Future Weapons of War in the Works 983
An anonymous reader writes "Who needs explosive missiles when you can just launch a 3 foot long chunk of metal at near Mach 7 speeds and get the same result? Popular Science looks at weapons the military is developing for future wars including electromagnetic railguns, space darts, superfast torpedos, laser cannons, and a gun that fires a million rounds per minute."
As I've always said (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As I've always said (Score:5, Funny)
Real life wall hacking [slashdot.org]
Now here's the moral delimna. If we can do it in real life, is it cheating?
in every war they kill you a new way (Score:4, Interesting)
You can't say civilization doesn't advance,
for in every war they kill you a new way.
(Will Rogers)
j [earthlink.net]
Come on people!! Get real.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Re:As I've always said (Score:3, Informative)
John Carmack is probably a bigger influence.
John McCormack was an Irish tenor if you believe that lying Google.
Re:As I've always said (Score:3, Interesting)
Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry: Lone Star!
US Army (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:US Army (Score:5, Funny)
Re:MS DRM (Score:3, Funny)
Re:US Army (Score:5, Funny)
- Learn more about ballistics
- See a maintenance diagram
- Find help on the internet
- Run the Rifle Setup Wizard?"
[troop inserts loaded magazine]
"Windows has detected new hardware, would you like to look for a driver on the internet now?"
[it jams]
"An unrecoverable error has occurred in RIFL4512.dll.
(A)bort, (R)etry, (C)ontinue?"
Yeah, I think I'll pass on this DRM also!
Re:US Army (Score:3, Funny)
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
the restaurant attack on saddam for example? too bad about anyone else in the restaurant, or the near vicinity.
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
Because of course Saddam was just hanging out and mingling with the little people, and the restaurant wasn't cleared and secured by his security detail first.
Re:US Army (Score:5, Informative)
( http://www.boston.com/news/daily/08/war_leadershi
Rescuers said up to 14 people may have been killed in the blast, which reduced four houses to dust and blew out windows and doors of houses as far as 300 m away. The remains of a small boy, a young woman and an elderly man were pulled from the rubble.
( http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/iraqwar/story/0,
Re:US Army (Score:4, Insightful)
- John Stuart Mill
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
Another extreme to reach for war as your first and primary tool when you want to control the natural resources of another country. George Bush takes this extreme.
So in a nutshell.
Jesus on one extreme, George Bush on the other.
Most people are in the middle.
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
Jesus takes the extreme of telling individuals not to retaliate when insulted. He says nothing about war. In his encounters with professional soldiers, he doesn't make their job an issue. He quotes the Old Testament and speaks highly of the scriptures (verses the traditions cobbled on by the Pharisees) in which a not inconsiderable amount of war and killing is mandated by Yahweh.
It's possible to interpret the sayings of Jesus recorded as the Sermon on the Mount as a promotion of absolute pacifism, but this view doesn't really stand up very well under scrutiny and is probably too simplistic.
Ghandi would probably make a much better example of this "extreme."
Re:US Army (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, I'm gonna have to give ghandi an N/A for this affair. What Ghandi realized, and pretty much every modern pacifist who invokes his name doesn't, is that pacifism only works against a moral enemy.
To quote, for example: "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
Yeah, Ghandi said that, indicating he believed violence was of us at times.
He used pacifism against the British because they were morally restrained, and wouldn't violently put down a non-violent protest. The one British General who did was relieved of command on rather short order.
You never hear of any Ghandi or MLK types from Iran, former Iraq, Syria, as they where all captured and murdered as soon as they opened their mouths, because their brutal regimes had no qualms about killing anyone given the slightest reason.
Re:US Army (Score:4, Funny)
Luke 22: 36
Re:US Army (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
And while we're quoting:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
- Samuel Johnson
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
I would agree that it was not exactly unilateral since the U.S. did have allies, but so did Germany in World War II. There is a near certainty, and in fact Bush has said it, he would have invaded Iraq if he the U.S. went alone so for all practical purposes it was unilateral he just managed to scrape together a ragged coalition to make it kind of look like it wasn't. When Bush decided he was going to do it and do it alone if necessary he made it unilateral. Many of the members of the coalition were also either bribed or coerced in to participation. The chances are pretty good all the leaders who willingly participated will get voted out of office at the first opportunity, Spain already having done so and Australia may well towards the end of the year.
