Mysterious 'Forcefield' Tested on US Tanks

An anonymous reader writes "Not too long ago General Dynamics announced a successful test of their new Trophy Active Defense System (ADS). The Trophy ADS generates something similar to a force field around one half of a vehicle as a direct reaction to incoming fire. From the article: 'The Threat Detection and Warning subsystem consists of several sensors, including flat-panel radars, placed at strategic locations around the protected vehicle, to provide full hemispherical coverage. Once an incoming threat is detected identified and verified, the Countermeasure Assembly is opened, the countermeasure device is positioned in the direction where it can effectively intercept the threat. Then, it is launched automatically into a ballistic trajectory to intercept the incoming threat at a relatively long distance.'"

It must be powerful.

[Lord Kano]

It took me three tries to get past the "Nothing To See Here" notice.

LK

This is NOT a mysterious forcefield!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

More like a patriotic ether if you want to get technical.

Man oh man

[The-Bus]

It's a sad day for Slashdot when something that could be done by a trained bat operating a tennis ball launcher is labeled as "mysterious" and vividly lauded. This is no more a forcefield than a fishing net is a cybernetic bio-containment unit. Another case of wishful PR thinking.

Now, if they had actually trained bats, then we're on to something.

Re:ScuttleMonkey gets an F for Reading Comprehensi

[Locke2005]

You must be auditioning for a position on Fox News. I beleive you mispelled the word "Faux".

Re:Man oh man

[Phase Shifter]

the missing link [defensetech.org]

Re:Force Field?

[arcanumas]

There would be a lot of "how can fight something like that?" discussions going on that night. :-)

Well i would look it up on the Internet. There is bound to be a post on some obscure forum by some guy named "Tank-H4xor" that gives direction on how to exploit a bug in the system by duct-taping a banana on the missile or a fluffy bunny something :)

Re:ScuttleMonkey gets an F for Reading Comprehensi

[Cheapy]

You know, for someone who wants to be an editor, it probably isn't the best to berrate the editors.

Re:How is that a "force field"?

[955301]

I agree somewhat - they're describing a phalanx CIWS for a tank. They'll only be in the clear when they burst a plasma sphere around the vehicle at the moment the projectile intersects with the sphere's location. Till then, they're just matching incoming fire. Maybe we can call this type of system something different, such as a Matched Incoming Line of Fire, or MILF.

Personally, I'd like to have a MILF in my car.

Obligatory Family Guy reference:

[rdwald]

That isn't a force field at all! It just shoots you!

Mysterious? Perhaps to non-readers...

[pjkundert]

A mysterious force-field, consisting of... (wait for it!) ... a radar-triggered cannon firing a bunch of fragments (that would be "pebbles", for the non-technical reader) in the general direction of incoming explosive ordnance. Ordnance hits pebbles. Ka-Boom!

Dude; you gotta learn to read, before submitting articles with "Man Bites Dog" headlines...

Re:Force Field?

[metlin]

Well i would look it up on the Internet. There is bound to be a post on some obscure forum by some guy named "Tank-H4xor" that gives direction on how to exploit a bug in the system by duct-taping a banana on the missile or a fluffy bunny something :)

I don't think McGuyver would appreciate you calling him that very much. :p

Re:Force Field?

[mi]

I would HATE to read this if I was a linux programmer. Is it possible to include notes in software licenses forbiding military uses?

Such limitations would make your software less free. This is fine, of course -- I disallow use of my software by anyone in a posession of a Che Guevarra T-shirt, for example -- but it will not be part of Linux.

Re:Force Field?

[hawk]

It's possible--but it would also mean that the license couldn't get recognised as open under the common open source guidelines.

hawk, who intends someday to include the phrase, "This is free software. You may use it for any purpose, including the extermination of endangered species, the violent overthrow of your government, or planning a nuclear attack on Australia." :)

Re:Force Field?

[sgant]

How are you going to stop the military from using your open-source software? Who's going to stop them? They're the fricken military man! They're the ones with the guns and the tanks and the flamethrowers.

Warning Label:

[SnapShot]

Warning Label on Tank:

Do not play frisbee, football, or baseball near the talk.

Thank you,
The Management

Re:Which one is it?

[geobeck]

I don't expect that they run the protection throught the ground...

But how else will it protect against an attack by the Mole People?!

Re:Force Field?

[Moderatbastard]

A sci-fi forcefield covers a large area, and will require an investment of some kind of energy and matter proportional at least proportional to the area of the protection surface.

Wrong. A sci-fi force field will not exist. Because "fi" is short for fiction.

Seems that Pretentious * Mathobabble + 5 figure ID = mod up.

Re:Force Field?

[Kadin2048]

Heck, think of it the next time you take that Mountain Dew can back for your 5-cent deposit, or put that Campbells Soup can in the bin next to the trash can. War machines use a lot of steel and aluminum, you know. Even if yours doesn't go into it, it just means that some steel or aluminum, somewhere, is available to be used in some form more evil than a soda can.

The only solution? Don't throw anything away! Especially tinfoil. Fight the man!

Re:Force Field?

[kitzilla]

> There would be a lot of "how can fight something like that?" discussions going on that night. :-)

And they'd all end with, "Get closer than 10 meters before you fire."

"Ten meters? We're shooting from rooftops and through doorways. We're already working that close."

"Good, then. And keep cranking out those IEDs."

Mysterious force is Kinetic force.

[tod_miller]

Big hot thing coming in on radar. Fire a 'beam' of bullets at it.

Wham. Phalanx anyone?

Bush: Well, I done heard that these I-ranians have hi-tech equiptment and the like
Daddy: Yes son, and we have been skimming billions off our defense budgets for our friends in the middle east for years now!
Bush: That don't make no sense!
Daddy: Yes son, that is the beauty of it!
Bush: So lets get someone to make something up about our stuff, to make it sound good?
Daddy: Thats right son, and lets sell ADS as a new optional extra on hummers!
Bush: I like them cars! brum brum!
Daddy: Tree Fiddy?

please type the word in this image: skirted verification text - if you are visually impaired, please email us at [e-mail]

Actually...

[Otto]

That depends. Are the 'rebels' a foreign superpowers military that is overthrowing the dictator under the guise of motives that turn out to be completely fraudulent and more likely than not just going to exploit your national resources and establish a puppet government?

No, actually the 'rebels' are mostly a group of independant freedom fighters run by a quazi-religious organization of people with supernatural abilities and are attempting to regain democratic control of an empire (with the quazi-religious group being the appointed guardians of that empire) despite the fact that the senate was stupid enough to vote the dictator into his position anyway by giving him emergency powers in response to a perceived threat (that the dictator himself helped create), and which powers he maintains by using a army of mostly ineffective but nevertheless cheap fighters who were cloned from a bounty hunter and by using an extremely powerful (but sadly mangled) and corrupted person from the quazi-religious group, and who has awesome supernatural powers, bad fashion sense, and a propensity for building weapons on a truly immense scale.

Re:Obligatory Family Guy reference:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey everybody, that tank is a big fat phoney!

Re:Force Field?

[mgabrys_sf]

re:"Killing people ain't rocket science."

Unless - you know - you use a rocket to kill someone....