Laser guns are almost here

[Onix]

I want a black hole laser in Icar. Or maybe they're all black hole lasers?

I'm not entirely sure if I believe a metamaterial black hole would exhibit Hawking radiation but it would be cool to find out.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Even if lasers are a ways off - a new concept is fast approaching. There is a project known as Wiki-Weapon that is attempting to make guns that can be reproduced on 3D printers.

At least at the moment, a rapid prototype machine costs ten to twenty times more than a handgun, so arguments about making firearms available to everyone ring a bit hollow. Furthermore, the thermoplastic used by these machines probably can't withstand firing most commonly used cartridges - rendering the exercise somewhat impractical.

Kind of scary really, I'm pretty sure some of our games warned us about this.

[kumakami]

[Onix]

[tygertyger]

[J.K.Mosher]

They should Red Dwarf's example . . .

Switch from Soft Light to Hard Light . . .

[Onix]

And in the latest news, a .

At 1 Km the 50Kw weapon could cut through a 15 mm thick (half inch) steel girder. The wording is a bit ambiguous though. It doesn't say how fast it could cut through it or if it only punched a hole or sliced the thing in half. Even under the most conservative of those interpretations, that's a lot of heat on target, steel is not easy to burn through.

It was able to take down drones and a fast moving (50 m/s) metal "ball" (I'm assuming this was a hollow sphere).

[Onix]

Unfortunately the gun is just the nozzle end of a half ton laser. (Or is that fortunately?) Anyway, it gives an idea of what a laser of that power can do. Even if it's only a few inches away from the object it's cutting.

[DOC_Agren]

Battlefield Laser

getting closer and closer

[Onix]

At slow motion 300 fps it takes 13 seconds to detonate. That's about 2.5 to3 seconds real time I think.

So 30kw at 1.5 km can detonate the warhead of a missile. Interesting data.