Laser rifles

My brother and i visited my dads work where they make huge machines. While there we saw a machine that was cutting huge chunks of metal with lasers.

This was about ten years ago.

Now you can go into a walmart and get an dog tag engraved by a laser.

It wouldnt be that hard to make a gun that fires lasers. It can be the size of a pen.

My reasoning for size are due to this

www.youtube.com...

This was a laser made by scientists. All they would have to do to make it a bullet form is increase the power, and do it in bursts.

While warfare would still happen a soldier shot with one of these devices would be ok depending on where he got shot. a laser would cauterize the wound instantly. It could cut down doors, get into bases, or could take out tanks easily. Also it would have an supply of ammo that would run off of batteries.

The bad sides are as such

The laser would go through more then one soldier, could take out tanks easily. Accidentally harm those you did not see.

My question is this, not if we have them, but why have we not found out about them.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by Pajjikor]

[edit on 2-2-2010 by Pajjikor]

More weapons races are a bad thing, especially when we don't get along with eachother in this world. I would suggest that friendly fire would become the big issue in the battlefield.

What or Who exactly are we trying to impress here with this technology? Other countries haven't come close to having what is being built here, so what on "this world" are we trying to race against? Just hope Intergalactic wars don't happen anytime soon because it's not going to be like StarWars, StarTrek or Independence day, where Humanity wins. In reality, it's us that get wiped out. Plain and simple.

The main issue with handhold laser weapons, to my understanding, is the power source and conditions the fuel source must be exposed to. Basically (as far as public technology goes), we haven't been able to reduce the power cell to a small enough size to carry around on a handheld gun, as well the fact that lasers need to be exposed to very cold temperatures to function. Also there is the fact that we would still need to reduce the amount of stimulant needed to create a laser beam.

I am sure within 30 years there will be handheld lasers, and the benefits over projectile weapons are many. One, being the fact that there is really no "ammo supply", and two the fact that the laser beam would cause MUCH more damage to tissue at any range on a battlefield.

So... let me get this straight.

You believe that we can build a laser gun the size of a pen that can cut through multiple people, and even tank armor, and your evidence is that we can build a laser the size of a flashlight that can light a match on fire after hitting it for a few seconds?

That doesn't really seem like it follows logically.

I am an developer that works with lasers and other electronics on a regular basis. The reason we don't have hand held lasers is the same reason we don't have hand held rail guns or other electrically driven weapons. If you do the math it becomes immediately apparent that you can store thousands of times more power in an explosive charge (ie. propellant for a bullet) than you can in an electric power supply (ie. battery or generator) of equivalent size. This has been the case for as long as electricity has been harnessed and until a radical new power supply technology is discovered that is the way things will stay.

Don't get me wrong. The technology to build a hand held laser that will do some damage is here and I'm sure there would be a practical use for one in the odd situation but why bother when you can carry a much more powerful conventional weapon of the same size.

Edit to add more.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by dainoyfb]

reply to post by dainoyfb


Are you sure about that? I find it hard to believe that the potential energy of a projectile matches the potential of a weapon that utilized radiated particle radiation...

reply to post by jkrog08



Sure, but what are you going to carry on your back to power it with. The typical laser uses thousands of times more power than it transmits or applies to the target.

Edit for typo



[edit on 2-2-2010 by dainoyfb]

reply to post by dainoyfb


Which is exactly what I said in my first post in this thread. BUT, the energy released is MUCH greater than a projectile weapon. We need to learn more about quantum mechanics for any practice handheld laser.


BTW: I guarantee we got particle beams and lasers on satellites in space.

In addition, I feel that a "laser rifle" is likely not going to happen because there is much more promise in particle beams, especially neutral beam weapons...

Originally posted by jkrog08
reply to post by dainoyfb

 

BTW: I guarantee we got particle beams and lasers on satellites in space.

Yes, there are lasers in space. They are used in ring gyros for navigation. They are also used between satellite fleets for formation correction and orbital dynamics research. They are also shot at Earth for altitude elevation measurement and mapping. There has also been some research satellites testing the viability of using lasers for a communication link between ground stations.

As far as particle based weapons in space, unless you were a part of putting them up there or it has been announced publicly by the government then I think that would be quite difficult to guarantee.

Does anyone keep track of the stories over the Years?

Not that long ago, the Americans brought down a Boeing Aircraft with a Laser.

There are also Lasers that they have used, Experimentally like the Boeing incident, that have brought down missiles.

I think you will find that a laser loses power over distance so that Pulses may not work. It may need to be one continuous pulse in order to work effectively..

Wtw, I think you will find lasers have been used for quite some time. I think there's a mirror on the moon that somebody left there so they can bounce a Laser off to measure the Distance of the Moon from the Earth.

