DailyDirt: Flying Weapons
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
If there's a way to make a weapon more mobile, the military has probably tried it. Bat bombs were created during World War II, but after spending a couple million dollars on development, the project was cancelled. Here are just a few more modern examples of flying weapons that are currently under development.- Mav6 is building deadly blimps -- attaching guided missile systems to a huge, optionally-manned airship. This blimp can hover for a week a time, and it's surveillance capabilities could be coming back to the homeland... [url]
- The Airborne Laser was a proof-of-concept weapon that could take out missiles (in flight!) by shooting a laser from a modified Boeing 747. It's not really a practical way to shoot down missiles, but the idea seems to pop up about as often as putting lasers on sharks. [url]
- The US Navy is planning to convert some of its unmanned Fire Scout helicopters into autonomous pirate hunters. These ship-launched helicopters would be able to keep an eye out for small boats and possibly deter Somali pirates on the open seas. [url]
- To discover more interesting tech-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]
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Filed Under: airborne laser, airplanes, blimps, fire scout helicopters, missiles, unmanned drones, weapons
Companies: mav6, us navy
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Look its a blimp!
MovieBadGuy'sNotsobrightasistant: What should we do about it?
MovieBadguy:I don't know, what vulnerabilities could a balloon the length of a football field have?
MovieBadGuy'sNotsobrightasistant: I don't know, it seems impossible.
MovieBadguy: You idiot. Go get me a sling shot and a penny nail. I swear some times you are too dumb to work here. But you work for fish heads so I can't complain.
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Re: Look its a blimp!
fish-head soup
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Re: There's a reason blimps stopped being used in warfare after WWI.
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Re: Re: There's a reason blimps stopped being used in warfare after WWI.
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Re: Re: Re: There's a reason blimps stopped being used in warfare after WWI.
Also since the actual tanks are in closed in cells that are designed to be stronger then the skin, the likely of shooting one down is pretty minimal as you would need to hit one or more of the tanks.
The skin is just to make it pretty and help with aero dynamics. Just be easier to shoot out its engines. Then if the blimp is occupied you have prisoners for bartering. Else, just steal all the electronics out and find a vulnerability. You could theoretically use a strong enough emp cannon, but there is bound to be more shielding from rf interference then on the ground. To much risk for stray signals getting a direct hit.
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Re: There's a reason blimps stopped being used in warfare after WWI.
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Uncanny
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Holy Bat Bomb!!!! The government chose nukes instead :-)
Now as most everyone knows, bats love flying into rafters and whatnot. When they ran the test on a mockup on a Japanese suburban neighborhood, the bats flew straight into the houses which burnt to a crisp. Even some of the houses on base caught on fire.
The test was so successful that if the Atom Bomb had not been in testing stages, our loveable bat bomb would have been used.
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http://hackaday.com/2012/05/07/fancy-telemetry-control-display-for-a-quadcopter/
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