

Laser to disorient pirates - ubasu
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19930-new-laser-to-dazzle-pirates-on-the-high-seas.html

======
leed25d
"...the system can automatically regulate the intensity of the laser beam to
ensure there is no lasting eye damage, he says..."

I wonder if the intensity can also be regulated in such a way as to completely
ablate the surface of the retina.

------
A1kmm
Sounds like a useful tool to have if you are a pirate and you want a better
chance at shooting the crew before they shoot back as well.

~~~
jrockway
Wait, bad guys can have weapons too!?

------
alex_h
It's interesting to think of this whole situation as an arms race, and I
wonder if any of the pirates are active in developing countermeasures to such
systems, or even innovating on their own attack methods and equipment. The
only photos I've seen are of guys in small wooden boats with AK-47s but one
would assume that any technology improvements for the pirates would improve
their piracy yields.

~~~
grav1tas
This sounds like a pretty expensive toy to me. It seems like chemical
irritants (ex tear gas) would be more effective, and cheaper? I suppose you
could get gas masks, but those might be harder to come by than oh, say, a 2x4
to hold in front of your face.

------
daten
What if the pirates have mirrors? What if they have laser safety glasses with
the correct range of filters?

What if the laser that's tuned for a long distance reflects off of something
closer and permanently blinds the crew?

This sounds like an expensive and dangerous solution that can be easily
circumvented.

~~~
Symmetry
The effective intensity of a laser falls of as the range squared, so you need
a pretty hefty laser to dazzle someone at range. The intensity of reflected
laser light falls of with the fourth power of the range, making reflected
light not much of a concern for the crew. Its quite possible for the pirates
to put a mirror between them and the ship, indeed it should be quite possible
for the pirates to just turn their heads away from the defending ship.

The problem for the pirates is that its hard to effectively attack something
you can't look at, however. Red glasses might be an effective countermeasure,
though, as other people have pointed out.

~~~
teaspoon
If the mirror is wider than the cone of the laser (1 meter in this case), then
irradiance still falls off as the range squared. Reflecting the laser back at
its source only doubles the range.

------
tzs
> "This is very much a non-lethal weapon," says Bryan Hore of BAE Systems in
> Farnborough, UK, where the system was developed.

How's the old saying go? Stop a pirate with a non-lethal weapon, and you've
stopped him for a day. Stop him with a lethal weapon, and you've stopped him
for life.

------
deutronium
As they're only using a single green laser, I wonder if the pirates could wear
a head mounted display, with a webcam attached, which could display only red-
blue.

~~~
cduan
Those would be sunglasses that filter out green, otherwise known as red
sunglasses.

------
wccrawford
Prediction: It keeps the lolcats being cute, and the pirates don't bother
doing anything else.

...

Oh, that kind of pirate.

