You think shrapnel is bad? Imagine a battlefield where laser beams powerful enough to burn through metal are being fired hundreds of times a second at the speed of light all over the place, constantly hitting, reflecting and refracting off surfaces.
I honestly think we’ll live to see the day when a soldier has to wear something like picrelated just so he can even get look at the battlefield without instantly having his corneas turned into black glass.
Thoughts on how fricked infantry is going to be in ~20 years?
When affordable cybernetic eyes are possible it'll be a non issue. If your eyes are fried just replace them
Mechanical eyes steal your soul.
Real eyes will be deflated and tucked back into the sockets and kept attached to capillaries
You might as well be waiting for the day magic becomes real.
Praise the omnissiah
Self cauterizing wounds!
imagine hitting the power source for that laser with a .556?
>tfw Russia designs a new laser-based tank
>uses explosive power cells which are directly below the turret
They did that for that Dune inspired event in War Thunder. Never underestimate the Russian urge to throw turrets.
The sonic tank was for the NATO stand-in though. And also the best part of that event
wtf I didn't know the Bob Semple tank could do THAT
Yeah that would be way worse than hitting the ammo rack in a tank, iditot
They will just say Muh laser is Muh bad and forbit it in Geneva conventions just like they forbid chemical weapons
Because nooo teargas and diarrhea is bad but bullets and shrapnel are perfectly fine!!!
Kek, the USN and China are already deploying them. They're too late.
There are already treaties limiting the uses lasers can be designed for. At the end of the day it doesn't matter because the militaries just pretend they dont intend to use them in the ways that violate the treaty.
I just feel bad for all the birds that will get blinded by beam scattering.
Militiaries with unmanned vehicles that kill targets don't have to worry about that as much.
They're banned. Everyone knows that wars end, and nobody wants to deal with hundreds of thousands of blind people afterwards.
That's the point to allow them. If everyone keeps using them then people would be not willing to start that many wars, because even if they win they will end up with millions of cripples
It will be sort of MAD scenario but worse since people will have to live with their blindless
>MAD
falls apart for weapons whose proliferation can't be realistically regulated
Ok but these can be regulated despite what mutts say. Maybe don't give them to everyone first
Lasers are not banned you drooling shitball. Lasers intended to blind are banned. If a troop is blinded in consequence of vaporizing their head that's fine. Not even joking.
China has blinding laser on their ZTZ-99. they just call it anti optics jamming system hurr durr.
Lasers makes reay bad anti-personnel weapons. Human flesh is mostly water and water has a very very high therm mass. The main threat lasers pose to the average soldier is blinding and that can be mitigated with special goggles. I expect eyewear (possibly with a bult in HUD) to become commonplace for troops in the next few decades.
I for one am excited for there to be more mandatory safety requirements for frontline soldiers which third world nations like Russia can completely ignore
It always results in hilarity
You can get multispectrum laser proff goggles for about $40 a pop.
This. They'll be like gas masks but less of a pain in the ass. Worst case, Pvt. Smythe ends up with some burned skin and blackened lenses but he'll be alright in a couple weeks.
>and that can be mitigated with special goggles.
>You can get multispectrum laser proff goggles for about $40 a pop.
>it's not that hard to build protection from consumer tier lasers into eye pro
If light can get in for you to see, light can get in to blind you. The only safe method is total VR goggles.
That's nice anon, but in reality, 95% protection is plenty for practical uses.
That's fine in a lab where you know the wavelengths ahead of time. But adversaries are going to create multiple types of lasers to easily sidestep your goggles.
Not really. moronic schizos can duct tape some Black personrigged laser pointers together but that's a shitty weapon compared to a rifle. Military use means high power optimized for good atmospheric windows, lasing efficiency, eye safety, generator mass, BQ, optical train, cooling, focal distance, etc. Nobody is going to ducttape 2-ton pallets together at double the cost to do a shittier impression of a machinegun.
In fact, you can go ahead and basically assume all military lasers for the foreseeable future will be NIR for tranmissivity and optical safety.
First off, multispectrum lenses exist.
https://www.thorlabs.com/newgrouppage9.cfm?objectgroup_id=762
Second, changing lenses is easier than changing lasers.
