smartgun link - check
Now for the wired reflexes and sub dermal plating pls.
The US military's project intended to produce miraculous sighting systems for sniper rifles - designed to ensure that million-to-one shots will actually be almost certain to hit their target, rather as in Terry Pratchett's Discworld stories - has moved forward. American weaponry behemoth Lockheed has been awarded a $6.87m …
If, as Pratchett suggests, million to one chances crop up 9 times out of 10 rules out the Infinite Improbability Drive (IID) could not function.
If the chance of Dent/Prefect surviving being thrown into space was 2 to the power of 2013456789 (or whatever it was) would mean, under "Pratchett's law" that they would have a 90% chance of being rescued, clearly such device as the IID could not function.
> "Better still, it will use a laser beam to measure the wind's direction and strength not just at the sniper team's location but all the way downrange towards the target."
How does that work then?? Surely wind doesn't deflect a laser? Does it?
Great tech, but a shame we don't seem to make similar investments in tech designed to make lives better, rather than shorten them.
greetings and salutations...
Simplistically....the wind DOES sort of deflect the laser beam. It causes density changes in the air, which refracts the light, causing the reflection of the spot to distort. Software can compare the reflected/refracted image with what was sent out, and, can determine how the density changes, and from that, what corrections need to be done to return the image to "perfection".
This technology is really useful in the astronomical world, as it allows ground-based telescopes to take vastly improved images by applying real-time corrections to the mirror to back out the distortions of the atmosphere.
About the only problem I can see is that, in the telescope context, it requires a fairly powerful laser beam to get good results. While this does not matter when one is creating an artificial star in the sky for analysis, I suspect that a target that sees a dot of light on their body, with smoke coming from it MIGHT suspect that something is wrong, and, would seek shelter fairly quickly.
regards
dave mundt
Satellite remote sensing and wind tunnel model study both seem to use some of this stuff already.
Temperature and wind profiles by laser have been available by satellite for some years. However I'm not sure if they they can do point separations of less than a few 100 m (the motion of the satellite is likely to have a *big* impact on what's possible)
In wind tunnels and combustion chambers "Laser Doppler Velocometry" and Schilern techniques track either particles in the flow or refractive index changes.
The joker in this stuff is how long the laser illuminates the target. It's almost certainly IR but once people wise up to it being deployed I think we'll see some very simple but very clever IILDs* being fielded. If the pulse (or pulses) are very short (say <1/50 sec) and very few they will still be useless.
*Improvised Infrared Light Detectors.
..."How does that work then?? Surely wind doesn't deflect a laser? Does it?" but the wind will be carry dust particles and that's probably what the laser would use to measure direction and speed (that's a guess, I'm sure there are some brighter sparks on here that could let us know).
Yes, wind changes the density of air, that changes the refractive index and so bends the light.
I worked on one more than 10years ago, it's based on the systems you use for measuring atmospheric distortion to do adaptive optics in astronomy. Although back then the calculation would have needed a laptop.
We did invent a system that used lasers to let a soldier fire a grenade on target without sticking their head up and getting shot. Worked great in trials, army loved it then we tried to sell it to them. Think Yes Minister meets Thales/BAe/Vickers
consistently break records for longest combat shot, or save bullets?
"and he had to shoot and miss several times before getting the necessary corrections nailed down"
$6.7m will buy a lot of ammo.
My first thoughts about this was, surely the wind will take effect, but they appear to counter that with wind detecting lasers.
But I maintain my point, you are detecting wind at your local spot, not at, nor near target some 1500+ m away.
I'm no sniper expert, but is it plausible that wind variation can differ at such a distance?.
Yes
I suspect the sniper scope will measure how far the beam is deflected as the fleshy part aims the little red dot onto the target, then shift the red dot in order to get the fleshy part to adjust the aim until his red dot and the computer's red dot line up.
The fact the actual gun maybe pointing in a different direction has no bearing
But I guess the real advantage is that you wont need the ranging shots for such long range stuff, instead, one shot, one kill.... which is as it should be.
"""But I maintain my point, you are detecting wind at your local spot, not at, nor near target some 1500+ m away.
