North Korea, Iran, and Palestinian mortar enthusiasts; hah!

[Ancient and Holy Terra]

Time for laser reflective RPGs...

*cough*

Ha! I'll just put mirrors on all of my stuff. Then your lasers won't work!

This is actually a rather common misconception. First of all, not all lasers operate in the visible spectrum, which means that a given mirror won't be 100% effective against all lasers.

Second, a mirror needs to have 100% efficiency for this to work well, and no mirror operates at 100% efficiency. Even laser-grade mirrors-- eg mirrors as good as the ones used in the laser itself-- won't work for this, because they don't try to absorb the full power of the beam and are just used to focus it.

Third, shining a laser pointer at your bathroom mirror is rather an order of magnitude away from what happens with a combat laser-- at least 100 KW (assuming your laser doesn't suck) is being focused on a tiny area.

Assuming you've done something impossible and created the perfect mirror, it still won't work. Anything at all on a mirror-- water, bugs, dust, fingerprints, the ice that forms on aircraft at high altitudes-- will absorb enough energy to instantly vaporize with the first few pulses, transferring heat and distortions and vibrations to the mirror. The glass will crack and shatter (or the material will distort, if it's not made of glass), and the mirror at that point becomes useless.

Also, obviously enough, covering something mostly with mirrors will make it's radar cross signature larger, which means it will be less stealthy.

I said laser reflective not rpgs with mirrors on them.
If man can make a powerful laser then man can make a material that can resist said laser.

Honestly, when I think "reflective", I think "mirrors". ^^

If you were going for something like an ablative coating, that is addressed as well. Again, I wouldn't take any of this as gospel, but lasers are fairly difficult to overcome without exotic solutions.

[Rambhutan]

I think Aelosia is right that there might be plenty of cheap low-tech ways that could render this ineffective. Clouds of dust released over the target, strips of reflective mylar, bad weather, sandstorms, spinning missiles to distribute the heat....

[Mikoyan-Guryevich]

I think Aelosia is right that there might be plenty of cheap low-tech ways that could render this ineffective. Clouds of dust released over the target, strips of reflective mylar, bad weather, sandstorms, spinning missiles to distribute the heat....

It isn't like this is going to be a fix-all to the problem anyway. I reckon that aiming missiles on a smaller angle could defeat the system as well. I expect Palestine to go back to doing things the 'old-fashioned' way, by which taking their dynamite for a short stroll into an armoured column.

[Dumb Ideologies]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

[Caninope]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

[Aelosia]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Explosive consequences that will never be the same?

[Brandenburg-Altmark]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Explosive consequences that will never be the same?

Don't make me call those cyber police, Aelosia...

[Dumb Ideologies]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Explosive consequences that will never be the same?

Don't make me call those cyber police, Aelosia...

What would be your mortarvation?

[Call to power]

The C-RAM is already being used in the likes of Iraq for destroying incoming mortars (and also pinpointing where the mortars are coming from as shown in a hilarious Taliban bloopers vid)

so whats the point in building an expensive laser that may not work again?

What if people start covering aircrafts and missiles with mirrors? Or just making them very shiny shiny?

I believe one of America's enemies already has missiles that fire tin foil countermeasures

This technology is a money sink. The cost of improving your warheads to be able to bypass defenses will always be far lower than the cost of improving the effectiveness of your defenses, so the person working on "shields" will always be at a disadvantage.

history says no in for example trench warfare which applies much the same logic of mowing down any offending Johnny Foreigner

not that this is really an argument as western nations have more to spend than their rusting North Korean friends or simple Terry

It's a sad day when the military start copying a computer game

I want my Tanya dammit!

[Veblenia]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Indeed. We should all reflect on the implications.

[Big Jim P]

What if people start covering aircrafts and missiles with mirrors? Or just making them very shiny shiny?

as it said in the article, a shiny material becomes less shiny as it heats up.

And glass is not a suitable material for airplanes.

"as developers discovered in the 1960s when trying to target Russian Mig aircraft - a reflective surface can negate much of the laser's effectiveness."

The developers also said that.

C'mon, they can always discard mirrors for some shinier material.

Or simply apply a coat of paint the same colour as the laser (assuming the laser in the visible spectrum).

[Norstal]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Explosive consequences that will never be the same?

Don't make me call those cyber police, Aelosia...

What would be your mortarvation?

Maybe he just want collateral damage.

[Big Jim P]

I think there's mortar this story than meets the eye.

I think it will have explosive consequences.

Explosive consequences that will never be the same?

Don't make me call those cyber police, Aelosia...

What would be your mortarvation?

Well, a couple of you people deserve the punishment.

[Calenhardon]

and, of course, if this does work, it only gives N. Korea a huge incentive to attack before all their weapons become obsolete.

[Southern Patriots]

and, of course, if this does work, it only gives N. Korea a huge incentive to attack before all their weapons become obsolete.

Aside from the nukes, what weapons do they have that aren't Cold War era throwbacks (at best)?

[Brandenburg-Altmark]

This technology is a money sink. The cost of improving your warheads to be able to bypass defenses will always be far lower than the cost of improving the effectiveness of your defenses, so the person working on "shields" will always be at a disadvantage.

history says no in for example trench warfare which applies much the same logic of mowing down any offending Johnny Foreigner

not that this is really an argument as western nations have more to spend than their rusting North Korean friends or simple Terry

I was thinking along the lines of the Cold War arms race. Every time America attempted to build countermeasures, the Soviets just doubled the amount of warheads in their missiles, thus making any attempt to shoot them down futile. For every one countermeasure system, the USSR could build 20 ICBMs that would overwhelm it, because it was cheaper to create missiles that were harder to defeat than it was to create a more advanced system to defeat them. Even then, building 10 miles of trenches and barbed wire for defense in depth was a hell of a lot more expensive than building 50 tanks to roll right over them, and that was the real end of trench warfare.