The Jet Fighter Laser Cannon 464
fahrbot-bot sends in a Register piece about DARPA issuing the penultimate contract for what is intended to be a jet-mounted laser cannon. The Reg outdoes itself in a BOTEC involving downsizing to shark scale. "The US military will shortly issue a brace of contracts for 'refrigerator sized' laser blaster cannons. One of the deals will see a full-power ground prototype built which will be the final stage prior to America's first raygun-equipped jet fighter. ... If it scales down far enough, this would seem to put handheld HELL-guns within an order of magnitude of the striking power offered by conventional small-arms. A 9mm pistol bullet has about 750 joules muzzle energy: a 5kg portable HELL-ray weapon would put out this much energy in a blast less than a second long. ... A dolphin can carry a human being weighing up to 100kg along for a ride. A thoroughbred shark in good training can surely match this. Thus, we seem to be looking at practicable head-[laser] output in the 20-kilowatt range."
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
Negligible benefit? Then why have so many police agencies abandoned the 9mm in favor of other calibers? Why did the Federal government settle on the .357 SIG (for the USSS) and .40S&W (for the FBI) instead of the cheaper and more commonly available 9mm? Most law enforcement agencies don't issue .45s but the fact that they've abandoned the 9mm in such large numbers ought to tell you something.
Personally, I'm not married to the .45. I have one, because I love the 1911 platform, but I'd also trust my life to a .40S&W, .357 magnum or 10mm. I've just read about too many spectacular failures of the 9mm to be willing to trust my life to it. To each their own though.
Re:over one second? (Score:4, Insightful)
But you can keep a laser focused on something a lot easier. Light moves a whole lot faster than a supersonic missile. If you think of it as a "photon machine gun," it's a lot easier to keep the "bullets" hitting the target when your bullets fire rather rapidly and can move at the speed of light. One second of laser-shining-on-a-moving-object can't be TOO hard.
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:9mm? (Score:1, Insightful)
As a matter of fact, yes, they sometimes do. But don't let facts bother you, by all means continue living in your childish fantasy world where all one's chosen profession dictates every aspect of their personality.
Re:What about the ultimate contract? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the "ultimate" contract "for what is intended to be a jet-mounted laser cannon" would be the contract for a jet-mounted laser cannon. The contract described here as "penultimate" is for "a full-power ground prototype" intended as to "be the final stage prior to America's first raygun-equipped jet fighter" and which is, therfore, correctly described by TFS as being "the penultimate contract for what is itended to be a jet-mounted laser cannon".
There is lots of misguided pedantry here ragging on TFS for using "penultimate" correctly.
Re:useless against the enemies of freedom (Score:3, Insightful)
Not only Godwinned but also... Satan? Surely there's a law for that too...
Even though this read mostly like a paranoid rant, it contains just enough grains of truth to be uncomfortable. It IS corporate welfare for Boeing and Raytheon, America DOES fund its own enemies, and the deaths of American soldiers DO enrich military contractors.
The only reason the last paragraph remains a paranoid rant is because I'm worth more to Goldman Sachs as a LIVE victim, rather than a dead one. My taxes justify their bailout.
Re:The Future (Score:3, Insightful)
Flying cars had (and have) two basic flaws that prevent their implementation:
a) Controlling a vehicle in three dimensions takes more skill than the average person has. Remember the last idiot you saw on the road? Which would have been today if you've driven today, by the way. Now imagine him *flying*.
b) a vehicle that generally operates with the ground 500 or 1000 feet below it needs better reliability than can be obtained with the way the average car is maintained. Doubly so when you remember you not only have to be worried about the vehicle and its passengers but whatever the vehicle might fall on.
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
and with 9mm you get a LOT more practice.
If that's your metric then the .22LR is the best self-defense round.
Its not the only metric, but it is a big one. I'd rather have my 9 that I get to put a couple hundred rounds in a month than a 45 that i can fire about half as much. Even a 22 can be deadly if placed well by someone with enough skill/luck. Accuracy and capacity both go down with increasing caliber so there has to be a balance though. I'm much more comfortable with 10+1 of 9mm than I would be with 6+1 of .45 (I know you can get more than that, but mine is a subcompact)
With good JHP ammo, 9 is plenty on an unarmored target.
Re:9mm? (Score:4, Insightful)
The fighter mounted one has 200 times the power, and I assume it is steered to target by computer. It could blind IR sensors on a jet fighter at quite a distance. Blinding the opposing pilot is also an option, since current strategy is to keep your eyes on the enemy. Just do a rapid raster scan across the target. I'd have to do a little math to figure out how long it would take to punch a hole through aircraft skin or detonate incoming ordnance.
It would be interesting to know the specs in more detail....
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like they needed to blame something.. then change something to make it look like they're actually making things better.
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
With good JHP ammo, 9 is plenty on an unarmored target.
I'll wager that most of the police who died because their 9mm rounds failed the stop the aggressor were using "good JHP ammo" (as if you'd use anything else for self-defense work). Seriously, how do you explain away the numerous stories of the 9mm failing to stop aggressors and the fact that large segments of the law enforcement community have abandoned it?
Re:9mm? (Score:3, Insightful)
There's a reason why even the professionals are trained to shoot CoM first.
Semi-professionals are trained to shoot two-to-three shots CoM and then to reassess the situation. Real professionals put two in the chest and one in the head.
Of course, I do agree with you that real professionals also do not use 9mm ammunition... or handguns for that matter.