OT Interesting news item

[ToddT]

While trying to find a different news item i rlocated this
http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20050826_095712.html
Are thei any mods that allow fighters to shot down CSM's?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Our first mass-produced energy weapon...

...Now I want a mars colony!

And a peace treaty across the entire world. Cause I'm kinda scared right now.

[El_Phil]

I want to meet the poor buggers in the DARPA acronym department. There's that and MAHEM (http://www.darpa.mil/tto/Programs/mahem.html). They work so hard at contrived acronyms there, the poor lambs.

[Ed Kolis]

Look at the tonnage on that thing... only 0.00075kT! Someone over at Malfador needs to look into miniaturization technology! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

ToddT said:
Are their any mods that allow fighters to shoot down CSM's?

Try Carrier Battles mod for intense missile interceptor action.

P&N mod allows the really large fighters to carry stock-like PD weapons too.

http://imagemodserver.mine.nu/other/MM/SE4/Mods/

[Renegade 13]

But how practical would this weapon be in conditions such as a cloud bank?

[narf poit chez BOOM]

A cloud bank? Probably not very much.

Pretty much any sort of particulate cloud does bad things to lasers.

[Kamog]

So if an enemy fighter is attacking with lasers, it would be good to fly into a cloud.

[Suicide Junkie]

You don't need to fly into a cloud, just puff out some smoke or chaff and make your own cloud.
That said, it seems that it is designed to be used against missiles.

[El_Phil]

So a missile with a really smokey power source...

Bring on the steam powered missiles! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[Xrati]

If they can put that on an airplane. just think what they could do with a ground based platform! Seriously though, it would be good to have one of those around N. Korea! Just in case...

[Emperor's Child]

El_Phil said:
So a missile with a really smokey power source...

Bring on the steam powered missiles! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif



Well, that would be a problem for the shooter only if you were trying to hit it from its rear quarter...

[El_Phil]

Not if you re-route the exhaust fumes through the nose cones. Complex internals I'll grant you, but thing of the benefits!

[Renegade 13]

At the velocities we're talking, the steam/exhaust would be behind you almost before it was released from the front, thereby offering no noticeable benefit.

[El_Phil]

There would be a constant stream of material coming out so at any one moment some more would be being pushed out.

However for a head to head contact you are correct, but for side on and rear attacks it would provide at least the possibility of benefit.

[Starhawk]

A side attacks are what those lasers are also designed for if it's similar (if not scaled down) compared to the big *** ones they put on Jumbo Jets as prototypes heh and no clouds never seemed to bother them much aparently.


I can see it now N. Korea Kim Jonwhatever
"Hahahaha die american pig dogs" launches butt load of missiles

Missiles all break apart as a fighter wing passes by, then said fighter wing launches own missiles in return.

"uh damn it" loud explosions in return

heheheh


NOW question is who did we really get the lasers from you know what i mean eh eh (nudge) *nudge* http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Wolfman77]

I think they use a wavelenght that isn't affected by clouds or smoke. Don't know how they do it though.

Isn't a missiles exhaust what produces its thrust? They wouldn't react well with their their thrust acting in front of their center of mass, I would imagine.

[El_Phil]

Lasers, uhh Bell Labs wasn't it?

Unless it's the DVD blue laser, that was random dudes at Oxford Scientific. Well sort of. Yes it was a blue laser, but not made the way everyone now makes them today.

Honestly that modified jumbo has been being fiddled with for so long I think it's possible the nukes will have decayed before it's declared finished and operational. Bear in mind for every test where something works, something else goes wrong with it. Still as a low priority research job what can you expect?

[Wolfman77]

Well, a year ago they were working on this
http://weekendpundit.blogmosis.com/lastweekend/025046.html
at 3.8 microns I believe that put it in the infrared part of the spectrum. I don't know if they are using anything similar to this or not.

No date on this one
http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/HELSTF.pdf

[Kamog]

If they put shiny mirrored surfaces on the missile, the lasers would reflect off.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

/me collects all the shiney, shiney missiles...

[Phoenix-D]

Kamog said:
If they put shiny mirrored surfaces on the missile, the lasers would reflect off.



Very briefly, and then the laser burns through the mirror and POOF. Mirrors aren't totally reflected, and that .01% is a !%$ when you're talking about stopping a weapons-level laser.

Doesn't count the difficulty in finding IR-reflective stuff, either.. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif It is possible, just not as common.

EDIT: Speaking of lasers, I read a nasty idea for a weapon a while back.

You take a powerful laser, and set it up so it gets split into many relatively weak beams. Then you shine a normal light into the same arrangement. Now, the laser won't be visible from a distance unless you're looking at it straight on..but the regular light will scatter more, and will be.

The human eye is instintively drawn to look at the shiny light, and the instant it does it also look straight into the laser.

Instant blindness for almost everyone within LOS of the disco ball of doom..

[Caduceus]

El_Phil said: They work so hard at contrived acronyms there, the poor lambs.



OT in an OT thread... It irritates me recently that medical studies are doing this too. I can't think of a good one off the top of my head, but various drug companies are doing trials like STAR and PROTEC and others to make them "catchy" so that if they pan out, they have a good name to refer to when they try to corner the market in hypertension (or whatever). Of course, if it busts, you never hear about it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Xrati]

What I do know is that when this country releases some 'Top Secret' craft, weapon or project, they generally have something better that they are working on!