Future Sidearms?
Skeptical1
I don't see any advances in energy storage, so no lasers, blasters,
etc. Plus, with all the atmospheric disturbance of a laser's beam,
i.e. rain difracting the beam, I'd think that weapon makers, or rather
the ones who have to decide what a soldier or cop will carry, would
want to pick a weapon that wouldn't have an entire situation where the
weapon was not usable....
SM Engnrs
there may be advances in other technologies (sonic, heat, electrical,
compressed air, etc.) that we haven't even imagined.
I think lasers are popular because they seem "futuristic." My favorite
future weapon in the media these days is the pulsed plasma gun (PPG) on
Babylon 5. While I think its barrel is too short, it otherwise looks like
a reasonably designed weapon.
Are there any other ideas on this subject?
Hassan Hamedani
devices to stop suspects. Some examples are fire-and-forget
nets, supergoop to retard suspects and some new-fangled foam
which immobilizes people, surrounds 'em w/ padding and puts
out fires all in one, oh and there's also some sort of
4-way airbag. When put to use, no cop will be placed in a
life-or-death decision with a .000005 second buzzer. (Listen
to all that cop-cheering in the background.)
For near-future, I'd have to agree that guns are the way to
go. Our concern would be having lightweight shots w/ beaucoup
de stopping power. The only advantages I'd see to laser
weapons would be they'd (hopefully) have more shots and would
be lightweight, well, accuracy may be a bit of a concern (altho
in the near future, a persone probably woudn't be able to hold
a weapon steady enough to make the difference between laser
and sniperguns. I suppose you could mount the weapon and
use a push-button trigger (like a remote-control).
As for that rain-diffraction and stuff, I don't think that's
much of a concern. You wouldn't want to look at a nuclear
explosion, even in the rain. A laser powerful enough for lethal
applications would essentially be the radiation of a nuclear
explosion concentrated in one narrow beam.
-p (not Hassan -118)
--
Hassan -118
John R. Snead
headed we should have decent batteries in a few decades. Well, lasers
are rather wasteful, but railgun type weapons are great. Variable velocity
and variable ammo (low velocity tranq darts, etc...) They also sound like
they will be fairly rugged and won't break if you drop one.
Heron jsn...@netcom.com
John L Redford
bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
Also, there's been a lot of work recently in non-lethal weapons. One
of the most plausible is the sticky-foam gun, which shoots out a mass
of plastic that expands and immobilizes its target. Neal Stephenson
was ahead of them though in "Snow Crash", where he called it the
loogie gun.
--
/jlr (John Redford, j...@world.std.com)
Colin Campbell
"Paratime" universe. Muzzle velocity of 10,000 fps, and, according to the
stories, a bullet at that speed would kill even if you hit the victim in
the hand, because of massive hydrostatic shock.
I don't know how you get muzzle velocities of 10,000 fps, though.
Maybe if the total cartridge is the size of your leg. Kind of cumbersome
for a sidearm.
Erik Max Francis
> Another improvement was described in Vinge's "The Peace War" - smart
> bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
> cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
> tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
> human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
> a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
I haven't read this book, but this seems like putting a little too
much technology where it isn't necessarily needed.
After all, a dumb bullet has advantages: It can't be jammed, for one
thing. Besides, you can still have bullet-proof vests, so it's an
awful lot of money for something which might not be all that
effective in the long run, if someone is prepared for it (and if
they're not prepared for it, why are you using such an expensive
bullet?).
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE // uuwest!alcyone!max, m...@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, CA, USA // 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W // GIGO, Omega, Psi // the 4th R!
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Erik Max Francis
> It might not be vastly more expensive, given the rate of improvement
> in chip technology. Optical sensors can be integrated with processors
> today; there's been a lot of interesting work on artificial retinas at
> Caltech and MIT recently. Affecting the bullet's flight could be done
> by changing the aerodynamics with little micro-machined plates.
Sure, it's possible. But there's a very good reason why missiles are
expensive -- because they're technologically difficult.
John Oliver
worry about extreme tech advancements) would a pneumatic weapon
that shot air saturated with DMSO. The DMSO would open thw pores
of the body while the air entered the blood stream and making the body
suffer air embolism. When hitting the extremities, they would be
disabled, but the chest, head, areas closer to the heart would increase
the likelihood of an instant fatality since the air bubbles would be
lodged in the heart, thus stopping it.
The big problem with this weapon is heavy clothings and other wearables.
They would protect the dermal layers against penetration.
Just something I whipped up.
John W. Oliver
Descendent of the Yeti
jwol...@netcom.com
John L Redford
>> bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
>> cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
>> tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
>> human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
>> a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
>I haven't read this book, but this seems like putting a little too
>much technology where it isn't necessarily needed.
>After all, a dumb bullet has advantages: It can't be jammed, for one
>thing. Besides, you can still have bullet-proof vests, so it's an
>awful lot of money for something which might not be all that
>effective in the long run, if someone is prepared for it (and if
>they're not prepared for it, why are you using such an expensive
>bullet?).
It might not be vastly more expensive, given the rate of improvement
in chip technology. Optical sensors can be integrated with processors
today; there's been a lot of interesting work on artificial retinas at
Caltech and MIT recently. Affecting the bullet's flight could be done
by changing the aerodynamics with little micro-machined plates. Raise
the plates on one side of the bullet to get it to drift that way. The
plates can also be built onto the same chip. There's been talk of
using micro-machined chips like this to affect wing air flows, but I
don't know if anyone has tried it.
Tygger
: I think lasers are popular because they seem "futuristic." My favorite
: future weapon in the media these days is the pulsed plasma gun (PPG) on
: Babylon 5. While I think its barrel is too short, it otherwise looks like
: a reasonably designed weapon.
Question from an optically-uneducated person:
How does the strength of the laser beam affect its ability to work in
difficult environments? My possible point is, as power storage and
delivery technology improves, mightn't lasers strong enough to overcome
their present limitations be developed? Or would these be overkill weapons?
D.A. Graf
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John Schilling
Fortunately, it wouldn't work. You would need a rather substantial
pressure gradient to drive air into the bloodstream at levels above
the solubility limit, so as to create the bubbles that would cause an
embolism. As no such gradient exists, no bubbles will form.
Think about it: the *lungs* already offer a greater exposure of the
bloodstream to air, than any DSMO-exposed skin ever will. Yet we
somehow manage to avoid forming fatal embolisms with every breath
we take.
--
*John Schilling * "You can have Peace, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * or you can have Freedom. *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both *
*Aerospace Engineering Department * at the same time." *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * - Robert A. Heinlein *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527 * Finger for PGP public key *
John Schilling
Well, I think Piper may have overestimated the effect of hydrostatic shock
a wee bit in this case. The best general data I have on the formation of
pressure waves due to the passage of high-velocity bullets, suggests that
the shock effect of such a projectile would be roughly equivilant to that
of three or four 5.56mm rifle bullets. Certainly enough for substantial
stopping power, but killing someone with a hand hit is a bit much.
Of course, the relevant data comes from an experimental study conducted
in 1988, so I won't blame Piper for getting that one wrong :-)
As for how you get 10,000 fps form a firearm, you *don't*, not with any
fixed-charge nitro-powder based design. There is an absolute velocity
limit that can be achieved with such designs, due to the energy required
to accelerate the propellant gasses. At ~6000 fps, the entire energy
content of a nitrocellulose charge is required just to accelerate the
propellant, and no charge:mass ratio will suffice to push an actual
projectile at such a velocity. Or, to put it another way, the wadding
of a full-charge blank cartridge will leave a gun barrel at <6000 fps,
and nothing is going to beat that.
Possible mechanisms for higher velocities include rockets, travelling
charges, high-energy propellants, low-molecular-mass propellants, and
electromagnetic accelerators. I understand the Russians use some sort
of travelling-charge system in their 125mm tank cannon, and get a bit
over 5,000 fps from them, and the western allies are working on various
electromagnetic and electrothermal schemes for the same application.
steve hix
> Another improvement was described in Vinge's "The Peace War" - smart
> bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
> cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
> tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
> human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
> a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
>
> of the most plausible is the sticky-foam gun, which shoots out a mass
> of plastic that expands and immobilizes its target.
Properly (or perhaps *very* improperly) used, a sticky-foam gun could
be quite lethal.
Imagine inhaling super glue, sort of.
This is a problem with most "non-lethal" weapons; their use carries
some non-zero risk of lethality. And if the risk mechanism is known,
it might be intentionally used.
steve hix
> j...@world.std.com (John L Redford) writes:
>
> > Another improvement was described in Vinge's "The Peace War" - smart
> > bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
> > cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
> > tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
> > human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
> > a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
>
> much technology where it isn't necessarily needed.
>
> After all, a dumb bullet has advantages: It can't be jammed, for one
> thing.
The smart bullet was passive...harder to jam.
Most of the smarts were in the gun, btw, reducing the amount that had to
be able to fit in the bullet. Knowing the type of target(s) expected, it
decided exactly when to fire as the user pressed the trigger and swept
the target area (according to the description of its use in the book).
> Besides, you can still have bullet-proof vests, so it's an
> awful lot of money for something which might not be all that
> effective in the long run, if someone is prepared for it
A *good* smart gun system would be prepared for such things, and would be
designed to exploit "chinks in the armor" (armor usually isn't covering
everything, or at least not equally).
> (and if they're not prepared for it, why are you using such an expensive
> bullet?).
Reduces training requirements for the users.
Instead of expending 10K rounds per hit...
steve hix
> j...@world.std.com (John L Redford) writes:
>
> > in chip technology. Optical sensors can be integrated with processors
> > today; there's been a lot of interesting work on artificial retinas at
> > Caltech and MIT recently. Affecting the bullet's flight could be done
> > by changing the aerodynamics with little micro-machined plates.
>
> expensive -- because they're technologically difficult.
So far.
As tech develops, you end up either with cheaper missiles with the same
capability, or more capable ones for the same cost.
In theory, at least, if not in practice.
Karl Meissner
: j...@world.std.com (John L Redford) writes:
: > Another improvement was described in Vinge's "The Peace War" - smart
: > bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
: > cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
: > tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
: > human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
: > a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
: I haven't read this book, but this seems like putting a little too
: much technology where it isn't necessarily needed.
