The right angle firing gun

[Mouseferatu]

EDIT: There is evil in the world. When we don't face it, we allow it thrive.

I agree. I just happen to feel that there is evil on both sides of this particular conflict.

There are also good people on both sides, for the record. I'm not trying to villify anyone, Israel or Palestine, as a whole.

Now that said, I'll bug out of this thread before I get it closed.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Remember, the article says that this technology was developed and successfully tested NINE YEARS AGO! I wouldn't be surprised if it's already on the front and this whole 'congress' thing is just a ruse.

Haven't followed the acquisition process much, have you?

"US Army ... yesterday's technology tomorrow!"

Right angle firing certainly ain't new (there was a right-angle firing attachment for the M3 grease gun back during WWII that allowed a soldier to shoot around corners, albeit not very accurately, but then the M3 was just a .45 caliber bullet hose) -- though the addition of the remote digital sight is new.

An interesting story about the remote sights when they were tested at the Infatnry School a few years back. One early version transmitted it's picture to a set of goggles the soldier wore, so the goggles showed whatever the weapon was looking at -- no need for a flex barrel; you could hold the weapon around a corner or over a wall to see around it. Only walking through the woods, the test subjects tended to focus on what the weapon was looking at, and walk into trees ... d'oh!

 

[s/LaSH]

An interesting story about the remote sights when they were tested at the Infatnry School a few years back. One early version transmitted it's picture to a set of goggles the soldier wore, so the goggles showed whatever the weapon was looking at -- no need for a flex barrel; you could hold the weapon around a corner or over a wall to see around it. Only walking through the woods, the test subjects tended to focus on what the weapon was looking at, and walk into trees ... d'oh!

See, this is why we need to modify soldier's brains (via genetic splicing with chameleon DNA or creature microneurosurgery) to be able to process two images at once. Maybe even upgrade so they can process two 3D images at once. Then you just plug the gun into their neural interface, and they can see both things at once.

From there, it's just a short step until you can watch every TV channel. At once. While doing other work.

And they say military technology has no civilian applications...

(Seriously, this is something I've been thinking about...)

 

[Angcuru]

Haven't followed the acquisition process much, have you?

Actually, I was talking about the laser cannon, not the right-angle gun. As far as I'm concerned, this just takes that US' 'Land Warrior' system a step farther.

 

[Angcuru]

Haven't followed the acquisition process much, have you?

Actually Olgar, I was talking about the gaint laser cannon, not the gun. That just takes the 'Land Warrior' system a bit father, but I don't see it being a practical weapon of war.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I was referring to the laser project as well (the right angle bit being just an amusing aside). Heck, Directed Energy Weapons have been part of US doctrine for over 25 years, and I'll bet it'll be at least another 25 before there's a practical battlefield use; the THEL project -- Tactical High Energy Laser -- being a high powered fixed emplacement that might be useful for defending cities when you have a big power source close by, but it'll be a long time before we see it in some sort of mobile configuration. Even tests of the system mounted in a 747 have proved impractical so far (but may work out in the future).

The acquisition and systems development process is pretty slow (Congress is really just a small part of it). A lot of our top-of-the-line digital systems are using 286-equivalent processors, for example -- it just takes that long to go from requirements to fielded system, though the system is getting faster.

 

[Wilphe]

Beats the heck out of the German (or Russian?) bent-barreled guns from WWII. For one thing, there's less of that pesky 'exploding and killing the wielder' that most soldiers are so dead set against.

You mean a Krummerlauf:

http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Waffen/Bilderseitenneu/Krummlauf.htm

http://www.jujitsu.cz/Listopadky/2002/Clanky/zbrane.html

(I don't read Czech or German so I have no idea what the commentary is. I'm only linking for the pictures).

An idea that's probably been tried several times, but the Wehrmacht are the only people to deploy one in comabt so far as I know.

It derives from a device used to test aircraft machine guns.

 

[Cyrik Skylark]

While it would be sweet if that laser was like a science fiction-styled raygun, I'm sure it's more like a big light beam that heats the missle to the point that its computer fries out or its payload detonates, rather than vaporising the missle in mid air. Then again, I'm completely speculating.

I used to live near where they tested the laser (well, if "near" means "directly next to"), so I followed the story pretty closely when they talked about the test. And basically, you're right; it hits the missile with a force equal to a couple sticks of dynamite. Missile isn't vaporized, but either the payload will detonate, or the missile will be damaged enough that it's flight path is off. To actually have a battle-field ready version, though, is pretty amazing - the laser they used back then was the size of a building, IIRC. I think it took quite a while for it to cool down after firing, as well. But that might just be my memory playing tricks on me - it was a few years ago, after all.

 

[Ranes]

I am curious to know how the firer of the right-angled gun will deal with recoil and changing aim. The old Wehrmacht experiment with the curved barrel weapon (designed for street fighting in Russia, IIRC) proved unsuccessful. Of course, its descendant looks somewhat less impractical.

Others have made points about the practicality of laser weapons. There was a Horizon (BBC science documentary) on this subject back in the eighties in which I saw an experimental weapon mounted in a hemispherical cupola atop a modified LVTP7. Never seen anything like it since. The problems faced by energy weapon designers back in the eighties haven't changed much. The power requirements are the main handicap but there are others. Early experiments with high-power beam lasers fired at armour plate resulted in the heated plating vapourising and being drawn through the vacuum created along the beam itself, to the lens, which would be rendered useless as a result. Even then, melting a hole in something isn't necessarily going to render it ineffective. Pulse lasers, on the other hand, caused rapid heating and cooling in the target, and could result in shattering or exploding metal.

I don't have the links any more but D20 Modern players might also be interested in 'non-lethal' weapons research. Sticky air and ultra-low frequency sound generators coming to a region of civil unrest near you!

Lawks a'lordy, maybe that's why I play D&D.

 

[Umbran]

I am curious to know how the firer of the right-angled gun will deal with recoil and changing aim.

You'll note that it is described as a "pistol" at one end, and the stock and trigger at the other. We aren't talking about an automatic assault weapon or something. Sounds like they've dealt with that problem with the simple expedient of giving the guy a two-handed grip on a thing that doesn't have much recoil to begin with, and not expecting him to fire many rounds in succession.