first-hand many times. There is not a long, protracted battle, but many single people being killed after their first mortar launch.
The rounds do not need to be explosive. Even wikipedia will tell you that. The rounds are explosive over land so that they will self-destruct if they do not hit a target. The gun will not fire below a certain angle, making your fears quite unfounded. The range of these bullets is many miles without the explosive charge; with the charge, the fragments disperse over the ground without ill effect. I've had mortars killed DIRECTLY OVER MY HEAD and nothing bad happened to anyone. You are underestimating just what high explosives do to small hollow metal objects.
>>the US has used it before apparently
Maybe you didn't gather it from my original post, but I didn't pull this idea from some Digg article. I have experience with this machine. It has probably personally saved my ass several times. The only times it did not shoot down mortars was during takeoff/landing of nearby aircraft that would have flown into the field of fire. This is a machine that made me feel safe in a place with daily mortar attacks. This thing would be a HUGE psychological deterrent to the attackers, but an even bigger asset to the Israelis- you simply cannot understand the difference in the way I slept knowing those things were outside my room vs. the first time I went there when they hadn't been plugged in yet. I appreciate your comments but you are way out of your league here.
-b
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It Was Scraped? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:5, Interesting)
The Palestinian collaboration with Egypt in 1948 wasn't what pissed the Israelis off - it was the wider Arab collaboration with the Nazis during WWII. When WWII concluded and the Israelis were able to secure arms from Soviet sources (not to mention a huge influx of pissed off European Jews), it was payback time. The Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem was instrumental in banning the immigration of German Jews to the Palestinian Mandate during WWII, and so was directly responsible for the murder of thousands of German Jews during the Holocaust.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right, there is a difference between the rights of Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews: Arabs have the additional right to not serve in the military. Israel's universal conscription does not apply to its Arab citizens.
The Palestinians, historically, are the Arabs who left Israel in order to help its neighbors invade it and exterminate its inhabitants. Their Arab allies (mostly Egypt, Syria, and Jordan) betrayed the Palestinians and refused to grant them citizenship, even if they inhabit territories that used to be part of Jordan and Egypt. This is simply a tactic for them to perpetuate discontent and terrorism against Israel, since they have been consistently unable to defeat and exterminate Israel through conventional military means.
Re:"scraped"? (Score:3, Interesting)
One other note (Score:3, Interesting)
Hamas had an oportunity to lay a real foundation for peace and we took that away. Hamas was elected on a promise to get rid of corruption. Had they been able to deliver on that, perhaps there would be a real negotiating partner. Instead our government has sought to undermine Palestinian democracy every step of the way, enhancing the problems which prevent serious negotiations. Sad, really.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
Hamas is trying to provoke Israel into dispurportionate measures and they are succeeding. Kill 120 Palestinians (mostly civilians) for every 5 Israelis killed? Heck even the Bush Administration is calling for Israel to back off, which is telling.
There is a clear goal to these attacks-- get Israel to respond too heavily. Countries and private individuals in the EU start cancelling orders. Israeli economy starts to sink. Israel abandons current settlement expansion efforts to convince Europeans that they are interested in peace. It worked like this under Operation Defensive Shield, and Hamas is going to try to do it again. They may even succeed. There is a *lot* of international pressure for Israel to back off and to stop the new settlement plans.
The only solution here is through political negotiations. Egypt is working hard to try to get these going again between Haniya and Olmert. Here is to hoping that this succeeds.
Re:Please stay on topic (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If a country needs this much defense. . . (Score:3, Interesting)