: After all, a dumb bullet has advantages: It can't be jammed, for one
: thing. Besides, you can still have bullet-proof vests, so it's an
: awful lot of money for something which might not be all that
: effective in the long run, if someone is prepared for it (and if
: they're not prepared for it, why are you using such an expensive
: bullet?).
Heh, heh. This, in fact, happened in the book. A bunch of bad guys
got shot by smart bullets, got hit in the chest, but lived because
they had good body armor. Obviously there would be a arms race/trade off
between body armor and penetration. This is going on now anyway.
Active jamming may not be very effective in the field, since a
jamming device would give away your position. There would
be a lot of room for passive stuff though, such as smoke
bombs or suits that cover your IR signature.
Currently the cost of missiles are high and so it is only economical to
use smart munitions on aircraft, ships, tanks or important fixed targets, but
the cost will go down, and the accuracy of the pattern recognition
software will go up. 'smart bullets' are at least possible.
Smart bullets do have their advantages.
Four 'neat' applications, besides, side arms....
1) automatic-long range-anti personnel device - rig a powerful telescope
and a motion sensor and have a high powered rifle shoot 'smart bullets'
like a sniper. Even over several miles this may be effective because
the bullets are able to adjust for motion of the target.
2) automatic-short range-anti personnel - rig 30 or 40 1-shot guns
all pointed at a road that the enemy will use, set the 'smart bullets' off
with a radio signal as they pass by.
3) 'smart cluster' - put 100 'smart bullets' into a light mortar round,
fire at a distant enemy, 50 feet off the ground the shell casing splits
and the bullets fire off in all directions, seeking human targets.
4) Scatter several thousand one-shot guns with motion detectors from a bomber
at 30,000 feet. The one-shot gun goes off if any human gets within say
50 feet. This would be really rough if the enemy did not have a lot
of armored personnel carriers. It would wipe out a civilian population.
Karl
mstick
>Four 'neat' applications, besides, side arms....
>
>1) automatic-long range-anti personnel device - rig a powerful telescope
>and a motion sensor and have a high powered rifle shoot 'smart bullets'
>like a sniper. Even over several miles this may be effective because
>the bullets are able to adjust for motion of the target.
Already have this to some extent in current cruise missle technology. The
problem is really intelligence -i.e. making sure your human target is where
you want him.
>2) automatic-short range-anti personnel - rig 30 or 40 1-shot guns
> all pointed at a road that the enemy will use, set the 'smart bullets' off
>with a radio signal as they pass by.
Same as above.
>3) 'smart cluster' - put 100 'smart bullets' into a light mortar round,
>fire at a distant enemy, 50 feet off the ground the shell casing splits
>and the bullets fire off in all directions, seeking human targets.
This would be very great for any combat team jumped by attacking units
*except* the enemy unit would have to be far enough away that the smart
missles would not confuse enemy targets with friendly ones.
>4) Scatter several thousand one-shot guns with motion detectors from a bomber
>at 30,000 feet. The one-shot gun goes off if any human gets within say
>50 feet. This would be really rough if the enemy did not have a lot
>of armored personnel carriers. It would wipe out a civilian population.
>
We already have this last type of weapon system in the form of cluster bombs
which are much cheaper to make and utterly lay waste to whatever is in the
area.
mstick
>Possible mechanisms for higher velocities include rockets, travelling
>charges, high-energy propellants, low-molecular-mass propellants, and
>electromagnetic accelerators. I understand the Russians use some sort
>of travelling-charge system in their 125mm tank cannon, and get a bit
>over 5,000 fps from them, and the western allies are working on various
>electromagnetic and electrothermal schemes for the same application.
>
designed a electromagnetic gun for use by the U.S. Army's tanks which will
have a speeds of at least 10 kilometers per second with possible twice the
range.
Karl Meissner
: In article <41t979$r...@news.bu.edu>, meis...@park.bu.edu says...
: >Four 'neat' applications, besides, side arms....
: >
: >1) automatic-long range-anti personnel device - rig a powerful telescope
: >and a motion sensor and have a high powered rifle shoot 'smart bullets'
: >like a sniper. Even over several miles this may be effective because
: >the bullets are able to adjust for motion of the target.
: Already have this to some extent in current cruise missle technology. The
: problem is really intelligence -i.e. making sure your human target is where
: you want him.
I agree. The senario I was thinking of was using this as
perhapes a type of sentry/mine field. You could control a road, an open
field or a beach pretty effectivily with this type of device.
Alternatively, they would make a nice weapon
for a gurilla. Set up an auto-sniper outside the main gate
of an enemy base and then get out of the area. Saves on your
snipers...
:
: >2) automatic-short range-anti personnel - rig 30 or 40 1-shot guns
: > all pointed at a road that the enemy will use, set the 'smart bullets' off
: >with a radio signal as they pass by.
: Same as above.
: >3) 'smart cluster' - put 100 'smart bullets' into a light mortar round,
: >fire at a distant enemy, 50 feet off the ground the shell casing splits
: >and the bullets fire off in all directions, seeking human targets.
: This would be very great for any combat team jumped by attacking units
: *except* the enemy unit would have to be far enough away that the smart
: missles would not confuse enemy targets with friendly ones.
Yeah. Thats why I would perfer to put it into a mortar rather then
hand grenade.
: >4) Scatter several thousand one-shot guns with motion detectors from a bomber
: >at 30,000 feet. The one-shot gun goes off if any human gets within say
: >50 feet. This would be really rough if the enemy did not have a lot
: >of armored personnel carriers. It would wipe out a civilian population.
: >
: We already have this last type of weapon system in the form of cluster bombs
: which are much cheaper to make and utterly lay waste to whatever is in the
: area.
Yep. But, these would be effective even after the bombing run since
a round is only expended if it has a target. It would make an entire area
deadly for an unarmored man to enter, until the whole area had been
cleared.
Karl
Marcus Eubanks
: the likelihood of an instant fatality since the air bubbles would be
Not really. Getting a bit of air entrained in your circulation isn't
such a big deal, depending on where it goes. Air bubbles through the
heart are generally no problem at all. In fact, certain diagnostic
studies involve *intentionally* running air bubbles through the heart
to help assess cardiac function.
One the other hand, air embolism to the brain can be a *major* bummer.
--
Marcus Eubanks Temple Med 1996 Philadelphia, PA USA
"A person with an inconvenient value-system."
Skeptical1
>Of course chemically propelled weapons will probably be around. However,
>there may be advances in other technologies (sonic, heat, electrical,
>compressed air, etc.) that we haven't even imagined.
>I think lasers are popular because they seem "futuristic." My favorite
>future weapon in the media these days is the pulsed plasma gun (PPG) on
>Babylon 5. While I think its barrel is too short, it otherwise looks like
>a reasonably designed weapon.
>Are there any other ideas on this subject?
I still don't get what's going to be driving these weapons.... On ST,
I believe that the energy source is matter/anti-matter.
Realistically, I'd think that the containment for the reaction would
be a lot harder to develop than isolating the (say) anti-hydrogen.
What about radioactivity (Plutonium?) as an energy source. Although,
how would you control the decay to get the energy on demand...?
Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
recoilless.
Mark Brian Muller
>smen...@aol.com (SM Engnrs) wrote:
>
>What about radioactivity (Plutonium?) as an energy source. Although,
>how would you control the decay to get the energy on demand...?
PLutonium is rather nasty stuff to have around - I don't think it will be
something to carry around in a pistol or rifle anytime soon, regardless of
its usefullness.
>
>Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
>weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>recoilless.
And why would this be recoiless - it is still accelerating a mass to a large
velocity, and momentum must still be conserved, giving you recoil. I can
see the recoil being softer in nature due to a more even acceleration of the
bullet, but by upping the muzzle velocity from 1,500 fps of current rifles to
8000-10000 ft/sec would probably more than compensate for this to give a hell
of a kick, unless the slug is very lughtweight.
Mark Muller
mul...@vibes.ae.utexas.edu
steve hix
> As for that rain-diffraction and stuff, I don't think that's
> much of a concern. You wouldn't want to look at a nuclear
> explosion, even in the rain. A laser powerful enough for lethal
> applications would essentially be the radiation of a nuclear
> explosion concentrated in one narrow beam.
A nuclear blast doesn't care about diffraction, refraction, reflection, or
much of anything else.
A little scattering quickly dilutes the effectiveness of a laser...the
focused beam may be intense, but it won't be when spread out a few times
larger than the non-scattered beam.
You can get around some of the problem by using multiple pulses, with the
first one clearing a channel in the air, but then you're using up precious
power.
There are also things like blooming and so on that affect high-power beams
that still have to be dealt with.
Erik Max Francis
> Reduces training requirements for the users.
It costs much less to train a person how to fire a gun properly than it
does to arm him with $1000 rounds. Particularly considering that for the
same price, he can fire considerably more than a thousand normal rounds.
Hell, you don't need sharpshooting training for that. Show him how to
fire a fully-automatic weapon and give him plenty of a thousand rounds
worth of magazines.
In short, I seriously doubt that smart bullets would ever be particularly
economical, if only because they're so easy to stop. That's why
missiles, which have such active guiding systems, are so destructive --
once you get it there, you've spent enough money and resources to make
the missile that you damn well better hope that it does the job.
Erik Max Francis
> For near-future, I'd have to agree that guns are the way to
> go. Our concern would be having lightweight shots w/ beaucoup
> de stopping power. The only advantages I'd see to laser
> weapons would be they'd (hopefully) have more shots and would
> be lightweight, well, accuracy may be a bit of a concern . . .
. . . except the two things that might make handheld laser weapons
economical -- that they would be lightweight, and would be able to fire
multiple times -- is exactly what prohibits us from making them now. To
do damage, you need a lot of power in your laser. To get a lot of power,
you have to have a controlled release of a lot of energy very quickly.
Storing and releasing that kind of energy is very, very difficult, and
there don't seem to be _any_ good candidates for that sort of thing.
Now, _big_ lasers seem to be more likely. But handheld lasers just don't
look like they're going to preferable to kinetic weapons (i.e., guns)
anytime remotely soon.
steve hix
> fid...@Eng.Sun.COM (steve hix) writes:
>
> > Reduces training requirements for the users.
