[WMCoolmon]

Laser weapon in Israel

What's especially interesting...

In earlier tests the Nautilus laser had successfully eliminated 28 short-range Katyusha rockets and five artillery shells in flight as well as several “hostile objects” on the ground.

[mikhael]

Nifty, but ultimately, I think, doomed to failure. Laser-dependent effects are too easily defeated by low tech countermeasures.

[Ghostavo]

What about plasma-based weaponry?

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Ghostavo
What about plasma-based weaponry?

Sci-fi or real?

So far the only plasma technology in possibile military application was some sort of "plasma slipstream" technology that the Soviets were experimenting with.  Supposed to provide radar stealth (although it makes you more visible) and enhanced manuverability...

[mikhael]

Directed plasma weapons will, unfortunately, be purely short range beasts, due to the inherent instabilities of the 'beam' caused by basic physics.

[Rictor]

no comment

[Taristin]

I always wondered if the military had some sort of plasma cannon. Like a hi-powered plasma cutter used in metal shops.

[Carl]

old old OLD! was posted here almost a year ago!

[DragonClaw]

Originally posted by Carl
old old OLD! was posted here almost a year ago!

Even if that's true, what's the point of mentioning it? A lot of new people have registered since then and haven't seen it. And who is going to search the forums for a laser defense system in RL?

[Bri_Dog]

****ing badass

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Carl
old old OLD! was posted here almost a year ago!

wrong wrong WRONG!

There may have been a thread about the weapon system a year ago, but somehow, I don't think that thread included discussion about the fact that it was tested successfully against an actual missile on 7 May 04.

Would you rather, we bumped a year old thread?

[Carl]

sure. what is so wrong with bumping old threads? what negative effects could it possibly have?

[Turnsky]

Originally posted by IceFire

Sci-fi or real?

So far the only plasma technology in possibile military application was some sort of "plasma slipstream" technology that the Soviets were experimenting with.  Supposed to provide radar stealth (although it makes you more visible) and enhanced manuverability...

plasma, theoretically speaking would need a magnetic feild to hold it cohesive, so, a plasma bomb would be possible, all the containment would be part of the weapon itself.

laser weaponry would be interesting, 'cause there's no actual collateral damage involved like with explosives.

[Bobboau]

unless what you hit with the laser explodes

[Janos]

Hehe, this will propably mean the end of those who moan that "armoured units are obsolete, we should go in for APCs and scrap MBTs blah blah blah", despite what has happened recently in Iraq. If this can defend them against artillery, then it can defend it against missiles. RPGs - maybe, even though they are often fired from pretty close distances.

[WMCoolmon]

RPGs? I think that'd be a bit harder to make a laser-defense system against, since then you'd have only seconds to acquire the target and confirm it was hostile and shoot it down. Plus you'd have to make it small enough to be mobile, I don't think the one in the article above is very portable at all (Unless you've got the skillz to build a nuclear generator backpack.)

[vyper]

can anyone say point-defence-phasers?

[Sandwich]

[q]In earlier tests the Nautilus laser had successfully eliminated 28 short-range Katyusha rockets and five artillery shells in flight as well as several “hostile objects” on the ground.[/q]

There's just something about the wording of that paragraph that gets me.

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Turnsky


plasma, theoretically speaking would need a magnetic feild to hold it cohesive, so, a plasma bomb would be possible, all the containment would be part of the weapon itself.

laser weaponry would be interesting, 'cause there's no actual collateral damage involved like with explosives.

Actually...apparently peoples retinas would be burned out by sufficiently high powered laser weapons...so I suppose in some ways the collateral damage is worse.  Unless they can somehow mask the light portion and just keep the heat...