chinese laser weapon development

siegecrossbow said:

First hand-held "hard-kill" type laser? I think it is probably too cruel to be fielded.

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one would hope so Siege, but this kind power is hard to pass up.... it is very scary to think of this proliferating throughout the world...

When one person embraces this tech, then others feel compelled to "join in" or be left out??

Air Force Brat said:

You guys are "scary", no thought for the "morality" of burning another person to death, there is within each "whole" person a moral compass, even children have a powerful sense of right and wrong.. this is pure evil, and each time some new weapon is conceived, there are always, and without exception, those willing to do the unthinkable..

In contrast to a projectile launching rifle, this is a horrific tool that defies the limits of containment, and pushes us over the edge of the slippery slope!

We have agreed through international treaties such as the Geneva Convention to limit, nuclear, poison gases, even hollow point bullets that cause massive tissue destruction.... I would suggest that personal anti-personel lasers would fall into the same category...

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Flamethrowers, Naplam, incindiary bombs, nukes. All designed to or
inevitably burn people to death, and all used by the US, even on civilian targets as has happened in WWII and Vietnam.

Where was your moral outrage?

Weapons of war kills people. Whether you are blown to pieces by a bomb; cut to ribbons by shrapnel; ripped in two by 30mm antitank cannon rounds fired by an attack helicopter or A10, or shot to death by a FMJ bullet, the results are the same.

The ban on certain weapons are either because they kill indiscriminately (funny how nukes, the most indiscriminate and restrictive of all of man’s weapons is not banned), or caused unusually cruel suffering. But the Geneva convention is really far too antiquated and idiocentric to be a good guide on what future weapons should or shouldn’t be banned.

Technically one shouldn’t use anti-material rifles against soft human targets, but no one in the western militaries takes that part of the Geneva convention seriously.

The only time that was even seriously considered by western military circles was apparently when Iran started shipping their anti-material rifles to Syria and the Americans started to worry they might actually start being on the receiving end of such weapons, rather than being the ones shooting them.

In terms of lethality, an energy weapon could actually be more humane than conventional projectile weapons, and would almost be like the opposite of a hollow point. Whereas a hollowpoint is designed to cause maximum internal bleeding. A hole punched by a person by an energy weapon self-cauterises, so a person taking an non-lethal hit probably will have a better chance of survival from a laser hole than a bullet hole.

All military uniforms are flame retardant already in any case, so it’s unlikely for troops to be set alight by energy weapon hits, especially as those weapons come online and future uniforms starts being designed with countering laser burns as well.

Air Force Brat said:

Professor Wang has it right on this issue!

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Indeed.

It's especially frightening if someone can 'jailbreak' the ZKZM-500 to fire a continuous beam (cooling permitting) instead of those two second bursts. And then there's the next generation of batteries around the corner...

May technological progress doesn't seem so great \now.

I'm a little skeptical. If true that's a tremendous leap even if the shot last two seconds to burn through which is still a long time. A thousand shots? Can they play with the power? Lesser shots would be more than enough if the trade-off is more energy per shot. Two seconds trained on the same spot is still along time because in most situations people can be moving around and training in on something two seconds on the same spot is going to be difficult. Setting clothes on fire is more than adequate to render an enemy soldier out of commission. Setting things on fire around the enemy would cause chaos. Yeah it would be a game changer. That's if it works like they say it does.

Air Force Brat said:

You guys are "scary", no thought for the "morality" of burning another person to death, there is within each "whole" person a moral compass, even children have a powerful sense of right and wrong.. this is pure evil, and each time some new weapon is conceived, there are always, and without exception, those willing to do the unthinkable..

In contrast to a projectile launching rifle, this is a horrific tool that defies the limits of containment, and pushes us over the edge of the slippery slope!

We have agreed through international treaties such as the Geneva Convention to limit, nuclear, poison gases, even hollow point bullets that cause massive tissue destruction.... I would suggest that personal anti-personel lasers would fall into the same category...

Click to expand...

Don't worry, Brat! Unlike Hollow Point RIP bullets which can be purchased by civilians in the US, China will be very responsible ensuring that the only clients of these weapons are the Chinese armed forces, as mentioned in the article. That way, they are in the most trustworthy hands in the world and would only be used against the evil forces which might seek to undermine China. Peace to Asia!

siegecrossbow said:

First hand-held "hard-kill" type laser? I think it is probably too cruel to be fielded.

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I thought lasers were a thing of the future, and always will be.

Air Force Brat said:

You guys are "scary", no thought for the "morality" of burning another person to death, there is within each "whole" person a moral compass, even children have a powerful sense of right and wrong.. this is pure evil, and each time some new weapon is conceived, there are always, and without exception, those willing to do the unthinkable..

