Americans Have the Laser

[Xerxes]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/02/17/wbush217.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/02/17/ixworld.html

It now appears that laser weaponry has emerged from decades of secret research and is now a reality. Apparantly the US now has an operational laser on a Spectre plane that could circle an enemy area and continually zap things with pinpoint accuracy for hours. Star wars has finally arrived :)

[Nebraska]

I can't stop thinking of how our enemies send their weapons to the "Battle field", strapped to some guys back.
We send them strapped to some robot. Something tells me this means we will not go through as many of our own guys this way.
We have fought others with this type of mentality before, think "Kamikaze".
Who won that war? Last time I checked they gave up when we hit them with technology that did not require very many of our guys to do the delivery. I am not saying we should vaporize whole cites. That would be a mistake of major proportions. But we can't let the aggressors get away either.
Just like the bully on the playground that is twice your size, you need a big stick to deal with him. We have a lot of big sticks; some of them pretty high tech like the laser you mentioned. What I would like to know (But better not be able to find out) it what is up the sleeve under “Top Secret”. It is just a curiosity thing mind you.
But sometimes the best weapon is a small, well-placed stick. The seal teams are a good example of that.
We seem to be doing well so far in the War, but it is not over yet. The biggest problem with terrorists is they for the most part do not claim a country. It is much easier to move when you don’t have a ‘home’.
We will need a lot of small sticks and some big ones. Hopefully it will be over with before long.
That is what I think, Your turn.

[Xerxes]

Originally posted by sawg
Dubya: Shit!

:D [/B]

More like Dubya: OK now, I'm the boss!... need the infoooh :)

[Bilbo Baggins]

It wil certainly be an interesting addition to the battlefield. I want to go and play Tiberian Sun now.

[Xerxes]

Meanwhile, on the communist side of the planet... (http://www.theonion.com/onion2919/secretoffire.html)

[Nebraska]

Originally posted by Bilbo Baggins
It wil certainly be an interesting addition to the battlefield.
Agreed, But who is it going to be more interesting for?:D

[NRen2k5]

The guys aiming it. "Ooh, they're going to have a hard time scraping him up!" (high five) :D

[SNYder]

hmmm... wierd. I watched an hur long special on Discorver Channle last night about American weopons, past, present, and future, and the <insert doctor evil quotation marks> laser technology was one of the areas of focus.

[Aeroe]

ah i seen a couple discovery channel specials on that, i want the invisibility device they're "working" on.

imagine the possibilities, it'd be worth joining the army if i could play with such things :)

[Ian the Korean]

A couple of anime series come to mind when I hear stuff like this. Nebraska brought up a good point htat was illustrated in the Gundam Wing series. The two sides fought each other with unmanned robots and no one died because of it. But it also just made the fight useless, because it didn't really make one side the winner. Their was no loss of life so their was no advancement. They just continued to send their unmanned robots against each others. I'm not saying this will happen at all, but it just reminded me of that show among others.

[Bilbo Baggins]

And just imagine the chaos caused by invisibiilty. Just imaginge hundreds of invisible soliders fighting each other? If you cannot see anyone, why bother shooting?

I agree with Nem. Swords are teh best.

[NRen2k5]

Some company is developping a remote-controlled mini-helicopter that they think will one day replace soldiers.

[Bilbo Baggins]

You mean like robot wars, only in the sky? :D

[Xerxes]

I think the predator drones (which are built an hour away from where I live) used in afganistan have already somewhat accomplished that effect. In the laser article they mentioned that the pentagon wants to eventually put lasers on the preadtor drones for some real flying unmanned vehicle havoc.

