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Old July 7, 2018, 10:44 AM   #26
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unless you manage to divert them, the mass of the projectile still keeps coming. That was a problem with the Kamikazes in WWII.
Its even worse with missiles, as they are faster, and don't rely on an onboard pilot to steer them into the target.

One of the little publicized details of the Gulf War(s) is that more people were injured/killed from the Scud missiles that the Patriot missiles SHOT DOWN than were killed or injured from the ones that weren't shot down.

Unless you turn the attacking missile into chaff, dangerous size pieces ARE going to land, somewhere. Not so much of a concern on the open sea, but a different matter over a city.
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Old July 8, 2018, 02:00 AM   #27
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Old July 8, 2018, 10:01 AM   #28
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I would be a whole lot more impressed with the Chinese claims if there was documentation.
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Old July 8, 2018, 10:31 AM   #29
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I would be a whole lot more impressed with the Chinese claims if there was documentation.
Gee 00
didn't you see the article and the *picture*? Wasn't that documentation enough? Why wouldn't you believe them at face value?

Even once the Chinese operationalize an innovative weapon, their cycle time has historically been significantly longer than similar initiatives in the US.

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Old July 8, 2018, 10:57 AM   #30
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There was a story by Robert Heinlein years ago about the USA being complacent about Asian science and military prowess. An alliance of China and Japan invade and conquer the country. We were complacent in 1941, ya think? Japan couldn't have better planes and torpedos, be better naval night fighters. Luckily, we got in gear and our overwhelming industrial superiority and development carried the day.

In the book above, a secret lab survived and came up with weapons based on some new physics. We known the electro-magnetic spectrum but they came up with some new ones like gravito-electro. That enabled the development of force fields, transmutation rays and some political incorrect ray guns that would only target and kill Asians. They started a new church for the Lord Mota (get it) as the conquerors respected local religion. That gave the rebellion bases and the USA won.

Just saying. We don't want to be at the next Tsuhima like battle in the Taiwan straits.
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Old July 8, 2018, 11:28 AM   #31
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There was a story by Robert Heinlein years ago about the USA being complacent about Asian science and military prowess. An alliance of China and Japan invade and conquer the country.
....
Except today there is still significant animosity between China and Japan.
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Old July 8, 2018, 11:39 AM   #32
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There used to be considerable animosity between the USA and Great Britain. Also, both Japan and China have reasons not to like us. Last it was a story!
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Old July 8, 2018, 01:43 PM   #33
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this technology has been around since a long time ago in a galaxy far far away....
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Old July 8, 2018, 03:34 PM   #34
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One of the little publicized details of the Gulf War(s) is that more people were injured/killed from the Scud missiles that the Patriot missiles SHOT DOWN than were killed or injured from the ones that weren't shot down.
However, the only missiles that were shot down were ones that were expected to impact in a protected area anyway. There is no telling how much destruction and casualties they may have caused were they not destroyed in the air.

It is kind of like having the choice between being hit with an RPG or RPG fragments. I'll take the fragments every time.
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Old August 6, 2018, 11:41 AM   #35
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Kinetic projectile weapons will never be replaced by energy weapons on a personal basis. No level of laser power can kill with a single shot or even a number of them. the very best that can be done would be to use a full, long duration beam and saw the opponent's body open.

Projectile weapons are the best ,most effective short range weapon possible. One cartridge weighs very little. A rifle and even up to a thousand rounds can be easily transported by a man, maybe two. Can a laser or other energy weapon be made that can discharge a thousand lethal attacks in a matter of minutes?

I have one more point to make. An energy weapon would require an enormous store of energy, and it would have to be able to discharge it almost instantly when the fire control button is activated. It would have to recycle rapidly. It would have to be portable and lightweight. A rifle can pour fire out in seconds, can any sort of energy weapon put several hundred shots into an area of cover in seconds, hoping to make a hit?

Alright. Now if you have a sniper position, what does that change?

A super heavy backpack battery can be used, a battery that can accomodate the needs of a high power energy weapon. Put a super, absolutely accurate rangefinder on it. Out a super, ultra accurate telescopic sight on it. You will have a weapon better than almost anything we have now. Trajectory, wind drift, distance, none of the handicaps common to projectile weapons matter anymore, none of them. If a target can be seen and ranged, the hit can be made anywhere out to the end of the earth.

Punching a hole in the guy won't help much. But what if there is a short burst, a second or so? What if the beam drifts a bit during that second? Set the thing up to make an eight inch slash at the range that the target is estimated at. If you have the necessary power, you could open a guy's chest up clear to the spine.