A better description of Iraq is "aggressive warfare". That is when you preemptively attack someone who is not posing an immediate threat to your nation. It is against international law. The backing of the U.N. is desirable precisely because it gives a war international legitimacy. Iraq engaged in aggressive warfare when it attacked Kuwait, thats why the U.N. and the world backed the first gulf war. The U.S. and U.N. should have taken down Saddam then when they had justification. To come back more than a decade later and do it with no real provacation, and at enormous expense($200 billion and counting, nearly 800 dead and counting, and thousands wounded) was just unwise.
"Anyone who still doesn't think AL Qaeda and Iraq have links after the beheading of a kidnapped American and the Jordanian bomb plot is self-delusional."
Al Quaeda's presence in Iraq NOW is a product of the U.S. invasion. Its simply irrational to point to the fact they are there now and say "See I told you so" when they weren't there before the war. The only part of Iraq Al Quaeda was known to be in before the war wasn't under Saddam's control. Saddam was a socialist, and Muslim only when convenient. Fundamentalists like those in Al Quaeda despised him as a result.
"2. WMD was not the only reason given for the attack on Iraq (read the actual transcript of the State of the Union address instead of your DNC talking points)."
It was the ONLY reason the Bush administration had that they could use to sucker Congress and the American people in to backing the war. Cheney in particular constantly invoked the prospect of a nuclear cloud of an American city if we didn't invade Iraq immediately. It was shameful in its deceit. Even recently Cheney was still trying to claim some vans seized could be used to produce biological weapons when no expert will back him.
Number 2 on the list was this bizarre assertion that Iraq had something to do with 9/11 when there is NO evidence of that whatsoever. 9/11 was perpetrated by Saudi's. If you were going to invade some nation besides Afghanistan over it the next country most responsible was Saudi Arabia. Thats why the Bush Administration had to censor huge tracts about Saudi Arabia in the congressional report on 9/11.
Number 3 was to bring "Freedom and Democracy". I'll give you that one when there is real "Freedom and Democracy" in Iraq. Not an American puppet state or a repressive Shia dominated Islamic republic which would be the near certain outcome the day there is a fair election in Iraq.
"3. Iraq is a battle in the war. The war is on terror."
Iraq is a huge distraction from the war on terrorism. The fact the Bush administration did a half assed job in Afghanistan where the real war should have been fought was because they were in a rush to attack Iraq for no good readson. In fact invading Iraq wass pouring gasoline on the war on terror. The massive humiliation the U.S. is heaping on the Arab and Muslim world is driving moderate Arabs in to the hands of Al Quaeda and is a recruiting poster for a new army of suicide bombers. When Bush recently expressed unabashed support for Sharon and Israel and took it upon himself to make unilate
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who is still trying to conflate Al Qaeda and Iraq is a god-damned liar.
Islamic militants are in Iraq because Americans are there. It's easier to target Americans in the Middle East than it is to target them in America. Iraq has nothing to do with it. If we'd dropped Americans anywhere in the Middle East, terrorists would have come to kill them.
Isla
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
Saddam made payments, out of the Iraqi national treasury, to the families of Palestinian murderers. Not small payments, either: $25,000 each, which to a Palestinian family is an absolute fortune.
Let me say it more plainly: Saddam paid terrorists for killing Israelis. By our definition, Saddam was a terrorist.
What is that definition, you ask? A terrorist is a person who attacks noncombatants with deadly force in an effort to impose social or political change through fear, or a p
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.gutenberg.net/etext04/conam10h.htm
It is a justification of the North's position in the civil war, speaks out against slavery and assaults England for backing the South in the war.
For some odd reason you see this quote all over and its usually misquoted by people seeking to justify war. In particular they leave out this antiwar part:
"When a people are used as mere human instrume
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
Please explain to my how Zarqawi's presence in Iraq today, when Saddam is no longer in power, proves a link between Al Quaeda and Saddam before the war. The logic of your argument, like all your arguments, b-baggins is deeply flawed.
The Al Quaeda link was claimed by the Bush administration before the U.S. invasion and was based on deeply flawed intelligence, like most of their case for war, in particular t
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Army (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
What excuse are they not tired of when they have their ownfriendly fire [guardian.co.uk] incedents?
