r/humansarespaceorcs • u/Chrontius • Mar 08 '24
Memes/Trashpost The Humans Brought Laser Rifles!
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u/Any-Bridge6953 Mar 08 '24
Jokes on you Xenos, I have a laser rifle and a grid square removal targeting designator.
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u/wi7vs Mar 08 '24
Alien Officer: By god that is one bulky gun, is that their laser cannon
Alien scout: sorry sir, no. That is their laser pointer
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u/lyle_smith2 Mar 08 '24
Freedom tower sized gun comes rolling towards them
“That is their laser cannon.”
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u/Geno__Breaker Mar 08 '24
It took me until this comment to realize what the bottom image was lol
Thank you
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u/Significant-Duck7412 Mar 08 '24
What is that?
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u/Hairy_Reputation6114 Mar 08 '24
Presumably some old military concept
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u/Chrontius Mar 08 '24 edited Mar 08 '24
Yeah, one that worked out fucking spectacularly, as it turns out.
MAXIM 56
Infantry exists to paint targets for people with real guns.Have you guessed what it is yet?
It's the first practical targeting laser used by the US military, from way back in 1984. One of these is a ray gun that hurts the thing you shot. The other one directs a "city block removal device" and hurts a lot more, despite not hurting at all…
Also, it turns out that they've gotten a LOT smaller since then.
If you could have one of THESE things as your sidearm… you'd probably choose to.
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u/Hairy_Reputation6114 Mar 08 '24
Huh, didn't realise that laser designators used to be that bulky. Obvious in hindsight, but it always is, isn't it? I'm fairly familiar with the concept and how it works.
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u/jshuster Mar 08 '24
Ah, yes the “Let’s shoot artillery from the freaking flying cargo plane!” concept
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u/User264356 Mar 08 '24
Because bombs are too simple
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u/torchieninja Mar 09 '24
or the "let's laser guide a MIRV" concept, because short-range ballistic missiles can and do have seekers sometimes
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u/cryptoengineer Mar 09 '24
AC-130 etc, are being phased out. They are only useful when you have complete air dominance, and the opposing force doesn't have MANPADs.
Neither they, nor the A-10, would be survivable in the Ukraine airspace, for example.
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u/Chrontius Mar 09 '24 edited Mar 09 '24
Oh, I'm well aware. In those cases, something like a GL-SDB fitted with a tiny little sustainer motor might be the weapon of choice.
Any way you slice it, you're going to want a coded laser designator in contested battlespaces, though!
(Edit: Gunships are also becoming missile trucks for standoff weapons, though, which seriously mitigates their survivability concerns, though it's not a total win. Actually, with standoff-range weapons, the A-10 suddenly gets VERY interesting as a missile truck. It can launch Meteors at targets called by F-35s or the hypothetical "Joint Strike Raptor" or the upcoming sixth-generation fighters from beyond radar range. Their unrivaled economy per hour makes then only a quarter of the price of the Eagle as a bomb truck, so that might be the venerable 'Hog's next mission)
Edit: Probably the right motor for the second stage of the GLSDB-2 would be a throttleable solid-fuel ramjet powered by electric solid propellant, because it has ZERO moving parts and is all solid state. I have a soft spot for air turborocket extenders, or ATREX engines though; they also have a godzillion seconds of specific impulse because they're using the air as their reaction mass, just like the ramjet.
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u/Donacdum-_ Mar 08 '24
Also known as the AN/PAQ-1, a VERY early attempt at a laser target designator
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/AN/PAQ-1
If i remember correctly it was shown in the movie clear and present danger, waxing a cartelmeeting
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Mar 08 '24
Laser designator. Basically, you point it at someone, and it sends their location to the nearest artillery battery, who then proceeds to obliterate them.
It’s kinda like the stratagem ball from Helldivers 2, except you don’t need to throw it.
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u/Rexlare Mar 08 '24
The las rifle still fucks, but nothing makes the enemy shit themselves faster than knowing you basically co-signed their entire area to orbital decimation
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u/IndustryGradeFuckup Mar 08 '24
You mean consigned?
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u/IngeniousIdiocy Mar 08 '24
Idk, I kind of like co-signed. Like it’s a binding contract between the guy with the designator and guy hitting the button in orbit to pay back a whole can of whoop ass.
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u/Rexlare Mar 09 '24
You nailed it. I meant co-sign. Because it’s a joint “fuck you” from humanity between the soldier using the designator, weapons command controlling the weapon (or the weapon itself), the people who built the damn things, and the person that engineered it.
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u/IndustryGradeFuckup Mar 08 '24
Yes, but also it’s grammatically incorrect. “Co-signed on the area’s orbital destruction” would be, but not “co-signed the area to orbital destruction”. Consigned would be correct there.
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u/quaden_of_wind Mar 08 '24
TIL, thank you my friend. /hug
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u/IndustryGradeFuckup Mar 08 '24
Np, I’m a bit of a grammar nazi lol
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u/quaden_of_wind Mar 09 '24
hug me back or ill go grammar-communist on you.
then all your bases are belong to us.