But with todays technology, there is no such thing. You can't have the power to carry, or the power to dumpe enough energy in the short time available.

A pound of powder releases a ton of energy We may never find a way to store and channel enough electricity to make a hand carried energy weapon function.
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Old August 6, 2018, 10:37 PM   #36
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Kinetic projectile weapons will never be replaced by energy weapons on a personal basis.
Throughout history people have been looking at the existing tech of their time and making pronouncements about things that will "never" happen or "cannot be done". And, throughout history, they have been proven wrong eventually.

I remember hearing about a guy some hundred years or so ago, who wanted to close the US Patent Office, because, according to him, everything that could be invented had been.....

Kinetic energy weapons may not be replaced for a few centuries, or might be in the next 100 years if some currently unthought of breakthrough happens.
But "never" is too long a time for accurate prediction.
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Old August 6, 2018, 11:27 PM   #37
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You are right, I should not say never. The one single thing that we will have to over come is finding a way to store and use god knows how many joules of energy in the situation of combat.Hunting with a laser will probably never be approve by any state, I would hope not, at least. as a personal defense weapon, it would totally reek. Again, how do we store enough energy to cause as much damage as a bullet will? Our current technology, as far as I can tell, doesn't even have a clue about it. The biggest personally transportable laser may be able to pop a hole through a roast, but sustaining anything but a burst is a wholly different thing.

A bullet works well, and the energy derived from powder is qhite efficiently turned into damage on impact. lasers, railguns, you can't ramp that electrical energy up high enough to make a practical and useful antipersonnel weapon except for motorized transport.

I've had a few MRI scans done. When those magnets would fire, my tungsten ring would wiggle.That's enormous amounts of power. It failed to strip the staples out of my head. If we have a liquid helium electromagnet that can't even tear a staple out of skin, will we be able to weaponize it?

when you approach some of the problems that we face in technology, there comes a level that you would require the use of magic.
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Old August 6, 2018, 11:55 PM   #38
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With the advances in technology in general and energy storage in particular, I'm not sure it will be all that long before such a weapon is at least possible, if a while after that before it's practical.

I heard a news story just today about a new lithium battery technology that is EASIER to build than current L-I batteries and recharges in seconds.

Just a few days earlier, I saw an article about the first steps being made in batteries that exhibit "quantum entanglement". Effectively, charging time is inversely proportional to how many batteries you build. If one will charge in an hour, two will in 30 minutes... build 10,000 and they recharge in under 1 second.

An iPhone X is literally 22 times faster than a Cray-2 Supercomputer from 1985. The Cray was the size of 2 refrigerators and had to be cooled with Flourinert.

Don't underestimate our advancements.
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Old August 7, 2018, 08:22 AM   #39
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i guess let me put this in perspective. what quickly causes damage and/or death to the superbly complex systems that make up a living being? poison, electric shock, massive amounts of blunt trauma or tearing and tissue destruction, radiation of such horrible amounts that every nerve is immediately damaged beyond use, and others. electric shock may be the best weapon to use against a human being, we could crank the energy up hign enough to cook a man's brain, but a taser is limited in usefulness today and there are limited areas that you can extend that efficiency to. Laser? once again, a great idea, but we are going to have to improve it exponentially before it can be anything useful, and even if we manage to do so, we will still have the absolute need that it can be made either more effectively or more inexpensively than the other alternatives.

Can we send a company of men into the desert with lasers? You can very effectively arm and deploy that company of men with traditional weapons. will you ever be able to do so with energy weapons with a cost efficiency that will allow it to compete?

I don't see any way that it can ever happen. I wish that it could, but I don't believe that these are simple technological issues, they are fundamental issues of physics, anatomy, biology, cost, and the ability to miniaturize our current technology to workable sizes.

A few years back a company started selling the most powerful hand held laser ever. YOU COULD POP A BALLOON WITH IT! i I find it amazing that I could do that very thing in my front yard with a magnifying glass. The guy who reviewed it tested it by setting matches on fire, lighting cigarettes, burning ants, burning holes in cardboard.
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Old August 7, 2018, 08:44 AM   #40
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Can we send a company of men into the desert with lasers?
My guess is we are FAR closer to sending a company of ground drones armed with conventional weapons carrying far more ammo/far better optics/far better targeting without the need for food, water, protection from the elements beyond those needed by the pilot in Utah then we are likely to field an energy weapon system.

That being said I could envision small railgun type weapons used by said drones as they would be big enough/strong enough to carry a power source.

You will never eliminate the grunt on the ground but I suspect will go a long way towards making them more support personal.

I doubt you will see squads of men with laser/energy weapons in our time if ever.

I could see limited use of energy weapons to blind combatants and or sensor systems.
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Old August 7, 2018, 08:46 AM   #41
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brian, what the article said was pure fluff and pipe dreams.

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“Entanglement is incredibly delicate, it requires very specific conditions – low temperatures and an isolated system – and when those conditions change the entanglement disappears,” he said.

“With the support of the academic community in Adelaide, interstate and globally, I aim to extend the theory of the quantum battery, construct a lab conducive to the conditions needed for entanglement, and then build the first quantum battery.”
The point I'm wanting to make is that no matter how you plan it, introducing electrical charge to a matrix of entangle atoms will collapse it. A physics stands right now, it would require magic to do this, to create a system that can be used to absorb, store, and release energy in such a manner.

His intention is to develop theory. then to try and implement it. then, the core issue will be that he is going to have to work on a system of entanglement that isn't fragile.
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Old August 7, 2018, 08:53 AM   #42
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A drone can never replace a soldier. a drone can't take cover behind a rock or in a fox hole, and the things are absolutely inflexible. They can't possibly be capable of observation as a man can, too much chaff. Aerial drones violate one of the important laws of combat, you are too predictable. straight line at constant velocity is trap shooting. a chickadee bobs as it flies, but can still be predicted and killed. These problems with purely mechanical design are enough to destroy the program. Then, we would have to design power cells that could send a vehicle hundreds of miles while carrying heavy cargo, and using sensors and processors every inch of the way.

The barriers that stand between us and movie magic weaponry defy the current understanding of physics.
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Old August 7, 2018, 09:14 AM   #43
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I'm not sure how many years ago it was announced that we would be able to make invisible tanks. A scientist had managed to "cloak" a copper cylinder from reflecting microwaves. If I remember correctly, tanks are not copper cylinders, nor are microwaves sunlight. we are also lef with the situation that tanks make noise, trail smoke, put off heat, tear up grass and sand, and in general, make themselves known in dozens of ways. The idea that a tank can sneak up on you is absolutely absurd. These articles belong in the onion.

This is not the article that I read years ago, this one doesn't predict cloaking vehicles.


https://newsok.com/article/2958604/s...f-invisibility
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Old August 7, 2018, 09:52 AM   #44
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But...but...but. I just put a deposit down on a Han Solo style Blaster.
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Old August 7, 2018, 11:05 AM   #45
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I'm sure that the chinese will supply you with your blaster someday.
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Old August 7, 2018, 06:10 PM   #46
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Originally Posted by briandg
The barriers that stand between us and movie magic weaponry defy the current understanding of physics.
Yes, that's true... but we also know that our understanding of physics is seriously flawed... and my point is, just a few years ago quantum computing defied our understanding of physics... Today, that's quantum entangled batteries. A few years ago, machine learning was all but a fantasy. 50 years ago a hard drive was as big as a refrigerator and held less data than a floppy disk that replaced just a few years later... now we can fit gigabytes onto a device that's only as big as it is because we need to be able to pick it up...

and our abilities and knowledge continue to grow exponentially.
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Old August 15, 2018, 08:59 PM   #47
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When I was a kid, Dick Tracy talked on his wrist radio, corny sci-fi movies had rocket ships return to earth and land on their tail. They didn’t even think about having a camera on the ship that would show the stages separate on live tv. I don’t dismiss anything any more.
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Old August 16, 2018, 09:12 AM   #48
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Japanese naval rail gun: https://www.janes.com/article/82225/...gnetic-railgun

OH, for Glock Rail Gun in 2080 and the posts from guys who say they just can't shoot a Glock Rail Gun and why doesn't it have a safety?
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Old August 16, 2018, 09:32 AM   #49
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There have been homemade railguns the size of 2-3 bread boxes that will shoot a projectile thru a car door on YouTube for several years now.
Not impressed with the jap gun, see the US gun below.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fKEaDhDTciQ

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8UKk84wjBw0
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Old August 16, 2018, 11:24 AM   #50
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Clarke's Law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

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a high power energy weapon. Put a super, absolutely accurate rangefinder on it.
Why do you need a rangefinder on a beam weapon? WYSIWYG

I can visualize a laser as a coax weapon on a tank. Thin skinned enemy in line of sight, save your projectile ammo for targets requiring penetration.
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