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USAF Readies Laser of Death 726

Posted by timothy from the so-called-ozone-layer dept.
An anonymous reader submits: "From the SkyNet Terminator Death Beam Dept...The London Telegraph is carrying this article about U.S. military plans to outfit AC-130 Spectre gunships with a chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) which can be used against personnel and materiel for lethal and nonlethal missions."
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USAF Readies Laser of Death More

USAF Readies Laser of Death

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  • Only for physical targets, not people (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mikeage ( 119105 ) <{slashdot} {at} {mikeage.net}> on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:14PM (#3022648) Homepage
    "The special operations AC-130 Spectre gunship, whose conventional weaponry has been used to devastating effect since the Vietnam War, is to be fitted with a laser that can shoot down missiles, punch holes in aircraft and knock out ground radar stations."

    IIRC, use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it. Besides, the article only says it'll be (intended to be) used against hard targets.

    • Re:Only for physical targets, not people (Score:5, Funny)

      by zerocool^ ( 112121 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:19PM (#3022680) Homepage Journal
      Dr. Evil: Back in the 60's, I developed a weather changing machine which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a 'laser.' Using these 'lasers' we'd punch a hole in the protective layer around the world which we called the 'ozone' layer. Slowly but surely ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk for skin cancer, that is...unless the world pays us a hefty ransom?
      No. 2: Ahem....that also already has happened.

      Dr. Evil: Shit!

    • Just remember... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Karl Cocknozzle ( 514413 ) <kcocknozzle.hotmail@com> on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:20PM (#3022686) Homepage
      use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it.

      Now that it's a crime to have a Death Ray, on criminals will have Death Rays...

      Something to think about.
    • Well, yeah, just like any projectile larger than a standard rifle round is not supposed to be used against personnel. But like my Drill sergeant always said, 'Aim for their belt.'
      • That's not true. The only reason that larger caliber bullets are discouraged for use against personnel is because it's a waste. Why use a .50 cal against troops when you can use a rifle, and save the big bullets for the big trouble.
        • IIRC, .50cal/12.7mm and above are often classified as anti-vehicle. International rules of warfare prohibit intentional use of anti-vehicle weapons against humans.

          Doesn't stop it in practice, and if all you have is such a weapon when others are shooting at you, it's hard to go against you even if someone did bring charges.
    • Why should the user of lasers be against the law ? You can use a flame thrower on the bad guys and then bayonet the survivors but not zap them with a high intesity beam. Bush appears quite easy about ignoring laws he does not like and in this case I'd have no problem with either altering international law to reflect new technology or simply deploying the weapons.
      • Maybe the treaty writers wanted to keep war as inefficient and ineffective as possible. *shrug*

        Of course, if somebody wants to violate the treaties, they're just ink on a page. It's not like deliberate maiming and mutilation are at all uncommon in the numerous hot-spots in the world, but you don't see massive intervention forces stomping out all the Big Men or rebellious Big Men-wannabees. I doubt that wantonly amputating civilians for simply being in territory that you just conquered is permitted under international law, either.
        • Maybe you should go read the text of the treaty. It's intent was to prevent inhumane suffering. Before the treaty was written, at that point, the only laser weapons available were of size to maim and wound soldiers. Not kill them.

          Torture even during times of war is to be avoided on the battlefield. If we gonna shoot them, we sure as fuck better kill them. AFAIK, the treaty originally referred to foot soldiers only.
          • Yeah well it's a shame that accepted practice is to wound enemy soldiers rather than kill them as this places a severe strain on the support services. It's more work to look after a wounded soldier than to handle a corpse.
      • Bush appears quite easy about ignoring laws he does not like and in this case I'd have no problem with either altering international law to reflect new technology or simply deploying the weapons.

        Excuse me? Altering international law?? Bush doesn't have the ability to do that alone.. he would have to get the approval of, well.... THE REST OF THE WORLD!
    • IIRC, use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law.

      You're probably thinking of Protocol IV to the 1980 additions to the Geneva Convention (text at ICRC [icrc.org]). As near as I can tell, it only applies to weapons designed to blind people. That's right, folks. You can blow people apart with laser weapons, according to international law, but you can't blind them. It is indeed a strange world we live in.