Third, you're basically asking an army to give up on standardization.
Nope. Each type of laser has a very specific wavelength it uses. Changing that means rebuilding the laser emitter from scratch. What you can do is block out Only those wavelengths and let the rest of the light through.
>You can get multispectrum laser proff goggles for about $40 a pop
No such thing. 3 lasers strapped together red-green-blue would pass through any googles.
Most of them wouldn't even stop one wavelength enough to matter depending on how powerful they are.
Why do you think the US is working on AR goggles?
>pop smoke
>laser useless
Nothin' personnel, kid
It's why most lasers are planned for AA.
>Can't use smoke at mach 0.7
>Bad weather fricks with laser guided ordinance
>Skin so thin that the hull can't heat sink for the paint.
Really, infantry isn't going to worry about being shot at by lasers. They're more worried that some backscatter is going to burn out their retinas.
They've been trying and failing to develop them for how many decades now?
Remember the 747 from over 20 years ago? Never been able to intercept shit.
It took us a long time to get radar guided missiles to work as well.
>The Hughes AIM-4 Falcon was the first operational guided air-to-air missile of the United States Air Force. Development began in 1946; the weapon was first tested in 1949. The missile entered service with the USAF in 1956.
Meanwhile lasers shooting down missiles has been in development since at least the 1980s. The Yal1 itself first flew in 2001 and was retired and canceled in 2014.
I have no idea how the two are comparable.
Because the AIM-4 SUCKED. It's utter failure led to the AIM-9 being adopted.
YAL wasn't even the first airborne HEL produced by the US, just the first one intended for actual operational usage.
Pic related shot down AAMs and a target drone in developmental tests but had too many limitations to be used operationally. It was tested in the early 1970s.
The navy has used lasers to shoot down Silkworm missiles in combat several times in the last few years, WTF are you smoking?
That's just bullshit, no one has been shooting missiles at the US navy in the "last few years
They were trying CHEMICAL lasers. Basically corrosive acids mixing in a semitruck sized glass telescope and igniting before the poisonous exhaust is blown out the back. Those were a dead end.
Most modern lasers are based on electrically driven fibers; like a laser pointer where the chip is a single long fiber optic, and based on welding lasers popularized in the 00s. Very different things. You could say it's like the difference between black powder muskets and modern cartridge guns.
>MUH LASERS
>OH NO ITS FOGGY
>OH NO THE TARGET IS WHITE AND RADIATES 90% OF ENERGY
>OH NO ITS RAINING
>OH NO ITS SMOKE
lasers sound like the ultimate bs
>can't fight when it's raining
>best protection is bright white greatcoat
Napoleon kino's back on the menu boys
Lol just take a mirror with you homosexual then when they shoot laser you hold up mirror and enemy dies himself
>Get shot at by lasers
>Forgot to wear laser proof goggles.
>Can't see where to aim the mirror
>Enemy is already using laser proof goggles
>Mirror starts melting.
Aren't lasers illegal, because you're not allowed to blind people in war?
It doesn't count if you're not actively trying to blind people. Kind of like white phosphorus used for "illuminating" the battlefield that just so happens to burn the shit out of anything its dropped on.
Legal loopholes exist even in war
Yeah, but I seem to recall reading that one of the reasons lasers aren't used, is because they blind people. I don't remember the specifics, so I'm not sure which types of weapons they were referring to, but I believe lasers were among them.
Nobody gives a frick about laws of war. They almost automatically become a fun checklist.
on here and in video games, yes.
IRL not really because it becomes and excuse for other people to show up and take your stuff.
The laser threat seems overblown. Remember the Hong Kong protests that happened a couple years ago? A buncha chinks were blasting those extremely dangerous overpowered laser pointers at riot control cops and they just stood there unfazed while getting hit in the face.
thats the power of the chink eyes, small target to hit
Probably because they had to. If laser schizo's sources aren't fake, a ton of Federal law enforcement employees reported eye injuries as a result of the riots in Portland because they were using lasers on the Feds eyes.
it's not that hard to build protection from consumer tier lasers into eye pro
lasers seem op until you realise that they can be hard countered by smoke and shiny surfaces.