In contrast to a projectile launching rifle, this is a horrific tool that defies the limits of containment, and pushes us over the edge of the slippery slope!

We have agreed through international treaties such as the Geneva Convention to limit, nuclear, poison gases, even hollow point bullets that cause massive tissue destruction.... I would suggest that personal anti-personel lasers would fall into the same category...

Click to expand...

You actually think napalm or thermobarics are any less cruel? The US uses both. Cluster bombs were banned by international treaty. But oh wait, the US decided not to sign at the dotted line. So let's not get selective in our "morality" here. For down that path lies damnation.

Killing people is cruel. That's all there is to it. Disarmament should be taken up by everyone but having been the victim of multiple eras of violence, Chinese people would rather develop defence than listen to someone who says something is cruel but has been the criminal throughout much of its history. What is more cruel about being burned alive by a hand held laser (assumed to be effective at its job of frying human beings in a cruel way) and being blown apart by an Abrams tank or an M16? I really don't see the difference. All are cruel, it's just an issue of effectiveness and if something effective by China is achieved, the other sided complains about it. I didn't hear the Chinese complaining about US atomic weapons being used on Japan. That was cruel. No two ways about it. China realised they needed to develop their own after receiving multiple nuclear threats from the US during the Korean War.

Brat's opinion on this is yet another clear double standard. US is allowed weaponry (cruel or not is subjective and determined by them) because they have an assumed moral superiority despite every piece of evidence weighing against this assumption. Americans using innocent civilians and their children as target practice in multiple wars just in the last century and possibly even this one, is not cruel. You guys are the very last people who should have an opinion on what is cruel and not. And this includes Islamic fanatics. At least we can see and assess our own wrongdoings but it seems to me that many chauvinistic westerners just love ignoring their own (ie. not all westerners).

Air Force Brat said:

You guys are "scary", no thought for the "morality" of burning another person to death, there is within each "whole" person a moral compass, even children have a powerful sense of right and wrong.. this is pure evil, and each time some new weapon is conceived, there are always, and without exception, those willing to do the unthinkable..

In contrast to a projectile launching rifle, this is a horrific tool that defies the limits of containment, and pushes us over the edge of the slippery slope!

We have agreed through international treaties such as the Geneva Convention to limit, nuclear, poison gases, even hollow point bullets that cause massive tissue destruction.... I would suggest that personal anti-personel lasers would fall into the same category...

Click to expand...

Sorry to break it to you brother, even though I like America very much but America was the one of the most prolific users of cruel weapons of war post WW2. Maybe its because the US took the burden of most of the Western nation's wars after the devastating world wars.

Depleted Uranium (radioactive dust caused lasting illness for vets and locals especially in Fallujah), cluster munitions, agent orange (severe birth defects for generations), napalm, flamethrowers, were effective weapons of war but they have cruel effects for those on the receiving end and sometimes for the American troops aswell. To be honest if a weak nation utilised some of these weapons during war the perpetrator might be tried as a war criminal.

btw a guy I knew from back in university was an army vet who participated in the second battle of Fallujah. He suffers permanent pain in his lower back from all the weight he carried and he was not a small guy at 6'2" and fairly muscular (now he gained much weight from the damage to his body). Fortunately he didn't suffer noticeable health effects from DU that was prolifically used in Fallujah.

Lets not make war sound clinical. I haven't experienced it myself but from what others have told me, it is anything but clinical. It is intense, dirty, and sometimes revolting, at least from a grunt's perspective.

I just read a CNET article on it. It's very short about a paragraph and it basically charges that its main use will be for any civilian that goes against the government. That's called panic and not because it's a weapon.

Air Force Brat said:

You guys are "scary", no thought for the "morality" of burning another person to death, there is within each "whole" person a moral compass, even children have a powerful sense of right and wrong.. this is pure evil, and each time some new weapon is conceived, there are always, and without exception, those willing to do the unthinkable..

In contrast to a projectile launching rifle, this is a horrific tool that defies the limits of containment, and pushes us over the edge of the slippery slope!

We have agreed through international treaties such as the Geneva Convention to limit, nuclear, poison gases, even hollow point bullets that cause massive tissue destruction.... I would suggest that personal anti-personel lasers would fall into the same category...

Click to expand...

No consensus has been made on what's allowed for lethal laser use yet. Personally, I don't see how it's any worse than the use of thermobaric weapons or flame throwers. Even comparing to rifles, what do you think makes lethal laser weapons more horrific than regular ol' rifles? Rifles will probably either make a way bigger exit wound, or stay inside the victim's body in the shape of shrapnels. I'd argue that's worse.