      • Re:Only for physical targets, not people (Score:5, Interesting)

        by thelaw ( 100964 ) <spam@@@cerastes...org> on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:49PM (#3022849) Homepage
        the geneva convention's intention is to encourage "humane" warfare, or something in that vein. so, as we all know, you're not allowed to target noncombatants explicitly. but the weapons that you use on combatants during warfare have to be designed for the purpose of a "clean kill", i.e. not meant to maim. i guess the idea is that being maimed is like torture, so weapons that intend to maim should be banned, like torture should be.

        when the m-16 was first introduced, there was some controversy over the design. a bullet, when fired from an m-16, would tend to wobble as it flew, making it more messy when it hit a target. when it entered the body, it would tumble, rather than simply spin right through. i think there were some questions of geneva convention-compatibility early in vietnam, but i don't recall the outcome. they might have redesigned the ballistics, but i don't recall.

        that's just one example of the kill/maim distinction. hopefully someone else has another example.

        jon
        • Hmm... you must be thinking of the AK-47, which spits out more tumblers than any other assault rifle.
          • The AK-47 was obsoleted in 1961, and it was a standard 7.61mm weapon. You are probably thinking about AK-74, which (as the year suggests) was a USSR's response to M-16 (after the M-16 had shown itself as a worthy weapon). In any case, AK-74 is not a high rate of fire weapon (10 rounds per minute), there are plenty of special purpose weapons with much higher performance. This one was developed for a foot soldier. See here [sovietarmy.com].

        • Full Metal Jacket (Score:5, Informative)

          by sielwolf ( 246764 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @05:43PM (#3023124) Homepage Journal
          when the m-16 was first introduced, there was some controversy over the design. a bullet, when fired from an m-16, would tend to wobble as it flew, making it more messy when it hit a target.
          ... early in vietnam, but i don't recall the outcome. they might have redesigned the ballistics, but i don't recall.

          Here you go, an article talking about FMJ and the M-16 [visual-memory.co.uk]

          Snippets from the above:
          The landwar convention from The Hague doesn't allow fragmenting bullets for purposes of war, so every army in the world uses FMJ bullets. Usually a hit from a conventional FMJ doesn't kill, but leaves a clean hole. No hunter will use FMJ, since they want to kill, not to wound.
          [snip]
          This, in theory is better for two reasons -- one, it creates a situation where instead of creating a dead enemy soldier it creates a wounded one, which must be cared for by his buddy, thus taking two men out of action with each hit. The second reason behind the idea is that it is more humane to wound than to kill. This type of ammunition was agreed upon by the Geneva convention, and both sides of the vietnam war agreed to it's use.
          [snip]

          So I think the difference is between temporary wounding (the above) and permanent scaring (say from blinding lasers, mustard gas, biological agents, dirty nukes). The Geneva Convention is for the former and against the latter.
      • Some large 50-caliber bullets (capable of taking out armored personel carriers!) are not legally allowed to be used against people -- only material and equipment... the same situation as the laser. But this isn't considered a deterent to users of the gun... the loophole? a shooter can always claim they were weren't aiming at the preson, only their the canteen, beltbuckle, dogtag, etc. [birzeit.edu]

        • To the best of my knowledge that's not true. And although I can't back it up with fact (and that link reference hardly points to fact) let me point out a few things to support my argument.

          The .50 is designed for "soft" targets such as trucks, jeeps, APCs, LAVs, bunkers, bivouacs, buildings etc... but is also designed to be used against the people that occupy them. I can assure you that those trained on the .50cal machine gun (at least as far as NATO countries are concerned) are also told that it is to be used against groups of infantry.

          This having been said, as a rule of thumb the person aiming the .50cal won't use it against individuals for the same reason that you don't aim the APFSDS round of a tank against people: waste of valuable resources.

          Might I also remind you that the caliber of choice for sniper rifles world-wide is the .50 caliber. A seldomly discussed fact is that snipers don't always go after people, but quite often are used to destroy equipment such as radar, generators or vehicles, the .50 cal does a great job of slicing through an engine block, but it also kills a person in a single shot, hence it's use. Range is another reason why.

