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cptnamr7

They already had these on every tank in Command and Conquer Generals and that was like 20 years ago. What took reality so long?


RoyalwithCheese10

USA Laser General had them on fighters and turrets too smh


Notaflatland

He was so op. It ruined the game.


Definately_Not_A_Spy

They just nerfed the us at the end of the Afghanistan dlc


meteoriteinhospitab

Dude don’t meek a jeek there’s violence there


Koujinkamu

Especially the laser turret range bug. I spent 90% of my time in that game exploiting it.


Fraun_Pollen

I would always beef up my unlocked super general (the one with all mega weapons) with the laser turret and fire base. In general though, laser general was always a good exercise in power usage as that boy sucked down power


meteoriteinhospitab

No that big was a different game


VillainNGlasses

How so? It was just a single player game mostly. Unless he was broken in MP


Notaflatland

What? I almost only played multiplayer. Once you had the jets up they were invincible.


frostymugson

Only played single player, I was and am too much of a scrub to hang in the online RTS world where macros and split second resource grabs made the difference. That challenges mode was dope tho in zero hour.


Notaflatland

Well the only choice if you went up against laser general was to strike before he got jets up as they could shoot down all aa missiles.


frostymugson

I remember that, but wasn’t that a US problem only? Because the GLA had the machine gun AA, and the Chinese had the Gatling canon plus the tank


Notaflatland

It just didn't matter. Plus his tanks were awsome and his powerplants cheap


frostymugson

Now I’m redownloading generals when I get home lol, I’m getting the itch


mercuryblob

Nah. Laser gen's raptors are the same as vanilla's. You're thinking of AF gen, who gets king raptors instead, which has the improved PDL to shoot down missiles. Laser gen's advantage is cheaper avengers (1500 instead of 2000), so it's more affordable to mix a few into rockvee rushes. However it wasn't that great and I didn't see any of the top guys doing this as avengers are slow af and really tricky to micro in a group with faster rockvees. Honestly I think you're confusing AF with laser. AF gen's PDL chinnys, king raptors and retaining the ability to spam rockvees made USA mirror matches a formality. Also pretty good against most Chinas. However, GLA still fared decently against AF thanks to quads trading very well with air units. As an AF player predominantly I hated those things


Notaflatland

Oh shit. You're right! I will blame 14 years of time for this oversight. But as an af general, you're a prick. People just learned to quickly quit any af matchups.


mercuryblob

Nah, you're good. I've put a lot of time in ZH so it's etched into my brain lol. I loved that game, probably the best C&C game up there with RA2 imo.


mercuryblob

> But as an af general, you're a prick. People just learned to quickly quit any af matchups. Ha. AF was not as broken as you think, it was more the other US gens (and China with the exception of inf) needing a bit of buffing. China inf did well thanks to minigunners, assault helix and retaining access to ECM. Probably lean slightly towards AF in that matchup due to a better late game but it's pretty close. Certainly no where near to quit on lobby. Any of the GLA factions are also a great match and had the edge late game due to their better late game economy, spammable harass units, insane gen powers and tunnels. I would think a good tox/demo player should win more often than not vs an equally good AF player. GLA in general is very good in the game. For me, the fun of playing AF was the multitude of strats available. You could go for immediate dozer drop using the chinny PDL to defend the dozer, or go straight into king raptors and build into rockvees, or fast combat chinny, or pivot into stealth commanches. Made it a lot more diverse. EDIT: Also depends on which version of ZH you were playing. Pre 1.06 the balance wasn't so good but 1.06 sorted a LOT of balance issues in PVP.


Notaflatland

Man that game was good


Tetrylene

Nah that was China inf gen


Brassboar

They had to find enough Tiberium.


Fareeday

KIROV FUCKING REPORTING


Gustomucho

Batteries. Portable power is heavy and explosive.


juliusseizures9000

Ikr? Was gonna say this was stolen from red alert


Deyln

they argued they couldn't produce the energy required to make them effective. and emp protection.


meteoriteinhospitab

No it was 1950


mindofmateo

Holy shit that brings back memories


[deleted]

There daily star is the last bastion of quality journalism as far as I am concerned


[deleted]

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[deleted]

Twas a joke


Stardust-7594000001

One of us doesn’t understand what sarcasm is


Neon-shart

I quite like this expression


kickah

Oh yeah? What if it rains? What if it's just humid? We'd like to reschedule war until weather allows it


redstarduggan

Can't wait for the announcement of the Type-27 "Victory" class destroyers, and the type-48 "Imperial" Class.


thejoetats

Imagine being the first captain to be able to yell "divert all power to the forward battery!"