Re:US Army (Score:3, Insightful)
You of course fire just as many shots as before, so your friendly-fire numbers aren't going to change much.
Less kills by enemies, the same by friendlies, and you have an increasing percentage of friendly fire kills.
Do you have any indication that there are more FF kills, per soldier, than in previous wars? (Leaving out static battles like trench-to-trench sniping.
What? You mean like the British army (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you know that before the war in Iraq "ended", the US armed forces killed more of their allies than the enemy did?
Re:What? You mean like the British army (Score:5, Interesting)
After the D-Day invasion of Normandy (in WW2) the bulk of the German Army was nearly encircled, but was allowed to escape beacuse the Allies did not want to risk the friendly fire casualties that would have resulted from completeing the encirclement.
Re:What? You mean like the British army (Score:5, Informative)
- The great majority of the German army was never in France. Only 1/3 of the Wermacht was on the western front which includes all forces in southern France & Italy as well as the forces in Normandy.
- While Friendly Fire was feared & factored into plans, both Monty & Patton tried hard to close the Falaise pocket. The historians I've read attribute the failure to trap the German forces to german proficiency (being the first users of blitzkrieg they knew what getting encircled entailed) & allied exhaustion (breaking out was a Major effort. Sealing off the forces was beyond them).
Re:What? You mean like the British army (Score:3, Funny)
For a moment I read that as Monty Python, and suddenly I began visualizing your post in a whole different way.
It would be MUCH better... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Insightful)
More likely, South Africa faced no security threat that required the deterrance of nuclear weapons to justify their expense.
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Group think [niu.edu]. That's what we're dealing with here (on both sides, the gung-ho warmongers AND the terrorists). It's simply easier for people to conform to the group, than it is to deny the group and think for themselves. If pushed, some of these people will actually claim that it is just and moral to MURDER an innocent human being if it supposedly saves another. This is the power of group think.
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up).
Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people. Our sort of cultural imperialism is arguably *more* threatening to them than a few bombs, if you keep in mind that to them (as well as to many serious adherents of other faiths, like Christianity), death is not nearly as bad as damnation.
As a Christian, I look around our society and have to sympathize with them on that point, at least in part. Particularly when I consider that their view of our society is primarily the one portrayed by Hollywood.
And 9/11, of course, was not at all about innocent civilian deaths, it was mostly about trying to get the infidels out of the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia). Bin Laden's major beef is the fact that the Saudi Royal family invited drinking, porn-viewing US soldiers and their flesh-revealing women into Mohammed's sacred land.
In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.
Of course, the civilian casualties of these actions just serve to reinforce the perception that America hates Arabs. That plus the religion-based fears plus the political disagreements leads to all of the Great Satan rhetoric and the moral "justification" of terror attacks.
Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.
Overall, I think we need to be more sensitive to the Arab world, and less heavy-handed in our approach to international relations around the globe, but I think that there's ultimately nothing we could do that would erase the fear and hatred. Middle-eastern societies are in the grip of their own great internal turmoil, as they attempt to decide whether they're going to be Islamic or secular, whether they're going to join the rest of the world in the materialism we call progress or whether they're going to stay "pure". America is the ideal symbol for one side of this conflict, and much of the hatred directed our way arises from that struggle, over which we have no direct control.
Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.
Just don't expect the change to be painless, or to stay within the Islamic nations' own borders.
Finally, it's also important to realize that everything I've said here is a sweeping generalization. The Arab nations are not a unified whole. Iraq is already very secularized (was prior to Saddam, and during Saddam's reign, although he used religion), Iran is very Islamist, Saudi Arabia is Islamist, but still trying to be progressive, Egypt is a melting pot with lots of factions and counter-factions, and a government that is secular. I don't know enough about Syria and Jordan to comment, but I'm sure they have their own, unique situations.
Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Informative)
Iran is very Islamist
This isn't exactly true. There is a rather large part of the Iranian population that is not only quite secular, but VERY "western" in ideaology and culture. There has been a increasingly vocal insurgency in Iran that is promoting western ideals of democracy and secular government.
To label Iran as "Islamist" is only true of the government, but a gross injustice to it's actual people.