>
> It costs much less to train a person how to fire a gun properly than it
> does to arm him with $1000 rounds.
Until the cost of the smart rounds drops a *lot*, they won't be using
them in the fashion Vinge used in the story.
Once they're cheap enough, though...
(The working assumption in the Vinge stories was that such tech was
*really* cheap. Not next week, or next year, or probably in the next
couple of decades, but...)
Bite Me
> PLutonium is rather nasty stuff to have around - I don't think it will be
>something to carry around in a pistol or rifle anytime soon, regardless of
>its usefullness.
Any safer than matter/anti-matter reactions?
Bite Me
>You can get around some of the problem by using multiple pulses, with the
>first one clearing a channel in the air, but then you're using up precious
>power.
This reminds me the electrolaser (can't remember which SF featured
this) where the weapon shot a low-powered laser first that ionized the
atmosphere and then followed that up with an electrical discharge that
had two settings, stun and kill--I assume it interfered with the
electrical signals to the heart or some such thing....
bobbyu
> smen...@aol.com (SM Engnrs) wrote:
>
> >Are there any other ideas on this subject?
>
> I still don't get what's going to be driving these weapons.... On ST,
> I believe that the energy source is matter/anti-matter.
> Realistically, I'd think that the containment for the reaction would
> be a lot harder to develop than isolating the (say) anti-hydrogen.
>
> how would you control the decay to get the energy on demand...?
>
> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
> recoilless.
That sonic boom wouldn't be too quiet, methinks. And what does
"relatively" recoilless mean? Working out conservation of momentum
with even a _tiny_ pellet implies a pretty significant recoil. Or
am I missing something?
bobbyu
Richard Treitel
meis...@park.bu.edu (Karl Meissner) writes:
>2) automatic-short range-anti personnel - rig 30 or 40 1-shot guns
> all pointed at a road that the enemy will use, set the 'smart bullets' off
>with a radio signal as they pass by.
How much better is this, though, than what old East Germany did? Just
set up dumb guns with motion detectors to spray lots of bullets at any
NATO soldier who happens to get near the border (and too bad about
those East German citizens trying to travel West, heh, heh).
And why use 1-shot guns? A dozen rounds probably would still weigh
less than the gun.
-- Richard
"Some magics *are* distinguishable from any advanced technology."
(If my employer holds these views, it hasn't told me.)
Richard Treitel
[stuff about smart bullets]
>> Sure, it's possible. But there's a very good reason why missiles are
>> expensive -- because they're technologically difficult.
>
>So far.
>
>As tech develops, you end up either with cheaper missiles with the same
>capability, or more capable ones for the same cost.
>
>In theory, at least, if not in practice.
Nasty stuff, that practice! But note that "more capable ones for the
same cost" won't lead to smart bullets at a bearable price, and as for
the "either" part, most technologies reach a floor price somewhere.
For example, the cheapest CD player I've seen is noticeably more
expensive than the cheapest vinyl-disc player I can remember.
SFAIK most infantry tactics assume that you'll expend a lot of bullets
that have no hope of hitting the target, for reasons unconnected with
accuracy. I'd expect these reasons to continue to hold, so that
expensive highly accurate bullets would be a waste of money. They
might be used anyway by people who had money to waste, but it'd take a
*lot* of money.
mstick
>
>
>> Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
>> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>> recoilless.
>
>>of momentum with even a _tiny_ pellet implies a pretty significant recoil.
>
>the bullet weight. This is because momentum is proportional to mass
>times speed, while kinetic energy is proportional to mass times
>speed SQUARED. This is why a 5.56mm bullet can have over 50% more
>muzzle energy than a 12 guage shotgun slug and still have so little
>recoil that automatic bursts are practical.
Not to mention the fact that with some current chemical weapons are considered
recoilless because they release a specific amount of energy in the opposite
direction when the weapon is fired. True these are large crew served weapons
but it wouldn't be too far-fetched to presume that the same might be done at
some future time for a personal railgun type weapon.
John Schilling
>-=> Quoting Skept...@aol.com to All <=-
> Sk> Plus, with all the atmospheric disturbance of a laser's beam,
> Sk> i.e. rain difracting the beam, I'd think that weapon makers, or rather
> Sk> the ones who have to decide what a soldier or cop will carry, would
> Sk> want to pick a weapon that wouldn't have an entire situation where the
> Sk> weapon was not usable....
>Actually, nobody in his right mind would use a laser weapon in an
>atmosphere. At least not in a military situation or any other situation
>where concealing you position is important.
>Whyt? Because the ionization cause by a beam with a "weapon's grade"
>energy density creates tis "light show" along the beam path that is as
>obvious as a bad special effect!
>Not many folks are interested in a weapon that gives away their
>position that way.
Actually, there is no shortage of weapons in current use which produce
a firing signature at least as conspicuous as a lightning bolt. Check
out the firing of a 120mm tank gun sometime. Or, for that matter, a
TOW antitank missile. Against a serious enemy, counterbattery radar
guarantees that even your artillery, "safely" ten miles behind the front,
will be located the moment it fires.
That such weapons are in use, suggests that the firing signature of a laser
will not be a major problem. When the technology is ready, laser weapons
will be used.
Erik Max Francis
> I still don't get what's going to be driving these weapons.... On ST,
> I believe that the energy source is matter/anti-matter.
> Realistically, I'd think that the containment for the reaction would
> be a lot harder to develop than isolating the (say) anti-hydrogen.
>
> What about radioactivity (Plutonium?) as an energy source. Although,
> how would you control the decay to get the energy on demand...?
One problem with that is that to burn through someone (i.e., to make
the laser an actual weapon other than a bright light), you need a lot
of power -- which means a lot of energy released in a controlled way
in a short amount of time.
Radioactivity certainly releases energy, but it releases energy at a
continuous (and fairly slow) rate. Radioactivity is dangerous because
ionizing radiation wreaks havoc with biological systems, not because
it is depositing a great deal of energy -- it's just depositing that
energy in a manner which makes biological systems vulnerable.
> Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
> recoilless.
You'd get the same recoil as a traditional explosive firearm with a
bullet of the same mass and muzzle velocity. In fact the recoil for
the explosive firearm would probably be not nearly as noticeable in a
semiautomatic, as the action of the slide dampens the feel of the
recoil a good deal.
But they certainly would be quiet -- you'd just hear the crack as the
projectile broke the sound barrier, as well as whatever sounds your
electromagnetic propulsion system makes. But then you have the same
(but slightly lesser) problem of power.
Erik Max Francis
> And why would this be recoiless - it is still accelerating a mass to a lar
> velocity, and momentum must still be conserved, giving you recoil. I can
> see the recoil being softer in nature due to a more even acceleration of the
> bullet, but by upping the muzzle velocity from 1,500 fps of current rifles to
> 8000-10000 ft/sec would probably more than compensate for this to give a hell
> of a kick, unless the slug is very lughtweight.
Probably the reason that most people refer to portable mass drivers
are recoilless is that they're generally talking about a very high
muzzle velocity, but also a really light bullet.
Still, a bullet with the same muzzle velocity would certianly impart
the same impulse to the gun, whether or not it used explosives or
electromagnetics. In fact, a semiautomatic handgun might have less
recoil (meaning: what you feel, rather than the actual impulse
delivered), since the action of the slide tends to make the recoil
less noticeable.
Erik Max Francis
> In article <4227io$5...@news2.aero.org>, bobbyu <bob...@mustang.aero.org> wrot
> >Skept...@aol.com (Skeptical1) writes:
>
> >> Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
> >> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
> >> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
> >> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
> >> recoilless.
>
> >That sonic boom wouldn't be too quiet, methinks.
>
> While true, the pellet would be made very small and still be effective
> due to its high speed. That would imply less of a sonic boom.
>
> >And what does "relatively" recoilless mean? Working out conservation
> >of momentum with even a _tiny_ pellet implies a pretty significant recoil.
>
> For the same muzzle energy, the recoil (momentum) is proportional to
> the bullet weight. This is because momentum is proportional to mass
> times speed, while kinetic energy is proportional to mass times
> speed SQUARED. This is why a 5.56mm bullet can have over 50% more
> muzzle energy than a 12 guage shotgun slug and still have so little
> recoil that automatic bursts are practical.
Well, there's muzzle velocity, which is undeniable, but "recoil"
generally means how much the gun kicks back and how fast, which is
slightly more complicated than simply the muzzle velocity. A bigger
gun, naturally, moves more slowly, so a bigger gun will give you less
of a recoil. For a semiautomatic handgun, the action of the slide
also makes a noticeable dent in the recoil, since the imparted
velocity is spread over a longer time thanks to the action of a
spring.
That's why, say, the recoil of a .44 magnum revolver and that of a
Desert Eagle of the same calibre are very distinct -- not only is the
Desert Eagle a monstrous gun, but it also has a huge slide.
Erik Max Francis
> Not to mention the fact that with some current chemical weapons are considere
> recoilless because they release a specific amount of energy in the opposite
> direction when the weapon is fired. True these are large crew served weapons
> but it wouldn't be too far-fetched to presume that the same might be done at
> some future time for a personal railgun type weapon.
Well, then it's got to be some kind of bazooka-like arrangement, which
is not generally convenient on the battlefield.
Leonard Erickson
sm> Of course chemically propelled weapons will probably be around.
sm> However, there may be advances in other technologies (sonic, heat,
sm> electrical, compressed air, etc.) that we haven't even imagined.
sm> I think lasers are popular because they seem "futuristic." My favorite
sm> future weapon in the media these days is the pulsed plasma gun (PPG)
sm> on Babylon 5. While I think its barrel is too short, it otherwise looks
sm> like a reasonably designed weapon.
A book I read a while back (the Fifth Foreign Legion?) had a miltary
unit intended to be reasonably self-sufficient. The longarms were a
type of railgun. At one point it is mentioned that they have gear in
their transport vehicles to make "needles" for the rifles from
practically any metal handy (yes, you *can* use a non-ferrous metal in
a weapon like this). And they power packs were recharged from the
fusion generators on the vehicles. The "heavy weapons" were lasers
mounted on some of the vehicles.
This struck me as being a well thought out setup. All they need is
power from the generators, and some simple tooling. And you can keep
going for a *long* time.
