• FaceDeer
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    1471 year ago

    A laser that is powerful enough to hurt a human target (especially a human target with body armor) is going to be powerful enough that it’ll be ionizing the air to some degree. It’ll be like a lightning bolt, there’ll be flashes of light and sharp cracking sounds. That’s also ignoring the fact that the random bits of terrain that the laser is hitting will also be exploding. Someone under “suppressing fire” from a laser weapon would be quite aware of the fact.

    • @Dimand
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      111 year ago

      The pure joy of putting a single joule of optical power into a sub nanosecond pulse.

      For those not familiar with lasers, that’s a GW of instantaneous power that you can focus down to a micron sized spot.

      https://youtu.be/Z1Xky_ermd4?si=1Luz0fuzm4kcwIwc

      All that said, the successful laser weapons right now seem to all be anti drone/aircraft and they are typically using tracked CW (not pulsed) lasers with heating over time to avoid atmospheric lensing. Lots of challenges to overcome in getting pulsed energy a long way through air.

      • @[email protected]
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        21 year ago

        I was wondering if we’d see pulsed lasers in anti-drone warfare… the power supply advantages aside, focusing on just the right point in time with the pulse seems hard.

        • @[email protected]
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          41 year ago

          The hard part is predicting atmospheric effects to get the focus right. It’s basically impossible without some form of just in time compensation. One idea I’ve seen is that you fire a physical projectile and use that to calibrate the focal point at arbitrary distance, almost like a laser tracer.

          • @Dimand
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            11 year ago

            It’s not easy but you can correct the atmosphere. This is done with guide stars and adaptive optics.

            The bigger challenge is that for intense pulsed lasers, the standard laser profile causes them to self focus in air through nonlinear effects. To overcome this you need to make weird profiles like top hats that are much hard to get just right.

            This is a fundamentally physical limitation that is pretty tricky to overcome.

        • @Antimoon51
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          21 year ago

          It might be hard, but with the processing power we can fit into microchips these days I’d say we fixed harder problems already. I mean, the controller needs at least two cameras or another methode of locating the target and estimating the distance, but I’d guess we could completely get rid of time of flight calculations as the light pulse would be instant for that matter.

          But again: I’m just guessing here

  • @[email protected]
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    741 year ago

    Suppressive fire is already an obselete doctrine. That’s why the British army is replacing their machine guns with DMRs (Canadian military may be heading in the same direction).

    Turns out turning a motherfuckers head into a fine red mist with a 7.62 tends to make everyone else around them really eager to seek cover. The threat of a well placed shot has a far better suppressing effect than the reality of a bunch of inaccurate fire.

      • ivanafterall
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        491 year ago

        May I propose a fully-automatic, belt-fed 7.62 sniper rifle as a noncredible happy medium?

      • @[email protected]
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        91 year ago

        Curious where you found a credible take.

        This “we’re past machine guns now” thing has been tried multiple times before, including by the brits.

        our rifles will shoot better instead

        our rifles will shoot more instead

        I wonder what MG they’ll get after this doesn’t work

        • @Stuka
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          1 year ago

          Sounds more like somebody doesn’t want to spend as much on small arms ammo than found a superior infantry doctrine

    • @[email protected]
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      121 year ago

      I’d imagine a sniper is probably one of the most effective ways to suppress a group. They probably don’t know where the shots are coming from, and don’t know when it’s safe to move again.

      Having said that, I would imagine there are situations where traditional suppression is better. A hail of bullets against the side of an APC is probably terrifying even if none of them are getting through. It’s going to be tough to get someone to open the hatch as the bullets are flying in. But, with designated marksmen only, you’d have to wait until the enemy tries to get out of the APC and then make a tough shot to hit them as they do.

    • @Sylvartas
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      81 year ago

      So, basically what the USSR did ? (IIRC, machine gunners and sharpshooters carrying some semi auto scoped rifle were basically interchangeable in their doctrine, at least during WW2)

  • @rtxn
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    251 year ago

    I don’t know, I’d probably at least duck if the fucking Macrowave started ionizing the piss out of the air near my face.