          Now, speaking from my years of experience in the Canadian Armoured Corps, I can assure you that soldiers are trained to use .50 cal against infantry when required to do so, but usualy that's the job of medium machine guns (at least in NATO the .50inch is Heavy machine gun caliber, 7.62mm is medium machine caliber and 5.56mm is light machine gun/rifle caliber (yeah, the M16 in vietnam was 7.62mm, but all the barrels have been replaced with 5.56mm for years now)).

          I hope this clears things up a bit. Oh, and about those comments concerning the "wobbling" of the M16 round, that's not accurate either. The M16 (and all the variants that I'm aware of) have a rifled barrel, meaning that a high degree of spin (clockwise, if you're curious) is applied to the round as progresses through the barrel. This rifling effect causes the trajectory of the round to be less succeptible to wind and small branches, it also eliminates any wobble. On the other hand, as soon as the round hits something reasonably solid, such as a human bone, it will start to "tumble", causing further damange. The whole wobble argument was about fragmentation of rounds, which the metal jacket eliminates.

          One last piece of information, at lot of tanks out there have a special round designed for them that looks like a really big shotgun round, which is used against infantry at close range (it is also often used to remove infantry that are mounting a neighbouring tank). It's range is under a couple hundred meters, but I've seen it cut up 50 wooden targets in a single shot. Now that's scary! Feel free to bring up any questions you have to that above info.

      • As near as I can tell, it only applies to weapons designed to blind people. That's right, folks. You can blow people apart with laser weapons, according to international law, but you can't blind them.

        I have a pair of US Army laser-proof cold-weather goggles and i know the Soviets had similar protection. It may be concern over inadvertant exposure -- but there has been a pretty good amount of research done here on the possibility of disabling an opposition force with advanced disco-ball technology. If the blinding was a temporary effect (like an unexpected flare) it would seem to be a pretty humane way of disabling folks.

        It is indeed a strange world we live in.

        You mean, I'll put down my sword, and you'll put down your rock, and we'll try to kill each other like civilized people?
    • Which basically means that the whole "as a result of Sept 11" thing was a bunch of crap...

      I mean, since when does the military need a PR excuse to develop new weapons, especially ones that are more precise than the old? We already love our smart bombs and cruise missles, why wouldn't we develop a laser?

      I guess I'm just not seeing how Sept 11th in particular meant we need "a more sophisticated and deadly weapon system". How would this laser have helped? We couldn't scramble an F-15 in time... there's no way we would have gotten one of these gunships off the ground in time. And it's not like terrorists have lots of hard targets for us to use this on.

      So I guess my question is -- is it the Telegraph that's making the false connection to Sep. 11, or is it the USAF?

    • The Soviets used to "dazzle" the eyes of US/NATO pilots rather often (or tried to) on the open seas using targeting or ranging lasers. B-52 pilots had eye protection, primarily for protection against nuk-u-ler flash blinding but also useful against lasing events during maritime recon. Don't know about the other services but it is likely that they had their protective gear as well.


      It is NOT legal to lase like that but there is no rule against use of deadly lasers. In any case, if an AC-130 coming after you is carrying one of these lasers, the LAST thing on your mind should be "They might dazzle my eyes and blind me!" and more like "Get under cover or I'll get a hole burned through me" (killed, not blinded).


      In any case, there is no difference between dying due to a lethal laser shot and a lethal 20mm gatling gun shot (or 8" Howitzer blast) which are also some of the weapons often carried on AC-130s. Well, the laser death would likely be less icky-messy.

    • IIRC, use of lasers to kill/wound/maim/blind soldiers is illegal under international law. Not to say it's never done, but as a recongnized capability-- I doubt it. Besides, the article only says it'll be (intended to be) used against hard targets.

      Only weapons that intentionally blind are banned. I thought I remembered, reading about a US weapon to blind the enemy, and this article appears to reference it [washington-report.org].

      At any rate, another US laser weapon that will be fielded soon is the 747-400f Airborne Laser [af.mil]. It will have interesting capabilities:

      "The laser-equipped aircraft will be able to shoot down theater ballistic missiles launched hundreds of miles away."

      Also fighters, bombers, air-to-air missiles, cruise missiles, ground targets...just as with the .50 cal machine gun, I guess we'll be 'aiming at the hardware'. The crew will just be incidental damage.

