Boeing 12,000lb Chemical Laser Set to Fry Targets 625
coondoggie writes "Boeing this week completed work on and installed a 12,000-pound chemical laser in a C-130H aircraft. Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) which is being developed for the Department of Defense, will destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage, supporting missions on the battlefield and in urban operations."
Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pretty much anything > Austin Powers. Seriously. I can't be the only person around here that hated those movies. Can I?
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
quoth Lord Apathy.
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If its anything like this [storg.net] then yes you can but you would get into a lot of trouble.
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Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, asshole. Way to ruin a perfectly good and entertaining story with facts. Seriously, who raised you? I wanna know, so I know who to blame for all the crying children who no longer believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and good war stories. You make me sick. Way to not support the troops, commie!
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NICE quote.
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I guess so. Or, perhaps I'm just not funny...that could be it, too. ;)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:4, Funny)
Mmmmmm (Score:3, Funny)
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Isn't that great. Assuming widespread deployment of course, our military won't really have any excuse for killing large numbers of civilians in a war zone.
This is not a large number of civillians. For instance, there are still Iraqi civillians, meaning we fell short of genocide
Our military never should have gotten a free pass on this to begin with, but with this technology they should get even more scrutiny.
No military has a free pass on civillian casualties. The laws of war, or the law of armed c
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
And yes, I know that we "started it." But that's a little irrelevent.
I mean, MANY innocent civies have been killed by Saddam and his regime and there's no reason to think that was going to stop. And, no matter what, they day was approaching when Saddam relinquished power. Whether he died, was overthrown in a coup, was just too frail, whatever, eventually (and probably measured in years and not decades) he would've been out of the picture and a quick look at the political climate there should convince anyone that it wouldn't exactly be a peaceful transfer of power.
There's also something to be said about being complicit and complacent. Just because many of these civilians weren't taking up arms against us, it doesn't mean that they wouldn't at a future time. And even more important, how many of them kept their mouths shut about neighbors and family members who WERE actively fighting us? How many of them were aiding and abetting the insurgents? And for those that weren't actively aiding insurgents, why weren't they actively opposing them?
So, really, it's very hard to say how many "innocent civies" were killed. It's hard to get a reliable number of deaths to begin with. But even once you do, you must subtract those that would've died anyway, and then subtract those that were killed by insurgents and not by the Coalition, and then subtract those that were complicit and complacent in the insurgency.
Re:Hmm. (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not defending Bush or the military. I'm just defending truth. The anti-war movement shouldn't try to use propaganda about how many innocents were killed. We sneer at Bush for HIS propaganda. We should be above that.
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And which leads us to the question: so what? What you've said could apply to any of a dozen or more nation-states throughout Africa and the rest of the world. But for some reason we're not engaged in a war defending the citizenry in any of those other cou
Re:Hmm. (Score:5, Funny)
"Crowd ? What crowd, sir ?"
Well there must be a crowd (Score:4, Funny)
No need for 12000lb lasers to stop looting scum (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it did not. US had its own share of rioting scum — Los Angeles in 1992 [wikipedia.org], Seattle in 1999 [wikipedia.org]...
Wherever the scum riots, they are easily suppressed by real determination (which the mayors of the cities listed evidently lacked). When the Los Angeles scum moved to trash another neighborhood, for example, they were stopped by armed citizens [wikipedia.org] (thank you, Second Amendment!), and, eventually, by police and National Guard...
You don't need a flying s
Crossbow: The Best Defense is a Good Offense (Score:5, Funny)
Cool but... (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder what the peaceful applications of this could be? It bothers me that so much money is spent on military technology having so many other issues that could be addressed. I'm guessing that soldering might be one good use, with a scaled down model but can't think of much else at the moment. On the other hand if they are going to research more ways to destroy stuff I'd like to see a true laser hand pistol...
Oh, I almost forgot the meme: Sharks!
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This is why my sole criterion for voting in the next election is: who will cut the military budget the most?
You can buy a *lot* with $500 billion a year, or even 20% of $500 billion a year. Tax cuts, medical research, a massive shift away from fossil fuels ($100 billion buys a *lot* of nuclear plants), education, improved infrastructure, Third World aid, whatever. We can have the debate about
Re:Cool but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because at the moment all those countries are menaced by a neighbour who is kept in check largely by the US. And all those neighbours either have or are very close to having ICBMs. And some of them are maybe crazy enough to threaten the US with those ICBMS or their neighbours. Now if the US can shoot them down there's much less incentive for them to do that. So missile defense is actually a geopolitical stabiliser.
