Gunflash
No gunflash? Just that huge red beam pointing directly at the humvee.
US aerospace leviathan Boeing was delighted yesterday to announce that its Humvee-mounted "Laser Avenger" deathray weapon had shot down a small drone aircraft. The Avenger air-defence Hummer, with added raygun attachment Don't come in sight of me, robot. Well, not for too long. According to Boeing: Laser Avenger achieved …
The rocket launcher attached to the same mount as the laser.
Interesting, because it shows the degree of trust the creators have in their laser's ability. Or perhaps it's just for putting the robot planes humanely out of their misery after torturing them with the laser for an hour or so?
I think it's time to call for creation of RSPCR (Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Robots).
Director of Rayguns - now that has to be a job title worth dying for!!
Though, given the laser coming from the vehicle, surely it won't be long before someone reverse engineers a way for "enemy" laser-guided missiles to target onto it and so destroy said humvee without much effort???
I think you are missing the point. This is tacit admission that the US really, REALLY doesn't want to have armed, autonomous weapons flying over their heads unless they have a way of 're programming' them when necessary.
Might need to coin a new phrase: "silver on blue" and/or "Blue on Silver" to describe such actions.
Why wasn't this filed under ROTM?
While the feat of downing a UAV is impressive, it was only a standard UAV. Wouldn't it be more useful to have thought one step ahead and tested it against targets with laser armour?
The moment such a weapon is put into service there will be laser counter-measures available to the arms market.
Where does that leave the situation?
No one who isn't already a modern stable power (though they'll always be keeping their eyes on Russia and China).
The real question is; who else might have UAVs in the relatively near future?
Answer:
Pretty much anyone. OK the ones the US and UK et al. use tend to be on the pricey side, since they haven't been around that long. But remember that today's top o'the line models will be flogged to anyone tomorrow and cut prices. After all, pick your favourite crazed rebellious movement and though they may not have the means to run an effective air force, they'll have at least one or two people who can transfer their Playstation skills to piloting these little toys.
Just today the Russian MOD announced that the Russian armed forces will soon be getting 1 new UCAV every year for 3 years! In just 3 years, they will be able to fly a vic formation!
I'm sure that the US lasergun trials were against 3 UAVs to counter that very threat from the Russians.
@Daffy the Duck: That's what I say - practice your fancy roundhouse kick but keep the shotgun ready.
I find pretty naive for folks to think that americans and their feeble-minded friends have a monopoly on UAVs. Anyone with above-average skills, access to the local RadioShack and some time on his hands could build one.
And in any case, the feeble-minded friends (eg. Saddam or the Afghan Mujahedins) have a nasty tendency to become enemies or even join the Axis of Evil club.
Well Iran has them, and has been shipping them to their mates
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/hezbollah-mirsad1-uav-penetrates-israeli-air-defenses-0386/
Like most war tech - once someone works out how to build it, it pretty soon becomes available to anyone with the funds
> Director of Rayguns - now that has to be a job title worth dying for!!
Damright!
> Though, given the laser coming from the vehicle, surely it won't be long before someone reverse
> engineers a way for "enemy" laser-guided missiles to target onto it and so destroy said humvee
> without much effort???
Indeed; a self-painting target. Which movie was it with the yellow humvee painted to act as ground zero for the laser-guided bomb? Patriot Games?
"Personnel" used to be a serviceable word:
"The body of people employed in an organization, or engaged in a service or undertaking, esp. of a military nature"
As did "Warrior":
"One whose occupation is warfare; a fighting man, whether soldier, sailor, or (latterly) airman".
I suppose the British Army killed off the latter term when it built a tank of the same name.
No red beam pointed at the vehicle. First off, the chosen wavelength is most likely going to be IR, UV, or UV+. IIRC the higher wavelengths generate higher energy densities, while the IR is easier to make. Even if the laser were operating in the visible portion of the spectrum they would still be damned hard to see, despite the movies and the newspaper graphics. LASERs don't leak much, so you need to be inline with the beam. Which is sort of a bad place to be when it fires.
As for using the beam for counter-measures, you'd have better odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field in a Tie fighter. The beam is only on while the weapon is firing, which is going to be a very short time. During that time interval, you have to launch acquire the beam and launch the countermeasure, and that's assuming your countermeasure is in the air and active in the first place. If the countermeasure isn't already active, you'll have trouble getting it active before it finishes its firing sequence.
If you were to create a squad/man portable unit, I'm sure that you could design it to take out a human target with less chance of collateral damage.
Since the laser will travel at a line of site, you don't have to worry too much about wind and bullet drop, or shooting at an extreme angle. Just sight your scope in and it will be 'true' at any range.
At least in theory. You still have to worry about dust and debris obscuring your vision and also having an effect on the laser.
The point is that you can take out a target, even with a human shield. What you have to be careful is that they're not wearing a bomb and a dead man switch which will explode when he dies.
(Good stuff for a sci-fi adventure flick... no?)
OK, I'm no laser physicist but can't you just coat the UAV in some sort of chrome or mirror finish? Won't that effectively make the laser ineffective?
Also, assuming the mirror coat doesn't work, once this tech gets out and others build it can't the 'enemy' use it to shoot down all the 'friendly' UAVs?
"While the feat of downing a UAV is impressive, it was only a standard UAV. Wouldn't it be more useful to have thought one step ahead and tested it against targets with laser armour?
The moment such a weapon is put into service there will be laser counter-measures available to the arms market.
Where does that leave the situation?"
A very profitable (for some) arms race? (hence the flames).
Nice article with extremely retarded conclusion.
1. There is no better way to fry a suspected roadside bomb than a laser. Nice, clean, can be done from safe standoff distance. Same for mines.
2. The thing Boeing and Co keep being very mum about is the use of lasers as anti-infantry weapon. Frying visual nerves and making one blind forever needs less that 0.1% of the energy required to fry a bomb. It can also be targeted in near-realtime on weapon flashes using a fairly primitive gunnery system hooked up to a camera. One armoured vehicle with this, suitable software operating off visual feed and you suddenly have every single one of the enemy "combatants" ready for lifetime disability allowance.
...of the tourists/terrrists (Dubya*3-speak, sorry) as to why they simply didn't goto e-bay and buy some of those smegging high-power green laser thingies, then blind the US tourists/terrists as they were attacking. Antipodeans reckon it's very effective against aircraft (so is the Hudson river, but that's another story.).