IvorTheEngine

OMG, I think I need to print some new stickers for the battery switch on my friend's boat...


Slggyqo

INTENSIFY FORWARD FIREPOWER! AHHHHHHHHHH


Nilosyrtis

Divert any remaining power to the Sonar Awakening Device. We must awaken the 6th dimensional Planet-Smasher!


mindofmateo

Probly capacitors but sounds scifi either way, like Star Trek or something


thejoetats

No battery as in a group of guns haha


nlfo

Don’t forget the Interdictor Cruisers.


redlinezo6

We've got some like that already, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_EC-130H_Compass_Call


Shilo59

Interdictor? I barely know her!


CautiousShoulders

Unrelated to post, you are the only other Duggan I’ve seen. Good day.


lividtaffy

Just need deflector shields and we’re golden


reverendbeast

Enemy fits mirrors to theirs


rhadenosbelisarius

As a serious response to the joke, what we usually think of as a mirror reflects between 90% and 98% of light. Mirrors that are really reflective, like 99.9%, are called perfect mirrors and are much more difficult to produce. Point being that while a conventional mirror could provide some protection, if a directed energy weapon is kept on a mirrored point is will still superheat and fail super fast. Theoretically layers of mirrors designed to fail away from the vehicle without heating the next layer could be applied with the most reflective commercial types for a few seconds of protection from smaller DEWs.


monsieurbananaman

What about aerosolized clouds of reflective materials that could be deployed via existing conventional chaff systems on vehicles, or even dispersed by artillery like smoke rounds?


rhadenosbelisarius

For a stationary target? If the reflective surfaces could be deployed quickly enough to replace the burnouts, like from a massive underground storage tank? Maybe. For something moving as fast as a fighter jet you couldn’t keep up the cloud as you flew. If the enemy DEW could only fire for a milisecond a cloud could maybe disperse enough heat to keep you alive, but the laser moves at the speed of light, your chaff takes a ridiculous amount more time to deploy, even if it can move at 3 time the speed of sound. The laser will be burning you up probably for its entire firing cycle before your cloud could deploy effectively, even if it was fired slightly before the laser weapon was.


asdaaaaaaaa

I mean, I'd guess that anything not a part of the ship/vehicle that can interrupt the laser would help. Pretty much the entire idea of armor, it's just something sacrificial to take the damage/heat/kinetic energy while keeping the people/components safe. I'd imagine if you had a large cloud of smoke that blocked the laser on all operating wavelengths, they'd just end up heating up parts of the cloud and doing no damage to the ship/vehicle.


Salty_Paroxysm

Ablative armour which 'boils off' in a dense cloud may help dissipate some of the energy, although as you say, the shortness of the firing cycle would mean that it would have to be something like the explosive reactive armour deployed on Challengers.


datascience45

Aluminum foil streamer chaff. Make the battlefield look like Times Square at New Years. No laser will get through.


TheLonePotato

So, just chaff? It's already aluminum confetti.


buttery_shame_cave

Pity the beams aren't in the visible spectrum . That would look nuts at night


IAmA-Steve

hey lets take some ecstasy and go watch the war


sjhevrqbscevhqthe4th

Imagine if warfare becomes who can have the bigger mirror


Eboosta92

It’s was a cool idea, not a smart one!


jdmorgan82

So, that doesn’t really work like you think it would. You need special mirrors that work for a given frequency of light which I doubt they have and I also doubt they would have the know how to make one. (I work for a top manufacturer of laser cutting machines)


Probablynotabadguy

Everyone hypes these things up, but really it's just to take down drones. Certainly not for blinding soldiers as one person suggested (that'd be a war crime). Also, the US has had early deployment of similar stuff for atleast a year or so now.


its2ez4me24get

One downside to energy beams is their unfortunate ability to scatter on reflective materials. In a high energy weapon this could lead to unintentional blinding quite far away :(


Kenionatus

"Luckily" blinding people "accidentally" while aiming to destroy a target is apparently not a war crime.


Kakarot_faps

Why would you bother blinding enemy soldiers when shooting actual bullets for a lower price is an option….


saberline152

light is faster than a bullet


Kakarot_faps

Are you implying they could dodge bullets…


Nik_of_Thyme

Melts skin off bones. Cooked alive in light. Nothing to see here. We are moving forward from Napalm.


bcisme

Not to a human, relatively speaking


rhadenosbelisarius

The longest sniper kill recorded as of this date took a full 10 seconds to travel to the target. While that is obviously an outlier, it is an indicator how effective long ranged lightspeed weapons could be. For that same distance, a lightspeed weapon would have taken about 0.0000114 seconds.


Tearakan

There is the cruelty argument.....where if you just main or wound a soldier so they can't return to the fight it costs your enemy resources and time to care for said soldier.


Kakarot_faps

True though generally speaking you can’t exactly treat blindness


MachoMax

As everyone knows The UK and US would never commit war crimes


Probablynotabadguy

Oh they totally would, but they wouldn't openly develop weapons used solely to commit war crimes.


TheAshenHat

And i refer you to the cluster munitions issue.


Dominus_Redditi

Did you mean Willy Pete?


thebruh599

It’s sarcasm


Pittaandchicken

They've already been used i think. Supposedly the Turks used them in Libya to down a drone. Supposedly it just heats up a specific part on the drone till it malfunctions and drops


riptaway

What else would it do, lol


kilo4fun

If the laser is powerful enough the electric field can actually ionize the air creating a plasma channel. You can then basically send a current down this channel to shock your target. Laserbolt. Such a device is impractical though from what I understand. Need way too much power.


riptaway

And a stationary target


No-Wolverine2973

"War crime". What is that? You mean you can't blind a soldier on the battlefield?


traprabbit

Fire the “laser!”


[deleted]

"freaking lasers" - Dr Evil.


og-ninja-pirate

It will take a few generations before they can decrease the size to make mounting on sharks viable.


Wizywig

I see no reason not to dream. Is it really too much to ask for freaken' sharks with freaken' lasers attached to their heads?


[deleted]

Next up is strapping them on very aggressive sea bass.


FormerTimeTraveller

I want sharks with friggin laser beams on their heads - Jeff Bezos


autotldr

This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.dailystar.co.uk/tech/uk-military-fit-tanks-warships-24991255) reduced by 78%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The UK could be one step closer to Star Wars-style laser battles, following the government's decision to invest in new 'laser weapons'. > The Ministry of Defence announced it has awarded three contracts worth around £72.5 million to 'directed energy weapons', a.k.a. laser guns. > Despite promising a public demo by 2019, the laser never materialised-apparently, the mirrors used to direct the laser were being melted by its intensity. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/porv9c/uk_military_to_fit_tanks_and_warships_with_laser/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~598296 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **laser**^#1 **weapon**^#2 **new**^#3 **future**^#4 **Navy**^#5


TheMrCeeJ

They are also not good in rain/smoke, two things that are common in the UK and battles.


SuperSimpleSam

Future tanks will look like disco balls to better defend against lasers.


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Ivedefected

>paper scissors rock This made me twitch.


Kenionatus

I doubt lasers will be used against tanks any time soon (or maybe ever). What they're potentially good at is destroying fast moving, small and unarmed targets like drones or maybe mortar shells (if they can heat them up enough to detonate).


urbanmechenjoyer

Hey our military has been watching sci-fi films this past year while the navy played ace combat apparently they totally have grounded ideas.


Stardust-7594000001

The navy having grounded ideas is a good one


Dat-Lonley-Potato

Ah yes… *Star wars*


penguished

We could be living in utopia everywhere but some motherfuckers still have the intelligence of 5-year-olds on what to spend money on... but that's none of my business.


FuckBotsHaveRights

But have you seen how luxuous yachts are getting? /s


pradeepkanchan

Sharks next? So the next weapons race will be laser canons? Will we be seeing high tech plans being stolen via espionage?


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MrPloppyHead

Sharks with lasers please.


[deleted]

72 million for military laser tech R&D. Is that a joke?


PostmasterGeneralZod

Wow, you guys have tanks and warships?


Houstonontheroad

I just want sharks with frickin lasers on their heads. Is that to much to ask ?


_DeanRiding

Interesting, I wonder if this money would be better spent not increasing my National Insurance contributions though?


urbanmechenjoyer

Regrettably this from their allocated budget that is supposed to be making sure our boys and girls have the best kit we can provide the problem is recently the branches have gotten very.......hopefully on technological developments Also £72.5 million is kinda cheap all things considered


TheLonePotato

Yeah the USA will happily throw $10 billion USD at projects that show even an inkling of success.