Come to think of it, even if you're in America it's far better that America is far ahead of any conceivable rival, because that deters them from a sprint to parity and then a Pearl Harbour style attack on the US or even engaging in brinksmanship and messing it up so that they end up swapping ICBMs with the US. Which would be far more expensive than current US defense policy, even ignoring the fact that millions of innocent people would die, many of them Americans.
Most of these regimes seem to engage in brinksmanship with the US all the time. It seems likely that they view ICBMs as a tool to strengthen their hand, rather than just a defense to hunker down behind. And most of them have little or no understanding of US politics, so it's quite likely that they would miscalculate and get into a war with the US even if it were to make concessions to them. Arguably starting to make concessions to appease them would simply embolden then and make them start to demand things which the US cannot concede.
So if I were you I'd vote to keep spending on defense. Come to think of it, the good old US military industrial complex will probably managed to get the dollars somehow regardless of how you vote.
Re:Cool but... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. It wouldn't. All of those countries live right next door to their enemies. An ICBM would hardly be necessary to inflict devastating damage upon any of them.
North Korea has enough conventional artillery pointed at South Korea to level Seoul in a manner of minutes (and vice versa). China has a big enough army to march over Taiwan and Japan simultaneously, and would very likely win by sheer numbers alone without much of a fight.
And attacking Israel is simply a bad idea. The response provoked by a nuclear attack upon Israel would be a hundred times more severe than the initial attack.
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Re:Cool but... (Score:4, Funny)
That's why the Chinese Olympic swimming team was disqualified in 2004 for trying to compete with cheap AK-47 knockoffs slung on their backs.
Made 'ya Google!
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No. It wouldn't. All of those countries live right next door to their enemies. An ICBM would hardly be necessary to inflict devastating damage upon any of them.
Yeah but if you're China, North Korea or Iran then your best idea is to get the US to abandon your chosen victim. And the best way to do that is to threaten the US directly. My argument is that if the US wants to have a moral foreign policy of protecting small democracies from large dictatorships they need to neutralise China's nukes.
China has a big enough army to march over Taiwan and Japan simultaneously, and would very likely win by sheer numbers alone without much of a fight.
Well if the US wasn't protecting Taiwan they would likely have tried. In fact Clinton had to send aircraft carriers to show that they US was still protecting Taiwan. But numb
Re:Cool but... (Score:4, Informative)
China's navy is probably a match for Taiwan's; Japan's is clearly superior, and the US Navy is on a whole other scale.
I'm guessing you're American (Score:3, Insightful)
OK, thanks for your opinion and all. But I'd rather hear from people who actually live in Taiwan, South Korea or Israel, or Japan. I'd be very interested to hear how many share your opinion.
I don't doubt some do, but I can certainly imagine that people who don't have quite the same level of trust in America (given their rhetoric and actions over the last few years) might feel somewhat more comfortable if America could actually be held accountable for their actions, rather than just having to hope their cu
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http://www.israelipalestinianproject.com/ [israelipal...roject.com]
Optimism is good for morale, cheer up!
Re:I'm guessing you're American (Score:5, Informative)
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Ironically, many saw the invention of aircraft as a way to prevent massive casualties in war. Pairs of airborne 'knights' would duel without the need to send in huge infantries. Of course, infantry battles only increased, and World War II saw the introduction of carpet bombing.
Much later, laser-guided bombs and other forms of 'surgical strike' were supposed t
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Re:Cool but... (Score:5, Interesting)
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After all, we wouldn't want all of the other tough guys to think we were all talk and no action.
I know that sounds like something a bully would do, but this is -completely- different... No, really it is... Want to argue about it? Let's take this outside...
Military Budget *isn't* the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
Now where would *I* get all the money to spend on good projects? Earmarks buried in the various bills that pass Congress. There were over 2000 (two thousand) earmarks in the Defense budget alone. This is money being spent by Congress, not the DOD, but charged as part of the defense budget. How many monunments (read research centers, bridges, etc) do we need named for LIVING members of Congress?
We spend an amazing amount on education but efforts to improve it are thwarted by Teacher Union's, Special Interest Groups, and Politicians. If you want to improve education don't look to Washington, get involved at the local level. You will see the wall first hand.
