Self-Aiming Sniper Rifles Coming Next Year
A sniper crouches near an open window and zooms in on his target, who sits a half-mile away. He peers through a scope and holds his breath, preparing to squeeze the trigger. But it’s windy outside, and he can't afford a miss. What to do?
Clearly, he needs a self-aiming gun. Fortunately, one should be available next year.
Obviously, there's a host of non-trivial hardware and software issues before this becomes a reality. The way the article is written, it's hard to gather how the target is selected/acquired beforehand; it appears to be linked to the spotter as well. I'm obviously in favor of anything that helps the soldiers in the field kill terrorist assholes, that's for damned sure. I do wonder, though, how this will impact the civilian market down the road. It's hard to see how it could be made .mil only (unless it costs > $10K, in which case it may very well be self-correcting), and if this hits the civilian market it may make things very interesting. My question, though, is whether the anti-gun forces would decry this (sniper rifle!) or mandate it (because then we can all shoot the gun out of the bad guy's hand!)...
Oh and guys?
Lockheed is supposed to deliver 15 field-testable prototypes by next October.
If you happen to have a 16th unit, I know someone who does product testing... Just sayin' is all...
That is all.
Link from PISSED, who always manages to find the coolest links!
8 comments:
I'll believe it when I see it.
When it arrives, the Army'll pay $50,000 a unit, where it'll be immediately locked up in Supply, so that it won't come out of the Unit's budget. Meanwhile, the Chinese will have a knockoff ready to go a year ahead of schedule. Been down this road before.
Semantics are such a bitch. I read that and thought, "Holy crap, half a mile?!?"
Then I paused and said, "Self, that's 800m. It's a long shot, absolutely, but it's not unreasonable."
The military will use it to kill pirate bastards with the utmost efficiency.
It will be mandated to the po-leece so they can shoot knives out of hands.
It will be banned for us. Hell, it won't even be allowed to be imported for us, no sporting use and such.
My crystal ball is smoking from that one.
3600 feet == 1097 meters
The interesting part is measuring Cross winds. DARPA is not looking for just average crosswinds, they want do cross wind speed and direction at intervals along the entire trajectory.
Doppler laser works for the task, but only if they have enough particles in the path to reflect the twin beams.
.....now somebody on the fire team will need to be a Tech.
"Clearly, he needs a self-aiming gun."
I thought the military actually, you know, TRAINED its snipers?
Hey, you beat Insty by 6 hours!
Heh.
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