US Military Stepping Up Use of Directed Energy Weapons 83
An anonymous reader writes: At a conference on Tuesday, U.S. officials explained that all branches of the military would be increasing their use of lasers and other directed energy weapons. Lieutenant General William Etter said, "Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense." The Navy's laser deployment test has gone well, and they're working on a new prototype laser in the 100-150 kilowatt range. "[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners, and the U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes to ensure that it stayed ahead of potential foes."
I hope Kent... (Score:1)
got that phase conjugate tracking mirror done.
Other kinds of energy weapons (Score:4, Insightful)
Directed energy weapons are not that interesting. I'm more scared of undirected energy weapon and very curious about ballistic energy weapons.
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Directed energy weapons are not that interesting. I'm more scared of undirected energy weapon and very curious about ballistic energy weapons.
Would they be interesting if they were pointed at you?
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Not interesting per se, but they'd certainly get my attention in the circumstances.
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but they'd certainly get my attention in the circumstances.
But not for long.
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Re:Other kinds of energy weapons (Score:4, Informative)
No, more like nuclear bombs. Even if you're outside the zone of blast effects, you'll still receive plenty of undirected thermal radiation.
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Energy weapons and their relationship to individuals can be similar to bullets. If there's one with your name on it, there's nothing you can do about it. It's all the ones addressed "To Whom It May Concern" that you want to avoid.
You're talking about splash damage, not a bullet... ;)
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I think it was pretty obvious that OP was talking about nuclear bombs.
Directed energy? (Score:1)
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What a load of stupid you write there. Earth's gravitation does not bend a laser beam significantly, but surely it bends the trajectory of a bullet or cannonball very dramatically.
Well.... (Score:1)
Only because photons of light travel many, many, many orders of magnitude faster than cannonballs and bullets. They both have the same radial accelleration though.
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Or do you live in China?
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He never said anything about the military using them against civilians. The police in the US are increasingly adopting the use of military weapons for their civil duties and sometimes the weapons were obtained directly from the US military [wikipedia.org].
Many of the riot control agents and devices were originally developed for military use. Some of the active denial systems [wikipedia.org] are already being deployed by law enforcement.
So it's really not an issue of "if", but "when". You don't even need to be in China.
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No way no how is Active Denial a "military weapon". The whole reason the military hatched that one up was to get better press. To be a military weapon it has to be able to damage something. Otherwise we're talking about super soakers.
Dazzlers are not military weapons either.
Re:Correction: (Score:4, Funny)
The best defense... (Score:2)
or, at least, that's how the saying goes.
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The best defense is a good offense. And the U.S. Military is awfully offensive.
Speaking as an American who is tired of funding the world most expensive military.
Re: Correction: (Score:3, Informative)
1) North Korea with china invaded south Korea.
2) France asked America to help in Vietnam which we did.
3) reagan tried to stop massacre in Libya, but showed yellow belly when we were attacked.
4)we did go into Panama but only to stop noreiga. We also invaded Grenada to stop a coup that had ussr, North Koreans, and Libyan soldiers helping
5) at end of cold war, we, as part of UN, stepped into eastern Europe to stop the genocide that was going on.
6) as part
Re: Correction: (Score:1)
If someone urges or pushes you to do something, you are still responsible for your own actions.
Re: Correction: (Score:2)
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2) France asked America to help in Vietnam which we did.
No. When France quit Vietnam after Dien Ben Phu [wikipedia.org] the US decided it would suck up the remnants of the French Empire as it had done for the Spanish and British Empires. Oh, and Communism.
3) reagan tried to stop massacre in Libya, but showed yellow belly when we were attacked.
What massacre? Gadaffy was a murderous nutter (though no more so than many 'friends' of the US) but more importantly he had oil.
4)we did go into Panama but only to stop noreiga.
Not really. It was to regain control of the canal which had been given to Panama by Carter.
We also invaded Grenada to stop a coup that had ussr, North Koreans, and Libyan soldiers helping
That is comp
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You forgot almost two dozen items listing the times when the USA organized a "regime change" (i.e. coup d'état) on South and Central American countries (and some other places) in order to dissolve freedom and democratic institutions and instead place brutal dictatorships in power.
Laser propaganda (Score:2, Informative)
The summary probably should have linked to this article:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/05/18/1553206/navys-new-laser-weapon-hype-or-reality [slashdot.org]
Blinding lasers are already here (Score:1)
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I think it was considered a valid defense against snipers. Mount laser with some kind of rotating prism/mirror and any sniper looking at you with scope is going to get badly hurt. But:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Because blinding lasers are designed to maim and not kill, they are considered to fall under the Geneva Protocol. For the most part, these energy weapons are not for anti-personnel usage, but rather anti-vehicular or anti-missile usage.
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If an army tried to blind with lasers... (Score:2)
... their opponents would simply wear sunglasses. Or some sort of eye covering that would block the light sufficiently. As a non lethal anti personel weapon it would probably work poorly once on the battlefield, then never again. Now in civilian control situations, thats another matter...