Improved Infrastucture? Look, we already budget more than enough to fix and maintain what we have. The problem is that Congress takes the money allocated and redirects it to new projects. You then have government incompetence at the state level as well. Ever wonder why a certain bridge disaster disappeared from the news so quickly? Because it was exposing the system that is failing. You cannot just throw more money at a failing system and expect good results. If that were the case we would have best schools and roads in the world!
Lets hit your next category. Medical research. The private sector is doing amazing things in this area - why? Because by not taking Federal money for all lines of research they are left with options they would lose otherwise. Getting the Feds involved handcuffs researchers in more ways than you can count. Medical research is big money, the risks are great but the rewards are great. Keeping people living longer means more money for the companies that can provide it. The government has no interest in you living longer as you cost them more money when you do. (remember that entitlement section of the budget? Nearly half directly spent there)
New power alternatives. We already have seen where Congress is going. Ethanol. Why? The FARM industry. Earmarks out the wahzoo for a fix that may cause more problems than it solves. Less food for the world and more pollutants of a different sort. Wind farms you say? Sure, just don't put them in some Congressman's backyard! Nuclear? No member of Congress has the willpower to stand behind this industry. Simply put it does not get them votes. The money is high and tied too much to a small area. Whereas ethanol allows for tax money to be spread around garnishing lots of votes!
Yes the military spends a lot of money. Yes a lot is wasted. However that same military is the reason why we can bitch about the state of our country and the world with near impunity. We don't have to worry about tanks rolling over our demonstrations, we don't have to worry about family members being disappeared overnight because a relative spoke out in university, and we don't go to the market worried about some whacko with a bomb on his chest.
My sole criteria for the next election is, who will cut the BUDGET the most. The taking from Americans is extreme. Bush was anything but a conservative, having grown the government to sizes beyond reason. There is no reason to have so many people dependant on the government to survive. By creating such a situation we doom the future generations. Where will be the innovations and great strides in society when its people don't have to do so as someone else will foot the bill and tuck them in?
Getting the government off our backs is the first step to having a great country. Our government should be here to serve us, not indenture us.
Re:Military Budget *isn't* the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think many Americans are worried about being invaded by foreign armies. They're mostly worried about being invaded by their own government.
Bush may have killed a bunch of arabs, but he killed a ton of Americans too. The ones that lived, he made their lives just a little more miserable every few months. Keep going with this government, and soon it's the Americans that will seek political refuge abroad.
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Yeah, damn those people for complaining about wages after going to school for 5 years, working unpaid for one year, and then starting at $25,000 per year with $60,000 or so in loan debt. It's such a good deal, one has to wonder why anybody would want to be a web designer, nurse, or construction worker.
Why should we pay someone what they're worth?
socialist! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm still a little fuzzy on h
such a democracy--we should be so lucky (Score:4, Insightful)
Iraq only became a shithole after the UN sanctions, and then a hellhole after our invasion. The USA has historically had no problem with nations that were politically repressive, even brutal (Indonesia, anyone? Saudi Arabia? UAE?) as long as they did business with US companies, allowing us to profit from their brutality. I agree that Saddam was a dictator, but saying they have us to "thank" for "democracy" is a bit cheeky. Can they thank us for arming him, or for cutting off medical supplies? How about selling him components for chemical weapons in the 80s?
As for Iraq being a democracy, stop acting as if they have self-determination. Over 150K troops and mercenaries on your soil, enjoying complete immunity from Iraqi law, with the ability to shoot you at will, isn't what I'd call a democracy. Would you favor letting the Iraqis vote next week on whether US military members and mercenaries should be subject to Iraqi law? Would you consider the referendum binding? If not, they aren't much of a soverign nation, are they?
Little damage (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Little damage (Score:5, Insightful)
At least laser-rebound is nice enough to be benign when you are out of sight. Shrapnel will take a parabolic arc which hops over any intermediary buildings to pop you on the head.
Not to mention that rules for angle of incidence/reflection mean that a laser shot straight down on a tall structure is unlikely to cause problems for anyone else.
Anyway, say this takes fifteen years to become standard technology; by then, repairing retinas may be easy as pie, but money says that being blast-incinerary radius of a bomb will still be fairly lethal.
Targetting (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Targetting (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember, it ain't the laser that kills you, its the sudden stop as you hit the dirt beneath what was once the building you were standing on.
Wrong (Score:4, Informative)
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An easier option. (Score:5, Funny)
just an idea.