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Interesting)
Islamic leaders do not want to lose their stranglehold on the minds of their people and by extension, their power. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
I'm sure that's part of it as well, at least for some of them.
Bullshit, it is their "it's them or us" mentality.
Wrong, there is no moral equivalence or grey area here. One group of people is targetting civilians and non-combatants, the other is not. It's that simple.
So we're lily white, are we? I didn't say we were morally equivalent, just that the
Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11 (Score:3, Insightful)
It's this spiral of violence and revenge that doesn't let the region come to peace.
Both sides think their terrible crimes are excused by their enemy's crimes in the past.
Terrorists are different people.
You mean people like Yosef Avni, Yisrael Levi, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin? 90 people killed, not bad. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel [wikipedia.org]
Terrorism is often the
Re:The suicide bombers from 9/11 (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, wouldn't you be able to tell the difference between the abuse of a hundred prisoners* and the killing of a hundred thousand people?
* I will be BULLSHIT if the perpetrators don't end up spending many, many years in Levenworth. Yeah, abuse and torture are horrible, but isn't killing even worse?
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are assuming that people have a rational reason to fight. In the West, that is often (but not always true). For example, Europeans historically have warred over access to natural resources - but have also warred over religion (most notably Catholic vs Protestant) since the Renaissance. However the animosity between England and Spain was about both.
In Rwanda, the civil war was conducted along racial lines - two tribes determined to wipe one another out, pure genocide. In Iraq, the Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over religion and both sides are fighting the Kurds simply because they are of another race. In Zimbabwe, the government of Robert Mugabe sabotages the farming industry in order to starve their opponents into submission.
What about building a machine that, instead of pumping out millions of rounds of lead per second, are able to make mud bricks and houses at a rate of 10 a day?
Such a machine would not resolve a single conflict in Africa. The Hutus and Tutsis (IIRC) aren't fighting over who has the most bricks, but over which "tribe" you're from. The BBC news reported on a Rwandan who killed his own grandchildren because they were mixed race.
Socialists like giving aid to third world countries because a) it justifies higher taxation at home and b) they don't need to trouble themselves about the root causes.
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:5, Insightful)
While the BBC's bias is well documented, it is AGAINST multinational corporations. To suggest that the BBC is in league with them is, frankly, ludicrous.
every single conflict going on between any two groups of people is created. it doesn't 'just happen'. give people technology to avoid this creation, and they will nobody 'wants' death.
You are wrong - look at all the wannabe martyrs in the world. And, you also conveniently overlook the concept that some wars aren't rational.
Do you know what Sunnis and Shi'ites are fighting over? Whether Mohammed's heirs should have been his sons or his disciples. They've been killing each other over this for 1300 years. You think a mud brick machine is going to help here???
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Flamebait)
People like me, eh? I haven't started any genocidal wars, not that I can remember.
The problem with liberals like you is that you assume that people are fundamentally cooperative and sane, if only the nasty Warmongers (or Americans or Jews or Capitalists or whoever you blame) would go away, the world would return to Eden-like bliss. My advice to you is to grow up a bit.
Re:It would be MUCH better... (Score:3, Insightful)
You didn't make a point! You were snide, and sarcastic, and that's all. You said nothing of substance, okay? Let me repeat that, in case you're failing to understand: you did not contribute an idea or an opinion.
I ask again, "where is the love?". It seems Consumericans are incapable of it.
Bored now. Moving on to folks who have something to say.
Popular science? (Score:3, Interesting)
------------
Mobile porn [steamymobile.com]
Re:Popular science? (Score:3, Funny)
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally I think it would be better spent if invested in medical research and to better the relationships with other countries (admit it, a whole big part of the world isn't a big fan of the US, putting it mildly).
Not trying to flamebait people
Re:Why? (Score:4, Funny)
meanwhile, Bin Ladin (Score:5, Funny)
Space darts? (Score:3, Funny)
"Space bats."
"Space bats?"
"You bet your ass."
Who needs explosives indeed? (Score:5, Informative)
I remember during Gulf War II, the British were dropping bomb-shaped concrete blocks attached to the fanastic guidance systems they have now. No explosives needed... just plonk it down on a tank from 20000 feet and it does the job with much less collateral damage.
