
China's ‘Laser AK-47’ Can Set Fire to Targets a Kilometre Away - mhb
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/2153310/china-brings-star-wars-life-laser-ak-47-could-set-fire
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gotocake
So in ideal conditions you have a big, heavy gun that can sort of harm an
immobile target that isn’t using basic countermeasures. Meanwhile a BMG .50
rifle can put a hole in an engine block from twice the distance, is cheaper
and more reliable, and never runs out of juice.

Way to put the “PR” in PRC.

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m45t3r
You can track a bullet though, this seems to be completely invisible to naked
eye so you could put a house on fire (since it seems to be pretty hot) and
nobody would know.

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bitxbitxbitcoin
Serious question: assuming the structure is burned beyond recognition, would
arson specialists be able to tell if a house were put on fire in this manner?

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anigbrowl
No, though they might be able to tell you where the fire started.

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ChrisGranger
YouTuber styropyro recorded a video[1] about this and wasn't at all convinced
by the claims.

[1] [https://youtu.be/EdURyWZD9tk](https://youtu.be/EdURyWZD9tk)

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Pinckney
The protocol on blinding laser weapons prohibits employing or distributing
weapons designed to cause blindness. Is it possible that this weapon is
actually intended to be used as a blinding weapon, and the claims about its
incendiary capabilities are only to obscure the intended use?

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bitxbitxbitcoin
> Because the laser has been tuned to an invisible frequency, and it produces
> absolutely no sound, “nobody will know where the attack came from. It will
> look like an accident,” another researcher said. The scientists requested
> not to be named due to the sensitivity of the project.

OK so there's no sound where it "hits" but they didn't answer the real
question I have... What does it sound like where/when the trigger is pulled?

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noir_lord
You want it to make pew! pew! noises don’t you?

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tropo
USA's 'Laser M16/M4', now almost 20 years old:

[http://www.defensereview.com/352003/TIS1.pdf](http://www.defensereview.com/352003/TIS1.pdf)

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drenvuk
One errant reflection and someone (maybe even the operator) goes blind. I hope
they don't deploy these for riot control.

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noir_lord
It’s not that long since the Chinese government ran tanks over protesters,
blinding people would likely be a feature.

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djstein
meta: never heard of scmp.com, but I really liked their website and flow! felt
very clean. just a tad to much scroll jacking tho

