Laser Firearms

Looking at ulracapacitors and supercapacitors diverted me onto a tangent about man-portable laser firearms.

For those of you interested, I found this rather interesting and detailed article:
Laser Firearms

here's a small peek at some of what's described:

Laser weapons tend to have a very low firing signature. There is no muzzle flash and their operational noises would be no louder than a cough or the hum of your computer. Trying to pinpoint incoming fire would therefore be much harder than with conventional arms. A battlefield dominated by laser weapons would tend to be fairly quiet compared to modern battlefields, making things even more nerve-wracking for the future soldier. Invisible, laser-borne death may hit you at any moment, and even the people standing right next to you may never figure out exactly where the shot came from.

Laser weapons also have no recoil, making repeated fire much easier with them than with conventional arms. Lack of recoil also makes them ideal weapons for use in microgravity environments, such as space stations and ships. Shoulder stocks and such will probably still be present, however, to offer stabilization for precision fire.

Laser beams are not affected by wind or gravity the way bullets are, and there is no projectile drop or drift to calculate for very long-range targets. And on the scale of most infantry battlefields, a laser beam will hit its target instantaneously. This combined with their other stealth advantages may make lasers into the choice sniper weapon of the late 21st century and beyond, even if competing arms technologies at Tech Level 14-plus may offer other advantages for the everyday soldier.

Currently, from a practical and expense standpoint, man-portable laser firearms are not anything that we'll see in the immediate future in the battlefiled with war fighters due to many restrictions such as firing rate, recharge time, weigh, bulk and awkwardness of a necessary heavy backpack power supply, and other such.

On the other hand, in consideration of the extremely low profile, range, and advantages of zero windage associated with a laser firearm, even if bulky, if I'm reading correctly, it's entirely possible to DIY a one chance, one-shot, one kill laser firearm with available solid state lasers and ultra-capacitor arrays.

It would be impractical, but, were a government agency, or even some lone crazed individual with a vendetta interested in hitting a target that could not be effectively reached by conventional methods to employ some foresight and planning in setting up a platform 3 or 4 miles away from the planned target time/location, a one chance, one shot, invisible laser-beam firearm may suddenly be more practical than any other choice.

It would be possible to create a static laser firearm at Tech Levels lower than 14 using externally-carried power sources, such as flywheels or ultracapacitors in a backpack and attached via power cord. However, this places a great deal of additional burden on the user and can be awkward to handle.

I just thought this article and possible real world, right now, though 'impractical' application of such was an interesting read, especially in consideration that, there is a 'possible' involved, and the implications such could tickle among the future conspiracy minded here at ATS.

Then again, have there been any mysterious deaths of difficult to reach personalities in the news over the last few years where they suddenly over-heated, or had a sudden almost imperceptible needle-thin hole burned through a vital part of their person like their head, heart, spine, or something less noticeable like the eye and into the brain?

Thoughts abound.
Due the low firing signature described, even a bulky and impractical set-up targeted from 3 or 4 miles away could feasible walk away undetected.

Spooky.

well here is one
not sure if the individual is alone or crazed
also not sure if that would be a good
prerequisite for making 1 of these either

That was my first line of thought, would be perfect for an assassination.

What would the logistics for a vehicle mounted turret be?

Maybe micro-nuke powered?

reply to post by spoonbender


Popping balloons or punching holes through tinfoil is all fine and fun.
I saw one of these the other day that was tricked out like a Star Trek Phaser.

I'm talking more along the lines of instant mortality bone penetrating deep tissue damage over several miles range.

Power requirements for that kind of damage over that kind of range would restrict firing with current tech, as I understand it, to only one or two shots which would make such a device ideal for assassination type roles, thus, my choice in using descriptors like 'government agency', and 'crazed. lone gunman', out of consideration that I am not in any way condoning the use of such for any such.

I don't have the electronics aptitude to wire any such thing together anyway.

Reason for mention, however, is that it does seem quite possible, although currently bulky and thus impractical from a battlefield standpoint, the the advantages of the extremely low firing signature could outweigh the impracticality to any sufficiently motivated and resourceful party, which indeed is rather spooky.

A toothpick thin invisible beam could be sighted in on a target from 3+ miles away, well beyond any security cordon and effectively drop the intended target with little to no immediate indication an attack has even taken place, or what direction it came from.

Very spooky.

The scientists have seriously lagged at giving the world the death ray laser. The military has some different kinds, some have reportedly been used on people in Iraq. One tank killer uses a hollow laser beam in which a plasma charge is directed. There is much secrecy around high energy microwave people melting tanks. We have surgical scalpels, they don't use more power than a person could carry. I just don't know why I can't go buy a laser pistol that will do more than pop balloons. We have the technology.

reply to post by Druscilla


Well they could use the mechanized battle platform like this one.



I always thought they should use these future weapons on a mechanized platform.


Imagine that with all the portable power you need attached, with whatever laser weapon you can fit on it.

I never understood why they didn't follow up that design with a heavy machine gun and some descent armor. You could have a hummer walking around house to house instead of parked outside.....

Originally posted by BIHOTZ
reply to post by Druscilla

 

Well they could use the mechanized battle platform like this one.

I always thought they should use these future weapons on a mechanized platform.


Imagine that with all the portable power you need attached, with whatever laser weapon you can fit on it.

I never understood why they didn't follow up that design with a heavy machine gun and some descent armor. You could have a hummer walking around house to house instead of parked outside.....

One problem with your cool fictional platform is that it is racist. The pulse lasers seem to only be effective on black things. Once everybody starts wearing mirror suits, the thing will be useless. lol

oh, well its designed for a super Arian army.

The mirrors, well....SHHHHHHH that's a state secret. We don't want those degenerates to find out. We will confiscate all mirrors under the pretense of trans-dimensional terrorists that use them as star gates to our world. Or we will give our troops BB guns just in case.

Then we will have, super people. Tada!

that's the plot of the 80's movie Real Genius

I guess what I'm trying to say is that i strongly suspect there are real-world specialized application limited use weapons if not already working in labs on test benches but available for special deployment for special circumstances.

Yes, we've got the missile killing laser weapon mounted on some big jets, but they're not being used for killing tanks, or anything such where conventional weapons are just as effective, as far as we know.

it's this low profile extremely long-range (well outside standard security cordons) sniper application that I think is so spooky. Shudder to think if some terrorists, home-grown, or from abroad were to radio-shack, Fry's, Electronics Parts Outlet, or similar electronics store, their way to infamy.

They wouldn't even need target high profile individuals from extreme long range, but target the fuel cells on loaded passenger jets taking off from any airport on the planet to punch a hole and cause instant ignition, and boom, all from just the back of a pickup truck staged anywhere along standard commercial flight paths.

It's very scary.

A soldier died on Skype while talking to his family. The strange thing about one of the reports is that there was a hole in the wall but no hole in the victim. I was thinking this may be the first recorded murder by this sort of laser. If the OP can imagine it, I bet it is already being done.
news.yahoo.com...

These weapons are impractical because they are light and light can easily be reflected. Even if the energy was high enough to penetrate bone, if encountering a reflective surface (even with that high of energy) most of the photons that are carrying the energy would be reflected. The power source would have to be even more unreasonable to get enough energy to pass through the reflective surface or destroy it.

reply to post by ModestThought


how good a mirror is reflecting, is depending on the wavelength of the light.

Lasers suck as anti-personnel weapons, like most of the boogy-man EM weapons, with the possible exception of laser blinders.

Even fairly apt implementations of APL's such as PEP or PASS are not particularly useful. It takes a lot of power to make one work, they're heavy and bulky, and if your power densities are too high, you get plasma blooming. If you're using the plasma bloom for effect like PEP or PASS, that's not so bad, but if you're trying to burn them to a crisp ala Star Trek, it's sort of a limiting factor.

reply to post by Bedlam


How about punching a finger sized hole in someone's forehead from 3 or 4 miles away while someone's doing an outdoor podium speech?

One shot. One kill.
Way outside security perimeter.
No worry about wind.
No worry about gravity drop.
No ballistics at all.
Point, click, poof.
Job done, walk away, leave the tech, who cares, job's done.

tech could be set up on a roof, as big as a truck or corporate air conditioning unit weeks or months ahead of time.
Anyone sufficiently motivated with the means would just have to pick a spot with line of sight to a target location and wait.

Explosives, and conventional weapons are monitored, as are other asymmetrical threat and security concern items like chemicals, but, electronics for building something like this?
Something that's single purpose, single discharge, single target at extreme range specialized?

If it can't be done, that's one thing, but, it there's just a possibility of some DIY with just the right funding getting the right parts together, that's another.

reply to post by Druscilla

What is a DIY and what do you mean by tech? Are you in the assassination business?

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by Bedlam

 

How about punching a finger sized hole in someone's forehead from 3 or 4 miles away while someone's doing an outdoor podium speech?

I think you'll find getting the power density up that high is going to run you into the bloom area.

Doing a hole punch on a person faster than they can jerk away is tougher than you think, you can't likely do a PASS-like bloom at 3 miles. You might be able to crack their skull open with a PEP-like implementation but just pfft hole is tough. Even the late great COIL-on-a-plane didn't punch holes in people, it just set them on fire and peeled off hunks of skin, which, mind you, is pretty attention getting.

Turning them into the amazing blind senator is straightforward. Ablating a big deep hole in something, especially what's essentially a bag of water, is harder, especially if you have to do it in about a quarter second from three miles.

edit to add:

If you've got good conditions and a long time to do a tripod setup, you could easily do this a lot cheaper with off-the-shelf stuff using an M98B Lapua or M95 .50BMG rifle, if your range was less than a mile.

second edit:

I used to have a decked-out M14 I could hit you with at about 8-900 yards with a sandbag and a good spotter if the wind was pretty steady, and I was the second or third best distance shooter we had. A really good setup accurized by a master with electric triggers and the like can be amazingly good, and it's not even high tech.

I would have thought the more practical application is anti personnel from an airborne platform.

Think a future spectre gunship that can pick out one man in a crowd and put a hole in his head without killing bystanders.

Originally posted by earthdude
reply to post by Druscilla

 

What is a DIY and what do you mean by tech? Are you in the assassination business?

DIY = Do It Yourself? In otherwords, you walk into any target zone weapon free, go to an electronics store, pick up some parts, wire them together, saute and simmer, then, wallah.

It's electronics. You stack up ultra-capacitors into a capacitor array, plus all that other fiddly electronics stuff like flyback transformers. Electronics and knowing how to assemble a bunch of random off the shelf electronics into something to make you say oooo and ahhh = Tech, or Technology.

No, I'm not an assassin, nor do I ever intend to be, but, I'm pretty certain anyone, for the right price, or cause related motivation would happily be so, especially if press a button to kill someone 3 or 4 miles away, and walk away relatively scott-free.

I'm not condoning assassination. I'm bringing this up as a "is this possible?", and "if this is possible, this is scary." frame.

reply to post by Druscilla

Oh, thanks. I am of the opinion that these weapons exist on space platforms. I think you are right about the possibility of energy weapons being built and used by people with a limited technical background. We here at ATS will never have our heads skewered by a laser beam, as our tinfoil hats do serve a purpose.