Air Force Looks To Laser-Proof Its Weapons 347
slugo writes "This wired.com article has probably the coolest laser destruction video you have ever seen. The video shows the Israeli and US Air Force working on laser defense systems. The US Air Force is starting to look for ways to laser-proof its bombs and missiles — with spray-on coatings, no less. They think everyone is going to figure this laser thing out sometime and need a defense against what they are already very good at — shooting things out of the sky with a laser."
It's obvious, isn't it? (Score:4, Funny)
That's why you need the friggin' sharks! (Score:5, Funny)
That's why you need sharks to go with your lasers. You think you can defend yourself with mirrors, do you? Don't you know that sharks like to eat shiny things?
Simple business plan. (Score:5, Funny)
1. Buy all the Krylon 'Chrome' spray paint.
2. Relabel it and sell it to the government as 'Anti-Laser Shielding'.
3. Profit!
Ha ha h- wait... there's a step #2. There's never a step #2. wtf
They're So Small They're Evading Our Turbolasers! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:It's obvious, isn't it? (Score:4, Funny)
Cover everything in mirrors.
... preferably shaped like a disco ball, and also incorporating a loudspeaker system that plays a continuous loop of The Trampps "Burn baby burn, disco inferno"
Re:Armour them and spin them. (Score:4, Funny)
Instead of carbon, how about that magical substance known as: Tin Foil.
If it's good enough to stop the beams entering my head, it should be good enough to stop the beams from entering missiles!
Shark Repellent Spray? (Score:1, Funny)
If you repel the sharks, the lasers will go too.
Environmental Impact (Score:4, Funny)
Re:well that was a waste of money (Score:4, Funny)
One of these days, Slashdot will post a story with the word 'laser' in the summary and people won't tag it "sharks"...
(probably because Slashdotters will all be too busy playing DNF to comment)
Re:Armour them and spin them. (Score:5, Funny)
target CPUs and get all the 0s to be 1s and those smart weapons go stupid and don't target targeting anything
I see they got to yours already.
The Scots had anti-laser defences centuries ago (Score:3, Funny)
In battle, they would don a full-length ball gown covered in sequins. The idea was to blind your opponent with luxury.
A more modern tack might simply be to let Frank Ghery design the bomb casing. The high-strength reflective materials would avert damage, while the deconstructionist curved form would, with luck, send the beam back to the attackers, using their own laser against them like in a cliched Star Trek episode.
Stay by the phone (Score:3, Funny)
With amazing insights like those I'm sure you'll have a lucrative defence job offer very shortly.
VINDICATION AT LAST!..... (Score:2, Funny)
I finally have a reason to justify my owning a pair of those polarized, reflective shades from the 1980's!
Slap a pair of those rad-fashion babies on a missile and will not only be laser proof, but it'll look *cool* at the same time!
To quote The Great M.C. Hammer: "Can't touch this!"
Re:Blimp (Score:4, Funny)
That would make a good episode of CSI (Score:3, Funny)
But for the whole implausibility factor. I mean, I can only suspend my disbelief so far:
"the Lebanese army guys measured the angle of the holes at the bottom of the impact craters made by the fuse assemblies being blown into the ground"
Yeah. Granted if your calculations are thrown off my five degrees by something irregular -- say, I don't know, an explosion -- you get garbage data which broadens your "X marks the spot" to a few square miles, which is about what you could have guessed given that the shells appear to be coming from thataway and you presumably have a rough idea of how far they could travel. But don't worry, Horatio Caine is on the case, and can infer from the fact that the pollen grain of a deusexis machinus was on one of the spent shell casings that the adversary must have been shooting from next to the greenhouse, on a Thursday, when the gardener was taking his lunch outside.
Re:It seems to slow for mortars. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Armour them and spin them. (Score:3, Funny)
Which of course explains the denial surrounding the project to raise sea levels so all warfighting has to occur underwater. Discovered by meddling climatologists, the entire plan was put into jeapordy, so a massive media campaign was mounted to discredit them.
I'm suprised you've not heard about it.