Shocking (Score:2)
US military stepping up use of X because, like, why wouldn't we.
Wayland? (Score:2)
Sorry, bad joke. In more than one way.
This is all just advertisement for the upcoming (Score:3)
Star wars movie!
Re:Existential threat is more likely (Score:4, Informative)
When you've done the amount of ham fisted nation building and interfering as the USA has done since WW2 you're going to make enemies that you need to defend yourself against.
Anyway, a common enemy either real of imaginary is an age old method of taking the mind of the people off of internal matters. The Romans were doing it, never mind the USA, and todays best practitioners are Putin and the fat kid running north korea.
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Is it my imagination or is the US government/society incapable of functioning without an imaginary boogeyman? Be it terrorists, communists, drugs, witches, rapists, etc. Although, admittedly, how else do you unite a society without common traditions or culture without constructing an external threat?
We have always been at war with Eastasia!
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Is it my imagination or is the US government/society incapable of functioning without an imaginary boogeyman? Be it terrorists, communists, drugs, witches, rapists, etc. Although, admittedly, how else do you unite a society without common traditions or culture without constructing an external threat?
It's not Americans, it's humans. The human mind is designed to need the concept of an "other" or an adversary. It is essentially a biological safety mechanism. It provides a binding force for a society or a community, gives them a reason to come together. On an individual level it gives comfort because, by having an adversary, you believe you are "right" and they are "wrong". Look at terror management theory and and it's explanation for why we have self esteem (which involves the creating of and then c
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It's your imagination.
Admittedly, it's been pretty much true since WW2, and more or less true since WW1. But before that, the US spent a lot of time using the "ignore and be ignored" theory of nationhood.
Oddly enough, it was getting dragged into a European war that cured us of that notion....
Pew Pew Pew (Score:5, Funny)
Now they just need to add the sound.
Our Leadership, bought and paid for. (Score:5, Interesting)
"[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners"
Laser targeting != Laser weaponry. I'm surprised that SecNAV doesn't understand the difference although low energy lasers can be fun. [ted.com]
TFA:
"Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense," Lieutenant General William Etter, Commander, Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, told a conference hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment.
which reminded me of:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
- Dwight Eisenhower
Calling Mr Rumsfeld, Calling Mr Rumsfeld! (Score:2)
"the U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes"
Ahem. Sounds like someone is getting tired of having to pay off so many officials to get those billion dollar military contracts.
Brag about your hypersonic missiles now (Score:2, Insightful)
... what do you people think accelerated these programs and why do you think the Navy is the first to deploy them?
Russia and China started saying "ha ha, your carrier groups are powerless before our anti ship missiles... Tee hee!"
And that got some Admirals worried so they went over to the various companies that build these things like Stark Labs and Luthor's Starlabs etc... and they said "I want something that kills hypersonic missiles so my carriers don't get scragged!"... and here you go.
Hypersonic missil
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Apparently the SeaRAM system from Raytheon specifically is able to stop the Sunburn.
Wait... this rhetoric sounds familiar (Score:2)
This sounds an awful lot like the scaremongering that was put out surrounding Iraq and its WMDs. We all know how that turned out.
Laser targeting and guidance systems have been about for decades. These days a simple laser pointer can be considered a laser targeting system. It is a massive technological leap to go from milliwatt laser pointers to 150kW directed energy weapons: a technical leap that Iran, and co
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Nevermind that the Navy's own Laser Weapon System's performance has actually been rather lacklustre. [thebulletin.org]
No, they are exceptionally competent and successful... at spending large sums of money.
We cannot afford a LASER GAP!!! (Score:2)
>> U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes to ensure that it stayed ahead of potential foes
Yes, yes! Open your wallets and support the complex! We cannot afford a LASER GAP to materialize so we must create that gap ourselves!
GO JOE! (Score:1)
Why.... (Score:2)
Why do we announce things of this nature? Wouldn't it be more in our interest to just keep this sorta thing like in an "Area 51" type logic. Sure we have the capability, sure we may or may not use it. I don't think we should just say, we are going to do more of it, so you other countries that may be our enemy now or in the future, get your shit together and raise your defense against energy weaponry.
Time to get to work! (Score:2)
Prior art, bitches!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Ha ha ha ha..... (Score:5, Funny)
Rate me -1 troll, but I think it's hilarious that "the science fiction future" for which everyone is optimistically hoping is being brought to us by something so prosaic and "dirty" and anti-utopian as murdering people. (Well, I guess it has been through much of the last 100+ years, as in the internet and aircraft.)
Kind of like the 'brave new world' of the internet and tech being driven by the porn industry.
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Rate me -1 troll, but I think it's hilarious that "the science fiction future" for which everyone is optimistically hoping is being brought to us by something so prosaic and "dirty" and anti-utopian as murdering people.
Clearly, we need a major war which absolutely requires that every soldier be equipped with a personal jetpack.