Brilliant idea [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Who needs explosives indeed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, the weapon you describe is actually very close to one of the earliest form of airborne weapons developed. It was called Fléchette [wikipedia.org] (french for dart) and was dropped bu the ten of thousands over german troops. However, they were recognised as beeing inefficent, lacking penetrating power and virtually inpossible to aim (wind could bring them out of course). Straffing with machineguns proved much more efficent.
The basic point of the article is corect however - no need to use explosives if you can provide as much or more energy delivered to the target by other means - and since the kinetic increases by the square of the velocity, a lump of metal can be deadly if it moves fast enought.
Re:Who needs explosives indeed? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Depleted Uranium is just that -- Depleted . Actual research, like that from the World Health Organization [who.int], has proven the risk to be minimal:
So basically, don't eat the stuff, and don't hang around a battlezone while combat is going on. But that goes for regular lead bullets too.
Hearts and minds (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Invade Iraq.
2. Arrest Saddam.
3. Everybody cheers.
4. Sheperd the Iraquis to the oil pumps
Re:Who needs explosives indeed? (Score:3, Informative)
Because most of the Northern Irish don't want them out? Because the Republic of Ireland doesn't particularly want to take Northern Ireland off Britain's hands anyway?
That's not strictly true... (Score:5, Informative)
Discarding sabot - essentially a metal dart. This kills tanks using kinetic energy to punch a hole through armour. Makes a little hole and a lotta mess inside. This is the tank version of kinetic-only ammo, so scaling this up to use in a missile isn't a particularly new idea - the Durandural anti runway missile has a hardened nose cone and is rocket-accelerated under the concrete before it explodes.
HESH - high explosive, squash head - hits the outside of the tank and explodes against it. This shakes scabs of metal away from the inside that fly around the cabin, killing the crew. This doesn't need to penetrate to destroy the ability of the tank to fight.
HEAT - high explosive, anti-tank - this is the warhead attached to stuff like the RPG7. Nasty design - the shaped charge fires a jet of energy/molten metal through the skin of a tank, causing lots of damage inside to vehicle and crew. Even the relatively small warhead on a RPG7 can penetrate around a foot of steel.
Now, the point for the last 2 shell types existing is that sometimes, kinetic energy isn't enough. Other ways to get better results are to make the shells heavier - using depleted uranium for example. While what I'm talking about here is tank warfare, the same will apply to bombs and bunker munitions - different tools for different tasks.
On the matter of HEAT... (Score:5, Interesting)
...or shaped charges [wikipedia.org] as they are often know:
Back when the shaped charge was first developed as a usable weapon against tanks, it was seen as a way to defeat the newer, more heavily armoured tanks that had started appearing. Up to that point, a anti-tank gun had relied on the penetrating power of a solid shot - often with a tungsten core.
After a little while people realised that since a HEAT warhead [wikipedia.org] did not rely on kinetic energy to punch a hole thru armour, lighter, manportable anti tank weapons could be designed and built - including the US bazooka [wikipedia.org], the british PIAT [wikipedia.org] and the german Panzerfaust [wikipedia.org] (the worlds first disposable anti tank weapon). Shells fireing HEAT warheads was also fired from guns of virtually any caliber during and shortly after WWII.
Relatively soon however, it was found that composite armour [wikipedia.org] and, to a lesser extent, spaced armour was efficient in protecting against both HEAT and HESH shells, signaling a return to the solid penetrators - now fired by guns that could achive much higher muzzles velocities than the pre WWII designs. For manportable weapons however, it was difficult to increase the velocity of the weapon without making it larger, heavier and thus more difficult to transport and operate. Therefore the wast majoity of the manportable anti tank weapons, including the M72, the RPG-7, the TOW missile and many, many more, still uses HEAT warheads - and is likely to do so for the forseeable future. The deliverysystems for the warheads are simply not capable of delivering enought energy to make a kinetic penetrator a viable option.
Here's an idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:4, Informative)
AFAIK the US are not really interested in more "humanitarian" behaviour of landmines. The Ottawa convention [gol.com] has not been signed by a few "rogue states", including the US, Russia, China, India, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. If you don't like that company, write to your representative.
Landmines are not really meant to kill soldiers after all, they know what they look like and where they might be - they are often even designed not to kill, but to mutilate. A dead is buried, a mutilated child will be a burden for society for all his life. Fill a country with landmines, as both Soviets and US-backed Mujaheeddins did in Afghanistan, and you have cursed the country for generations.