Re:An easier option. (Score:4, Funny)
Hey, if it's Bush we're talking about, I'm all for the second solution.
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Cheney could be dealt with very easily -- just sneak up behind him and say "Boo!"
there's the VP (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Sharks with frickin' steel containers, filled with frickin' high explosives and a frickin fuse, all tied to their heads, while being dropped out of a frickin' plane.
I 3 Real genius (Score:5, Interesting)
Chris: Yeah, about that.
Laslo: Well what would you use that for?
Ick: Making Swiss cheese?
Mitch: The applications are unlimited.
Laslo: No. With the fuel you've come up with the beam would last for what...15 seconds. Well what good is that?
Chris: Oh Laslo. That doesn't matter. I respect you but I graduated.
Mitch: Yeah, let the engineers figure out a use for it. That's not our concern.
Laslo: Maybe somebody already has a use for it. One for which it is specifically designed.
Jordan: You mean Dr. Hathaway had something in mind all along?
Laslo: Look at the facts! Very high powered, portable, limited firing power, unlimited range. (Chris stops smiling.) All's you'd need is a tracking system, and a large spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.
(Mitch glances at Chris.)
Chris: This is not good.
Kent (Score:2)
Sorry, but the summary reminded me of the movie "Real Genius."
This will be useless... (Score:3, Funny)
Alright (Score:4, Funny)
A C-130H might not have the sleek looks but it's a step in the right direction.
My next question is
I told all my friends (Score:2)
I LOVE it (Score:2)
Oh, sweet Jesus God, a death ray from the skies! It just doesn't get any better than that!
Flash Gordon: "Ming, you'll never get away with this!"
Christmas (Score:2)
Don't fry me bro (Score:2)
- Non-lethal version
- Less than lethal version given to cops.
- "Don't fry me bro!" song, world mega-hit.
- Cops get white plastic armors to reflect criminal's lasers.
- Stormtroopers raid the rebel ship...
Questions (Score:2, Interesting)
2) Anyone got the rated power of that laser-beast? I guess they put 2-4kWh into that 5 second burst which leaves it at 1.4 - 2.8 MW. Which is a helluva lot more than the previous 20kW reported http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1221397
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What problem ?
Bremsstrahlung occurrs when electrons are decelerated. Does this laser use some kind of electron accelerator ?
Re:Questions (Score:4, Informative)
But if a photon has more than a few MeV of energy it can split to an electron-positron pair which can brem, throwing off more photons which will split etc etc. Until the individual bits run out of the energy needed to form more particles. In other words, EM showering. However this requires VERY high energy photons (gamma rays). My understanding was that a laser like this achieves it's power by using lots of photons (in the IR range), so it won't have a problem with Bremsstrahlung at all. Thermal blooming on the other hand is probably a bigger issue. As the laser heats the air, it causes the water vapor to convect which acts as a lens and defocuses the beam.
Passive Defence (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Passive Defence (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Passive Defence (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Passive Defence (Score:5, Informative)
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However, between two lasers of discrepant frequencies, you could pretty much guarantee that one of them would be effective. So defense is possible in the theoretical sense, but not the practical sense.
I'm thinking not (Score:4, Interesting)
When in doubt, the arrow scales more-or-less linearly (bump up the juice on the laser, problem solved), the armor ceases to scale very rapidly (try adding another 9 to the string of 99.999% reflectivity index).
I'd be much more worried, for the first few iterations of the system, of it being compromised by less-than-ideal environmental conditions (smoke, dust, smog, haze, clouds, intervening terrain in an urban situation, etc) than by enemy preparations. Besides, if the enemy has decided to put on his Armor of Laser Resistance +1, you can always just go back to Plan A and drop a really big bomb on his head.
Delivery vehicles (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most interesting things for future military historians will be how the US, and to a lesser extent the UK, have believed in the effecitveness of action at a distance warfare. "Bomber" Harris in WW2 tried to destroy Nazi Germany by air bombing of cities. Didn't work, half bankrupted the British economy, while the Army and Navy were screaming for convoy escorts and air support. Germany still had to be fought over to end the war. (Meanwhile Hitler spent a fortune on V-weapons whose total effect for the entire war was less than two large RAF night raids.) The lessons had been learnt so well that in Vietnam the US spent a fortune bombing the jungle - then in Cambodia. There was a brief success in the first Gulf War where the fleeing Iraqis obligingly went down the same road and got bombed and shelled to pieces in a local action, so in GW2 Iraq was bombed back to the stone age, which brought the Iraqi war to an abrupt halt (not).