      Yes, we will soon be living in the era of the 'death ray'.

      By the way, if I recall correctly the initial order of these laser-equipped 747s is ten planes. Coupled with AWACS and JSTARS they will be awesome weapons...in clear weather at least. ;-)

      One last thought - with these planes we might not be all that far from a practical anti-ICBM technology. It's most likely a hard physics problem to prevent the reentry vehicle from burning up when a bunch of extra energy is dumped in during ablation. Also most decoys don't survive the initial stage of re-entry...

      299,792,458 m/s...not just a good idea, its the law!

    • Re:Only for physical targets, not people (Score:4, Insightful)

      by trenton ( 53581 ) <trentonl@NOSPAm.gmail.com> on Sunday February 17, 2002 @08:26PM (#3023794) Homepage
      Right, right. Rules of war. I thought it was also illegal, under international treaty, to:
      1. Build an Anti-Ballistic Missile device [fas.org]
      2. Hold prisoners of war without trial [bbc.co.uk]
      So, since there's a law forbidding it, no one would ever possibly use these on people.

      • re: point 1 (Score:3, Informative)

        by wiredog ( 43288 )
        It's perfectly legal to build ABM systems, if the country withdraws from the ABM treaty first. Which the treaty allows, and which the US has done. So, the US is in full compliance with the ABM treaty.

  • Right out of "Real Genious" !!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by tweakt ( 325224 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:16PM (#3022657) Homepage
    If you haven't seen Real Genious [imdb.com], you should. It's a classic. It opens with a defense project "vision" of their superlaser weapon, taking out a man of arab descent.
    • That's a great movie. However, I think using lasers os a good idea. I'm all for just taking out the heads of enemy states with powerful lasers. :)

      "Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sungod robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little
      pickles at you?" -- Real Genius
  • So now, the US looks even more like the empire to the rest of the world. We even have our own Death Star.
  • Well from my point of view.. So.. you can blow your enemies to pieces, put bits of lead at mach speed through their bodies and hack them to death with your combat knife but laser would be too inhumane?

    This world doens't make alot of sense...

  • I want one! (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Lord Ender ( 156273 )
    With this giant "laser" I could mount it on the moon and then...
  • The New York Times had a blurb about this about three months ago. For the lazy, a chemical plant that fills about 3/4 of the cargo space feeds the lasing system in the turret. Desgined to be part of the "missile shield" for the US and allies. Seems like a boondoggle to me, but who knows? The article I read focused on the laser taking down cruise missiles and other aircraft. Not usable for ICBMs for obvious reasons. I didn't know that they were going to use these against ground targets. Yikes!

    • No, that's the ABL (Score:2, Interesting)

      by glrotate ( 300695 )
      That is the ABL program: A big anti-ICMB laser on a 747. This looks to be quite diferent. This appears to be an anti-Stinger missle solution: Meaning the ability to knock down a missle fired at the plane itself.

      Hooray for the spooks!
    • Lasers are less of aboondoggle then shooting down ICBMs with other missles. They are basically faking all the data which says they can shoot down an ICBM with a missle. I have not heard that the laser data is faked.

      btw> It is possible to shoot down an ICBM with a missle.. a nuclear missle. A conventional war anti-ICBM missle can not distinguish the war head from the decoys. A nuke dose not need to.

  • ...I just hope they've learned their lesson since the last time they tried using this kind of weapon...

    don't shoot at houses with giant Jiffy-Pop tins in them! [imdb.com]

  • Isn't this the most powerful weapon we're ever going to see on a battlefield?

    Think about it. The time to take to shoot down a wing of jets - five of them, say - is five times the time it takes to reposition the laser, fire, and acquire a new target. Maybe a few seconds.

    The Airforce might be useless. This would completely change warfare - obselete the modern armor which is dominating the battlefield; make the shield against the laser more neccessary than standard metal plating.

    It's scary, guys. The United States Military might become obselete by the technology it's procuring.
    • Precision weapons are only useful if you can locate the target, er, precisely. You'd still want something conventional like big Gatling guns, AGMs and standard bombs for hitting an area where you suspect something is... lasing a whole area might take non-trivial time and energy.
    • It depends on the range of the weapon, which they are not saying, and the range of air-to-air missiles that can splash the plane, and the quality of the tracking system... I don't think this will be a superweapon. Just a super COOL weapon.