They were doing things like salvaging barbed wire and the like to make
needles out of. :-)
... "What do you mean, 'Flash Gordon approaching'?"
Leonard Erickson
jw> A possible firearm in the more near future (thus not having to
jw> worry about extreme tech advancements) would a pneumatic weapon
jw> that shot air saturated with DMSO. The DMSO would open thw pores
jw> of the body while the air entered the blood stream and making the body
jw> suffer air embolism.
This isn't going to work, because air that can get thru those pores
will not form bubbles nearly as readily as it would dissolve.
Also, some many different chemicals will "hitchhike" on DMSO as it is
aborbed that you've got quite a danger of *poisoning* the person
depending on what's on his clothes or skin. And worse yet, if any DMSO
leaks from the gun, it'll be a danger to the *user*.
... That is not dead which can be elected. Vote Nyarlathotep
Leonard Erickson
Sk> Plus, with all the atmospheric disturbance of a laser's beam,
Sk> i.e. rain difracting the beam, I'd think that weapon makers, or rather
Sk> the ones who have to decide what a soldier or cop will carry, would
Sk> want to pick a weapon that wouldn't have an entire situation where the
Sk> weapon was not usable....
Actually, nobody in his right mind would use a laser weapon in an
atmosphere. At least not in a military situation or any other situation
where concealing you position is important.
Whyt? Because the ionization cause by a beam with a "weapon's grade"
energy density creates tis "light show" along the beam path that is as
obvious as a bad special effect!
Not many folks are interested in a weapon that gives away their
position that way.
I also have to wonder about what happens if your shot grazes a high
voltage power line, or you are fighting during a thunderstorm. (ZAP!)
Weapons that attract lightning or otherwise fry the user are also not
terribly popular.
... If guns are outlawed, can I use my bullwhip? -- X I. Jones
Leonard Erickson
co> I always wondered about the .10 caliber sidearms in H. Beam Piper's
co> "Paratime" universe. Muzzle velocity of 10,000 fps, and, according to
co> the stories, a bullet at that speed would kill even if you hit the
co> victim in the hand, because of massive hydrostatic shock.
co> I don't know how you get muzzle velocities of 10,000 fps, though.
co> Maybe if the total cartridge is the size of your leg. Kind of
co> cumbersome for a sidearm.
Folks a century back would have been hard presed to figure out how to
get the muzzle velocities common in modern fireams, much less those of
"high velocity" rounds like the .223 Bee.
The "trick" is that we not only have somewhat better powder, we have
better *steel* to make the guns from. The powder generates pressures
that would have destroyed older weapons.
So similarly, while *we* would need the huge cartridge, it won't be all
that large in a few generations.
Let's see, figure the bullet at around a gram. And 500 m/sec muzzle
velocity. Hmmm. Kinetic energy works out to be roughly equivalent to 30
grams of TNT (about an ounce). I think that'd get your attention. :-)
... Cthulhu's computer : the Necronomicompaq
Carsten Lechte
>smen...@aol.com (SM Engnrs) wrote:
>Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
>weapon. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
What kind of weapon is that, please?
>You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>recoilless.
Why recoilless? You would still have the momentum of the projectile
to deal with -- that is a 'problem' that all weapons of this kind have:
the conservation of momentum.
--
MvfG, Carsten Lechte.
Westring 284, 24116 Kiel
e-Mail: c...@toppoint.de
Isaac Ji Kuo
Erik Max Francis <m...@alcyone.darkside.com> wrote:
>Skept...@aol.com (Skeptical1) writes:
>> Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
>> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>> recoilless.
>You'd get the same recoil as a traditional explosive firearm with a
>bullet of the same mass and muzzle velocity.
Don't forget that a large fraction of recoil from a gas gun is from
the gas/burnt powder which follows the bullet. This effect is
minimized in guns with a muzzle brake, which redirects much of
those gases sideways. Theoretically, a muzzle brake could redirect
gases backwards enough to reduce recoil to less than the momentum
of the bullet, but I doubt any gun has accomplished this.
>In fact the recoil for
>the explosive firearm would probably be not nearly as noticeable in a
>semiautomatic, as the action of the slide dampens the feel of the
>recoil a good deal.
The "feel" of recoil, of course, depends on more than just the momentum
delivered. Most obviously, a heavy gun has "less recoil" than a light gun
with the same barrel, even though both will push back the same amount.
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@tyrell.net or isaa...@OCF.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ As the world looked on ... Earth's fate hung in balance ...
/___________\ The fight for survival ... now begins! ... FINAL BATTLE IN ...
\=\>-----</=/ TOMOBIKI-CHO!
Isaac Ji Kuo
>>Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
>What kind of weapon is that, please?
It's what it sounds like. Doesn't work on the French, though, since they
just eat 'em.
Karl Meissner
: In article <41t979$r...@news.bu.edu>,
: meis...@park.bu.edu (Karl Meissner) writes:
: >2) automatic-short range-anti personnel - rig 30 or 40 1-shot guns
: > all pointed at a road that the enemy will use, set the 'smart bullets' off
: >with a radio signal as they pass by.
: How much better is this, though, than what old East Germany did? Just
: set up dumb guns with motion detectors to spray lots of bullets at any
: NATO soldier who happens to get near the border (and too bad about
: those East German citizens trying to travel West, heh, heh).
Similar ideas. The smart bullets would be more acurate of course.
The big difference is that since the guns are smart they are easier to
use in an offensive way. Just position them and leave (or drop
them and run) The enemy does not have to wander in front
of the gun, just reasonably near it.
: And why use 1-shot guns? A dozen rounds probably would still weigh
: less than the gun.
When I think of a one-shot gun, I think of something the size and shape of
a lipstick container. A small, easily concealable, cylinder, perhapes
with a small lens and cpu to do motion detection. It would be easy
to smuggle and position for an ambush even in an urban setting.
One-shot guns would pay I think, because you can simply scatter
them around more..
Multi-shot verisions who likely be a good idea too, simply because
humans(targets) tend to move in groups.
Karl
Karl Meissner
: SFAIK most infantry tactics assume that you'll expend a lot of bullets
: that have no hope of hitting the target, for reasons unconnected with
: accuracy. I'd expect these reasons to continue to hold, so that
Okay, what do you think those reasons are?
My guess is that 1) automatic weapons make charging an enemy too costly
2) air support and artillery are hard if the units are closely engaged.
Unless you can sneak up or surprise him, you going to be far away,
probably several hundred yards and ducking for cover.
So the long distance means your are going to miss most of the time.
BUT smart bullets should be effective even over long distances, since
they can travel to the general position of the enemy and then acquire
a target.
Just imagine what would happen on a current battle field. The
enemy is all dug in to fox-holes and trenches. I take a gun
with smart bullets, or better yet, smart mortar rounds, and fire them
at a 45 degree angle towards their
position. As the bullets drop down they acquire the guys in the
fox-holes and kill them. Of course the obvious counter measure it
to start bringing IR absorptive tarps and hiding under them, but
you get the idea.
Karl
Peter Kwangjun Suk
>mst...@ix.netcom.com (mstick) writes:
>> Not to mention the fact that with some current chemical weapons are considere
>> recoilless because they release a specific amount of energy in the opposite
>> direction when the weapon is fired. True these are large crew served weapons
>> but it wouldn't be too far-fetched to presume that the same might be done at
>> some future time for a personal railgun type weapon.
>Well, then it's got to be some kind of bazooka-like arrangement, which
>is not generally convenient on the battlefield.
Miniaturized rocket-launchers of this type have been in sci-fi/space
opry books for decades, probably. They're often called "recoiless
rifles" as a matter of fact. Supposedly, they have a minimum effective
range, as the projectiles continue to accelerate even after they've
left the barrel.
It seems like one could make such a weapon feasible by making it
laser-homing. There could be a sighting-laser working at visible or
invisible wavelengths at the user's option. In fact, with just a tiny
amount of technology in the bullets, this weapon would have tremendous
flexibility.
For example, such a weapon could be enhanced as a sniper rifle by
programming the projectiles to remain sub-sonic until close to their
target, at which point, they would accelerate to their maximum
velocity. (We can accomplish this very simply and cheaply by having 2
different charges. 1 to accelerate the projectile to just below Mach
1, another to take it to maximum velocity.) This gives us a weapon
with a very slight firing signature.
Of course, one might use a device to detect the targeting laser, but
we could also minimize this by having the laser act only as a ranging
device, then passing the ranging information to the bullet. The
bullet would contain a simplified inertial navigation system which
would guide the bullet to target. (The INS need not be as compicated
as one in an aeroplane, since it just needs to take the bullet a
certain distance in a straght line.)
In fact, one could eliminate the targeting laser and be satisfied with
providing slightly inaccurate range information to the projectile,
simply by being conservative with the timing of the 2nd acceleration
stage.
--
There's neither heaven nor hell -- Save that we grant ourselves.
There's neither fairness nor justice -- Save what we grant each other.
Peter Kwangjun Suk -- s...@cs.sc.edu -- Musician, CSCI Graduate Student
[keyservers or finger s...@usceast.cs.sc.edu for PGP public key]
--
There's neither heaven nor hell -- Save that we grant ourselves.
There's neither fairness nor justice -- Save what we grant each other.
Peter Kwangjun Suk -- s...@cs.sc.edu -- Musician, CSCI Graduate Student
[keyservers or finger s...@usceast.cs.sc.edu for PGP public key]
Walker on Earth
>> go. Our concern would be having lightweight shots w/ beaucoup
>> de stopping power. The only advantages I'd see to laser
>> weapons would be they'd (hopefully) have more shots and would
>> be lightweight, well, accuracy may be a bit of a concern . . .
>
>. . . except the two things that might make handheld laser weapons
>economical -- that they would be lightweight, and would be able to fire
>multiple times -- is exactly what prohibits us from making them now. To
the most obvious and certainly not the best, would be to increase the number
of rounds carried in a portable's magazine! Didn't anyone ever watch the
old spaghetti westerns, or most recently those bad sf flicks like 'Total
Recall' where the action figures fire _hundreds_ of rounds without
reloading :-) That's one thing people tend to appreciate about beamed
weapons though they might not consciously realize it. If you can
really relax the power constraints, hypervelocity millimeter projectiles
might be small enough that you could pack, say, one hundred into the
butt of a pistol. Stanley Weinbaum had one of his heroes in 'A Martian
Odyssey' carry a revolver type pistol that had a capacity of several
hundred needlelike rounds, and Keith Laumer's diplomat stories featured
something called a 'two millimeter needler.' And of course Star Trek
phasers and Larry Niven's flashlight/laser could literally mow down
thousands of opponents :-)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
"He deserves death!"