Self-destructing mines are not going to be accepted - these days the Geneva convention is used to wipe Rumsfeld's arse, and frankly a proposal for a more expensive and on-purpose less effective weapon is not going to get through.
I'm told that mine production is not even that lucrative business. They have children mutilated with landmines that look purposefully like toys, only to make a few pennies more. Some motherfuckers.
Speaking of Cambodia, these people [emergency.it] know something.
Re:Here's an idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly, even if the US did create a landmine that would turn inert over time, there are a number of other nations in the military sales business that would not bother to do so.
Certainly cost is a factor. Why buy a mine that goes dead after a period of time when you can buy two mines that don't for the same money?
The idea of self destructing landmines is completely counterintuitive not only to the nature of war, but to the purpose of land mines as well.
Landmines today are engineered to not kill a soldier (I do not know about US made landmines or if this is regulated by treaty as hollow point bullets are), but rather to cause horrific harm to him. In fact, there is one landmine that when it is triggered it launches itself in the air about waist high and then explodes.
This deeply injures a soldier in a sensitive area. The purpose of doing this is to not only take him out of action, but to tie up resources to take care of him. But most importantly, it demoralizes those around him and those that come in contact with him. If it kills the soldier, the landmine is considered a "failure".
Which brings up a larger issue of "war". There are no rules in war, period. War is the distillation of evil from the human spirit, with the purpose to cause (usually hurtful) harm to another human being. It might be a "just war" with a purpose (stop Hitler), or it might be "just a war" with the sole purpose of killing (Rwanda).
Either case, the enterprise of evil is present.
Which is why you find toys that are actually explosives so that kids will find them.
In this context, will a new type of landmine be invented that turns inert?
Yes, it will. But they will be so few in number compared to other countries that don't care, who will produce countless millions that don't turn inert. So, it could be argued that any such effort is doomed to be meaningless.
As an aside, I don't excuse what is happening in Iraq with the prisoners of war. But people forget a couple of things. First, it is a war . By definition this kind of thing is going to happen. People would like to think that American soldiers are above this behavior. But the fact is many of those prisoners have American blood on their hands, and many families here in the US will not see their loved ones again because of it.
So, from my perspective, I can see where if you had a buddy killed by a rebel and you manage to catch him, you might want to exact a bit of vigilante justice to show your displeasure.
In fact, when Americans captured such prisoners at the turn of the last century in wars, they were routinely lined up against a wall somewhere and shot. Another thought was never given to it.
I don't fault the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq. I fault the Bush administration trying to fight a "polite" war, to in some way rid the Iraqi people of the evil of Saddam and bring democracy to the Arab world. As some have said, you can win the war, but not necessarily win the piece.
The purpose of war is to inflict pain on, conquer, or kill your enemy. So, the goal of this war, "to help" the Iraqi people, is incongruous with the definition of war itself. Hence, this incongruity has produced instances of abuse in the Iraqi prisoner of war population. It was not the first, nor will it be the last time it happens. I dare say even by other American soldiers at some future date.
I am not saying that it should be accepted or excused. What I am saying is that war is an evil enterprise, no matter how smart your bombs are, or if the landmines are self destructing. And when people are fighting a war, I think it would be safe to assume that whether a landmine will turn inert at some future date or not is the very last thing on their mind. They just want it to explode when somebody steps on it.
Space darts (Score:4, Funny)
Research is now beginning into surface-to-air Tiddlywinks, and atomic Shove Ha'penny.
In other news, British scientists have abandoned their work on railguns after they found that the projectiles continually arrived an hour late. This was blamed on the "wrong sort of magnetism".
Popular Science magazine... (Score:3)
It's tech, not science, and vapor tech at that.
Terrorism (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't we have enough bombs already?
The biggest threat to the USA in the future is terrorism. Terrorism is defeated with bombs, although the chimps currently in the White House seem to think it is.
Terrorism is just a symptom of a disease - hatred within society. For every terrorist, there will be a hundred people in the same society that feel very strongly about the same issues, but not enough to become a terrorist. That is, until you drop a bomb on their children. To defeat terrorism in the long term, you've got to tackle the strong feelings within the society that produced it.
