Posted on 07/20/2002 4:10:03 PM PDT by knighthawk
It seems like it would be easy to fool the system with decoy gunshots.
Very cool that the Israelis have gotten it out of the laboratory and field ready. But two million dollars a copy? . . . Holy cow! Must be huge . . . truck mounted or something.
Suppressed ("silenced") rifles make very little noise at the barrel, but if the bullet is faster than the speed of sound, it still makes a noise (and according to this article, that is what is tracked).
Having a suppressor wouldn't help, unless terrorists were using subsonic ammunition. But subsonic rounds are really, really wimpy, and won't penetrate armor.
So the system would work very well against enemy snipers.
"You must be accurately when you are speaking to General Yas--"
BOOOM
[The relevant technology was in its early stages when Bolt, Beranek and Newman conducted tests in Dealey Plaza for the House Select Committee on Assassinations. Had the system been in place November 22, 1963, it could have shot E. Howard Hunt and Woody Harrelson's father. Or not.]
Wish I could find a reference to the show on discovery.com. They seem to have taken it down. I'm sure someone else will remember the show. It was amazing . . . Every bullet's path traced out in a different color as the machine gun was being fired. My impression was that soldiers in the field would someday be able to wear these things on their helmets, kind of a heads-up display showing where enemy fire was coming from.
If something like this could be field deployed, it seems like it would be great for bivouac perimeter security, and we would have heard more about it.
Friday, June 28, 2002 Contact:
Anti-sniper radar breakthrough funded according to Skeen
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Laguna Industries will assemble a very high technology radar demonstration for research on how to counter the terrible threat from snipers targeting our soldiers. The House of Representatives provided the money in the 2003 Military Appropriation Bill passed on June 27.
The Rapid Target Acquisition and Tracking System (RTATS) will be a laser radar that can rapidly deploy on a High Mobility Multipurpose Vehicles (HMMV). The radar will immediately pinpoint the exact location of an enemy rifleman in a building or in camouflaged vegetation. The HMMV has the ability to transport the RTATS over rough terrain in open country. It can then maneuver in the confined quarters of a city. This will mean close coverage of our troops as they move into the extremely hazardous environment of street fighting.
“Fighting in cities is the worst nightmare of an infantryman. I believe that the RTATS will be one of the most important technical breakthroughs we can provide for our soldiers and Marines,” according to Congressman Skeen.
The RTATS was developed by Trex Enterprises of San Diego and will be integrated by Laguna Industries on to the HMMV.
According to Trex company president Anne Pol, “Trex has been impressed with the maturity and depth of experience at the Laguna Industries facility. The Laguna experience with testing other sophisticated electronics in the field environment provides confidence that the integrated RTATS system will be useful to U.S. troops almost immediately.”
After initial testing on the Laguna Reservation the system will undergo military testing at the White Sands Missile Range.
The development of RTATS will provide several business opportunities to Laguna. Potential customers for the system include law enforcement agencies, like the border patrol, and tracking instrumentation for test ranges.
CILAS SLD400 uses an optical head (diode laser with video or thermal camera) detects sniper's optics. July 1998 (issue 150) of Revue Aerospatiale. French system.
Have no doubt Sandia Labs in Albuquerque and Los Alamos National Labs in Los Alamos are on top of anti-sniper technology.
The airborne laser is being developed as part of the anti-ballistic missile defence here. Some of these people go into bubbles in other parts of the world just to chat.
The phrase, "Go ahead; make my day," takes on even greater irony.
Lasers: Hard-Hitting Watchdogs
The best way to dissuade snipers is to deprive them of their impunity by ensuring they know that their exact location has been pinpointed. CILAS demonstrated this at Eurosatory with its directed-optics laser detector- the first production unit intended ultimately for delivery to the French army. This ground-breaking technology can be expected to bring other developments in its wake.
Quietly, free from media hype, things have suddenly changed since a prototype of the SLD400 was received by the French armed forces. Behind this mundane designation lurks a device capable of detecting, locating and indentifying the optics with which snipers are equipped.
The scope of application of the SLD400 is much wider and can include the protection of VIPs and pinpointing sharpshooters or the binoculars of terrorists preparing criminal acts.
The technology enables the building of databases of specific optical device signatures to better assess threat levels.
The SLD 400 is designed to detect and locate any kind of optical or optronic hostile sight on the battlefield or sensitive zones.
APPLICATIONS
Fitted on a tripod or an observation turret, the SLD achieves the following missions:
stand-by detection of pointed optics, often associated with an immediate threat,
active scanning and monitoring of specific areas,
defeating and deterring of snipers.
The SLD 400 drastically improves the permanent control of the battlefield. For the Armed Forces the SLD 400 detects MBT and AFV sights. The SLD 400 also brings a significant shooting accuracy improvement during the operation carried out by the Special units. Increased V.I.P.'s protection : detection and neutralisation of an aggressor equipped with a high accuracy telescope is the permanent commitment of the Security Services.
The SLD 400 consists of: an optical head with a laser transmitter and a high-tech receiver; an electronic assembly including the command and control unit as well as the video monitor of the observed zone; and a power supply with rechargeable or disposable batteries. The SLD 400 can be coupled with other detectors and surveillance system (Infrared, Thermal Imaging Camera, acoustic detector, etc.).
Hi Nix 2, good to see you around.
Though, eventually, the technology will end up in the wrong hands. Still, but that time, we ought to have something better.
Then you will have a vastly less-effective sniper. Subsonic rounds are required for sound-suppressed fire and the benefit of a rifle is speeding a large bullet up to high (supersonic) velocitities that are capable of penetrating body armor, lightly armored vehicles, and maintaining a flat trajectory to a distant target.
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