"Deserves it! I daresay he does. And many die that deserve life. Is it in
your power to give it to them? Then do not be so quick to deal out death in
judgement, for even the very wise may not see all ends."
Marcus Eubanks
: SFAIK most infantry tactics assume that you'll expend a lot of bullets
: that have no hope of hitting the target, for reasons unconnected with
: accuracy. I'd expect these reasons to continue to hold, so that
: expensive highly accurate bullets would be a waste of money. They
Nah. The whole idea of supressive fire is to let 'em know there's some
one there, and hope that fear makes 'em stay under cover, hopefully in
some place where they can't shoot at *you*.
Get the hit : shot ratio a lot closer to 1 and folks will be walking
around scared all the time. Will make for quiet, more civilized wholesale
slaughter. You know, the idyllic calm of the forest will be punctuated
with only the occasional crack as the projectile breaks the sound barrier,
followed by a softly uttered grunt when it blows some poor bastards heart
out through his spine. Much nicer than having all that random noise about
you, though it will seriously fuck with the folks who have to create the
ambient backround noise for war flicks. Might even put 'em out of work.
--
Marcus Eubanks Temple Med 1996 Philadelphia, PA USA
"A person with an inconvenient value-system."
Mark Brian Muller
>The big difference is that since the guns are smart they are easier to
>use in an offensive way. Just position them and leave (or drop
>them and run) The enemy does not have to wander in front
>of the gun, just reasonably near it.
Or just use a mine - an area of effect kind of weapon.
>When I think of a one-shot gun, I think of something the size and shape of
>a lipstick container. A small, easily concealable, cylinder, perhapes
>with a small lens and cpu to do motion detection. It would be easy
>to smuggle and position for an ambush even in an urban setting.
>One-shot guns would pay I think, because you can simply scatter
>them around more..
>Multi-shot verisions who likely be a good idea too, simply because
>humans(targets) tend to move in groups.
The multi shot version might also be known as a claymore anti-personal mine.
You set it pointing in the direction where you think people will be. Then set
a line across the road - when the people walk by and trip the line, the mine
goes off and the people die. The more hi-tech version is the use a motion
detector inside of the wire - still pretty cheap, and very effective. And it
doesn't take smart bullets or anything like that.
Mark Muller
mul...@vibes.ae.utexas.edu
Mike Williams
> Don't forget that a large fraction of recoil from a gas gun is from
> the gas/burnt powder which follows the bullet.
If this were the case, you'd expect to get a reasonable kick from firing a
blank. There's the same amount of gas/burnt powder, but negligible kick.
--
Mike "ZZ-Top" Williams
Karl Meissner
: Mark Muller
: mul...@vibes.ae.utexas.edu
True enough. I agree that some of these applications of smart bullets
are very similar in a effect to current mines.
However, a smart bullet will have a _much_ larger area of effect. Anywhere
from several hundred yards away to several _miles_ under the right conditions.
For example, a beach assult would either have to jam the smart bullets or
be completely armored, otherwise 100 smart bullets == 100 dead marines.
Karl
Isaac Ji Kuo
There's plenty of recoil from blanks. It's a lot less, though, which is
why you perceive it as "negligible". The recoil from a .22 rifle (not a
blank) is almost imperceptable, but it's there.
Mark Eaton
> expensive highly accurate bullets would be a waste of money. They
> might be used anyway by people who had money to waste, but it'd take a
> *lot* of money.
The only way I can see "smart" rounds being used is by snipers/assasins...
not as standard grunt issue.
John Schilling
>Thus Spake Carsten Lechte....
>>You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>>electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>>>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>>recoilless.
>Why recoilless? You would still have the momentum of the projectile
>to deal with -- that is a 'problem' that all weapons of this kind have:
>the conservation of momentum.
>---
> I would imagine that this would be because the acceleration of the
>pellet would be gradual over the length of the "barrel" rather than all
>at once (relatively) with conventional powder-type weapons. Thus,
>momentum would be conseved, but instead of feeling the weapon punch you
>in the shoulder (or kick back in your hand) you would feel a lesser
>force, but for a longer period of time.
> At least I think that's what he intended.
Possibly, but two problems. First, the acceleration of a projectile in
a conventional powder-type weapon *is* gradual, over the length of the
barrel. After all, why do you think the barrel is there in the first
place? If the acceleration occurred in the first, say, six inches,
rifles would have barrels six inches long. True, the acceleration isn't
entirely uniform, but it isn't so non-uniform that there would be a
substantial difference in recoil by going to a magnetic accelerator
scheme.
Second, in either case, the duration of the recoil impulse is fairly small
compared to the time required to couple said recoil impulse to the shooter's
(inherently padded, shock-absorbing) shoulder. So it would *feel* the same
either way.
Paul Wilson
> In article <41t77o$k...@kirk.usc.edu>, schi...@kirk.usc.edu says...
> >Possible mechanisms for higher velocities include rockets, travelling
> >charges, high-energy propellants, low-molecular-mass propellants, and
> >electromagnetic accelerators. I understand the Russians use some sort
> >of travelling-charge system in their 125mm tank cannon, and get a bit
> >over 5,000 fps from them, and the western allies are working on various
> >electromagnetic and electrothermal schemes for the same application.
>
> A while ago I read (Popular Science?) that the University of Texas has
> designed a electromagnetic gun for use by the U.S. Army's tanks which will
> have a speeds of at least 10 kilometers per second with possible twice the
> range.
Hmmmm, I suspect that they're waiting for a suitable power source .. or are
the tanks going to lug a huge diesel generator behind them? An electromagnetic
launcher which produces 10 kps needs a serious amount of electricity!
Paul
-----------------------------< Who 'zat? >------------------------------
Paul Wilson pa...@hooker.demon.co.uk
Jan Sendall
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nathan J. Nagel
>You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>recoilless.
Why recoilless? You would still have the momentum of the projectile
to deal with -- that is a 'problem' that all weapons of this kind have:
the conservation of momentum.
---
I would imagine that this would be because the acceleration of the
pellet would be gradual over the length of the "barrel" rather than all
at once (relatively) with conventional powder-type weapons. Thus,
momentum would be conseved, but instead of feeling the weapon punch you
in the shoulder (or kick back in your hand) you would feel a lesser
force, but for a longer period of time.
At least I think that's what he intended.
later,
Nate
Richard Treitel
eub...@astro.ocis.temple.edu (Marcus Eubanks) writes:
>Nah. The whole idea of supressive fire is to let 'em know there's some
>one there, and hope that fear makes 'em stay under cover, hopefully in
>some place where they can't shoot at *you*.
>Get the hit : shot ratio a lot closer to 1 and folks will be walking
>around scared all the time. Will make for quiet, more civilized wholesale
>slaughter. You know, the idyllic calm of the forest will be punctuated
>with only the occasional crack as the projectile breaks the sound barrier,
I have a feeling that ye olde smoke screen will make a comeback. Or
the forest will be littered with large cardboard pictures of soldiers,
with holes neatly drilled in them. Or ringed with nerds^H^H^H^H^H
cyber-psychologists figuring out how to make a smart bullet develop a
conscience about killing humans who've never done *it* any harm.
-- Richard
"Some magics *are* distinguishable from any advanced technology."
(If my employer holds these views, it hasn't told me.)
Colin Campbell
sidearms are going to remain dependent on chemical energy. Your future
laser pistols and rail guns are going to use loud, stinky cartridges,
even if they shoot light.
mstick
design and technology in the last 5 years alone due to the laptop market
demand for light weight batteries.
Peter Kwangjun Suk
>"Nathan J. Nagel" <nn...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>>Thus Spake Carsten Lechte....
>>>You could have a high-temperature superconductor
>>>electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
>>>>8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
>>>recoilless.
>>Why recoilless? You would still have the momentum of the projectile
>>to deal with -- that is a 'problem' that all weapons of this kind have:
>>the conservation of momentum.
>>---
>> I would imagine that this would be because the acceleration of the
>>pellet would be gradual over the length of the "barrel" rather than all
>>at once (relatively) with conventional powder-type weapons. Thus,
[snip]
>Possibly, but two problems. First, the acceleration of a projectile in
>a conventional powder-type weapon *is* gradual, over the length of the
>barrel. After all, why do you think the barrel is there in the first
>place? If the acceleration occurred in the first, say, six inches,
>rifles would have barrels six inches long.
What about accuracy?
>True, the acceleration isn't
>entirely uniform, but it isn't so non-uniform that there would be a
>substantial difference in recoil by going to a magnetic accelerator
>scheme.
Are you quite sure? Remember, the acceleration is provided by an
expanding gas. The volume that gas occupies is increasing very
dramatically, which would tend to lower the pressure.
>Second, in either case, the duration of the recoil impulse is fairly small
>compared to the time required to couple said recoil impulse to the shooter's
>(inherently padded, shock-absorbing) shoulder. So it would *feel* the same
>either way.
With 10,000 fps projectiles, probably true.
John Schilling
The laptop market demand for high *energy* density, is entirely irrelevant
for the issue under discussion. Energy density is not the problem. The
ability to provide continuous, modest ammounts of power for extended
periods of time is not the problem. Ordinary NiCad batteries can easily
provide enough *energy* to operate a railgun, and maybe even a laser, and
in a compact and lightweight package.
The problem, is *power* density. The ability to *extract* a substantial
portion of the energy in a battery, in a fraction of a second. *This* is
where current battery designs come up short, and laptop designers couldn't
care less.
Having said that, there have been some recent developments in pulsed-power
technology that hold some promise in this regard. If the theoretical
performance of the best current laboratory systems (~100kW/kg) could be
realized in field-deployable hardware, battery-powered energy weapons of
various sorts would be, barely, feasible.
Which, in practice, means we will probably see the relevant technology
sometime in the next century. 2005 and 2095 are equally likely, and
anyone who tries to pin it down any closer than that is making a wild
guess.