When Tony Blair first started office, he realised this was the way to solve the Northern Ireland problem, and did some very intelligent things (along with his counterparts in the Republic of Ireland) to tackle the social problems that were the root cause of terrorism in N.Ireland. Why on earth he is now supporting Bush's neanderthal approach to Al-Quaida I will never understand.
Two Points (Score:5, Insightful)
2) The current mess was allowed to fester for well over a decade before proactive action was taken. An entire generation was brainwashed to hate America as the enemy. Until they are old enough to recognize the truth and have the societal roots to care about living more than dying, the murder will continue. Population demographics in Africa and southwest Asia aren't on our side.
Applicable uses of military technology (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget future weapons (Score:4, Insightful)
We all know Russia has plenty of weapons that are unaccounted for, (or some that have bad care taking/accounting). So instead of funding all this new bullshit, and this useless war on Iraq, how about we keep funding for arms control like Nunn-Lugar [senate.gov] or Start III [fas.org] ?
Sunny Dubey
Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I am a pacifist, I do believe that currently it is still a necessity to develop weapon technology, for if the Americans and Europeans don't, some other country, perhaps with less respect for human life or International Law (although the USA haven't been that respectfull with the last one), will! So it's a martial arts kind of philosophy: get the knowledge in hope you'll never need to use it.
What must be stressed, though, is that military supremacy should not be an excuse for poor or non-existing foreign policy. The best way to get and maintain peace is not through the use of weapons, as we've been repeatedly taught by History, but by respecting people, their culture and balancing economical divides. And this is true not only as far as international war is concerned but also in the little national wars that are waged in every country in the form of crime.
As a final remark: didn't "Kursk", the Russian sub, sink due to a failed test of that same torpedo technology? And now they're selling it? Great move... develop a dangerous-to-use torpedo AND get the other guys to use it! :)
Re: Some thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
> What must be stressed, though, is that military supremacy should not be an excuse for poor or non-existing foreign policy.
Unless of course you're deliberately trying to start WWIII.
Superweapons vs beheading someone (Score:4, Insightful)
If we don't learn very quickly to put aside differences and work towards real peace, I fear we won't be celebrating the coming of the 22nd century, because we won't be around any more.
Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone (Score:3, Informative)
If they din't want to be treated as animals, they might quit acting like them.
Re:Superweapons vs beheading someone (Score:3, Insightful)
And they could say the same of Americans. They aren't "so-called people", they ARE people. When Iraqis see a US sniper put a bullet through their relatives' heads, do you think they consider that sniper a hero? Or do you think they would call them the animals, callously butchering their loved ones like dogs?
My point is this - always, ALWAYS beware of demonis
1x10^6 rounds per minute - inaccurate stats. (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, a one million strong line-up of 1cm bullets adds up to 10km of metal being fired each minute! Alternatively if each bullet is 1cm^3 of metal that's a m^3 of metal which is likely to weigh in excess of 7 metric tons (using Iron, 7380 kg/m^3 as a guidline).
So each 60seconds we accelerate 7+ tons of bullet metal to Mach 9
[*> that is the bullet has moved ten times it's length before the next bullet sets off]
PS: I'm sure someone will find a mistake in these calculations and that someone else with more gun knowledge will correct some horrible assumption, but hey.
Re:1x10^6 rounds per minute - inaccurate stats. (Score:5, Funny)
No to mention that, if Newton got his apples right, you'd have an incredible thrust is the oposite direction. Now, the A10, which boasts a considerable firing rate off it's cannon already slows down a bit when firing... I can envision some aircraft going backwards with this one! ;)
Re:1x10^6 rounds per minute - inaccurate stats. (Score:5, Insightful)
Second - as others have pointed out the electrical charge merely ignites the propelant rather than providing the impetus. Reducing your estimate by another factor of 100.
Third the weapon only fires for milliseconds when at full rate, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.
Fourth - the million rate is developed by a weapon that has about 50 barrels, so the velocity of each bullet can drop accordingly, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.
Your last sentence was the most correct, it's the assumptions that invalidate our calculations at least by a factor of 2,500,000.
