Lockheed's new 60kW laser system

dden4012 said:

Lets not talk about the facts left out of this story by 99% of the outlets that ran this. Lets focus on the key words and run with it.

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:crackup: yes the fake news is more fun.

While we are at it--let's get rid of all the fire departments ---it is much more fun to just watch things burn.

Encap said:

:crackup: yes the fake news is more fun.

While we are at it--let's get rid of all the fire departments ---it is much more fun to just watch things burn.

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And the racist police! Don't let that get too far from the front page. This is obama's third term after all. Trumps been in office for almost 2 months and done nothing while the country is falling apart. He has had plenty of time to fix the decades of compounding issues. Come on entitlements and wars...simple easy fix. First world issues right. We just have to stop pretending the country has enemies that want to cause pain and suffering. Its either all fake or our fault. Lets take Sweden's and Germany's lead and show the world we are all one blood. op:

Encap said:

PS It didn't cost the USA a penny in fact it just increased business a tiny bit for Ratheon the US supplier.

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MMmMmm...Raytheon. I do alot of work in one of their local warehouses. The place is usually full of Paveway bodies. And right now there are two complete radomes from some jet fighter or another, on test stands. Also lots and lots of missle circuit boards and other little fiddly gadgets that I SOOO love to peruse.

I could post some pics from the place, but...errr...ummm...I'm not allowed to take pics in there, yeah...not allowed. I actually have a $300 Mitutoyo digital caliper that was given to me by one of the guys there...they were gonna TOSS IT IN THE TRASH. It was brand new in the box. They also always have a bunch of aluminum plates and small billets that are going out to scrap. If there are no identifying numbers thereon, I am allowed to bring some of it home to repurpose.

I'll be going there later this week. Had to let the FBI crawl up my ass with a microscope to get clearance, and a badge, to work without an escort.

-G

Accutronitis said:

I fully believe they knew what they were shooting down BUT for what ever reason they needed that drone downed and unfortunately a patriot missile was all they had that would get the job done so it ended up costing 3 million dollars to do it BUT with the extensive use of drones by the US I just think that maybe someone should have thought that we should be somewhat prepared at the very least for us to able to take down a rudimentary form of drone that would some day be used against us without the need to use a 3 million dollar missile to do so
???

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Absolutely. If this really is a $200 drone, you could wonder what kind of payload that could actually carry - a kilogram of explosives at most?

And if so, at what danger would this drone with a bomb pose any danger? Probably at a range it could have been shot down quite easily with a sniper rifle or even a machine gun randomly blasting bullets in its general direction.

Another interestng thing is that such a drone might actually be able to dodge the missile fired from a patriot system. The system is very effective against things that change direction relatively slowly like ballistic missiles, jet fighters or manned helicopters, but small drones could be a challenge since they could me moved out of the blast range more quickly.

It would be an interesting scenario to test: take 10 commercial phantom drones and one fully operational patriot battery: can you land at least one of those drones on top of that battery without getting shot down? Realistically i'd say it would be possible, especially if you use a stragegy sacrificing some of the drones to lure fire while the others fly past. And that would be without giving the drones things like chaff or flares to draw fire away from them.

Then again if you are under attack by such drones there would be other options to defend against that - large mosquito nets could work well

Keep in mind that all military hardware eventually gets mothballed. So they actually want to use some, if anything, just to train the team. If you don't use that patriot missile which you've already bought.. it's just gonna go bad anyways..

EarlBrown said:

Keep in mind that all military hardware eventually gets mothballed. So they actually want to use some, if anything, just to train the team. If you don't use that patriot missile which you've already bought.. it's just gonna go bad anyways..

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So, use it or lose it applies? :crackup: