DREAD Weapon System: Devastating, Jam proof, silent

[Rezwan]

Great. While we’re sitting here trying to get fusion to work, there are people out there who say they have this thing working: http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_DREAD,,00.html

When you absolutely, positively have to kill every #&%$@ in the room.

Intelligent people find employment in weapon design. Happy New Year.

[Rezwan]

Why can’t they put all that inventive energy toward making a silent leaf-blower? Blow leaves away.

Are people leaves that you should blow them away?

[Frenetic]

Rezwan wrote: Great. While we’re sitting here trying to get fusion to work, there are people out there who say they have this thing working: http://www.military.com/soldiertech/0,14632,Soldiertech_DREAD,,00.html

When you absolutely, positively have to kill every #&%$@ in the room.

Intelligent people find employment in weapon design. Happy New Year.

Don’t worry! This thing ain’t ready for prime time. Most likely, it never will be. Whoever wrote the article hasn’t got a good grip on Newton’s laws of motion, either.

[Transmute]

First of all, what does this have to do with fusion? Second of all the mechanism of action is highly questionable: as it releases bullets (which are round balls and have very poor aerodynamic properties thus greatly limiting range) the spinner will slow down very rapidly so it needs a great amount of power to spin up and keep firing, even worse to shot off rounds at such high speeds its got to be spinning with the edges moving at supersonic speeds, that going to make it as loud as #$%^, it going to sound something like 10^3 saw mill blades all going off at once! It looks like an ingenious idea at first glace but its actually very stupid.

[Jolly Roger]

If you are feeling suicidal, you could simulate this weapon by dropping BB’s on a rotary sander. Sounds like something I would have done as a kid. 😉

[Rezwan]

Transmute wrote: First of all, what does this have to do with fusion?

It wasn’t about fusion so much as the misapplication of human ingenuity. Talk about wasted energy. But you’re right, probably drawing attention to this waste of human energy just compounds the waste.

[Jolly Roger]

But just think of the damage a 5 MW, Focus-Fusion-powered centrifuge could do! Maybe we could sling bowling balls at 5,000 rounds per minute! 😉

And, of course, those bowling balls would be made from Fusion Oil! 😉

[Transmute]

Look the centrifuge will never work, it would have too limited range and accuracy. Why not have a focus fusion powered laser? There working on high wattage diode lasers for weapons to take down missiles and artillery fire, a DPF fusion reactor could start up much faster then a turbine so the response time after detecting a missile would be much shorter. Or you could use a DPF (non-fusion) to make a plasma cannon, far fenched I know. Or how about a DPF fusion powered rail gun.

[Lerner]

First why in the world do we even want a new weapon–we have too many as is.

Over the years I’ve looked at weapon applications in order to answer the question of whether focus fusion is a proliferation threat. The conclusion I have always reched is that the only way it can be used as a weapon is to drop it on someone’s head. To put it another way, you can kill people with a hammer, but that does not make a hammer a weapon.

Focus fusion is a source of three things–electricity, ion beams and x-rays. It is very difficult to make electricity into a weapon–it has been aroudn along time and no one has succeeded. X-rays are easily stopped by shielding and get diluted rapdily with distance.

So that leaves the ion beam. In space it is very hard to aim a charged particle beam because of the earth’s magnetic fields. In air, the beam will just not penetrate very far.

So, focus fusion is only for peaceful applications. Unfortunately we already know how to use thermonuclear reactions for warfare.

[Transmute]

Aah Lerner you forget the old saying “anything can be used as a weapon”. I’m sure that if it works the military will find some use for it, either for simply powering ships/subs and military installations to powering energy weapons. It is DPF fault? No just human nature. Does that mean that because DPF could be used for some military purpose no matter how limited, we should not considering developing it despite the vast amount of good it could do? I think that later question is self-answering. I would even say that nuclear power should be used despite its potential for nuclear weapons proliferation, that the goods out weigh the bads.

[Brian H]

Rezwan wrote: Why can’t they put all that inventive energy toward making a silent leaf-blower? Blow leaves away.

Are people leaves that you should blow them away?

Only zome uf you. Ve haf a liddle list!

[Tasmodevil44]

Scientists have already developed something called a free electron laser that amplifies a laser by having photons of light in a laser beam travel parallel to an electron beam and a channel of magnets. As the magnets wiggle the electron beam, it imparts energy to the laser photons.

I have wondered if the FF could power a free alpha laser instead, where the negative charged electrons are substituted and replaced by the positive alpha beam coming out of the FF reactor. It would work in much the same way : the alpha particles are wiggled by magnetic fields, transferring their energy over to the laser photons …… thereby amplifying it.

But like Lerner said, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain, etc. already have enough weapons to destroy the entire world many times over. Who really needs more ?

However, I can see some peaceful applications of a free alpha laser driven by the energetic alpha beam of the FF reactor. Perhaps a powerful pulsed beam could be an alternative way to blast a road tunnel or a railroad tunnel through a mountain or something.

I know this may be drifting a little off the main subject here, but I just decided to mention this as still yet another possible application of the DPF in the future.

[annodomini2]

Tasmodevil44 wrote: Scientists have already developed something called a free electron laser that amplifies a laser by having photons of light in a laser beam travel parallel to an electron beam and a channel of magnets. As the magnets wiggle the electron beam, it imparts energy to the laser photons.

I have wondered if the FF could power a free alpha laser instead, where the negative charged electrons are substituted and replaced by the positive alpha beam coming out of the FF reactor. It would work in much the same way : the alpha particles are wiggled by magnetic fields, transferring their energy over to the laser photons …… thereby amplifying it.

But like Lerner said, the United States, Russia, China, Japan, Great Britain, etc. already have enough weapons to destroy the entire world many times over. Who really needs more ?

However, I can see some peaceful applications of a free alpha laser driven by the energetic alpha beam of the FF reactor. Perhaps a powerful pulsed beam could be an alternative way to blast a road tunnel or a railroad tunnel through a mountain or something.

I know this may be drifting a little off the main subject here, but I just decided to mention this as still yet another possible application of the DPF in the future.

Or use the laser for some of the solar sail space propulsion concepts?

[Tasmodevil44]

I never thought of that. But yes, an incredibly powerful focus fusion laser could theoretically be used to accelerate a solar sailing craft to Mars. Or beyond Neptune, Pluto, even beyond the solar system.

[Brian H]

Tasmodevil44 wrote: I never thought of that. But yes, an incredibly powerful focus fusion laser could theoretically be used to accelerate a solar sailing craft to Mars. Or beyond Neptune, Pluto, even beyond the solar system.

I don’t see why you’d bother. Take along a tonne of decaborane and an FF generator or ten, harvest a bit of hydrogen along the way from the interstellar medium, and you could get far more power and acceleration and control and options. With a solar sail, you can’t wander out of the beam or you’re helpless until a signal can be aimed back to the source and the laser re-directed. Braking is tricky, too. You have to pop a counter-mirror out front and turn the sail around to get the bounce-back, or SLT.

[Author]

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