new weapon systems

[Jawz II]

a few years ago i was at the bofors weapons factory in sweden and got to see where they made the 40mm bofors ammo,and the AT4s,but the cool thing i got to see was the prototypes on display of weapons to come out of that place in the future

what i remember of these was, a new type of shoulderfired AT missile launcher where they were going to reduce the backblast somehow with saltwater(!) which would allow it to be fired from confined spaces, great for ambushing tanks,the guy that was showing me around said if the chechnyans (that conflict was pretty new at that time) had them not 1 russian tank wouldve made it into the chehcnyan capital(forgot the name,is it grozny?)

the other thing was a rocket that was maybe 25-30 cm long and about 6 cm in diameter,pretty small and had a launching device which was made up of what looked like a round plastic thing with a metal pin sticking up from it and not much else,i think there was some buttons and stuff on there 2,cant remeber exactly,anyway it looked alot like fireworks,like a bottle rocket or something

the guy told me it was the next generation of artillery where infantry would carry these light weight rockets and launch thingies with them to field and when needed they place it on the ground and feed the target data into the rocket and it would land right on it,kinda like mortar rounds only without the heavy barrel!

havent seen those come out yet maybe they never will,but this made me wanna come up with ideas for weapon systems,and i got 1,i dunno if its any good or not but here goes:

i was talking to someone on these forums about taking out tanks and he mentioned something about a guy and a bucket of paint,this got me thinking,what if there was an RPG rocket full of paint?

like if you cover the lenses on the optics of a huge beast like an abrams its pretty much taken outta action,kinda like those paints bombs bank employees put in with the money when they are robbed,you know the ones that go boom and cover everything in paint!

what do you think could it work?


do you have any ideas of your own?

 

[ybbor]

i had an idea where the air force could take crop dusters, and sprinkle potasium over places. people would have no idea what we did. potassium ignites with water. so once any fire starts they use water to put it out. which makes it worse. or even better when it rains it ignites. seen as raining fire (also seen as punishment from the gods) great for psycholgoical warfare

 

[stratego]

potassium ignites with water.

That's what I heard about Magnesium too, but in high school I took some magnesium powder and magnesium strip from the chemistry lab, pour water on them, and nothing happened

 

[PHSikes]

Also Sodium burns in/on water, it will ignite from the sweat on your skin. it's normally stored in mineral oil.

 

[stratego]

I say we just dig tunnels to every nation's main intelligence agency 5 miles below the surface of the earth, and moniter their activities from there. Whatever they decide to do, we'll know and act upon it.

 

[Bigfoot]

My idea may be a bit too sci-fi, but with new developments in nanotechnology it might be feasible. The concept is to create a very small assassin robot (perhaps armed with ricin). It could be disguised as some type of small flying insect, and be programmed to fly around and test potential victims with a small probe --a DNA match would activate the kill mechanism. Release thousands of these guys into the area your vicitm is likely to turn up (say, the hills of Afghanistan), and wait. It could be programmed to send a confirmation beacon upon making the kill.

 

[ybbor]

It could be programmed to send a confirmation beacon upon making the kill.

attention: your victim has been bitten by a robotic mosquito!!!

 

[Jawz II]

that crop duster idea reminded me of something weird that i heard,not sure if its true or not,some guy once told me that during the iran-iraq war of the 80s the iraqis attached .50 cal machineguns to single engine russian propeller planes(cant remember the name) the ones that are used for aerobatics i think, and used them for strafing infantry,ww2 style!!

supposedly because they dont have any significant heat signature so heat seeking missile couldnt home in on them, since the iranian used manpads and AAA for air defence mainly(theyd killed all their officers and the new ones had no training in anything and couldnt get their hawk missiles to work)

sounds kinda unreal,specially since simple aaa´s like say a soviet made zsu-23, 23mm will make short work of low flying,slow planes like that,heck you can shoot one of those down with concentrated ak fire, so i dunno if its true or not

the chemichal idea,well raining fire sounds scary as hell but i think napalm is cheaper and dose the job and im pretty sure you cant put it out with water(unlesss you have huge volumes of it) throw water on an oil fire and youll see what i mean

keep the ideas or weird weaponsystems youve heard of coming, even if we dont come up with concepts for new weapons at least we are entertained!

 

[Neomega]

i had an idea where the air force could take crop dusters, and sprinkle potasium over places. people would have no idea what we did. potassium ignites with water. so once any fire starts they use water to put it out. which makes it worse. or even better when it rains it ignites. seen as raining fire (also seen as punishment from the gods) great for psycholgoical warfare

I'd enjoy watching your crop duster air force try. HA HA HA!

What a hilarious tragedy of defeat.

 

[Blasphemous]

I once mentally designed a weapon...
The idea is hand-held, hand-operated, infantry rocket launchers.
The thing looks generally like a 1.5 meter tube (about 20 cm thick) with a handle on one end. The other end is not a full tube but only three "sticks" on the perimiter, with a little bump in the middle. That's where you place the small rockets (the three sticks stabilize it, the bump goes into the place where the ignition happens.)
When you pull the handle, two things happen:
The "crust" of about half the tube fans out into a circular shield (that lays folded around the launcher at most times) which is made of an alloy that is resistant to heat and to bullets (to some extent), with a few small windows made of heavy-duty reinforced steel.
The second thing that happens is that the rocket is ignited, flying off straight on immediately, with the fan-shield protecting the soldier from the fumes and possibly some of the counterattack.
It's just a kinda cool concept, mechanically feasible but probably not incredibly practical.
The idea is that soldiers carry them on their backs in pairs, with the handles at the top, and can provide themselves with some supporting fire when they need it. The shield can be used for defense in some situations as well.