  • teft
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    211 year ago

    You also wont be able to see them with the naked eye. Imagine you’re on patrol and your buddy drops dead and there was no sound and no visible sign except the crackling from the fire that carved a hole in his chest. War is already scary enough tyvm. Everyone is going to have to wear white or reflective gear.

    • @[email protected]
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      81 year ago

      or reflective gear

      It would be fun if the silver spandex of classic Sci-Fi turned out to be standard uniforms to counter laser fire.

    • @[email protected]M
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      41 year ago

      Just like with snipers today, although i suspect that giant laser is not optimal weapon in high stakes hide and seek game

      • @[email protected]
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        71 year ago

        If there’s a constellation of them orbiting a few hundred kilometers up they’ll be pretty optimal. Like fairly optimal. Sufficiently optimal.

        • @[email protected]M
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          31 year ago

          You can’t hide those from ground-based anti-satellite laser

          It’ll be like with GBAD in Ukraine but in space, and satellites can shoot at other satellites too

          • @[email protected]
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            41 year ago

            Okay, hear me out: camouflage. Desert camo for the satellites orbiting between Earth and Mars. Ocean gray for satellites orbiting between Earth and Neptune. And we can get Hugo Boss to design the camouflage for the satellites between the Earth and the moon.

    • brianorca
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      1 year ago

      If they are wearing white, all the better to see them, and use a variety of guns on them. Besides, no white is perfect, even when clean, (which won’t last long) so the laser would still chew them up.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 year ago

        Also depends on the frequency of radiation used. Does it reflect infrared or microwaves? UV?

        • brianorca
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          11 year ago

          All true, but nothing reflects 100% even in the best case.

  • @[email protected]
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    1 year ago

    Yeah, a large part of suppressive fire is that the enemy doesn’t want to be randomly wounded.

    • @PM_Your_Nudes_Please
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      191 year ago

      And ironically, some armies are moving away from it because they’ve realized that suppressive fire isn’t super effective in modern urban warfare. When you’re trying to “suppress” someone in a building, there’s a good chance that they can just relocate and continue firing before you have a chance to move up. Your suppressive fire is suddenly aiming at the wrong area and isn’t doing anything.

      Instead, some armies (like the British armed forces) have started focusing on quality over quantity. Turns out, when every shot has a good chance to turn you to paste, you’re much more inclined to stay in cover. Even when you’re not being actively suppressed, knowing that they have a dozen scoped 7.62 rifles trained on your location means you’re hesitant to even peek your head out. They don’t need to burn through ammo to keep you suppressed, and the suppression is more effective. The occasional “hey we still have rifles aimed at you” warning shot is enough to keep them behind cover.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 year ago

        How does this tactic work when counting for light machine guns?

        specifically a SAW or 240B. Which as I understand is the largest enemy casualty producing weapon carried by a U.S. army member.

        I don’t know if it really counts as suppressive fire or just overwhelming fire power at that point

        • skulblaka
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          41 year ago

          Those are more of an area denial weapon. Less “suppressing fire” and more “oppressing fire”

  • @[email protected]
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    161 year ago

    The purpose of suppressive fire is to force the enemy to keep their heads down, so that you can flank them or something. Unless what you’re firing is harmless, it could be used to suppress.

  • @guy
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    151 year ago

    You’re telling me lasers don’t go “pew pew pew”?!

    • skulblaka
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      41 year ago

      They’d have to install a manual Pew switch. Go quiet for infiltration, or turn up the speakers for indimidation factor.

  • @EvilEyedPanda
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    1 year ago

    If Star Wars has taught me anything, this is incorrect, well still be sitting at about a 35% hit rate.

  • @Tronn4
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    91 year ago

    We gotta make the guns make the PEW PEW PEW sounds

  • @[email protected]
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    71 year ago

    If people were not aware of the suppressive fire, you’d be shooting it and watch people melt out of nowhere

  • @[email protected]
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    51 year ago

    Meh. If I saw a bunch of people pointing shit at me and the smell of ozone that would work, probably indefinitely.

  • Narrrz
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    51 year ago

    I’m just sad that plasma weapons are essentially a no-go in an atmospheric environment…

  • @bouh
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    31 year ago

    Time to fall back to suppressive drone strikes!