      This is just rehashed technology from the Airborne Laser [airbornelaser.com] anyway. They've been putting giant chemical lasers into Boeings for a while now, and the intention is to make it a widely-deployed weapons system for theater missile defense. Can't say for sure, but I bet the ABL has a much more potent beam.

      Not that the Spectre version isn't hella cool! Gives a new meaning to "light 'em up."
    • sadly, the way this changes warfare was shown to us on Sept. 11. You wanna know how the wars will be fought? Thats how.

      ...which is ironic since we have a 50 year history of trying to make weapons that dont kill civilians, yet, if we use this technology, the only way an enemy would have to fight back is via terrorism. What have we gotten ourselves into?

  • So instead of half-inch steel armor, all the enemy needs is reflective armor? That's a camouflage problem for tanks but not a problem for missiles. Am I just being dumb?

    • Re:MIrrors? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rcs1000 ( 462363 )
      Unfortunately, it isn't that simple. The laser doesn't burn through the target it literally hits it with more energy than it can deal with - sure making it refective would help - but only a little. Plus, there is the majordisadvantage of being poorly concealed to conventional weopans.
    • It might be better to deploy something that would diffuse the laser's energy before it reached it's intended target...smoke, thick clouds of dust, water vapour, mylar 'chaff', etc...

      Ideas anyone?

    • It's no problem at all if a thin layer of paint burns away to reveal the reflective surface only when necessary.

      This is all deja vu from the SDI discussion we had on /. a while back. There are effective defenses against this stuff, they just haven't been developed yet because the offense is still a baby.

      • Re:MIrrors? (Score:3, Informative)

        by sigwinch ( 115375 )
        It's no problem at all if a thin layer of paint burns away to reveal the reflective surface only when necessary. ... There are effective defenses against this stuff, they just haven't been developed yet because the offense is still a baby.
        Reflection can never defend against lasers. No matter how reflective you make the surface, a modest pulse can vaporize a little material from the surface, forming a vapor. The vapor is a strong absorber of light, which means it is efficiently heated by the laser. The vapor then heats the "reflective" surface by direct contact, vaporizing more material and keeping the process going. There's no room for improvement either: the power densities achievable with a modern pulsed laser can vaporize even materials like tungsten and diamond.
  • Where's Mitch Taylor and Chris Knight [imdb.com] when you need them?

  • The Air Force has been working on an AirBorne Laser (ABL [google.com]) project for antiballistic missile defense for a long time. Hitting targets such as SAM sites has always been a possible use of this system.

    I'm honestly pretty surprised that they got it working. I had a friend working on the project for a while, but the technical obstacles were large enough that the funding was getting shaky, so he moved on to much much greener pastures..

  • Flawed logic? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaptainPuppydog ( 516199 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:38PM (#3022792)
    "Despite the successful operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, the emergence of asymmetric terrorist warfare - attacks such as September 11 where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system."

    So.... what they're saying is "We didn't see them coming, so we need bigger guns". Is it just me, or is that logic flawed? How do they get from A to B there? I think that the real need should be for better intelligence so they know more about what's going on, not bigger bang-bangs. Proactive is always better than Reactive, IMHO.

    • Yep (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ghoser777 ( 113623 )
      That's always been the government's logic too. You remember the devices terorists used to take over those three planes? They were box cutters. Would baggage handlers have stoped them for those? No. It wasn't there fault for being lazy or underpaid or underqualified, there wasn't anything against having box cutters. That's one of those items that could end up in your bag by accident. But now a lot of people in government are screaming about federalizing bagage handlers; there's no connection.

      The military always needs more funding for their little toys, so the best way to get funding is to tell the government that they need money to thwart a threat, even if the weapon doesn't counter the threat. Usually this type of funding is masked under the rhetoric of "military readiness" and "military effectiveness."

      F-bacher

    • Re:Flawed logic? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sigwinch ( 115375 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @06:36PM (#3023375) Homepage
      So.... what they're saying is "We didn't see them coming, so we need bigger guns".
      Did you even read the article? Did you even know there was an article? The laser does almost nothing compared to, say, a 20mm Vulcan cannon that fires 2500 rounds per minute, or a 105mm Howitzer. To say nothing of a B-52 group loaded with daisy cutters.

