http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/01/14/ger.../#ixzz2IHVKwmdP
be afraid, be very very afraid!
capable of cutting through half an inch of armor plating from 2/3 of a mile away.

That's some impressively scary tech.

Yes, yes it is.

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... can I have one?

IIRC, a year (or two) ago Americans successfully tested one from a helicopter that destroyed a ground target.

... 4 years. Man I feel old now. Article.

OTOH, the guy who made this was from Germany.

NEraph, the C-130H is not a helicopter. It's a CARGO PLANE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-130H#C-130H_model

Whereas the vehicle-mounted 1Kw version built by Rheinmetall can be mounted on an APC; they used the TM-170: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TM-170

Wee slight difference of scale, n'est-ce pas?

Hepticopter, aarplain, whichever.

My point was that Boeing had a working one four years ago, which means definite room for improvement (as in, they probably have by now). Further, they successfully tested it against a ground target while in motion. You're right - that is a definite difference of scale. Go to a gun range and practice shooting a target, then try shooting the same target while biking past it.

Multi-axis stabilized gun mounts are a pretty well understood technology.

The C-139 Hercules is a large aircraft. It's the airframe they based the gunships used in Viet Nam off of - meaning, it's a plane that can and does mount 155mm Howitzer artillery pieces as just one of several weapon systems..


The system fired from that C-130H was a Chemical laser. Which means, it has a limited amount of ammunition - and that there's not a lot of room for improving how many shots' worth can be carried.

Whereas the Rheinmetall weapon, though immobile and ground based in it's present incarnation ... I see no indication it's a chemical weapon. (I also see no practical reason it couldn't be mounted on a naval vessel ... with all the happy benefits of a nuclear power plant to run it with, too.)

And they have a much smaller, 1Kw version they can put on a frelling truck. A truck that the C-130H could carry two or three of, mind you.


Rheinmetall's 50kW system tracked an 82mm steel ball, which was itself a moving target - the laser system was in "skyguard" configuration, meaning "anti-aircraft" - they aither shot, or air-dropped, that ~3-inch metal ball.

So, yeah. Shoot a stationary ground vehicle from an airplane moving in a straight line ... or shoot an 82mm ball that's moving in a ballistic arc, with a stationary gun. Guess which one is a harder target to hit.

Given their problems to develop batteries that don't explode ...


I'd assume it was one, though there have been persistent rumors of a super battery being developed by automobile corps. Nothing has been shown though, so it's probably bogus.


Rather, driving past it in a vehicle with fire-on-the-move technology (incidentally, Rheinmetall produces those too, though, so the tech may be related).