What is Digg?191 Comments
- Dr3w, on 11/15/2008, -0/+148But it's only on certain maps and takes forever to recharge
- SFBWork, on 11/15/2008, -4/+66Pew pew pew.
- Ruger11mcrdpi, on 11/16/2008, -3/+64It sure as hell doesn't leave hunks of depleted uranium laying around the battlefield, nor loads of lead that seep into ground water and kill waterfowl. It doesn't discharge a ton of burnt carbon when it fires, either. I'd say it's VERY much more environmentally friendly than the normal tank rounds.
Can't wait to see an abrams M-1 tank covered in solar cells, firing a laser. That would be hilarious!
Dugg for "clean killin" - jeevesatvic, on 11/15/2008, -1/+60Laser Cannons are a higher order need.
Food & Shelter ✓
Safety ✓
Love & Belonging ✓
Esteem ✓
Self Actualization ✓
Laser Cannon × - UselessTrivia, on 11/16/2008, -0/+43"Beam Cannon Chief" is probably the coolest job title ever.
- Surferess, on 11/15/2008, -1/+32FTA "There's no pew pew here. Just one long buzz that will last until it runs out of energy or coolant."
So buuuuuuuuuuuuuzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzft. - jeevesatvic, on 11/15/2008, -1/+31Great, now mount it on top of a large black tower with a red tip and give it the evil bald man.
http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Obelisk_of_Light - bababooey141, on 11/15/2008, -1/+26Does this mean we're getting the GDI Ion Cannon?
- TalkingBanana, on 11/16/2008, -2/+23No it doesn't.
- inactive, on 11/16/2008, -1/+20 Distance to power generators?
One-seven, decimal two-eight.
Target. Maximum fire power. - robdiggity, on 11/16/2008, -0/+18Nope, it pretty much means the same thing as before.
- BedPost, on 11/16/2008, -0/+16Teach me your check/x black magic. Please.
- ciaocibai, on 11/15/2008, -0/+16How much destructive power is 15kW? Or 100kW for that matter? I'd kind of like to see a video demonstration of that one...
I mean how much power/coolant will it need to be practical?
I have a green laser pointer, I will sell it to the military for a fraction of this price, pretty effective if you point it at someones eyes, too... - superal1394, on 11/16/2008, -0/+16So in other words, its not quite there yet to replace a tanks main gun, but it could provide interesting tactics by setting ***** on fire
- plaunie, on 11/16/2008, -0/+15To compare:
An m4 round has about 1700J of energy behind it. A 15kW laser would dump that into its target in about .11 seconds. of course the m4 isn't a 400lb rifle, so it has that going for it.
The m1 tank's main gun APFSDS round has about 5.4 MJ of energy behind it. A 100 kW laser would take 57 seconds to put that much energy into its target. - HisNoodly, on 11/16/2008, -0/+14I read that around 3400 watts is required for a 1cm beam to burn through a razor blade in one second.
So, drilling a 1cm hole through 4mm of steel per second - minus heatsinking effects. About what you can manage with a not-very-expensive powerdrill.
Though I'd imagine sending grunts chasing after tanks trailing an extension cord might not be optimal... - tinkertoy, on 11/16/2008, -3/+17"You may fire when ready"
--Govenor Tarkin, (episode IV: A New Hope) - Hollowpoint, on 11/16/2008, -2/+152 milliwatts? Wow.
- graahBrains, on 11/16/2008, -4/+17*****. Now we need to start another war. I knew i should have voted for McCain...damnit.
- inactive, on 11/16/2008, -3/+15Maybe if some kumbaya hippie like you could have handed Hitler a flower, he would have seen the beauty of all God's creation and the horrors of WWII could have been avoided.
- AntBing, on 11/16/2008, -2/+13I wonder how much it cost for R&D? Northrop Grumman is a business you know. If theirs costs too much someone else will produce one more cheaply and win the next contract. Relate it to new pharmaceuticals..or the damn iphone. New things are always expensive, the price drops once manufacturing costs are lowered and R&D is recouped.
- ChayD, on 11/16/2008, -0/+11Dugg for image of guys running after tanks with power tools.
- GawtMilk, on 11/16/2008, -0/+11Maslow's Heirarchy up in this bitch!
- Chairboy, on 11/16/2008, -1/+12If you have a laser cannon, then you can take as much food and shelter as you need, silly.
- paksman, on 11/16/2008, -2/+12You mean now I could have friggin sharks with friggin lazer beams attached to their friggin heads?? COOOOL
- robdiggity, on 11/16/2008, -2/+12Actually, that wasn't the laser cannon, that was me. Had that leftover burrito for breakfast. My bad.
- getoffmybridge, on 05/05/2009, -1/+11Actually douches that can't take a joke, are what's wrong with this world. Take some time to figure out where you fit in.
- g33b33, on 11/16/2008, -1/+10Expensive maglight foiled by my +2 mirrorball of reflecting
- Grym11, on 11/16/2008, -0/+9Here's the difference: a tank's cannon cannot fire continuously and cannot fire projectiles that travel at the speed of light. Plus, the turret would probably be much smaller and much more maneuverable.
A laser cannon such as this could do some amazing things when combined with a computer controls and projectile tracking sensors. It could, for instance, shoot incoming rockets, missiles, or mortars out of the sky. It could be programmed to shoot (and likely hit) anything that moves with laser precision in a particular field of view. Even helicopters and jets would not be safe as a well-placed shot into the cockpit would likely kill or blind the crew. If they took it a step further and combined the platform I described with metal storm's electronically controlled mortars, they could not only take out a mortar in flight, but lob a mortar directly back onto the location of the team that fired it.