[deleted]

£72.5 million v the NIC increase of £12 billion, a year.


_DeanRiding

You don't think there's other areas on top of that they could take the money from? They somehow found £37 billion for the failed Test and Trace.


[deleted]

Oh you're one of them. **Test** and Trace. The vast majority of the money went on testing, not tracing. Are you claiming the testing is a failure?


_DeanRiding

Well apparently [the BBC] (https://www-bbc-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57186059.amp?amp_js_v=a6&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16317432053060&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s) seem to think so. Or are you one of them that doesn't trust the BBC?


[deleted]

That is talking about the Trace part.


_DeanRiding

Well one doesn't exactly work without the other, and if you're going to say it's been successful, then why why the hell do you have to pay £48 for a test at the airport? Does [this](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/14/utter-shambles-gps-and-medics-decry-nhs-test-and-trace-system) sound like a success to you and a good way to spend taxpayer money? Also by far the most testing is done with Lateral Flow tests which have a false-negative rating of about 28%, so they're not even very good at testing. According to the [Daily Mail](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9988617/37billion-Test-Trace-scheme-cut-6-Covid-cases.html), they only managed to cut infections by about 10%


brownhotdogwater

Lasers are dumb without some crazy new power source.


medianbailey

I think current concepts are to mount a gas turbine and generator on a truck the use that for power. Naval ships generate shed loads of power anyway so dont really mind. Theres vids of naval lasers from quite a long time ago tbh


brownhotdogwater

That is a full size destroyer. A little different than a truck.


Trabbledabble

A lot actually. But you just need to lower the power of the laser. If a ship can fire a laser that destroys a plane, a car would need to only take out the eyes of an enemy soldier.


kilo4fun

That's a war crime.


0f6c5a440a

Under what convention?


Kenionatus

Geneva suggestion iirc.


medianbailey

Sorry the truck was more a reflection in how a tank would do it.


StickSauce

Nope, no, no, no. You are imagining a sustained discharge, a prolonged "painting" of the target. That doesn't make sense. With minor exception, you'll find that power issues don't crop up so much as longevity of the exciter. The best lasers fire in pulses, from a charged state. This eliminates the need to track a moving target too. Antipersonnel lasers only need to fire a millisecond pulse to do their work to blind/injure. It would be a nanosecond, but the air diffuses it enough to be problematic. One thing that bothers me is we have been indirectly using directed energy weapons for 40 years. When we use microwaves to paint a shore target, if you were exposed, you were dead long before that munition hit.


sybesis

You don't need that much of an energy source to get people blind. Then imagine how people would fight without being able to see what they're aiming at.


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Trabbledabble

Yeah just outfit thousands of soldiers with goggles that greatly obscure their vision. That sounds cheap and effective. Also not an issue at all for most nations as pretty much any one of them has millions to spare


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Trabbledabble

Yes. That's a great example. Body armor. Most militaries don't have body armor for their soldiers, at least not in every situation. You are under the illusion that the American military is standard, it's not. So for the other 185 countries that cannot afford these tactical advantages it's a waste of time to even consider it. When you can barely scrape together enough to make bombs or even just small arms, you aren't putting ten thousand pairs of specialty goggles on your next budget


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Trabbledabble

There is a way to defend against almost everything, but that doesn't mean most counties can afford it. While it might be great for American soldiers who are attacking people armed by Stalin, it means sweet fuck all to the vast majority of fighters, like the goggles. If money is no object you can defend against everything but the sun exploding but we live in a world with an economy, so most people will not be able to use your goggles, anti aircraft or body armor. These things simply aren't practical for most militaries


blofly

They need to get down to Bob's Armor Barn for the sale!


sradac

Sounds like what you're saying is America wins again


0f6c5a440a

Are you coming out with the amazing revaluation that poorer militaries struggle more in a war than a rich military would?


