Friday, March 20, 2009

So we're a step closer to powerguns,

and air defense that includes 'pop the shell as it approaches':
In recent test-blasts, Pentagon-researchers at Northrop Grumman managed to get its 105 kilowatts of power out of their laser -- past the "100kW threshold [that] has been viewed traditionally as a proof of principle for 'weapons grade' power levels for high-energy lasers," Northrop's vice president of directed energy systems, Dan Wildt, said in a statement.

That much power won't get you a Star Wars-style blaster. But it should be more than enough to zap the mortars and rockets that insurgents have used to pound American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan
.

Son has informed me that artillery now has
rocket-assisted rounds for extended range,
laser-guided rounds and
GPS-guided rounds that, depending on conditions, can be fired up to 90 degrees out-of-line with the target, and still course-correct and hit.
Now if somebody'll finally lick the problem so we have tanks and self-propelled guns powered by a fusion bottle, and individual guns for air defense on each... Who wants to bet the first unit calls itself the Slammers or Alpha Company?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

...What's wrong with the name "Bolos?"

-- Wes S.

Firehand said...

If nothing else, a good name for the tanks. Hmmm, a little patch or pin that says 'Dinochrome'...

Anonymous said...

I want to drive a bolo in Hammer's Regiment of the Dinochrome Brigade! Hell, I'll even change my name to "Mech-Driver"!



verification: hillblie Apparently hillbillys can't even spell hillbilly.