The future of Small Arms and the reliability of New Technology

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by weby

Just think: when is the last time your(or anyone you know) has a computer processor fail?

Raises hand... repeatedly. But they were all heat issues (ie the heat sink failed for whatever reason - fan stoppage, thermal paste dried out, user error (cat hair/dust build up) etc)...

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

Raises hand... repeatedly. But they were all heat issues (ie the heat sink failed for whatever reason - fan stoppage, thermal paste dried out, user error (cat hair/dust build up) etc)...

Properly cleaned occasionally that shouldn't happen. OTOH, some computers (like laptops) are difficult to clean. Which is one of the issues that weapons grade Lasers would face - you need to keep the electronics clean while also keeping them cool. Those are two opposing goals; you can set up heatsinks to get heat out of sealed electronics, but unless you use a fan or water tank to cool the heatsink things can still get toasty. This is not insurmountable, but it does add complexity.

[Bruno]

Originally Posted by weby

Just think: when is the last time your(or anyone you know) has a computer processor fail? And then compare that to a hard drive.

I have repeatedly fried RAM and motherboard in the last 8 years, due to a very heavy duty-cycle, whereas my HDDs have been fine. My latest machine I have heavily beefed up my cooling system, and I'm curious to see how that improves lifecycle. Civilian machines don't have heavy duty cycles. Many users will never get their processors up over 30% usage, and gamers rarely hit 100%, and even then only briefly.

The American military tests body armor against -60 F, 120 F, 160 F, and a sudden rise from -25 F to 120 F in a 12 hour period. It tests against performance after being soaked in water, in gasoline, and in some other horrible liquid I forget what.

These are conditions that military gear is stored in, transported in, and used in.

I know I would have the stone cold horrors if you suggested taking my computer from the unheated cargo hold of a transport plane to the heat of an un-climate-controlled Iraq or Afghanistan summer, in a 12 hour period, even if it were inside in a nice dust free (if hot) room. Outside, in the alkali dust? ACK.

It's civilian equipment so it's a highly unfair ask, but it underscores the problem - it's not the processor, it's the fans and pumps and air vents.

Electronics have moving parts: they're all in the very vital cooling systems. Electronics have big HOLES in them: they're ventilation ports. Part of the cooling systems, and perfectly positioned to allow dust and muck in to those moving parts.

I believe we can come up with a man-portable electromagnetic "rifle" replacement that is safe and reliable at 50-80 F, although I don't know how fast/for how long it will be able to fire. I don't particularly believe either the electromagnetic or laser weapons will solve the heat problems in a way that involves no moving parts and no vent ports for a much longer time.

Yes, my phone doesn't have a fan or ventilation ports - but my phone's brain is quite low power in comparison and it periodically cooks itself and crashes in air conditioning just because it's in a Otter Box case.

[Tinman]

Of course, there is also the issues of effectiveness.

While lasers seam sexy & cool, I doub't their ultimate effectiveness as infantry weapons. Bad weather, smoke, dust, ect... will interfere with their delivering enough power to effectively harm an armored soldier.

I believe that kinetic energy projectiles (gauss or conventional) will be the future of infantry/ground combat.

[Varyon]

To look at it another way, it’s very similar to the car vs airplane issue. If you are in an accident in a car, you are less likely to die than if you are in an account sent in an airplane, yet air travel is statistically much safer than travel via car - because you are far more likely to be in an accident (fatal or otherwise) in a car than in an airplane. Replace car with conventional firearm and airplane with laser (or gauss, or caseless), accident with malfunction, and die with being unable to fix in the field, and you’ve got the situation weby laid out.

[AlexanderHowl]

You really cannot clean the lens of high energy lasers with anything other than sprays of liquid nitrogen (researchers avoid the issue by having clean room protocols when accessing the lasing medium). Even silk would scratch the lens enough to cause catastrophic failure for the high energy laser. The last thing you would want is any drop in laser efficiency because the resulting waste heat will destroy the laser.

High energy lasers will probably become great weapons...in space. In an atmosphere, high energy laser weapons are just a nightmare to maintain and keep clean. Now, you could have orbital platforms in space shooting lasers at targets on the surface of a planet with an atmosphere, but that would be the only utility for lasers in ground combat.

[warellis]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Of course, there is also the issues of effectiveness.

While lasers seam sexy & cool, I doub't their ultimate effectiveness as infantry weapons. Bad weather, smoke, dust, ect... will interfere with their delivering enough power to effectively harm an armored soldier.

I believe that kinetic energy projectiles (gauss or conventional) will be the future of infantry/ground combat.

Wouldn't pulse lasers, assuming you could fire them fast enough, be pretty crazy at penetration like here?: http://panoptesv.com/RPGs/Settings/V...ar/Phasers.php

Also someone on SB had an interesting idea for replacing parts in a laser or gauss weapon for a Transhuman 2300AD setting they've been working on:

Whitebox
Modern firearms are, like all transhuman technology, exquisitely crafted and powerful devices. However, this also turns their innards far more complex than ever before. A modern railgun requires finely crafted and secured armatures to keep itself from flying appart during firing. Coilguns and plasers both house complex sequential electromagnetic acceletators, and them and lasers all rely on high-powered, volatile power supplies that buffer megawatts of power per shot from solenoid power cells. Servicing such intricate electronics under field conditions in dirt, dust and hostile atmospheres is nigh-impossible, especialy electronic components.

Modern weapons overcome this issue via the Whitebox system, a functional replication of old gunpowder firearms that were made up of easily stripped and serviced components. Components such as the trigger, control computer, power supply, feeds, bolt assembly, accelerator, data and power feeds and others are encapsulated in enviromentally sealed polymer blocks - a so-called whitebox. Assembling these inside a polymer-and-metal framework creates a fully functional gun. If a component breaks down, the weapon can be opened under adverse field conditions, the offending whitebox module removed, and replaced with a packaged replacement part. For detailed diagnosis, the whitebox can then be introduced into a Field Maintenance Fabber on-site or rolled back through the logistics tail for diagnosis, repair or recycling.

Whiteboxes themselves are relatively simplistic. They contain a basic diagnostics computer with RFID output and a manual E-paper diagnostics display as well as instructions for handling and changing (as well as specifications) with attached QR ID code, and their casing is made from CNT-doped polymer with c-allotrope stability frameworks. Ports allow every nessecary component to be connected, bolt holes or attachment strips serve as mechanical attachment points for the assembled gun.

[AlexanderHowl]

It is a magic box full of handwavium I do not think that there is anything wrong with having laser guns in games (or stories), it is just more space opera than hard science fiction. Personal railguns are more hard science fiction than laser guns, but they need to be made of brass or bronze due to concerns about friction and waste heat. If you want something that looks and feels hard science fiction, ETC conventional firearms are probably your best choice, and you have a wide variety of possible ammunition to customize the pain and suffering of your opponents.

[apoc527]

The only question I (repeatedly) have about ETC firearms is exactly what their performance will look like in comparison to modern propellants.

Has anyone taken a super hard look at this? Maybe Luke Campbell or gurb3d6?

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by apoc527

The only question I (repeatedly) have about ETC firearms is exactly what their performance will look like in comparison to modern propellants.

Absent super batteries, there's no real point to what UT calls ETC. However, using an electric spark to better control propellant ignition is probably the future of at least cannons.