Laser pistols finally a reality!?

[Seenterman]

http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm#_blank

A laser gun, that can cut through rock, will explode air with a special lens, and runs on double A batteries all for a little more than two grand!!

Who's going to be the first to put up a range report for these bad boys? 

And can anyone tell the difference between the laser ray gun and the burning laser ray gun. Does the burning laser ray gun also ignite the target? 

[taurusowner]

Seeing as that laser can't cut through half an inch of styrofoam, I'd say we're still at least 50 years from man-portable laser weapons.

[Devonai]

Who needs man-portable weapons when there are so many M1114 and M113 chassis available? 

[AJ Dual]

Amazing has had that since the 90's, IIRC.

Cutting styrofoam is one thing. It's 95% air. The net results on a human, neglecting the protection from clothing (and not counting the eyes) would still be like dragging a lit cigarette across someone.

[Scout26]

This is a dangerous Class IV laser project and requires signing our
>> Hazardous Equipment Affidavit <<
that must be faxed or emailed back to us before purchase of the system.

Dear Mr. Mail Order Lazor Company,

I, Scout26, promise that I will not use your lazors in my evil plot to try to take over the world.  

P.S. Do you where I can pickup some sharks or nasty tempered seabass ??


 

[Cromlech]

I can't wait to get my Guard-Issue Flashlight Lasgun.

[MechAg94]

And can anyone tell the difference between the laser ray gun and the burning laser ray gun. Does the burning laser ray gun also ignite the target?  

A laser ray gun shines a concentrated light beam that heats up the surface of the target it hits causing heating, burning, etc.  
A burning laser ray gun shines a concentrated light beam that heats up the surface of the target it hits causing heating, burning, etc.  

Does that clear it up?  

IMO, to be effective in small arms combat, a laser would have to burn through a lot of stuff with just a short burst.  In addition, it is a purely surface effect only weapon.  I'm not sure what that does for you over and above the weapons we already have.  I want a plasma gun.

Maybe I am being too serious right now.  

[Cromlech]

I want a plasma gun.

  Me too.

[Perd Hapley]

I'm not sure what that does for you over and above the weapons we already have.

Flatter trajectory?  Greater power at long range?

[230RN]

Improved bullet placement without using the sights?

...oh,wait a minute...

...sorry.

[taurusowner]

Not having to account for flight time of rounds?

[HankB]

. . . IMO, to be effective in small arms combat, a laser would have to burn through a lot of stuff with just a short burst.  In addition, it is a purely surface effect only weapon.  I'm not sure what that does for you over and above the weapons we already have.  I want a plasma gun.

A laser powerful enough to be a weapon has a major shortcoming in that any dirt or debris on the output optics will heat up and transfer energy to the optic itself, probably destroying it.

How clean is combat?

You can "somewhat" get around this by designing a laser that will have relatively low energy at the output optics but will put the beam waist at the target - focus, if you will. But this is a rather difficult approach to take in a personal weapon.

I've played with CO2 lasers up to the 50 watt range in a lab setting - they're fun. Once you get over half power, the beam will heat up a spot on firebrick so it glows like the filament in a light bulb. But it's not really enough power to be a real weapon unless you're an arsonist.

[taurusowner]

It took hundreds of years from the invention of the first gunpowder based weapons, to get to match lock, wheel lock, flint lock, cap and ball, and then finally cartridge based weapons.  We look back now and wonder why it took so long to figure out each stop.  But in regards to energy weapons, we're pretty much at the "just discovered gunpowder" level.  We can't wrap our minds around the challenges we need to overcome to make true energy weapons.  But it's foolish to think that we won't get there at some point in the next few hundred years.

[MechAg94]

Yeah, but if you got hit by a stone thrown by an early cannon, you were still hurt pretty bad. 

Lasers have their uses, but unless power supplies really get better, I have my doubts about their use as a personal weapon.  They do have uses.  My Crimson Trace laser grips are proof of that.

[MechAg94]

Improved bullet placement without using the sights?

...oh,wait a minute...

...sorry.

Actually, if you had some sort of auto target acquisition, I imagine a laser could be set up to redirect the beam off bore. 

[MechAg94]

Not having to account for flight time of rounds?

Good point about that.  For a personal weapon, I wasn't thinking about sniper weapons.  It would need to be strong enough to have its effect before the target can react though. 

[KD5NRH]

Cutting styrofoam is one thing. It's 95% air. The net results on a human, neglecting the protection from clothing (and not counting the eyes) would still be like dragging a lit cigarette across someone.

ISTR a short story where the protagonist used a non-visible-wavelength laser to cook the retinas of the evil-nasty-bad-guy from a significant distance.  Considering the importance of sight to people who weren't born blind, that could be just as effective as killing someone.