John Schilling
>schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) writes:
[recoil of firearms vs. railguns]
>>> I would imagine that this would be because the acceleration of the
>>>pellet would be gradual over the length of the "barrel" rather than all
>>>at once (relatively) with conventional powder-type weapons. Thus,
>[snip]
>>Possibly, but two problems. First, the acceleration of a projectile in
>>a conventional powder-type weapon *is* gradual, over the length of the
>>barrel. After all, why do you think the barrel is there in the first
>>place? If the acceleration occurred in the first, say, six inches,
>>rifles would have barrels six inches long.
>What about accuracy?
With very few exceptions, barrel length is determined by acceleration/
velocity concerns rather than accuracy requirements. A precision six-inch
barrel can provide accuracy comparable to a typical military or sporting
rifle, and given the difficulty of maintaining even modest dimensional
tolerances and stiffness with increasing barrel length (the hardest part
of modern rifle manufacture), mass-produced precision six-inch barrels
would probably be no more expensive than generic eighteen-inch ones.
>>True, the acceleration isn't
>>entirely uniform, but it isn't so non-uniform that there would be a
>>substantial difference in recoil by going to a magnetic accelerator
>>scheme.
>Are you quite sure? Remember, the acceleration is provided by an
>expanding gas. The volume that gas occupies is increasing very
>dramatically, which would tend to lower the pressure.
Yes, but the ammount of gas that occupies the volume is *also* increasing
very dramatically, which tends to cancel that effect.
Small-arms propellant does not react instantaneously, but burns continuously
during the period in which the projectile is accelerating. Ideally, at just
such a rate as to maintain constant pressure/acceleration, and burning out
immediately before the bullet leaves the barrel. The ideal is, of course,
never achieved, but with good weapon and ammunition designs the peak pressure
and acceleration is no more than a factor of two greater than the average.
Erik Max Francis
> There's plenty of recoil from blanks. It's a lot less, though, which is
> why you perceive it as "negligible". The recoil from a .22 rifle (not a
> blank) is almost imperceptable, but it's there.
Maybe you missed the implicit "relative to a real round of the same
calibre and strength."
A .22 doesn't give much kick in the first place, so of course a blank
version is not going to kick much either. Try a _serious_ round
(since that's obviously the realm we're talking about), like a .45 or
one of the magnum rounds.
Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE // uuwest!alcyone!max, m...@alcyone.darkside.com
San Jose, CA, USA // 37 20 07 N 121 53 38 W // GIGO, Omega, Psi // the 4th R!
H.3`S,3,P,3$S,#$Q,C`Q,3,P,3$S,#$Q,3`Q,3,P,C$Q,#(Q.#`-"C`- // 1love // folasade
_Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt._ // mc2? oo? Nah. // http://www.spies.com/max/
Urban Fredriksson
>"Nathan J. Nagel" <nn...@andrew.cmu.edu> writes:
>Possibly, but two problems. First, the acceleration of a projectile in
>a conventional powder-type weapon *is* gradual, over the length of the
>barrel. After all, why do you think the barrel is there in the first
>place? If the acceleration occurred in the first, say, six inches,
>rifles would have barrels six inches long. True, the acceleration isn't
>entirely uniform, but it isn't so non-uniform that there would be a
>substantial difference in recoil by going to a magnetic accelerator
>scheme.
In a typical rifle, with a 60 cm barrel, the bullet attains
half its velocity in the first 8 cm.
--
Urban Fredriksson u...@icl.se Docendo discimus
Richard Treitel
meis...@park.bu.edu (Karl Meissner) writes:
>For example, a beach assult would either have to jam the smart bullets or
>be completely armored, otherwise 100 smart bullets == 100 dead marines.
Unless the bullets not only are smart but communicate with each other,
I predict one dead Marine with 100 bullet holes in him.
mstick
>
>mst...@ix.netcom.com "mstick" writes:
>> In article <41t77o$k...@kirk.usc.edu>, schi...@kirk.usc.edu says...
>> >Possible mechanisms for higher velocities include rockets, travelling
>> >charges, high-energy propellants, low-molecular-mass propellants, and
>> >electromagnetic accelerators. I understand the Russians use some sort
>> >of travelling-charge system in their 125mm tank cannon, and get a bit
>> >over 5,000 fps from them, and the western allies are working on various
>> >electromagnetic and electrothermal schemes for the same application.
>>
>> A while ago I read (Popular Science?) that the University of Texas has
>> designed a electromagnetic gun for use by the U.S. Army's tanks which will
>> have a speeds of at least 10 kilometers per second with possible twice the
>> range.
>
>Hmmmm, I suspect that they're waiting for a suitable power source .. or are
>the tanks going to lug a huge diesel generator behind them? An
electromagnetic
>launcher which produces 10 kps needs a serious amount of electricity!
No they are waiting for funding. The people at UT solved the power problem by
developing a super efficient flywheel system which then converts the
rotational energy into electric current.
Jeff Suzuki
: Of course chemically propelled weapons will probably be around. However,
: there may be advances in other technologies (sonic, heat, electrical,
: compressed air, etc.) that we haven't even imagined.
I agree: the cartridge bullet is too "neat". Let's dispose of a few
silly notions, however:
1) Yes, you can so fire guns in a vacuum.
2) Modern ammunition will still be usable after being wet.
3) Most rifle and higher caliber rounds are supersonic.
I can see a few developments, however. Improvement in propellant is
one. Another is making the bullet itself less deformable; for future
minded criminals, this will be important, since it can mask the origin
of the bullet by making it more difficult to track the unique grooving
pattern of a particular gun.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: My best guess is coilgun or railgun sidearms. The way battery tech is
: headed we should have decent batteries in a few decades. Well, lasers
: are rather wasteful, but railgun type weapons are great. Variable velocity
: and variable ammo (low velocity tranq darts, etc...) They also sound like
: they will be fairly rugged and won't break if you drop one.
Railguns are ridiculously simple, and pretty rugged, although I'd
imagine the tolerances you'd need would make them a little more
fragile than a standard firearm: throw the "rail" alignment off by a
millimeter, and you're going to have problems.
An idea I once had for an SF mystery: a railgun firing a "bullet" of
liquid oxygen. (The railgun would not be a standard type railgun,
before someone corrects me on how a "railgun" actually works) It
provided the perfect "ice bullet"...
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: j...@world.std.com (John L Redford) writes:
: > Another improvement was described in Vinge's "The Peace War" - smart
: > bullets. Instead of being simple masses, each bullet was a tiny
: > cruise missile that could sense and recognize targets. They had
: > tiny ten million transistor chips in their noses which could lock onto
: > human silhouettes and hit them in the heart. Individual bullets were
: > a lot more expensive than ordinary ones, but a lot more effective.
: I haven't read this book, but this seems like putting a little too
: much technology where it isn't necessarily needed.
: After all, a dumb bullet has advantages: It can't be jammed, for one
: thing. Besides, you can still have bullet-proof vests, so it's an
: awful lot of money for something which might not be all that
: effective in the long run, if someone is prepared for it (and if
: they're not prepared for it, why are you using such an expensive
: bullet?).
Well, there are a few assumptions that would nullify this objection.
For one thing, how expensive are we talking, here? Consider that you
can now buy, for less than $50, the same computational power of many
of the original "computers". All you're asking is for computer prices
to drop down to being comparable with the cost of a bullet (and we're
seeing it happen, right here and now) and it's not a far stretch.
Consider that we now have "smart" artillery shells (PGMs, mainly) for
the 16 inchers aboard the New Jerseys, which are merely 1600 caliber
rifles.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: A possible firearm in the more near future (thus not having to
: worry about extreme tech advancements) would a pneumatic weapon
: that shot air saturated with DMSO. The DMSO would open thw pores
: of the body while the air entered the blood stream and making the body
: suffer air embolism.
I don't think this will work; the "pores" are still microscopic, and
the air would dissolve in the tissues long before it would be a
problem.
However, combine the DMSO with some sort of anaesthetic...or toxin...
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: As tech develops, you end up either with cheaper missiles with the same
: capability, or more capable ones for the same cost.
: In theory, at least, if not in practice.
Actually, the bullet described is not a missile, but a PGM (Precision
Guided Munition, for the Clany-impaired...;-) Missiles are powered
throughout their flight; bullets only receive an initial impulse. As
I mentioned, there are PGM rounds for artillery shells; currently the
equipment costs a few thousand dollars a shell, which might _seem_
expensive, but....
There's a story (true, although I don't guarantee my recollection of
the details is exact) told about the various attempts of the USAF to
emolish a river bridge in VietNam. Something like 30 or 40 sorties of
F-4s tried demolishing it with conventional munitions, and failed.
They then attacked it with a few PGMs, and demolished the bridge in
one mission.
Now, there are _already_ laser scopes for guns...
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
of infantry/mechanized weapons are we likely to expect in the near
future? In the Ogre/GEV universe, lasers were deemed mostly
impractical, with tacnuke artillery being the norm.
I'm guessing some sort of shaped nuclear charge (Monroe effect, with a
vengeance!), probably a PGM, for a tank-equivalent main gun; my
favorite is the micronuke (plutonium based). I can't see railguns,
lasers, etc. appearing any time in the near future (the precision
machining required seems to preclude battlefield use for a long, long
time...at least until we develop dinochrome): vacuum tubes are
notoriously fragile.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: economical -- that they would be lightweight, and would be able to fire
: multiple times -- is exactly what prohibits us from making them now. To
: do damage, you need a lot of power in your laser. To get a lot of power,
: you have to have a controlled release of a lot of energy very quickly.
: Storing and releasing that kind of energy is very, very difficult, and
: there don't seem to be _any_ good candidates for that sort of thing.
Actually, there is: a chemical laser. Of course, this would return
you to the cartridges and magazines bottleneck. Still, I can't see it
would be any worse than the current situation, and I suspect that the
"cartridges" would be considerably lighter than, say, the M-16 rounds.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: velocity, and momentum must still be conserved, giving you recoil. I can
: see the recoil being softer in nature due to a more even acceleration of the
: bullet, but by upping the muzzle velocity from 1,500 fps of current rifles to
: 8000-10000 ft/sec would probably more than compensate for this to give a hell
: of a kick, unless the slug is very lughtweight.