I'm no sniper expert, but is it plausible that wind variation can differ at such a distance?."""
Did you read the article? It specifically states that they use a laser to measure all of the wind between the sniper and the target, and it can even calculate a probability of the wind changing too much in the next few seconds.
"""consistently break records for longest combat shot, or save bullets?
"and he had to shoot and miss several times before getting the necessary corrections nailed down""""
I imagine it's so that the target isn't alerted and given time to take cover / escape / retaliate, not just to save ammo...
Head/Helmet worn (Anti-Sniper) Laser Targeting Detection Sensors!
Cost to build maybe £30 topps, RRP $200, front line market prices (ie what our troops will have to pay....£10,000 per unit)
nice little earner for someone....who knows how to sell sand to the arabs......
now has anyone registered ASLTDS.... yet?
I can see there is a substantial market for these in Gaza and middle east (for the locals at least)
But then I discovered some Merkins hunt *deer from 950 yards (across a valley) using a bench rest.
Obviously the idea of actually *walking* over countryside on a stalk seemed a bit tiring when you can just set up a salt lick, crack open a Bud and wait for Bambi to get in range.
You know they are going to love this thing. It will be the NRA's must have Xmas present.
What could go wrong?
*Technically he's not so much a hunter, more an armed consumer.
I give it 10 years before these are explicitly banned from civilian rifle competitions...just long enough for the price to fall to £3000 or so each and then to hit the civilian market.
What with F-class and benchrest rifle competitions now being all about reading the wind and not steadying your shot (cause it's off a bipod or rest), I'm not sure what else there would be to DO if these were allowed - squeeze the trigger perhaps?
Frankly, I'm a bit surprised that these have't been made before - certainly a lot of the basic tech has been around for a while - must have just been a packaging and power issue.
Grenade - because we don't have a gun icon!
Already exists, there are laser scanners that look for the retroreflection from the sniper's scope and others that use a cluster of microphones to get the distance and direction of the shot.
At least in western armies there are also specialist anti-sniper-sniper units.
Snipers are incredibly effective in modern wars. You have an individual bad guy a mile away, your options are assault the position possibly with lots of your own casualties, call in an air strike and kill lots of innocent civilians or have a sniper take out the target.
There is also a tremendous morale effect on the enemy - you are safe inside your own people and the leader exorting you to overthrow the infidel suddenly drops dead in front of you.
You may have some disagreements with the Taliban's ideology, but you have to give them some respect for continuing to go up against the coalition forces don't you?! Remote planes to blow you up from high in the sky, snipers to shoot you dead from 2 kilometres away, satellites to spot your every move... and STILL they keep fighting.
War's a fucked up business :-(
<= Grenade 'cos well it kills people too.
If you take out wind and density effects you are left with Coriolis and Eotvos effects that cause the bullet to swing left / right depending on range and latitude, but more importantly up and down depending on the direction you are firing. The major effect is East-to-West vs West to East
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You have the bad guy ahead of you, due north. There's a strong wind blowing east, so you actually aim to the west of the bad guy for the trajectory of the bullet to hit him.
However, what if there are some innocent kids playing soccer at some point north-west of your position? Does this uber-rifle take in to account the fact that you're now pointing the gun 45 degrees away from your intended target? How many bystanders will be killed before the army ask to add on a second sight showing what the gun is actually pointing at?
ballistic projectiles reach their limit of practicality - and I believe this passes that.
Maybe just boosting the power on the laser and blinding or burning the foe would achieve the same objective. Likely, such would be deemed excessively cruel, by those who attempt to rate such things and the sniper fraternity would frown, but ray-gun warfare will, sooner or later, be used and best be ready with a counter-force when that occurs.
With One Shot
Chance of first shot kill = 6/10
Chance of 2nd shot kill if first shot missed = 6/10
Chance of 3rd shot kill if 2nd shot missed = 6/10
etc.
Now compare with human
Chance of first shot kill 1/10
Chance of 2nd shot kill 6/10
Chance of 3rd shot kill 9/10
i.e. human can compensate after each shot, but One Shot cannot - so maybe chance of a kill on first shot is greater, but what is the chance of a kill after 3 shots (assuming target stays still, of course!).