This thing may not be able to kill other tanks but anything or anyone else would likely be toast. - renesm, on 11/15/2008, -1/+10It comes with a download code needed to operate it. And this code will not be replaced if lost or stolen. Read the small print!
- tomgsmyth, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8could you ask in proper English?
- Chordonblue, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8Don't worry. Biden assured us all that we're going to be challenged, and I believe him. I'm certain our new weapons will find a target under Obama's leadership as well.
- Frylocke, on 11/15/2008, -23/+31Why? Humans need food and shelter. Not laser cannons.
- BedPost, on 11/16/2008, -1/+9Solid State means there are no moving parts. That means, for instance, a solid state hard drive would be inherently more reliable than a hard drive with moving pieces. Why? Well, solid state has significantly less wear and tear due to function, giving it a much longer lifespan. It's not a buzz word.
- skiiper, on 11/16/2008, -0/+8I used to work in a laser lab in Germany. I've had a pretty nasty burn with just 2 watts of power.
I've never seen 15kW, but intuition tells me it should be pretty wild. - csm888, on 11/16/2008, -0/+7Mirrors...doh
- sonofashoe, on 11/16/2008, -1/+8I've heard Steve will be showcasing it as the new iPhone "killer" app at WWDC '09.
- divinediva, on 11/15/2008, -0/+7This is a rugged electric laser with power levels.
- PNutz, on 11/16/2008, -0/+7someone said that an hour ago...
- omnithought, on 11/16/2008, -2/+8"I'mma chargin' mah layzah!!!"
- Chordonblue, on 11/16/2008, -0/+6At 15 KW, change 'hurting' to killing or vaporizing and I think you've got the idea.
- sb66, on 11/16/2008, -0/+6No damage information makes this article somewhat half assed.
- LaughingMan89, on 11/16/2008, -1/+7Think of how much heat a 200 Watt processor dissipates under full load, now consider 500 times that but concentrated to a point about a millimeter across. I'd imagine it would be more or less lethal as it would burn right through skin, tissue, and bone.
- Ramble, on 11/16/2008, -0/+6Umm, no.
This laser is still in a collimated beam - firing it into the air would do nothing. Firing it into someone's eyes would melt their head. - Mujokan, on 11/16/2008, -0/+5BedPost:
There are lots of strange characters in unicode. Especially if you have double-byte fonts on your computer, which I think are easy to get (I have Japanese language OS already). In Windows there is a program called Character Map that lets you search for characters, or you can find them online. Here are some you can find.
☑✓✔ ☒✖✗✘ - Typhoon2009, on 11/16/2008, -0/+5They already have them actually. I saw a video of some guys using it on a night patrol in Baghdad in their humvee. It's a lower power laser which they flash momentarily to warn people to get the hell out of the way.
- jcims, on 11/16/2008, -0/+4The most common example of high power laser use you're going to find videos of is in the fabrication business.
Here is a 400 watt CO2 laser eating steel for lunch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EFAGhln8OQ&fmt=18
Here's an invisible 60 watt (e.g. 1/200th the output power) eating a floppy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAdlXXCp1SQ&fmt=18 - Ruger11mcrdpi, on 11/16/2008, -1/+5Actually I'm a Marine infantryman who's been to Iraq and been serving for 6 years. I very much hate the impact the environmental loonies are having on cutting my training. When we go to train in the desert we get something like 4-5 hours of classes on not harming the desert tortoise, not squishing snakes, not killing them, not harming birds, how to deal with leaked gasoline, etc etc etc. There's whole areas of training space we can't use because of some type of shrimp or something that comes up once every couple years... its nuts.
That said I recognize the risk we put people in after wars when there's explosives, mines, unexploded bomblets from cluster bombs, depleted uranium, lead etc all over the battlefield, in cities, on the streets and in the water supply.
The "Clean killin" comment was a tounge-in-cheek joke. I agree with Bonds that douches like you can't take a joke.
Besides, what's wrong with a military having more environmentally friendly vehicles and weapons? Is that a bad thing? It's fine with me! The current stuff we have, an M-1 tank uses 8-12 GALLONS of gas everytime you start it. That'll get my car 350miles. If we can improve, then we should improve. It's our moral imperitve, IMO.
But, I'm sure from your mom's basement you know a lot more about this kind of stuff than me, I'll just stop speaking from experience. /sarcasm - OriginalReplica, on 11/16/2008, -1/+5You do realize that the reason we have never had a nuclear war is because it isn't "clean", and the victor couldn't use the land they won in the war. Mass destruction with low side effects is terrible news for common people (you and me). Take the effects the taser has had on police brutality and apply that to the world's power hungry leaders (all of them)
- ChayD, on 11/16/2008, -0/+4Thing is though that some of those million dollar military toys actually turn out to be quite useful for the public (the Internet (originally a redundant communications network for military and research use), the interstate system (although primarily for motorists, one of its objectives was for moving armaments and troops around the country in case on invasion) and microwave ovens (a spin-off of radar technology) for instance). Not that I condone wsteful military spending, but I think the high power, compact lasers developed here may have some consumer use in the not too distant future - dunno for what though, perhaps zapping troublesome rodents?
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