Actually, we're talking two different kettles of fish here. Momentum
will be the same: law of conservationof momentum is fundamental.
Force, OTOH, which is related to "kick", is what you're talking about.
For a given momentum, the higher velocity round does more kinetic
damage. So you could imagine a "glop gun" (working by whatever
principle) with the same kick as, say, a 12-gauge, but firing 1 gram
rounds which do a tremendous amount of kinetic damage.
OTOH, if you want to knock someone end over end (e.g., the Moros,
hence the introduction of the .45), you want the momentum gun, and the
large projectile is more efficient, energy wise. Thus, the question
is what do you want your sidearm to do?
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: the gas/burnt powder which follows the bullet. This effect is
: minimized in guns with a muzzle brake, which redirects much of
: those gases sideways. Theoretically, a muzzle brake could redirect
: gases backwards enough to reduce recoil to less than the momentum
: of the bullet, but I doubt any gun has accomplished this.
No, no, no. Law of conservation of momentum is closer to being a
physical absolute than anything (even LOCO Energy, which has been
"violated" in the past). If the bullet goes right, the gun goes left,
with exactly the same momentum.
What a muzzle brake will do (AFAIK) is roughly equivalent to what an
electrical transformer does: it "steps down" the "kick", by
decreasing the gas velocity but by increasing the amount of time that
the recoil operates. This drops the force (it hurts less) at the cost
of increasing the duration (it hurts for longer).
However, you cannot violate LOCO M.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: The most blatant futuristic improvement I can think of, though perhaps not
: the most obvious and certainly not the best, would be to increase the number
: of rounds carried in a portable's magazine!
That's not all that futuristic. More than anything, though, _weight_
is what a soldier cares about, not volume. This is already being
done; recently there was talk about a Belgian version of the M-16
(standard NATO firearm) with "caseless" ammunition. (The casing was
plastic, at about 1/2 the weight of the normal, metalic cases)
Improvements in chemical propellants (straight line extrapolation!)
will cut the weight down even further.
As I mentioned earlier, if your purpose is to kill, then dropping the
weight of the bullet itself will increase its muzzle velocity,
decrease recoil, and deliver the same KE to the target. A BOTE
suggests that you could reduce the weight of a standard bullet by
about 75% using off the lab bench technology.
Jeffs
Jeff Suzuki
: I have a feeling that ye olde smoke screen will make a comeback. Or
: the forest will be littered with large cardboard pictures of soldiers,
: with holes neatly drilled in them. Or ringed with nerds^H^H^H^H^H
: cyber-psychologists figuring out how to make a smart bullet develop a
: conscience about killing humans who've never done *it* any harm.
Sure. Consider the current state of the art of Air to Air combat (not
Coalition vs. Iraq, but the theoretical NATO vs. Warsaw Pact). ECM
and ECCM is how you survive.
This is even more true in naval warfare (same comment as above: real
navies vs. other real navies). The best protection is being
undetectable, and failing that, having a good anti-weapon system like
a CIWS. (It's probably one of the reasons that bullets _will_ survive
for a long, long time: a Tomahawk can be neutralized with a few
rounds of 20 mm, but it'll take a _lot_ more than that to stop a 2000
pound shell!)
Jeffs
John Schilling
And blithely ignored the issue of spinning up the flywheel in the first
placem, and then keeping it spinning, because those were Someone Else's
Problems.
The homopolar generators and compulsators you are referring to, are *not*
expected to serve as the primary power supply for the weapons in question.
They hold only enough energy for one shot, and can't hold that for very
long without unacceptable losses.
Rather, these are means of storing the power output of a large generator or
battery pack over a period of seconds or minutes, and then releasing it in
the milliseconds it takes to fire the railgun. This reduces the power
requirements on the prime supply by several orders of magnitude. But you
still need that big generator or battery pack, and even with the flywheel
as an intermediary, we are still an order of magnitude short on building
something reasonable in that area.
John Schilling
>schi...@spock.usc.edu (John Schilling) writes:
And spends roughly 1/3 of its *time* in the first eight centimeters,
due to the much lower average velocity in that region. So the acceleraton
is still reasonably uniform. Judging by the pressure curves I have seen,
peak acceleration in the barrel is typically about twice the time-averaged
acceleration.
Ken Moore
schi...@spock.usc.edu "John Schilling" writes:
>The laptop market demand for high *energy* density, is entirely irrelevant
>for the issue under discussion. Energy density is not the problem. The
>ability to provide continuous, modest ammounts of power for extended
>periods of time is not the problem. Ordinary NiCad batteries can easily
>provide enough *energy* to operate a railgun, and maybe even a laser, and
>in a compact and lightweight package.
>
>The problem, is *power* density. The ability to *extract* a substantial
>portion of the energy in a battery, in a fraction of a second. *This* is
>where current battery designs come up short, and laptop designers couldn't
>care less.
> [rest of interesting post deleted]
Electronic flash guns cope with their power density requirements by
using capacitors charged by a relatively low power battery. Capacitor
storage is also used for high-power laboratory lasers. Could the flash
gun design be scaled up for hand-held laser weapons? Either volume or
weight may be a constraint.
--
Ken Moore (K...@hpsl.demon.co.uk)
Erik Max Francis
> Okay, let's extend the playing field (a la Steve Jackson): what sort
> of infantry/mechanized weapons are we likely to expect in the near
> future?
Steve Jackson's Ogre universe _requires_ an effective shielding in the
form of armor against nuclear explosions, or otherwise it is
completely academic. It's not very useful rolling a tank into a
nuclear battlefield if it will be completely and utterly destroyed by
the first remotely near miss.
Right now, the idea of an armor which can withstand nuclear explosions
is ridiculous, and it doesn't look like any physics can make any
miracles anything even remotely soon.
> In the Ogre/GEV universe, lasers were deemed mostly
> impractical, with tacnuke artillery being the norm.
_Big_ lasers seem to me to be useful (and they do appear in some of
the Ogre supplements like Shockwave, by the way), but a handheld
variety certainly doesn't seem very viable, for reasons regarding
energy requirements and energy release requirements.
Erik Max Francis
> Actually, there is: a chemical laser. Of course, this would return
> you to the cartridges and magazines bottleneck. Still, I can't see it
> would be any worse than the current situation, and I suspect that the
> "cartridges" would be considerably lighter than, say, the M-16 rounds.
And what kind of energy and power can they deliver? It takes an
_awful_ lot of energy and power to do the same physiological damage to
a target that a standard big round will do.
Erik Max Francis
> No, no, no. Law of conservation of momentum is closer to being a
> physical absolute than anything (even LOCO Energy, which has been
> "violated" in the past).
Well, in general relativity, energy is conserved only locally --
globally there can be energy conversations, with the redshift of the
cosmic background being a good example.
But the same applies to conservation of momentum -- after all,
according to standard big bang models, as time goes to, they
accelerate faster and faster away from you. That's certainly a
violation of global conservation of momentum, the same way that the
redshift of the cosmic background is a violation of global energy
conservation.
They're both on the same footing -- conservation laws, at least in
general relativity, work locally, not globally.
(Besides, what "violations" of energy conservation are you talking
about?)
Erik Max Francis
> As I mentioned earlier, if your purpose is to kill, then dropping the
> weight of the bullet itself will increase its muzzle velocity,
> decrease recoil, and deliver the same KE to the target.
Which of these parameters change and how they change not only depends
on the mass of the bullet, but also the type of gun, and (most
importably) the amount of gunpowder that is going to propel the round.
Erik Max Francis
> Consider that we now have "smart" artillery shells (PGMs, mainly) for
> the 16 inchers aboard the New Jerseys, which are merely 1600 caliber
> rifles.
Perhaps, but it's much easier to stick some _guiding_ electronics and
the actuators to actually maneuver the bullet in, say, a .45, rather
than a round the size of a Volkswagon.
Leonard Erickson
> Personally, I like hyper-velocity slug throwers as an effective
> weapon. You could have a high-temperature superconductor
> electomagicaly propel a ferrous pellet at (I would imagine)
> >8000-10000 ft/sec. It'd probably be quiet and (relatively)
> recoilless.
bo> That sonic boom wouldn't be too quiet, methinks.
Most rifle bullets are supersonic *already*. That's why you hear a
"crack" when one just misses. It's not all *that* loud. It's also only
heard in a limited area (remember, what you are hearing is the "shock
cone" passing your location)
bo> And what does
bo> "relatively" recoilless mean? Working out conservation of momentum
bo> with even a _tiny_ pellet implies a pretty significant recoil. Or
bo> am I missing something?
Figure the recoil of a conventional rifle. Muzzle velocities of 2000 fps
aren't all that uncommon. Ant there are both target and "varmint"
rifles that fire a 22 caliber bullet at around 5000 fps without all
that much recoil.
Doubling the velocity doubles the momentum, but ups the impact energy
four times. So you can double the velocity, halve the mass, and still
still the same recoil but with twice the energy transfer.
... We prefer "We await your compliance", not "Tremble and obey!"
Leonard Erickson
sc> Leonard.Erickson%5...@crystals.aloha.or.us (Leonard Erickson) writes:
>-=> Quoting Skept...@aol.com to All <=-
> Sk> Plus, with all the atmospheric disturbance of a laser's beam,
> Sk> i.e. rain difracting the beam, I'd think that weapon makers, or rather
> Sk> the ones who have to decide what a soldier or cop will carry, would
> Sk> want to pick a weapon that wouldn't have an entire situation where the
> Sk> weapon was not usable....
>Actually, nobody in his right mind would use a laser weapon in an
>atmosphere. At least not in a military situation or any other situation
>where concealing you position is important.
>Whyt? Because the ionization cause by a beam with a "weapon's grade"
>energy density creates tis "light show" along the beam path that is as
>obvious as a bad special effect!
>Not many folks are interested in a weapon that gives away their
>position that way.
sc> Actually, there is no shortage of weapons in current use which produce
sc> a firing signature at least as conspicuous as a lightning bolt. Check
sc> out the firing of a 120mm tank gun sometime. Or, for that matter, a
sc> TOW antitank missile. Against a serious enemy, counterbattery radar
sc> guarantees that even your artillery, "safely" ten miles behind the
sc> front, will be located the moment it fires.
sc> That such weapons are in use, suggests that the firing signature of a
sc> laser will not be a major problem. When the technology is ready, laser
sc> weapons will be used.