 

[stratego]

i had an idea where the air force could take crop dusters, and sprinkle potasium over places. people would have no idea what we did. potassium ignites with water. so once any fire starts they use water to put it out. which makes it worse. or even better when it rains it ignites. seen as raining fire (also seen as punishment from the gods) great for psycholgoical warfare

What if it rains while you're flying, and water gets in?

 

[ybbor]

I'd enjoy watching your crop duster air force try. HA HA HA!

What a hilarious tragedy of defeat.

you laugh now , but i will laugh later as the tears from your house burning to the ground only add to the fire

What if it rains while you're flying, and water gets in?

i am not repsonsible for any faults in this idea and/or any injuries. by reading using this idea you wave your right to sue me

parachute! (and stop droping the stuff)

 

[CenturionV]

do you have any ideas of your own?

I've always liked the idea of tiny sliver sized metal needles that could be mass produced and dropped by the hundreds of thousands on ground targets from high altitude, (I have seen simple designs for this type of weapon, except fired from a gun) the idea I had was to make them sharp enough to easily peirce skin and body armor, yet make them out of a type of metal that would contort once it entered the body of an enemy, they would make tiny holes, and cause horrendous wounds, and they would become stuck in the target, ouch.

This would be partially psycological and partially real damage (though I don't know how actually deadly they would be, they would sure be nasty weapons, enemy soldiers if not killed would most likely end up rolling around in agony trying to extricate them from there body, with little or no success of course.)

No doubt the UN is already tracking my post and making a note to ban this type of weapon in there next security meeting.

 

[Archer 007]

If its new, Kerry will vote against it.

 

[Yom]

@CenturionV: Caltrops?

 

[Xi 12]

I have an idea, we have all this trash pileing up, so why dont we just drop over the enemy's capitol. We could dropping the trash until: 1; The enemy surrenders because of the pollution and stench, or 2; The enemy sucomes to stench and faints, allowing special ops to enter and do whatever they need to do.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've always liked the idea of tiny sliver sized metal needles that could be mass produced and dropped by the hundreds of thousands on ground targets from high altitude, (I have seen simple designs for this type of weapon, except fired from a gun) the idea I had was to make them sharp enough to easily peirce skin and body armor, yet make them out of a type of metal that would contort once it entered the body of an enemy, they would make tiny holes, and cause horrendous wounds, and they would become stuck in the target, ouch.

This would be partially psycological and partially real damage (though I don't know how actually deadly they would be, they would sure be nasty weapons, enemy soldiers if not killed would most likely end up rolling around in agony trying to extricate them from there body, with little or no success of course.)

No doubt the UN is already tracking my post and making a note to ban this type of weapon in there next security meeting.

Fletchettes from WW1 were similar to this although they were bigger.

 

[Blasphemous]

I have an idea, we have all this trash pileing up, so why dont we just drop over the enemy's capitol. We could dropping the trash until: 1; The enemy surrenders because of the pollution and stench, or 2; The enemy sucomes to stench and faints, allowing special ops to enter and do whatever they need to do.

Well, bombs are just more size effective and weight effective... A single large bomb can destroy several large building, while a bag of compressed trash the same size could barely litter a small alley.

 

[E-Raser]

I'd like rokets alike heat-seekers. But they should aim dumb targets. But I doubt we'd be able to produce enough

 

[Halcyon]

i had an idea where the air force could take crop dusters, and sprinkle potasium over places. people would have no idea what we did. potassium ignites with water. so once any fire starts they use water to put it out. which makes it worse. or even better when it rains it ignites. seen as raining fire (also seen as punishment from the gods) great for psycholgoical warfare

It wouldn't be a very efficient incendiary. It'd run out pretty quickly, for a start. Also, even though the heat is being provided by a reaction with water, being underwater will still prevent a fire from starting or spreading, so the damage is limited to heating up whatever you sprinkle the stuff on. Even if it could start a proper fire, what's it going to burn? Thatched cottages? The most likely outcome is that you've spent far too much money on toasting the grass outside your target.

That's what I heard about Magnesium too, but in high school I took some magnesium powder and magnesium strip from the chemistry lab, pour water on them, and nothing happened

Magnesium is a group two element, and doesn't react with water in the same way as the group one earth metals do. Group ones from lithium down to caesium react increasingly violently with water, producing the metal's hydroxide and hydrogen (which in turn burns in air). Group twos (calcium being an important one) don't react so readily with water, so whoever told you that was a bit confused.

My idea may be a bit too sci-fi, but with new developments in nanotechnology it might be feasible. The concept is to create a very small assassin robot (perhaps armed with ricin). It could be disguised as some type of small flying insect, and be programmed to fly around and test potential victims with a small probe --a DNA match would activate the kill mechanism. Release thousands of these guys into the area your vicitm is likely to turn up (say, the hills of Afghanistan), and wait. It could be programmed to send a confirmation beacon upon making the kill.

The fatal dosage for ricin may be otherwise tiny, but it's a lot for a microbot to carry. You need a lighter poison, or at least one which increases in amount in the right conditions.

You have the problem of power supply, too. What's keeping the wings beating? Batteries are heavy. You want a lightweight and relatively efficient power system either capable of storing a great degree of power for its weight or of refuelling from natural materials along the way. Aerobic respiration springs to mind.

In short, it'd be easier to infect a big packet of fresh mosquitoes with some blood-transimissable virus by which they aren't affected, then drop the bag on the target. Still wouldn't work that well, but hey.