      What the laser does is hit extremely specific targets. In asymmetric warfare--say, a guerrilla radar installation in the middle of a city you'd rather not carpet bomb--the laser lets you win with greatly reduced carnage. So instead of blasting a couple of city blocks to flinders, there's a loud bang that puts a hole through the radar antenna and breaks a few windows. Instead of carpet bombing a suspected missile installation, just plink them as they launch.

      Remember that improvements in force projection almost never come by increasing the total amount of force applied, they come by concentrating the force into the smallest ever-smaller areas. It was true of the first iron sights on rifles, it was true of the first radar fuses on WWII missiles, and it is true of modern battle lasers.

  • A supplement to Aegis/CIWS? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Styx ( 15057 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:38PM (#3022795) Homepage
    From the article:

    "Lasers could also be used as an additional weapon system to fighters, bombers, helicopter gunships and warships but this is unlikely for a decade."

    I find this quite puzzling. One of the big threats to warships (i.e. aircraft carriers) today, is cruise missiles [softwar.net].
    To defend against those, we use missiles [navy.mil]and gatling guns today [raytheon.com].
    Wouldn't something like this be a ideal supplement to CIWS? Moving a mirror around, directing the laser beam, to hit a sea-skimming cruise missile, should be easier than hitting that missile with lots-of-flying-lead[tm].

  • What to do if you happen upon a peace rally hosted by some naive, objectors to the military movement in the Middle East:
    1) Approach one individual talking about "peace" and claiming there should be "no retaliation."
    2) Have a brief conversation with this person and ask if military force is appropriate.
    3) When he says "no," ask, "Why not?"
    4) When he says, "because that would just cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful, and we should not cause more violence"
    5) Punch him in the face . . . hard
    6) When he gets up to punch you back, point out that it would be a mistake, and contrary to his values, to punch you, because he would be just increasing the violence.
    7) When he agrees that he has pledged not to commit violence,punch him in the face again . . . harder this time.
    8) Repeat steps 2 through 7 until he understands that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.
    9) Move on to other people in his group until all have been converted.
    10) Move on to other demonstrations and repeat steps 1 through 9.
    • A wonderful demonstration in stupidity. You ask a person if military force is appropriate and then you use civilian force.

      I would without hesitation defend myself. I would quite likely use more than necessary force :-)
    • OK, where's the lineup to punch this guy?

      I've heard his approach mentioned before, and it's as stupid now as it was then. Continually attacking someone who wants peace achieves nothing. Especially if the person or group has the the chance to influence those who would act as blindly and unthinkingly as our warmongering friend.

      Attacking someone who doesn't want to be your is a pretty damn good way of making them into another enemy.

      I'd rather gain allies on the road to peace, than pave it with the blood of innocent civilians.
    • ...that's the question that I'm sure you (and most other) americans are afraid of asking (or answering).
    • What have you proven, other than that warmongers like yourself are the cause of violence? You have only proven that it is necessary to punch back for those who value their lives more than their principles. There are those who would rather die than kill. Turns out I'm not one of them, though.

      You wouldn't have to "point out" that it would be contrary to my values to punch you back. I wouldn't try to punch you back, simply because those -are- my values. But I would be wary, as you've identified yourself as a threat. The second time you tried to punch me (assuming you did so), I would try to stop you (which is not supposed to imply that the response would not be violent). Despite your obvious insanity, and the danger you pose, as soon as you stopped trying to punch me, I'd stop trying to stop you.

      What have you proven? That I'm willing to defend my person when it is under direct assault? You've done nothing but demonstrate that I'm not an absolute pacifist. I believe in self-defense, but I do not believe in retaliation should the attempt at self-defense fail.

      When I follow you home to -continue- to try to kick your ass, and the ass of any large, threatening-looking people in your family... Then you'd have a point.