*All* of the weapons you listed are "heavy weapons". In fact, the TOW
is the only one that is even "man portable". The artillery and tanks
can get away with it because they are armored and capable of moving
fast enough to have a fair chance of escaping the return fire.
SOP for a TOW is to fire from the back of a (hidden) jeep and get the
hell out of there after firing. Again, this is to keep from getting
creamed by return fire (in this case, return fire from *tanks*)
This is *not* a practical setup for infantry. A man on foot *cannot*
move all that far between shots, and will not appreciate being issued a
weapon that announces his *exact* position to anybody in line of sight.
Heck, if somebody was dumb enough to make personal laserweapons
standard issue for the troops opposing me, I'd look *real* hard at
getting some cheap fire&forget rounds made that homed on the ionization
trail. You wouldn't need a charge any bigger than a grenade, and the
guidance could be pretty dumb. Even if the average had them landing 10
feet from the target, they'd make hash out of any sort of organized
attack.
... "You're far too trusting." -- Grand Moff Tarkin
Eric G Knight
>Path: ucthpx!iafrica.com!ticsa.com!cstatd.cstat.co.za!psgrain!news.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!in2.uu.net!icmv.intellicorp.com!usenet
>From: tre...@bones.intellicorp.com (Richard Treitel)
>Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.science
>Subject: Re: Future Sidearms?
>Date: 3 Sep 1995 00:30:25 GMT
>Organization: IntelliCorp, Inc.
>Lines: 14
>Message-ID: <42asv1$d...@icmv.intellicorp.com>
>References: <DDy7D...@world.std.com> <JPDiaD...@alcyone.darkside.com>
> <41t979$r...@news.bu.edu> <422o8g$i...@icmv.intellicorp.com>
> <424h33$3...@news.bu.edu> <424sca$q...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>
> <42774s$o...@news.bu.edu>
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>NNTP-Posting-Host: bones.intellicorp.com
>X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.1
>In article <42774s$o...@news.bu.edu>,
> meis...@park.bu.edu (Karl Meissner) writes:
>>For example, a beach assult would either have to jam the smart bullets or
>>be completely armored, otherwise 100 smart bullets == 100 dead marines.
>Unless the bullets not only are smart but communicate with each other,
>I predict one dead Marine with 100 bullet holes in him.
> Not true, the smart bullet will need some kind of lock system, so i
> assume you need to see your target on your weapons scanner..wait about
> 3 seconds and then once you have your lock you fire. If you randomly fire
> without a lock theres a chance the bullet will turn and hit your mate
> next to you. The disadvantage of the smart bullet is the slower rate of
> fire ... if you're faceing an enemy your will be about 3 seconds dead.
> so the only application for these bullets seem to be for assassins and
> snipers.
Urban Fredriksson
>I can see a few developments, however. Improvement in propellant is
>one. Another is making the bullet itself less deformable; for future
>minded criminals, this will be important, since it can mask the origin
>of the bullet by making it more difficult to track the unique grooving
>pattern of a particular gun.
Or you can use a sabot so the bullet never touches the
grooves.
--
Urban Fredriksson u...@icl.se To get rid of an enemy, make him a friend.
Urban Fredriksson
>Isaac Ji Kuo (isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU) wrote:
>: This effect is
>: minimized in guns with a muzzle brake, which redirects much of
>: those gases sideways. Theoretically, a muzzle brake could redirect
>: gases backwards enough to reduce recoil to less than the momentum
>: of the bullet, but I doubt any gun has accomplished this.
Not with a muzzle brake, no, but I've fired recoilless
pistols which had both muzzle brakes and a relatively heavy
bolt going backwards. If you put the center of mass of the
bolt far forward and have it slide back and up, then you
can have a nearly recoilless SMG even.
>No, no, no. Law of conservation of momentum is closer to being a
>physical absolute than anything (even LOCO Energy, which has been
>"violated" in the past). If the bullet goes right, the gun goes left,
>with exactly the same momentum.
You must also figure in the momentum of the gases. Muzzle
brakes direct them back and up. Large calibre recoilless
guns use 2/3 of the propellant to cancel recoil, but they
don't have muzzle brakes.
je...@math.bu.edu (Jeff Suzuki) writes:
> Missiles are powered
>throughout their flight; bullets only receive an initial impulse.
Most missiles aren't cruise missiles, and are only powered
the first few seconds of flight.
>OTOH, if you want to knock someone end over end (e.g., the Moros,
>hence the introduction of the .45), you want the momentum gun, and the
>large projectile is more efficient, energy wise.
Figure out the momentum: You don't knock someone end over
end with a .45. After all, the impact momentum must be less
than that of the recoil, and you wouldn't fall over from
that, even if you were unprepared, would you?
The advantage of larger bullets is that they create more
damage, and thus stop people faster.
mstick
>
>Okay, let's extend the playing field (a la Steve Jackson): what sort
>of infantry/mechanized weapons are we likely to expect in the near
>impractical, with tacnuke artillery being the norm.
>
>vengeance!), probably a PGM, for a tank-equivalent main gun; my
>favorite is the micronuke (plutonium based). I can't see railguns,
>lasers, etc. appearing any time in the near future (the precision
>machining required seems to preclude battlefield use for a long, long
>time...at least until we develop dinochrome): vacuum tubes are
>notoriously fragile.
>
use on the battlefield. Consider that a lone infantry man can now take out a
tank with one shot from a personal missle. This trend can and will only
continue in the future.
My feeling is the armored suit for infantry will be the way to go a la RAH's
Mobil Infantry in _Starship Trooper_. This would give the military unit both
the abilities of the infantry with armor support and mobility that comes with
air-cavalry.
mstick
Not quite an order of magnitude short. I found the article - and the method
they have for spinning the flywheel up to speed is by using an aircraft
turbine. Something that could probably easily incorporated into a main battle
tank of the size of the Abrams M-1. They (the Army) expect to deploy this
technology as early as 2010.
Jeff Penrod
MW>From: mi...@econym.demon.co.uk (Mike Williams)
MW>Subject: Re: Future Sidearms?
MW>In message <42356u$n...@agate.berkeley.edu> Isaac Ji Kuo wrote:
> Don't forget that a large fraction of recoil from a gas gun is from
> the gas/burnt powder which follows the bullet.
MW>If this were the case, you'd expect to get a reasonable kick from firin
MW>blank. There's the same amount of gas/burnt powder, but negligible kick
There's a big difference between propelling a pistol slug a couple hundred
of feet and propelling a NATO style round hundreds of meters downrange.
In M-16s, we would have problems with jamming when we used blanks.
This was because there was insufficient charge to push back the receiver
group against the recoil spring. We didn't have this problem with 5.56mm
ball ammunition. Although it may have had something to do with obturation.
I also recall blanks made less noise.
As one who has experience with anti-tank weapons, I can attest to the
hazard of back blast from "recoilless" weapons.
Aloha.
---
* WR 1.32 # 720 * Dear Santa: Please send me your list of naughty girls
Jeff Penrod
LE>A book I read a while back (the Fifth Foreign Legion?) had a miltary
LE>unit intended to be reasonably self-sufficient. The longarms were a
LE>type of railgun. At one point it is mentioned that they have gear in
LE>their transport vehicles to make "needles" for the rifles from
LE>practically any metal handy (yes, you *can* use a non-ferrous metal in
LE>a weapon like this). And they power packs were recharged from the
LE>fusion generators on the vehicles. The "heavy weapons" were lasers
LE>mounted on some of the vehicles.
Don't you mean ferrous? non-ferrous metal is not magentic.
Aloha.
---
* WR 1.32 # 720 * Should I put the cow on the catapult now?
Jeff Penrod
KM>From: meis...@park.bu.edu (Karl Meissner)
KM>Subject: Re: Future Sidearms?
KM>When I think of a one-shot gun, I think of something the size and shape
KM>a lipstick container. A small, easily concealable, cylinder, perhapes
KM>with a small lens and cpu to do motion detection. It would be easy
KM>to smuggle and position for an ambush even in an urban setting.
KM>One-shot guns would pay I think, because you can simply scatter
KM>them around more..
KM>Multi-shot verisions who likely be a good idea too, simply because
KM>humans(targets) tend to move in groups.
What you are discussing is classified as an offroute mine.
Aloha.
---
* WR 1.32 # 720 * For a real sponge cake borrow all the ingredients.
Joseph Askew
>>For example, a beach assult would either have to jam the smart bullets or
>>be completely armored, otherwise 100 smart bullets == 100 dead marines.
>Unless the bullets not only are smart but communicate with each other,
>I predict one dead Marine with 100 bullet holes in him.
There is a way around this which is to make the bullets
really big. Imagine 100 smart 120mm mortar shells. Then
you might get a few marines left over but generally speaking
you are not going to find much in the way of identifiable
body parts from those 100 marines. Certainly not many bodies
can be hit three or four times by a sizable mortar shell
and still look enough like a body to fool even a dumb smart
shell.
Joseph
Jeff Penrod
CC>From: col...@crl.com (Colin Campbell)
CC>Subject: Re: Future Sidearms?
CC> Barring some kind of massive breakthrough in battery technology,
CC>sidearms are going to remain dependent on chemical energy. Your future
CC>laser pistols and rail guns are going to use loud, stinky cartridges,
CC>even if they shoot light.
I forsee crossbows coming back into use for combat in vacuum.
Aloha.
---
* WR 1.32 # 720 * Liberal: Perverting Liberty in the name of "fairness."
Alan Braggins
> >For example, a beach assult would either have to jam the smart bullets or
> >be completely armored, otherwise 100 smart bullets == 100 dead marines.
>
> Unless the bullets not only are smart but communicate with each other,
> I predict one dead Marine with 100 bullet holes in him.
There are already anti-tank weapons that communicate with each other,
designed to be lauched in clusters from an over-the-horizon aircraft
at a number of tanks.
Allegedly the "recognise a tank" problem got significantly easier when
the designers realised that it wasn't necessary to recognise a tank in
all possible attitudes, as upside-down tanks aren't actually much of a
threat.
Humans are however more variable and flexible than tanks.