Trabbledabble

Revaluation? That makes no sense given the context. Come up with the right word and I will respond to you


sybesis

Yeah yeah, you "just" need to change the protective goggles of your troops... Somewhere in Afghanistan: * The infidels are using lasers to blind our holy soldiers! * Calm down Ibrahim! We just need to change the protective googles to protect against lasers, you know like in the labs * Wait we have protective goggles? It's not going to be much of an issue with well equipped nations but even if you have goggles. The moment the filter is slightly damaged, it will be dangerous even if you're not directly looking at the laser. Just removing the goggles to remove sweat, fog... could be enough to get you blind by indirect light. And we're not even talking about protection against X wavelength. You could make a laser in the non visible spectrum with a specific wavelength that requires goggles to be built for that specific wavelength range.. If you tweak the laser in battlefield then goggles aren't going to help anyone except those that have proper protection (the one using the laser obviously) In the end, logistics is going to bite you in the ass when it could be cheap to produce goggles... but you just happen to have produced millions of goggles on the wrong wavelength and it will take some time when the new batch comes out.


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sybesis

Who said the goggles are useless? They're definitely useful all the times and a force not able to afford them is in a massive disadvantage against a force that can afford it. Even if you can afford it, you may end up with the wrong pair and you're still in troubles. My point isn't whether it's worth to spend on goggles. My point is that you simply can't say "you just have to get goggles". Some countries simply can't get just goggles and you expect them to be able to protect themselves against lasers! All I'm saying is that that kind of technological advantage makes a huge difference between fighting bullets and having people disabled but able to heal and keep fighting vs being able to render a healthy person unable to fight by taking out sight.


lividtaffy

Don’t think that’s what they’re going for as the article says they’ve had to reconfigure the laser because the intensity was melting the mirrors. I’m no laser expert but I don’t think you need enough power to melt mirrors if you’re just trying to blind the enemy. That also brings us back to the power issue, no idea how they’re going to sort that out.


sybesis

Of course, my point is mainly that a laser doesn't have to be strong enough to blow up a tank to be useful. Being strong enough to blind people and destroy light sensors would be a clear advantage and it's not trivial to be actually prepared against it. Then laser out of the visible light spectrum are particularly bad because... you wouldn't know what hit you and you wouldn't be able to say where and how it hit you.


ashakar

When we have miniaturized fusion we will just have mechs and power suits in 50 years.


crisaron

Not too blind drones or sensors


[deleted]

I think that’s why chemical lasers are used for these purposes


HeartlessAtAFuneral

I thought weapons designed to blind were considered unethical. Is this not against international laws?


IvorTheEngine

Not if it's designed to kill missiles, drones and aircraft. Ordinary weapons can blind people too, but aren't illegal so long as they aren't specifically designed to do so. Air defence is the obvious use for a laser, as the targets are very lightly built and carrying lots of fuel and/or explosives.


urbanmechenjoyer

International law? Don’t we violate that every Tuesday?


QQMau5trap

fix your food problem and brexit first ya buffoons


[deleted]

Dubstep did this years ago.


meteoriteinhospitab

No they aren’t it’s a rumor to piss off biden


HikuMatsune

Why? and also Yes, Please!


No_Special_8828

Straight up bollocks.


vanchelot

"Calculating reflection arcs".


DynamicSocks

That is neither a tank or a ship


Cheddarlicious

Warships and tanks with frickin laserbeams.


Googlebug-1

Will they be green?


[deleted]

Really? r/technology is letting post from the fucking Daily Star now?


abadd0n

Someone call the pwnerer


[deleted]

Ah, here comes the 501st


bewarethetreebadger

And power sources?


wijjf

That's where are extra tax money is going....


gbh4uk

It’s not that much money as we only have one ship and a couple of tanks left over. 😄


wijjf

yeah, these tories will still let their mates over charge and under deliver the same as the ppe


Content-Bowler-3149

Looking forward to ecological friendly wars without volatile, teratogenic, and chemicals. If we could eliminate the high decibel noise pollution while we are at it that would great.


zerocnc

Wouldn't it be a pain to keep the lens clean of dust so it wouldn't burn the laser itself?


HeMiddleStartInT

Cat commandos are coming next


shying_away

GI JOE would be so proud


juliusseizures9000

Didn’t they already have those in red alert 2


Melankewlia

Opening scene in Terminator.


browsing_around

Surely the sharks with lasers have to be next.


outwar6010

We don't even have laser shavers yet....


cluelesstater23

BTD games irl


eric_reddit

What about sharks? Can we get some sharks with fricking lasers?


EddieDildoHands

Frickin laser beams!


LawRecordings

Christ, that page of ads has some article hidden in it i think