  • Line of sight (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @04:45PM (#3022823)
    Line of sight is going to become really, really important in the battlefield. High-flying non-stealth aircraft would be in serious trouble if accurate enough fire-control systems for ground anti-aircraft lasers could be developed. Armored ground forces would regain importance. The derided Crusader artillery system could suddenly look prescient (antiaircraft suppression being one of its combat roles), assuming tracking lots of artillery shells is more difficult than tracking aircraft. F-117's ought to remain effective, but I still think it's dangerous to become overreliant on air power.

    The new Spectre's might not work against ICBMs, but what about shorter range ballistic missiles, like the several hundred missiles China has pointed at Taiwan? (Yeah, why China's bitchy about America dumping the ABM treaty with that nation that no longer exists...)

    Nice coincidence that it takes a free nation with a free-market economy to finance a proper high-tech military, long-term at least. Hopefully no one will figure out how to dump the "free nation" half of the equation.
    • Not really a problem. The beam quality of this kind of laser is never good, and with that much power passing through the air the beam doesn't behave like your pen-pointer laser.

      As the intensity increases the refractive index of the air will change, causing strange effects. It will also be extremely sensitive to turbulence.

      The terawatt laser* I saw recently worked round this by spreading the beam over a large area and time before focussing and compressing it down.

      Adaptive optics are a possible work around, but conventional adaptive optics can't handle the kind of intensities we're talking about here.

      The highest power adaptive optics system I've heard of uses nonlinear effects in it's laser medium (usually a rare earth metal doped crystal), but the COIL laser (from it's description) will have a gas mixture. Any effects there are going to be, for all intents and purposes, random.

      I doubt the range of these things is going to be greater than a km or so.

      * ~1J in ~500fs

  • Can != Should (Score:2, Interesting)

    by sam_handelman ( 519767 )
    I'm not raising moral objections here, but practical ones.

    Yes, okay, we now have a laser which really can be used to blow something up. Yippee, us.

    The people who spent truckloads of money to develop this turkey naturally want us to deploy it.

    Ask yourself: Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more. But it is a Laser (therefore the weapon of the future) and it does work at all.

    We could also outfit our ground forces with supersonic vibrating swords. This would work, you could kill people with them. Likewise, giant robots as were discussed in a previous slashdot article.

    However, the fact remains that all of these technologies, while Cool, are very much NOT the most effective means of achieving military objectives!

    These laser weapons are nothing but a white elephant for defense contractors, who have seen the end of the cold war erode their profits.

    The idea of using one of these things to shoot down a missile - which is a very difficult feat even using inherently practical weapons systems - is absurd.
    • Does it have any advantages over a missile? Well, it's bigger, it doesn't go as far, it inflicts less damage, and it costs more.

      Costs more, or costs more per shot? Missles may be less per weapon, but presumably a laser could be reused. There is the prospect that this is merely the first implementation, and as such the likelihood of major improvement is large.

      In addition there is the prospect that R&D into lasers could benefit other, peaceful uses as well. After all, improvements in laser power handling could translate into many other uses.

      Like it or not, much of the technical progress that we have enjoyed since WWII has come out of R&D originally targeted for military applications. Hell, the first electronic computer was first built for a military application.

      To me, R&D into lasers, even if the initial justification is a military use seems like one of the best uses of tax dollars that one could concieve of.

    • Re:Can != Should (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mikec ( 7785 )
      Well, let's see... what advantages does it have over a missle? Mainly, it's a tad faster---the difference between the speed of sound and the speed of light. There is no time for evasive maneuvers and no time for countermeasures. Either you already have defenses in place when the button is pushed or you get blown up. And it will be at least a few decades before most nations have any effective defense.
      • No, look, it is NOT faster because you have to mount it on an aircraft. If these lasers had enough RANGE that you could fire them from ground turrets then, yes, you could shoot down missiles with them.

        However, they do not. You have to get in an airplane, and play space invaders with it.

        This is not a practical solution.
    • The laser has an advantage in shooting down missles over 'inherently practical' weapons systems. The laser beam moves at the speed of light, which greatly simplifies targeting of a moving target.

    • Re:Can != Should (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MAXOMENOS ( 9802 )
      These laser weapons are nothing but a white elephant for defense contractors, who have seen the end of the cold war erode their profits.

