[Bobboau]

well, you know it wouldn't need to have a continuous beam, it would just need to build a large charge in a capacitor, you wouldn't need a hefty power supply for that.

[Fury]

the Human body is probably more vulnerable to high-velocity metal than a laser.

There are cases where a sniper for example shoots to kill and where sniper shoots to incapacitate. Assuming that a laser weapon such as this has long enough range to be viable as a sniper rifle, then the fact that you can essentially instantly hit targeted spot is a huge bonus compared to a bullet where you need to calculate in trajectory and wind among other things. When shooting to kill, sniper could target heart or head, having a laser bolt penetrate your heart or brain is going to kill you as much as a bullet, in this case hit is pretty much guaranteed though.

The only question is how much protection you need to protect yourself from such a military grade weapon. If you need far less protection against a laser weapon than conventional, then it's probably not going to be viable for use in military. Police forces such as SWAT and equivalent would be another matter though, those snipers could essentially disarm and cripple their targets with pinpoint accuracy and no loss of life.

[NGTM-1R]

No sniper shoots to incapacitate. Ever. If he does he is a discredit to his profession and a danger to others. You don't blast the guns of out of their hands, even if you can. There are too many risks involved. You don't know he has only one weapon. You can't reliably render him quadriplegic (which would be the only real safe method of incapacitation) for only a short period of time, or indeed reliably do so without killing him.

I've seen the math laid out and the energy costs for a projectile will probably always be lower than the energy costs for an energy weapon. What lasers have going for them is accuracy and reaction time, which as Flip noted are really desirable in some fields, less so in others.

[Scotty]

No sniper shoots to incapacitate. Ever. If he does he is a discredit to his profession and a danger to others. You don't blast the guns of out of their hands, even if you can. There are too many risks involved. You don't know he has only one weapon. You can't reliably render him quadriplegic (which would be the only real safe method of incapacitation) for only a short period of time, or indeed reliably do so without killing him.

Sorry, wrong.  LEO snipers are primarily trained to shoot to incapacitate.

[Flipside]

Also, it'd need to be an invisible beam, last thing you need on a foggy day is a big "I am here!" line back to where you are sniping from

[Black Wolf]

So, now that lasers have been weaponized, do they fall under the right to bear arms in the US? Because, frankly, if they'll let their people have Assault rifles, this is peanuts.

[QuantumDelta]

Also, it'd need to be an invisible beam, last thing you need on a foggy day is a big "I am here!" line back to where you are sniping from

This is the bit where the second fire mode is more like a combination of TerSlash and AAA

[headdie]

So, now that lasers have been weaponized, do they fall under the right to bear arms in the US? Because, frankly, if they'll let their people have Assault rifles, this is peanuts.

Good question, i imagine that what you would have when these things do reach life threatening output is a highly accurate weapon with the effect of a non removable flash suppressor with only a small amount of noise when fired compared to a firearm.

going back to my point about the matching of bullets to weapon, I suppose you could fit it with a "kill cam" and an integrated memory, I know disabling the camera wouldn't be to difficult to someone who is determined but it would be a start

[NGTM-1R]

Sorry, wrong.  LEO snipers are primarily trained to shoot to incapacitate.

But when they're called on to shoot it's not useful.

[Mika]

so, you all want to make it impossible for me to develop and manufacture high precision cutting tools from my home? I'm fairly sure if I put my mind to it and devoted a lot of money I could make a realy cool fabricator that took wood and carved 3d models out of it using some sort of design software.

Well, good news! There are already laser tooling equipment on the markets, so no need to build your own! The best thing is, no need to worry about eye-safety, since they have already taken care of that.

Doing that machine at home, well, if you some day start doing that, I seriously wish you luck on your endeavors.

And I definitely would not use it on wood.

[headdie]

And I definitely would not use it on wood.

depends on what you use it for, if as i suspect we are talking about using it in conjunction with a Lathe then I doubt you could achieve sufficient temperature for a fire, not quickly anyway unless you were being stupid about it, throw in a decent extractor hood over the top to clear the vapor and wood particles and I imagine you should be fine.  It would be interesting to see just how precisely the wood could be worked using a laser.

edit

just reread the original post and a lathe might not be the best application but with careful planning you should still be able to avoid a fire

[Bobboau]

you could just put the carving volume in a vacuum chamber.

[Mika]

you could just put the carving volume in a vacuum chamber.

There seems to be a quite an impressive budget behind this, or what? Not even the laser tooling workshops I have seen usually have any vacuum chambers.

Wood is terribly bad material for laser tooling in itself, ignition point is only the start of it. It wont be anyways precise as the material removal is extraordinarily difficult to predict. And I'm yet to see a convincing reason why anybody would like to do anything from wood with a 10 µm tolerance.

Lasers are usually used to create accurate features in relatively planar surfaces that would otherwise be difficult to do with CNC machines. It is not used to shape pieces from large aluminum blocks, CNC is for that, along with aluminum molding.

You would be far better off with a two- or three axis CNC-machine, or a CNC-lathe.

EDIT: Added words italicized

[Scourge of Ages]

Any kind of laser with an effective range similar to a good Sniper Rifle would require a heavy power-source, with the added disadvantage that, other than the eyes, the Human body is probably more vulnerable to high-velocity metal than a laser.

I'd like to point out that this pistol uses for power a pack of four AA size Lithium batteries at 3.6V each, weighing 17.5 grams each for the cells themselves. That makes 14.4V and 50 shots worth of energy in only 70 grams. Scaling up the power source is not a concern at all. The concern would be in scaling up the capacitor(s) and all the electronics to handle the higher power flow.

[Klaustrophobia]

this also only pops balloons and puts pinholes in thin metal and plastic at 1m range. 

[Nuke]

lasers cut wood quite well actually. its not as ideal a material as acrylic, but its fairly decent. most laser machines have a fitting for a compressor or gas tank. this is used to blow away ash from the cut and the lens. i figure you would feed this with something like co2 or argon, and you could cut wood with it. ive seen wood that has been laser cut, it has a really smooth albeit slightly blackened.

[S-99]

this also only pops balloons and puts pinholes in thin metal and plastic at 1m range.

I was thinking a good market for lasers such as this would be in lighting things on fire. A camping tool for lighting a fire, or you could do sort of a replacement for propane torches. It'd be a big hit with smokers. Light your cigarette in a strong gust of wind you could.

[Nuke]

i could imagine lighting my bong with this thing, of course by the time it went around a couple times, everyone would be completely blind.

[Pred the Penguin]

Protective eye-wear sold separately.

We're ****ing up the ozone anyway.

[Klaustrophobia]

is there any kind of eye wear that can protect you from a 1MW laser?