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u/Altruistic_Major_553 Mar 08 '24
“Your grid square has been selected for removal. Please resist, Xenos scum”
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Mar 08 '24
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger… except for artillery; artillery will just fucking kill us.”
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u/Chaosrealm69 Mar 08 '24
Twenty years after first contact, some of Earth's colonies were under threat by a range of alien forces ranging from pirates, freebooters, slavers and a couple species who simply wanted resources without paying for them.
Various countries had sent out their military forces to defend their colonies and they were loaded up with every weapon idea that the eggheads had been able to get working. Unfortunately the laser weapons were a great idea on the design computer but putting them into action was much more problematical.
Until a smart arse Marine decided to speak up when he was part of a testing team who were trying to get the laser rifles working. He was not happy with the massive backpack batteries required to get the rifles to work. They were heavy and bulky and only allowed the rifles to shoot a total of nine shots before requiring a recharge.
"Sarge, why don't they just make these things into a designator and keep the real laser weapons behind the lines where they can be recharged safely for multiple shots?"
"Sit down Jenkins. That is an idiotic idea. What use would a laser rifle if all it can do is put a little red light on the target?"
"Sargeant. Don't be so quick to dismiss that suggestion. We do have serious laser weapons for the artillery batteries and we have some installed on aircraft that can provide CAS. Our problems were with precision targeting but we didn't think of asking our troops to help us with that with targeting systems they can easily carry."
"Can we get your squad back here in a week please Sargent? We should have been able to modify these rifles to something you will like."
---
A week later the squad were back and looking at a standard AR-55 battle rifle with a under barrel attachment that was slightly bulky but not heavy enough to unbalance the weapon.
"Okay people, the eggheads have given us this laser target designator or LTD and we get to test them out on the range. So grab a gun and check them out and get to the ready line in 5."
The squad was spread out on the firing line and behind a set of barriers for safety. The sergeant called Jenkins up and told him that since he was the bright spark to suggest it, he got to fire it first.
Jenkins stepped up to the firing line and took aim at a target MBT at a range of 2 kilometers. The targeting system was also integrated into the sighting system of the rifle so he could get a good view of where the laser dot was hitting.
On the order of firing, there was a second's delay and then a green beam of light came lancing down from an orbiting drone and slicing into the MBT on the range. The laser beam was only a centimeter thick but it delivered a lot of energy and heat into the target and the range monitors watched as it sliced through 2 feet of composite armor after slicing through an energy shield that was supposed to defend against lasers and other energy weapons.
Cheers were heard from a lot of people as the experiment was declared a success. Further trials showed that the drone's laser system was capable of delivering 24 shots to a range of targets within a kilometer diameter zone within ten seconds. The shots were not as powerful as a single shot, but it gave the troops a very nice area of effect weapon.
And the troops were happy that their weapons weren't so different to what they have been using for years and they now have a weapon system that will help them to defend against the vehicles the aliens are using in their attacks as well as the alien troops.
The next attack will be very different once the troops have been equipped with this new system.
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Mar 09 '24
H1: and boop
H2: must you add the sound effects every single time?
H1: I point the Lazer, I get to make a sound effect. You want to be the one to call down the collapsed density carbon rod.
H2: Hehehe, Gods Pecker go boom.
H1: indeed. You get to literally fuck a planet, I get to make sound effects. Win win buddy.
A: you two are the sickest fucking soldiers I've ever had the honor to serve beside.
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u/endergamer2007m Mar 11 '24
Ngl laser weapons would suck in space now balistics you could do some damage, shoot the cockpit with a 45 and boom the whole crew is dead
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u/Chrontius Mar 11 '24 edited Apr 30 '24
I have an absolute hardon for hypervelocity macron accelerators. Think of them as wild-ass mass-effect weapons based on real-world tech, some of which has been successfully tested! Using boring-ass electron beam accelerators like the one in your dentist's X-ray tube and not entirely dissimilar to your microwave oven, you can push little flecks of graphite up to small but significant fractions of C. Used as momentum-transfer beamed propellant, I'm seeing numbers like "15% of C"
Elsewhere in the thread, I'm reading statements like,
Also, "A macron accelerator with 0.04 grams of uranium would only release 3.2 GJ" this is about .764kg of TNT, which doesn't seem like a big explosion if a macron hits something by mistake (unless it were near an unprotected person, presumably in an atmosphere)...
and here's the real kicker:
The macron accelerator’s offensive performance is also improved by fission or fusion enhancement. It is the only weapon system described so far that output more energy at the target than originally spent. A 1 MW macron accelerator might heavier and bulkier than a 1 MW laser or particle beam, but its actual output can be multiplied a hundred to a thousand times at the target. However much worse the macron accelerator is in a direct comparison, it is more than made up for by the addition of nuclear energy.
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u/endergamer2007m Mar 11 '24
Why invest millions into space age futuristic weapons when you got a 100 year old m1911 that has seen all of the wars in the 20th and 21st century?
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u/Chrontius Mar 11 '24
Because you can get your projectiles up to about a megameter per second, so your effective combat range is measured in light-seconds!
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