Posted on 07/21/2012 2:37:17 PM PDT by TribalPrincess2U
On July 26, the U.S. Air National Guard will get the green light to begin firing lasers from unmanned attack drones in a vast swath of skies over North Dakota, despite the concerns of local commercial pilots. At the Devils Lake home of the North Dakota Army National Guard, pilots train on MQ-1 Predator drones -- the most prevalent unmanned attack
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
But they are DRONES!!!!!!!!! (Cue horror film music).
I guess there are a lot of FReepers that don’t want the military to be able to train for their job.
I could run our dog all over the county with one of these!
They’re training to use them on us, they just don’t know that yet.
“The lasers aren’t intended as weapons...they are targeting lasers fixed on a spot on the ground, which can be used to steer other explosives to a target.”
Right, so the planes used to deliver the explosives aren’t weapons, either.
Yes. You need to break out of your cold war mindset.
Oh, did James Holmes have a drone? I missed that part of the story.
Secretary of Defense Gates said that "I don't know anybody at the Department of Defense, Mr. Tiahrt, who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed. The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire."Good thing the Navy is getting good at shooting down missiles the old fashioned way."So, right now the ABL would have to orbit inside the borders of Iran in order to be able to try and use its laser to shoot down that missile in the boost phase. And if you were to operationalize this you would be looking at 10 to 20 747s, at a billion and a half dollars apiece, and $100 million a year to operate. And there's nobody in uniform that I know who believes that this is a workable concept."
The Air Force did not request further funds for the Airborne Laser for 2010; Air Force Chief Schwartz has said that the system "does not reflect something that is operationally viable." In December 2011, it was reported that the project was to be ended after 16 years of development and a cost of over $5 billion.
For use against Muslims or Tea Partiers?
RE: For use against Muslims or Tea Partiers?
Yes
Wired magazine had a big article about people developing and flying their own drones in the last two or three issues. Here, I found it:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/06/ff_drones
I would say that would be the way to take one down, not with a rifle. Just sayin’ . . .
Good for the military. Some of the hobbyists / would-be-commercial users *are* flying drones.
It’s a hair splitting thing that primarily serves obfuscation in the discussion.
What could possibly go wrong?
Not a big thing. Why? Think about it. Whether its the military, home land security, the fbi, your local sheriffs office, all of these people have family. You can easily find out who, and where they are located. For example, if my neighbor has a son in the military, or the fbi, I can find that out.
If for example, someone comes to my door, and wants to collect the penalty/tax for 0bamacare, then I invite them in. Same with the secret service or fbi.
Then I learn who sent them and their location. Sure, it will get messy, but then I go up their chain of command. Eventually, they all come over to our side or die...or I do.
5.56mm
So sad, that doesn't happen anymore.
I would say that would be the way to take one down, not with a rifle. Just sayin’ . . .
You may be right. One thing’s for sure, CWII will be fought in the sky.
Really! My daughter lives in ND.
You evidently didn’t read my post either.
I said a James Holmes TYPE.
Aurora Shooter exhibits classic schizophrenia pattern.
Get it now?
What’s ill-informed panic?
Sick people in the know, running around in a panic?
Incorrect. While true we were able to get only about half the design power out of the test vehicle's COIL in ABL, we could easily (with a straightforward redesign and the knowledge we have now) get that power up 2 to 3 times it's current levels. That would be MORE than enough to suppress all ballistic missile activity in a theater the size of Iran 24 hours a day with a fleet of 7-10 ABLs (depending on the assumptions you make regarding reliability, on station availability, etc).
ABL’s range is only weakly tied to laser power. It's range is a much stronger function of the adaptive optics system which could be enhanced to significantly increase lethal range from the current test bird. If that quote from Gates is accurate, he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
On the other hand, I also am a skeptic about the operational viability of ABL, but for a host of logistics and maintenance reasons unrelated to the performance of the laser weapon itself. Oh, and there were many of us in uniform far more informed than him that felt the system could be developed into a viable operational platform. Give us one year's overrun in the F-22 program, and we could have cleared the skies. It's all a matter of priorities.
No, because it make no sense.
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