So the US Government continues its development of bigger and better spears, still fantasising that one day they will develop the big one that will stop anyone, anywhere, from upsetting them. And forgetting that, no matter what firepower you put on a mobile weapons platform, it is still vulnerable to fixed weapons, and usually to small mobile weapons that cost relatively little to make and deploy.
It's worth remembering that one of the most asymmetric military actions of WW2 was a French resistance girl who visited a German tank base on her bicycle, wandered around putting grease loaded with carborundum into track bearings, and disabled a battalion, riding off home again for lunch.
Re:Delivery vehicles (Score:5, Informative)
Personally I would have threatened to bomb Swedish ball bearing factories too, if they continued to sell to the Nazis.
And it's very noticable that bombing gradually crippled the german war economy despite the targetting being wrong. When you read about the development of V2s for example, it's quite clear that the German economy at the end of the war was chronically short of everything, mainly because of bombed out factories and railways. Same with all of the Nazi weapons work near the end of the war.
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And here I thought Germany's ball bearing industry was concentrated in Schweinfurt (which was bombed quite heavily for precisely this reason).
Ball bearings are a special case. The factories take a long time but are very easy to destroy because they apparently used flammable oil baths.
As far as I've read, the raids on the ball bearing factories were considered very successful by the Allies, because they've hit the factories
they aren't stupid, only selective (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are people like this? Dunno. But an AF officer isn't going to make much rank if he isn't convinced 24/7 that airpower is the best answer to whatever problem they have that day. And "collateral dam
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A few weeks ago I remember hearing/reading a comment from a US policeman who bemoaned the militarisation of the US police force, a few days later I was enjoying a night out in London and saw two unarmed policemen literally brow-beating two thugs into submission - letting a potentially violent incident descend into a petty argument. In the US I guess the two thugs would have been tasered, there would have been a small riot, couple of deaths, etc.
Good example of what's wrong with the
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The sabotage was in fact organised by the SOE(Special Operation Executive) and an an agent called Anthony Brookes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Brooks). He organized the replacement of a carborundum mixture in the axles of railways flat cars which were to be used to transport a panzer division to Normandy, so bringing the entire railway network to a halt.
Not as romantic as a french girl on a bike, but just as effective
Lasered to death (Score:4, Insightful)
How is this weapon even legal?
Huge guns and now a laser (Score:2)
Yeah right. (Score:2)
Lasers of that power aren't harmless. Even the reflected light can still fry your retina.
The Pig Farmer (Score:5, Interesting)
When he realized what he was doing, he quit his job to become a pig farmer.
Where did all the star wars nerds go? (Score:4, Insightful)
No collateral damage? Umm .. (Score:4, Insightful)
It flies. It flies slowly (it's not a fighter plane). It flies nearby (range is up to 20km, and let's hope the adversaries don't have any smoke grenades handy). Yet aim is 100% accurate?
"No collateral damage" - from the club with the two dog film (Barney and Blair)..
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Whoa! A supersonic laser! (Score:4, Funny)
Would be a pretty crappy laser if it was slower than the speed of sound.
Re:So, How do you attach it to the shark? (Score:4, Insightful)
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It's nice to have it in context every once in a while, as a reminder. I'd forgotten about the ill tempered sea bass part.
It could be the start of a new extended meme:
Scientist develops car mounted laser guidance system.
Can it be mounted on a friggin' shark?
Well, we've got sea bass
MUTATED sea bass
Are they ill tempered? Well, no. They're friendly, happy, mutated sea bass with frickin' lasers on thei
Re:So, How do you attach it to the shark? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:So, How do you attach it to the shark? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Funny)
I think you have that backwards... they'd fry targets first.
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You'd think... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember Sky News did an interview with a guy who worked for the Iraqi's to build their bunkers, and then during Gulf War I worked with the US as a consultant.
Study Civil Engineering
???
Profit
???
Profit
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Snake head eating the snake from the opposite side (Score:3, Funny)
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Re:typical military-industrial scenario once again (Score:4, Insightful)
"And call me an idealist, but isn't it more likely we'd get the natives cooperation a whole lot easier and cheaper if we dropped like food and medicine and maybe a well-drilling kit?"
we've tried that in several countries. Very often people are killed by local warlords, who then confiscate the material.