I'll tell you what- if I was president and I was attacking some disheveled nation I would appear on all of their TV screens saying
"Unleash the drooooonnnes" :) :) :)

[Huehuetenango]

this reminds me of a book i once read, actually two books, sort of similar
1) Forever Peace, by Joe Haldeman: america fights its wars by robots controlled by operators hundreds of miles away, would be a perfect solution, since the robots can massacre an army of normal ppl like that (imagine me snpping fingers), but if the operators work too long, they have a stroke, so you just have to take the good w/ the bad

2)Forever War (also by Joe Haldeman, am i the only one seeing a trend here?) wars are fought by ppl, but they are in huge fighting suits, would be great, except the other side has similar, and so instead of the ppl being safe, they jsut get killed in messier ways


no matter how advanced a weapon is, there is always a way to counter it (either inherent, or by the other side gaining similar technology) is what i'm basically trying to say
the u.s. may have a laser now, but what will be developed to counter it?
remember the arms races of the past? the nuclear brinkmanship politics of the cold war?
do we want to do stuff like taht w/ a technology that can be mounted on satellites and aimed ANYWHERE??????

[rm']

Nuclear bombs could be mounted on B-52s and aimed (to a certain degree of accuracy) anywhere. Same deal here, except now we can knock off Saddam's head, instead of all of Baghdad. I prefer the latter to the former.

[fwgx]

Originally posted by Aeroe
ah i seen a couple discovery channel specials on that, i want the invisibility device they're "working" on.

imagine the possibilities, it'd be worth joining the army if i could play with such things :) I've seen something on that. All it is is a lot of fibre optic wires all over the soldiers suit so that when someone looks at him all they see is the light that is passing through the wires around his body and out the other side. essentially re-directing the light around him. I dunno how it'll work if he turns and faces a different direction. Probably stick out like a sore thumb.

[rm']

The legend. (http://www.tricountyi.net/~randerse/asf1.htm)
The denial. (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm)

[Bilbo Baggins]

I do not think that satellite mounted weapons aer a possibility for a long while. Look how expensive it is just to get a basic radio satellite up into space.

[Xerxes]

The United States govt. has a lot more money then those folks and tends to get things done very quickly when it wants to... :)

Blackadder- there is a recent SF book by Clarke called "trigger" - did you ever read it? Its about people who stumble on a device thats cheap to make and releases a wave that neutralizes every gun and explosive in its area. (by detonating them) Guns become obsolete, and the US army takes up weapons like maces and crossbows. :) Its has a bit of a anti-gun lobby statement... but its fascinating nonetheless. :)


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0553576208/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/104-1570811-1131106

[Philosopher]

Originally posted by Xerxes

I'll tell you what- if I was president and I was attacking some disheveled nation I would appear on all of their TV screens saying
"Unleash the drooooonnnes" :) :) :) [/B]

Too bad one of the reasons the allies are fighting the war against terrorrism is to let the afghanis get their tv's back..
:cool:

[Merlin]

That's an outcome, not a reason.

"George - these people aren't watchin' no TV!"
"Aw, shoot. We must overthrow their leader and give them the power of CNN!"

[xeris]

A great book is Northworld Trilogy by David drake,
the most frequent weapon used is super advanced powered armor with arc-weapons(much cooler than lasers) They can be extended up to 4 meters long(I think) or concentrated to just the fingers of each hand, but with incredible power. I think we should get weapons like that so that we can send twelve people into any country and just slash through tanks and bunkers like they were made of paper. they could also just pick up the tanks and flip them upside down.
HeHe =Þ
Think of the power of giving every soldier a strength far exceeding that of a tank(better make sure that only suits levels 1-5 are used, level 12 suits would probably lose against monkeys throwing crap. (Read the book, I'm not going to explain the whole book!)

[risewell]

I know someone that worked at TRW in CA where they were testing lasers designed to shoot missles down. Clients included Israel, Turkey, etc. and were not designed to shoot into space.

[Xerxes]

My grandfather, after leaving the Air Force, worked as the head scurity chief for the western division of TRW. Something he told me once is that after the Americans, Isreal leads the world in offensive laser research. :confused:

[Aeroe]

dunno how laser technology will protect them from muslims with their c4 tucked into their turbans.

then again hussein likes to lob missiles at israel when he gets the chance.
that makes me wonder what will happen if he bombs the dome of the rock by accident. but then iraqi muslims are no friends of the iranian muslims that supply weaponry to the palestians. (suni and shi'ite mess)

[Merlin]

I don't like Israel's ******d aggressiveness. I don't like Ariel Sharon. I don't like Arafat, either.

I like the thought of Sharon's government having powerful lasers even less.[/mini-rant]