I want sharks with laser beams.

the US Missile Defense Command now wants to use small high altitude drones armed with lasers.

But when I ask people at Home Depot to help me build my own, I get put on a "watch list". Lamesauce.

Boring! And here I thought that was a picture from Flight of the Navigator.

This reminds me of those annoying people in EvE who fill their holds with tons of drones. You can't shoot that shiat down, they're too fast. They look all squishy and easy and then BAM! Bees in your farking turrets! Thank god I got good at active shield tanking.

edmo: Again? Didn't they kill this before? Are they counting the savings twice?

Government projects are like cats. How many times have we heard about the Webb being killed?

I always saw it as a research platform, anyway. Build, refine, miniaturize. From a pure applications standpoint, a swarm of drones makes more sense.

HelloMyNameIs: edmo: Again? Didn't they kill this before? Are they counting the savings twice?

Government projects are like cats. How many times have we heard about the Webb being killed?

I always saw it as a research platform, anyway. Build, refine, miniaturize. From a pure applications standpoint, a swarm of drones makes more sense.

And yeah, I know drones are still pretty big, just not 747 big.

Tom_Slick: I want sharks with laser beams.

I wanted dogs, with bees in their mouths.

You mean this won't happen now?



Splinshints: This reminds me of those annoying people in EvE who fill their holds with tons of drones. You can't shoot that shiat down, they're too fast. They look all squishy and easy and then BAM! Bees in your farking turrets! Thank god I got good at active shield tanking.

Well, since they nerfed carriers and supers, it's not THAT big of a problem anymore

/Available for sound effects

This needs to be said, we have laser weapons now. Suck it kids from the 50s who never saw actual future tech.

edmo: Again? Didn't they kill this before? Are they counting the savings twice?

Its been on and off, and reborn in several incarnations.

I think the underlying issue is that laser weapons, especially long range ones that can be vehicle mounted, will be a war changing tech. Many massive budget programs would become obsolete overnight when this tech evolves into use.
This is sexy as hell to contemplate... and it probably explains why star wars tech has a resurrection day every day of the week.

The cost is chump change compared to whats being bought.

Yeah, I was expecting Jesus "Bunner" Diaz to either soliloquize over the eeeevil of it, or to ban anyone who didn't agree with his questionable assessment of the situation.

It's going to be interesting to see what they're doing. I'm going to have to fish around and find out whether they're going chemical or solid-state. For a drone, you could use a simplified chemical system, since you don't much care if you vent hydrogen fluoride or elemental iodine.

OTOH, you are probably looking at flaming people with this, which takes a lot lower CW output than burning a projectile, so solid state could be practical. It doesn't take so much wattage on target to fry someone's face off as it does to deflagrate a mortar shell.

You would think it would be cheaper and easier to use the high speed drone as a kinetic kill vehicle instead.