[AJ Dual]

ISTR a short story where the protagonist used a non-visible-wavelength laser to cook the retinas of the evil-nasty-bad-guy from a significant distance.  Considering the importance of sight to people who weren't born blind, that could be just as effective as killing someone.

It's already happened. Back in '97 a joint U.S. Canadian Navy patrol chopper crew checking out a Russian "Trawler" lurking near the submarine pens at Bangor got permanent eye damage from an IR laser they were shining at them.

Not "blind" per-se, but the pilot never held flight status afterward. 

[HankB]

It's already happened. Back in '97 a joint U.S. Canadian Navy patrol chopper crew checking out a Russian "Trawler" lurking near the submarine pens at Bangor got permanent eye damage from an IR laser they were shining at them.

Not "blind" per-se, but the pilot never held flight status afterward. 

And, sadly, the trawler wasn't torpedoed by some unknown submarine. 

[230RN]

A laser powerful enough to be a weapon has a major shortcoming in that any dirt or debris on the output optics will heat up and transfer energy to the optic itself, probably destroying it.

How clean is combat?

You can "somewhat" get around this by designing a laser that will have relatively low energy (density --TAT) at the output optics but will put the beam waist at the target - focus, if you will. But this is a rather difficult approach to take in a personal weapon.

Well, don't we pretty much have that technology right now?  I'm thinking of autofocus cameras, which have been around for many decades. Find range, move the lens system so the beam "waist" is on the target automatically.

Power supply?  Heck, I'm constantly being stunned at the increases in power density for small batteries --my son has a model chopper whose battery is amazing, though I can't quote specs right now.  And supercapacitors have incredibly reduced the bulk required to store charges.  I guess right now, they're somewhat limited in discharge rate, but tomorrow?  I can envision a capacitor with a two-atom thick diamond dieletric and vacuum-deposited plates, repeated one on top of the other.(Bear in mind that distance between plates is a term in the capacitance formula.)

A hundred years?  Don't forget that even though we are now at the "just discovered gunpowder" phase, technical communications are many orders of magnitude faster and better now (since journal articles aren't in Latin anymore :) ) and there's m/billions of dollars of profit involved nowadays. 

"Invent a better way for these Europeans to kill each other, and you'll make a fortune."  Or something like that by Maxim or someone.  Maybe one of his friends, I don't remember perzackly, so don't let's get off on exactifying the quote.

Terry, 230RN

[AJ Dual]

I've got a line on a 20W RF induced CO2 laser that's compatible with simple air cooling. It's REALLY deep into the IR, which means almost no reflections, even off of what we'd normally consider specular surfaces. (i.e. "mirrors")

I'm seriously tempted to build it into a portable "rifle" with some Li-Poly RC aircraft batteries. Maybe even go so far as to build it into some kind of gear that does not even look like a weapon. If I can find a large broadcast style video camera that's dead or something similar for cheap.

Still far from lethal, but would be akin to holding a blowtorch on something for a few seconds at up to a hundred yards or so. 

[KD5NRH]

I'm seriously tempted to build it into a portable "rifle" with some Li-Poly RC aircraft batteries. Maybe even go so far as to build it into some kind of gear that does not even look like a weapon. If I can find a large broadcast style video camera that's dead or something similar for cheap.

"No strange activity in the area before the fire, just Bug-Eyed Earl with a Panaflex."

[HankB]

I've got a line on a 20W RF induced CO2 laser that's compatible with simple air cooling. It's REALLY deep into the IR, which means almost no reflections, even off of what we'd normally consider specular surfaces. (i.e. "mirrors")

With a 10.6 micron wavelength, don't point it at gold or copper unless you want to get reflections . . .

Normally you'd use something like zinc selenide lenses to focus or collimate the beam, but if you want to, sodium chloride is also rather transparent at that wavelength, but a bit sensitive to moisture and humidity . . . 

[AJ Dual]

Yes, ZnSn lenses is what another person used for his beam expanders on the PVC "Laser Bazooka" he fabbed up. Ugly in the industrial design aesthetic, but slick in practice. He had different optics/beam expanders* pre-focused for burning stuff at different ranges.

The nice thing about such a long wavelength is that even glass or un-tinted polycarbonate lenses are opaque to that deep of IR so most anything will do as a safety goggle. If you got an eye strike, the lenses bursting into flame would let you know something was amiss before any eye damage happened. 

Fortunately, due to the expense of the metals, there just isn't that much exposed gold or copper about.

* Beam Expanders. It seems counter-intuitive unless you're familiar with optics, but to keep your laser beam narrow over a longer distance, you want it to start out bigger.

[HankB]

* Beam Expanders. It seems counter-intuitive unless you're familiar with optics, but to keep your laser beam narrow over a longer distance, you want it to start out bigger. 

And if you're smart about it, you can design your beam expander so that the nominally Gaussian cross sectional intensity profile of (for example) a single mode TEM₀₀ beam is made quite uniform across the aperture.