Lasers Weapons aren't a new discovery and you can bet your bottom dollar that TPTB know all there is to know about Laser Weaponary..

reply to post by dainoyfb


We both know I am not talking about navigation or ranging lasers. And no, I am not part of any project, just talked to a lot of people who know. Even if I didn't it would make sense, space is a perfect environment for lasers, with the cold temperature, available space on sats, etc...

This is fun stuff. There are plenny of tutorials on making common laser pointers stronger. www.amazing1.com... has alot of great kits and products you will want to check out.

reply to post by jkrog08


A pistol cartridge carries about a kilo joule of energy, and a significant amount of momentum. a large D cell battery has about 4Kj of energy total, and has more volume than 4 pistol rounds.

A lot of the mass of a pistol round is the bullet, though, a rifle round carries more powder per weight.


The main issue is that it takes far more energy to do anything with a laser. A bullet's momentum carries it through a target pretty efficiently. a gun firing bullets with an energy of 1kJ once per second will do far more damage than a 1kW laser, because the laser does it's damage by vaporizing the surface of the target. to vaporize a single cubic centimeter of water (and the body is about 70% water), it takes ((100-37)*4.186 + 2257)= 2.520.6 kJ of energy.

so for the same energy it takes to burn a tiny, probably nonlethal divot in a person, you could shoot them twice with a handgun, or once with a high powered rifle.

Of course, just shining a laser at something isn't a very good way to do damage. The most practical way is to pulse the laser, using very short duration, very high power pulses. If you could focus your laser well enough, using ten 100000W pulses each lasting .000001s, you would do much more damage, because it would instantly vaporize a small part of the surface of what it hits, instead of slowly heating it up until it boils. The force of the vaporization would have some shock to it, improving it's wounding characteristics.

unfortunately, the vaporized and ejected debris from each pulse gets in the way of the next pulse, and each pulse can't feasibly vaporize through much material on it's own. Also, higher wattage lasers are harder to build and have heat issues. Only now are 100kW solid state lasers becoming feasible, and they are considered to be the bare minimum for a practical weaponized laser.

Unfortunately, to focus a laser well, there must be a lens/mirror of a certain diameter which depends on the wavelength of the laser, which is smaller for higher frequency. For an IR laser, the focusing mirror size for the same range as a rifle is too bulky for consideration. Visible light would be more reasonable, but it also runs into range limits much quicker than bullets. Though desirable, we have no way to build a practical X-ray or gamma ray mirror or lens.

EDIT: So TL;DR, using near future technology and the cutting edge of science, you might be able to build a pulsed laser gun that is roughly comparable in energy efficiency to a regular pistol, but it would necessarily be larger due to the focusing rquirements, or much shorter ranged, in addition to needing to be very clean, and not being proven, reliable working technology.

[edit on 2-2-2010 by mdiinican]

reply to post by mdiinican


also, on the plus side, regular body armor isn't especially effective vs lasers. On the minus side, just about everything that doesn't just burst into flame is decent body armor vs lasers.

reply to post by mdiinican


woah! replying to yourself huh, that's some weird-behind schizophrenia excrement you got going there.

anyway to chime in on the conversation, blu-ray lasers are cheap to build and can throw as much as 300 MW. here are a couple of samples:

I've built a 700joule input ruby laser that probably has an output of 1-2joules and shot my hand with the beam, I felt a tiny zap but nothing more (non Qswitched). The size of the capacitors I used are big enough that you wouldn't want to hold them in your hand. You would need a small 2KW gas generator and switching powersupply to power it or any laser of any sort of useable power/energy.

your very best bet is laser diodes over 500watts but even then it will burn them a bit and or blind them. It would be better to use lasers to blind, that way the enemy can't fire back and the camera can't see.

Untill they can make a laser crystal that makes a powerful beam when hit from a gunpowder activated hammer or some tiny superpowerplant and 80-100%eff. laser crystals, it won't be possible.

Lasers don't need or want to be cooled under 10 deg.C, thats only for the movies/cartoons. The problem with cooling them below room temp is condesation on the parts that emit the beam.

reply to post by dainoyfb


Ok but you did not say that we dont have rail guns all you said is why we dont have hand held rail guns.

O and mdiinican thanks for contradicting yourself.

Also sorry for the confusion, didnt mean that i suggested that we have one the size of a pen just saying it possible. I put the video to show what lasers are already capable of. I'll remind you that most of the high end warfare stuff was not released to the public right away.

plus science has come along way, like computer chips. Pretty sure it will find more stuff out about lasers too.

You would be better to make a blinding lazer weapon.Tie 100 or 500 lazer pointers togeather and from a distance they look like one big red or green light.At night time this could be a nasty weapon if you looked at it for too long.

reply to post by GORGANTHIUM


Im pretty sure that if you pointed the laser that could light the match, you would probably burn your retinas. Thats just speculation though be good if dainoyfb would let us know for sure