Disco balls will be banned under the Geneva Convention
Smoke? Yes. Shiny surfaces? Sorta. No surface is perfectly shiny so even with a mirror finish a plane is going to heat up a little under a laser. Maybe not a lot but enough for the skin to peel off the airframe.
I'm definitely not taking a laser up against a tank, tho.
>Imagine a battlefield where laser beams powerful enough to burn through metal are being fired hundreds of times a second at the speed of light all over the place, constantly hitting, reflecting and refracting off surfaces.
A laser that powerful is not going to reflect or refract off shit, anything it hits is going to be burned away in seconds. Maybe the light from the burning is an issue but it's not something that's going to permanently blind people in one go, and even with repeated exposure it's not going to take all their vision, just parts of it. Even then, as others point out, you can get goggles for that- goggles that can automatically turn on and off as needed to block the light. We have them for welders and laser operators right now.
And if someone is getting hit by a laser like that, he has bigger issues than going blind.
lasers used already in defensive manner to ground US aircraft
I know a bit about lasers. I buy laser cut steel parts every day. My neighbours have one. It can cut 20mm of steel without any problem, 0.1mm accuracy. We will not use lasers as weapons in at least 100 years. They must be... 1 million? times stronger than what we have now.
hehe, penis bracket
Is it gonna stay in that shape, or is there some fabbing or machining still to do?
Just some folding. Laser cut steel has been a godsend for us metal workers.
Also, people who think a mirror can save them may be a bit wrong.
>Just some folding. Laser cut steel has been a godsend for us metal workers.
the shit that can be done with laser cutters and fabrication is indeed very cool. I hope to start on the path to journeyman machinist myself in a shop soon.
>journeyman machinist
That's a safe bet, anon. You will find a decent payed job anywhere you want.
*paid lol
Excuse my bad english, it's been a long day.
A Bragg reflector can if you know exact wavelength.
And there is limited number of wavelengths you can manufacture.
literally a war crime
where is Carl Car-windows when we need him
Not this matters too much but lasers designed to cause permanent damage to a soldier’s eyes are a war crime and tightly controlled. So at the very least armies have an incentive not to use them so their opponent doesn’t start using them as wel.
Were lasers used in Iraq or something at one point? I feel like I remember reading about soldiers being blinded by lasers somewhere in the middle east.
>Soldiers will be blinded by lasers
Anon that's illegal. Lasers burning a person to a crisp from 4km away? Legal. Laser intentionally blinding some guy before he gets burned to a crisp? Illegal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons
>Completely negates your over-engineered laser bullshit
nothing personnel
imagine deploying something like this against hordes of chink locusts
Soon
Theres already a russian laser tank. Its old.
With current laser tech it is extremely easy to make a permanent blindness machine within milliseconds.
There is already a convention explicidly forbidding that.
>Does anybody else think about how fricked regular soldiers are when lasers become commonplace?
Dude, think about what terrorists can do.
>congratulations to new class of 2029 police recruits!
>Let's get the entire department together for a picture!
>Damn that light was bright!
>...I still can't see!
Some dude got the idea that he could make a laser then hide in a van and starburst it into everyone's eyes at a high intensity for just a few seconds and now almost everyone is blind. If not completely then definitely blind enough to not do their job.
Same thing for political targets. What would a blind president do? How would the government react? It might become the go-to for targeting people in the future.
If you can shine a laser into an infantryman's eyes, he'd have been shot in the face anyway
If the laser starts out hot/bright enough to ignite explosives and burn steel then even 1/1000th of it could frick your eyes, so if it strikes an angled reflective surface and splits there will be beams of blindness ricocheting all over the joint
>Drone flies over trenches with spinning discoball hanging from it
>Guy in other trench shines HEL at drone, it begins spinning laser deathball
Why wouldn't this work?
It works on low powered unfocused light. A high power laser will put enough energy through (because no mirror is perfect) to destroy it.
tl;dr mirrorcope is like saying: haha my plyboard board stops your punch, so it will stop other kinetic strikes like machineguns.
Actual anti-laser armor would be ablative carbon fiber plus cells of circulating coolant.
