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The toy-like drones destroyed during an Army field exercise at Fort Sill, Okla., last month weren't anything special; however, the way they were brought down -- zapped out of the sky by lasers mounted on a Stryker armored vehicle -- might grab people's attention.
The first soldier to try out the lasers was Spc. Brandon Sallaway, a forward observer with the 4th Infantry Division. He used a Mobile Expeditionary High Energy Laser to shoot down an 18-by-10-inch drone at 650 yards, an Army statement said.
"It's nothing too complicated but you have to learn how to operate each system and get used to the controls which is exactly like a video game controller," said Sallaway, who hadn't fired a laser before the exercise.
The drone-killing laser was relatively low energy -- only 5 kilowatts -- but the Army has tested much more powerful weapons. A 30-kilowatt truck-mounted High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator shot down dozens of mortar rounds and several drones in November 2013 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M.
Since then, researchers have made rapid advances in laser weapons, said Bob Ruszkowski, who works on air dominance projects and unmanned systems in Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works facility.
"We're really on the cusp of seeing the introduction of lasers in future systems," he said.
Which do you prefer, lasers or plasma weapons?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 31 2017, @01:32PM (2 children)
That is both an insane proposition and quite dangerous one (should it actual catch on). And I don't know how something this ludicrous was modded up. There will always be weapons and violence as long as there are Humans. If at any point the sentient being on this planet somehow get on without both of those things, then believe me they will not be Human by any definition.
Even if I would never use force of arms against another person unprovoked, I live in reality where I know others will not offer me the same kindness. I will not be defenseless, nor will I render my government defenseless from other governments so I can claim the moral high-ground and virtue signal to the world my willingness to become extinct.
Arms have always solved problems. That is what they were invented to do. And sometimes they are the only solution that will work permanently.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday May 31 2017, @02:15PM (1 child)
>And sometimes they are the only solution that will work permanently.
I'm struggling to think of any example of that - ever. Other than total genocide (which is its own problem), violence almost always begets further violence a little ways down the road, once the most-recently-wronged group gets back on its feet.
Not that nonviolence has a great track record either, just that it seems silly to credit violence with permanent solutions .
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 01 2017, @12:07AM
There are a lot of examples. The Blackfoot Indians still exist, but they ain't coming back to fight. The Aborigines are still around, but they're not gonna take down Canberra anytime soon.
You don't have to kill everyone. You only have to assimilate or marginalize so thoroughly that reciprocal violence is pointless.
It's almost never a peaceful or pleasant process, but out of such things Frenchmen (as opposed to Normans and Bretons and Burgundians) and Indians (as opposed to Punjabis and Gujaratis or any of the many other smaller political entities that pre-dated British India) are made.
Washington DC delenda est.