      I respectfully submit that you're mistaken here. This laser is the tip of the iceberg. What the Bush Administration is doing is creating a brand new war, the War on Terrorism, to replace the Cold War. Like the Cold War, we will be lucky to see it end in our lifetimes. This is exactly what the defense contractors need: something that will put them on the gravy train for 50, possibly 100 years.

      What comes after the laser? Autonomous, unmanned combat vehicles. Better body armor. Improved infantry weapons that can blow up a grendade just on the other side of hard cover. Mechanized infantry companies and light armor companies that can deploy and be in combat position with 48 hours notice. Low-grade nerve gas that knocks out an entire village or a few city blocks for just long enough for troops to sweep in and arrest people. And that's just in the next 10-15 years. All of this represents trillions (that's 10^12) of dollars in revenue for defense contractors, and to defense contractors' investors.

      I used to think that Aerospace would be the next big growth sector after Biotech. At this point, I think they're going to boom simultaneously.

  • Close Air/Fire Support (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Greg151 ( 132824 ) on Sunday February 17, 2002 @05:05PM (#3022917) Homepage Journal
    So, in my non-geek life, I am an Army Field Artillery officer, and I have some background in Fire Support and Close Air. This thing will be used to support US ground troops( army or marine) in the middle of bad fights, where Field Artillery, or bombs are not availble or inappropriate. AC-130s are big, slow, relatively low flying aircraft, and they are generally committed to support our guys that are in a bad fight. This weapon probably will not be used as some sort of non-discriminate area fire weapon, ( would take too much energy, plus there is a higher risk of losing it to ground fire), but it will help our guys in a fight. If we had used a Spectre in Mogadishu, you folks wouldn't be watching "Black Hawk Down" in the theaters right now. Obviously, I am for it.

    For the moralist out there, I wish to ask them one simple question: If we are to be continually called to be the world's cop, like we were in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Somalia, why are you against giving the guys who are doing the dirty work the support to do their jobs? If you don't want us to be the world's cop, then do you have any right to be self rightous about the massacres in these same countries? I oughta know. I did a tour in Sarajevo, Bosnia, right at the beginning of the US mission. So, either you want us to do these missions, and you give us the tools, or you convince your elected officials that you won't get upset by the pictures on TV, and then we don't need these sorts of tools.
  • Now I understand why all those futuristic movies in the old days had people wearing silver jumpsuits... to protect against the lasers!

    Seriously, though, would a mirror-chrome covering be enough to deflect the beams off the tanks and planes? It would make for a cool looking army!
  • Despite the successful operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan, the emergence of asymmetric terrorist warfare - attacks such as September 11 where the enemy is unseen - has led the Pentagon to identify the need for a more sophisticated and deadly weapons system.
    So where exactly does a laser equipped attack plane help angainst terrorist attacks like the one on 11 September?

    The US ministry of defense still does not get it: They can not fight a war against terrorists the way they fight a war against a country. In Afghanistan they did not win against terrorism they won against the Taleban and it is still not certain that it did any good against the el Quaida and Bin Laden.

    At I have to admit that least something good may come out of this: The people of Afghanistan might get a better life through this war, at least the ones who survived it, the winter and the ongoing fighting between the tribal leaders.

  • Hyperventilated Reporter Sells Copy!!! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by PHAEDRU5 ( 213667 ) <instascreedNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Sunday February 17, 2002 @06:32PM (#3023343) Homepage
    I just read Sean Rayment's breathless title and note a couple of things.

    - Although the article is entitled "America's laser of death cleared for take-off", a quick glance over the article itself reveals that the laser in question will be "capable of carrying out lethal and non-lethal attacks". I guess the chosen title plays better than "America's laser of death (or not) cleared for take-off".

    - Mr. Rayment does a good job of noting the weaponry that was available on the AC-130 before the advent of the laser of death (or not) in question. I think we can take it for granted that getting hit by a round from any one of the "twin 20mm Vulcan cannon (capable of firing 2,500 rounds per minute), 40mm Bofor cannon (100 rounds per minute) and a 105mm Howitzer" is at least as unhappy an event as being hit by a pulse from the laser of death (or not). In fact, the laser of death (or not) may be a more humanitarian (as it were) weapon than anything the AC-130 has had to date. Of course, presenting that notion probably won't sell much copy.

    My thoughts, this hyperventilated Sunday afternoon.

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