>accidentally blinds own army because they're looking at the enemy.
>Discoball melts before doing any damage.
>Drone gets shot down by birdshot.
>blocks youre path
>when lasers become commonplace?
They won't be for a long, long, much longer time than 20 years. Because in order to create a laser that's powerful enough to burn through flesh and metal, you need A LOT of power. Toting around that many batteries isn't practical. Especially when you can just keep using the much cheaper and practical kinetic standard guns we do right now.
>burn through flesh and metal
There's orders of magnitude of difference in the power required to burn through flesh and metal and the power required to permanently blind someone if they don't have eye protection(which is just as good or even better than outright killing them). This is feasible in a relatively light weight package and a range of a few km, it's just a question of doing proper integration into a usable, deployable device.
And how quick we can get multispectrum protective lenses to the frontline.
goggles vs blinding lasers is a losing proposition, you need replaceable cameras on a fully enclosed helmet.
Still, the implications for civilian conflict are way larger and more grim than for military conflict.
Goggles are enough for blinding lasers. Replacable cameras adds complexity and logistical cost. Just keeping the cameras powered is going to be a pain for frontline forces.
>Goggles are enough for blinding lasers.
They absolutely are not. Best case scenario you're playing rock paper scissors with your eyes while dramatically cutting down your visibility.
>aaaaa Black personman the aliens death beams will blind us!
>just close your eyes and charge boy, lasers aren't real if you close your eyes
Imagine an AK47 which can be stopped by holding up a board in front of your face.
moron a portable laser you can buy offline or make in your garage can burn through your eyelids in a fraction of a second.
Wait until you find out what a bullet can do on the dueling field, schizo.
>Just have your whole army fight blind spraying machine guns everywhere
Then you get beaten by the army with one laser blinder and a bunch of guns they can actually aim with, moron.
How can you aim with a bullet in your face, genius?
What bullet you won't hit shit blind, moron.
HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL PROTOTYPE BODY ARMOR
TOP SECRET
DO NOT SHARE UNDER PENALTY OF DEATH
How fast can those smartglass materials switch from transparent to opaque?
Jus throwing it out there but: What about low wattage protective smart glass goggles with a laser sensor array? One lens stays transparent for a time interval, the other lens stays opaque. Then they switch with a brief overlap. If the change over interval can be fast enough, then you could have fairly normal vision. Maybe a slight brightness drop.
This is paired up with sensors that can detect laser emissions. When a high-powered laser hits a sensor on the goggles or helmet, then the opaque lens will stay opaque and the transparent lens will start to transition to opaque to protect the eye as much as possible. This system does not depend on the relativistic response times. It just needs to be faster than the human visual system.
This prevents the wearer from being fully blinded as one eye is always 100% protected. Limits damage in the sacrificial eye if the laser isn't super powerful. The sensors can potentially also react to a laser sweeping across a person's head before the laser sweeps to the retina--again, this isn't reacting faster than light but reacting faster than a laser turret can swivel. This would be somewhat complex and require some power but I'm not sure if any more complex or power hungry than an array of full cameras+VR screen+processing system.
Even handheld lasers are getting to the point where they're hundreds of times more powerful than necessary for nearly instant blinding. What you're talking about might have been effective 15 years ago, but then the idea of laser blinders only recently became popular.
Not that fast. Even with the high end auto-darkening welding lenses it's still recommended that you close your eyes while striking the arc. It's partly why lots of guys just keep using fixed shade lenses. If you're talking about photochromic lenses; those can take up to 10-15 seconds to reach maximum opacity and transition times are drastically affected by temperature of the lens.
Would there be any benefit to trying to starburst someone on the battlefield? The brief flashes of the laser light in the vain hope of blinding the enemy just seems like a good way to paint yourself for artillery or an air strike
There's an anon who built an underbarrel laser for his rifle that can diffuse enough to fill a whole room like a spotlight, and still blind anyone caught in it.
It's already been an issue in places like Portland during the riots. Lasers that can cause permanent eye damage instantly can already be ordered online.
I personally welcome all innovations in warfare that bring us closer to a cyberpunk reality.
Human machine integration will have to be a thing to hang with future warfare.
Long live the new flesh.