The 'cat's eyes' laser that can help British troops pinpoint a sniper before he pulls the trigger

dailymail.co.uk ^ | January 12, 2009 | Mail Foreign Service

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

When I said non-military, I meant non-combatant. The people who worked to feed, shelter, clothe and provide moral support to the rebels...

[ExSoldier]

Don’t forget the fact that one of the first targets in an insurgency in a developed nation with highly armed citizens is going to be politicians...

Exactly! Thus the sudden and concerted "push" for all these "reasonable" gun laws. Holder & Obama have no intention of obeying Heller. They are going to confiscate the big stuff right away in a wider AWB. I'll wager that the other stuff will be gone before 2012, IF he has the sheep correctly judged.

[Axenolith]

At the least, we individually only have to get 1. As long as anyone they come for understands that, the equation bablances heavily in our favor. ‘Course, dudes like my Dad are gonna get two dozen at least, so it will probably be over pretty quick...

[VietVet]

Haven’t you got the analogy backwards? The Taliban was the tyranical central government; the Northern Allience was the rural-based insurection. They both had left over Soviet heavy weapons. The Taliban could not finally defeat the NA; the NA could not drive out the Taliban, until the Americans sent them aid and air support.

Also, neither the Taliban nor the NA had anything like the technological economy and society that the US does, although the Afgans do have some spectaculary talented gunsmiths who can duplicate even modern small arms with 18th-19th Century hand tools.

VietVet

[FreeAtlanta]

yep, I was thinking the same thing. Scopes are nice, but not always necessary.

[FreeAtlanta]

Especially, if they are drafties who are ignorant of the Constitution. I think this is more the reason Obama, Rangel and the "Democrat" gang want a drafty army instead of the patriotic volunteers we have today.

Not many of the current military will march and shoot up their own communities.

[sinsofsolarempirefan]

Actually, you have it backwards. The Northern Alliance was the remnants of the legal government of Afghanistan that had been driven out of Kabul by the Taleban insurrectionists in 1996.
Nevertheless, you are almost hitting on something that proves your point here, in that it did demonstrate that in a technologically backwards country like afghanistan, rebellion to overthrow a government is still possible, because neither government of afghanistan had an air force worth talking about, or anything like the technology that would be available to a western government.

It is certainly possible to produce simple weapons like guns, mortars and IEDs under the kinds of conditions that Taleban are fighting under, but you cannot match government weaponary in terms of guided missiles, helicopter gunships, tanks and aircraft. Cutting-edge high-tech weaponary is so absurdly complex that it has to be made by a team scores or even hundreds strong at the least. You can’t just knock it together in your own garage, and you certainly can’t mass produce it, no matter how technologically talented some of the guys on your side might be....

[GeronL]

exactly my thought

[VietVet]

First, do not underestimate the effectiveness of lightly armed irregular troops. The usual estimate is that such can tie up ten times their number of regular forces.

Second, don't you have Radio Shack where you live? Often, the civilian tech which is commercially available is a couple of years ahead of the military, due to procurement procedures. My nephew builds remote controlled aerial and ground vehicles superior to any thing the military is fielding. In fact, I seem to recall that the first remote control vehicles used by the Army in Iraq to detect and disable IEDs were simple RC toys, purchased by individual soldiers.