Don't they ever learn? (Score:5, Insightful)
Those futuristic weapons are designed to fight 20th century's wars, not today's or tomorrow's wars. What's the use of a gun that fires a million rounds per minute when you're trying to control a riot? How can space darts help you identify the terrorist hiding in the crowd?
Overwhelming weapon superiority does not work in Iraq; I don't think further increasing this superiority will work better.
Re:Don't they ever learn? (Score:3, Insightful)
A general rule-of-thumb for occupations is 1 soldier per 40 inhabitants. Having less means you don't have enough troops to adequately control activities on the ground.
We have something like 1 soldier for every 160 Iraqis there today.
A Proven Formula for How Many Troops We Need [washingtonpost.com]
So it should be obvious why we're having these problems today.
Re:Don't they ever learn? (Score:3, Informative)
Hellooooooooooooooooooooo?
Obviously, you have never seen this little page... [tripod.com] Just scroll down through pictures. Don't ever underestimate the power of single RPG round fired at close range.
A lot of people seem to consider the British "Challenger" a much better tank than the Abrams, btw.
Re:Don't they ever learn? (Score:3, Informative)
American Flag? (Score:3, Flamebait)
Torpedo technology (Score:3, Funny)
He obviously doesn't read /. or he would know that that sneaky Swedish Navy [slashdot.org] is up to no good. We may need those torpedoes!!
Railgun please... (Score:3, Informative)
Genda
I've seen what one can do. (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of research goes on all the time, it does advance science. Wheather it ever gets used or not, who knows. Once the technology gets developed it can be adapted to other uses. Anyone think the space programs computer research was wasted? While your sitting in front of the result?
Smart leaders not smart weapons (Score:3, Insightful)
The question isn't how force is used so much as why it is being used in the first place. We simply have our fingers in too many places around the world.
A Waste of Human Effort (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A sobering thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
or reasons, sadly.
Re:more torpedoes! (Score:4, Informative)
For the people who arent aware of the story, the Belgrano was an Ex US battle cruiser sold to the Argentinian Navy after world war two. The Argentinians used the Belgrano during their invasion of the Falkland Islands, which the UK has owned for nearly 200 years, but the Argentinians have always claimed as their own.
The UK government authorised the Royal Navy submarine Conquerer to sink the Belgrano after it was decided that she played a great threat to the UK task force fleet sailing to free the Falkland Islands, even tho the Belgrano was outside the "area of interest" as defined by the UK government (she was sailing to intercept the task force when she was sunk, but was about 100 miles outside the exclusion zone around the islands). She was hit twice, and sunk. The two escort ships accompanying the Belgrano turned and fled, failing to pick up any survivors now in the water, and thus sealing a lot of deaths.
THe upside of it was that the UK Navy didnt have to deal with the Argentinian Navy any longer, they stayed in port during the entire conflict, leaving the defence of the Falkland Islands to the Argentinian airforce, who could fly from the mainland and had enough range to attack the falklands.
The reason that the strike was ordered while the ship was outside the exclusion zone was that she was about to pass into a shallow area of water, which the submarine would have to go around. IT was deemed too risky to the task force for Conquerer to attempt this and search for the Belgrano on the other side, so the descision was made to sink the Belgrano before she passed into this area.
Re: 1 million shots a minute (Score:3, Interesting)
Somebody once commented about the physics of movies that Rambo couldn't possibly keep firing and firing and firing all that much time because the weight of all the bullets he fired would get to be way too heavy to carry around.
I'm not very well
Re: 1 million shots a minute (Score:3, Informative)
(sheesh, ever heard of a search engine??)
Yes it is real.(USA does not invent everything in the world, surprising as that may be..). Although it has a high rate of fire it's not like a machine gun. The projectiles are loaded into the barrel in series. Once gone the entire barrel needs reloading. The main advantage is many bullets close to each other means you can target things things like grenades and artillery in flight. Norma
Re:Anyone understand the cavitating torpedo? (Score:3, Interesting)
WW2 = Good??? // Mod Parent Down!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Cowardly troll! Just because it's politically correct to think all these wars are bad, we must remember it was a good and noble war against an enemy that disregarded the authority of the League of Nations. Officially using the pretext of humanitarian intervention and seeking to protect itself against terrorists, it led a campaign for unchallenged world domination, including control of resources.
A regime so authoritarian that it created att