Handheld energy weapons

[Drashner1]

It occurred to me that in the press of discussion, your original question sort of got lost in the shuffle. Some thoughts below..

So my question to you is: What types of energy weapons are there apart from the 'big three', I.E, laser-particle-plasma beams?

Energy only comes in a limited number of forms. Lasers (or masers), particle beams (in various flavors) and plasma weapons already cover most of those. Projectile weapons cover kinetic energy.

Beyond that you have exotic things like gravity waves or tidal forces. Or maybe dark energy, depending on what it is. But any of those seem to require huge masses (or distances) of one form or another to produce any significant effects. And there's nothing in current physics to make us think that is going to change. You could postulate some kind of exotic matter or energy weapon, but again this seems to require huge energies beyond anything we can produce now and no clear idea that it would do anything in the way of a weapon.

Antimatter will do a number of something and OA does have amat fletchettes and ACER rounds (boom bullets). But those aren't really energy weapons as you've been discussing them here.

Do any of them have potential for real world use, or do the laws of physics rule them out of the question (as it does with ion cannons)?

Ions are just charged particles. A particle beam weapon is an ion cannon in most cases - unless we're discussing neutral particle beams, which are a bit of a different animal. Not sure what you mean by the laws of physics preventing them.

Will 'unpredictable' technology of the future enable the creation of weapons like disruptors or blasters? By 'unpredictable', I mean stuff that qualifys as an unknown unknown. Projectrho has a paragraph about this in their futurology section, and how difficult it is to make predictions even 50 years into the future.

''Each new surge is 90 percent what you might have expected from the last one, plus 10 percent magic (in its Clarke’s Law sense). So from the viewpoint of 1920, 90 percent of the gadgets of the (roughly) Manhattan Project through Apollo Project boom would be imaginable (indeed, some, like TV, were abortively available in the previous boom). But 10 percent (lasers, nuclear power, transistors) would be absolutely incomprehensible—magic.''

'Unknown unknowns' are by definition unpredictable and so its not really possible to say anything about what any such hypothetical developments might do one way or the other. Attempting to do so runs a strong risk of turning into either a WAG or an exercise in wishful thinking. Even if more of them appear in a given time period, there's no way to predict whether any of them would have any weapons applications at all, let alone energy weapons applications.

It should also be noted that we also have no way of knowing how many more 'unknown unknowns' are left to discover.

Todd

[selden]

You omitted some weapon technologies which are often used in ways which are not necessarily fatal.

"Direct-contact discharge" (like tasers) and "environmental shock" (like the sonic component of flash-bang bombs) come to mind.

(I put the generic names in quotes because they're my own invention. I'm sure they must have some formal names.)

[rom65536]

Well - I do kind of see the point about not passing muster for military use. It might not be 100% accurate, but I do see the point. Energy weapons require bigga-watts of power to do their job. Mashing all that energy into a small volume.... We have those objects now - they are called "bombs". When it comes to mashing huge amounts of power into a small pistol magazine, eventually it becomes dangerous for the soldier carrying it, and you'd be better off with a slug-thrower and a grenade. On his sci-fi science episode about lightsabers, Michio Kaku went over this and suggested the best use for such a device was to mail it to your enemy and hope that he turned it on.

OA tech that no one is advocating rewriting somewhat mitigates this, but there's kind of no sense bending over backwards to have a "laser gun" when a normal gun is cheaper, easier, just as effective if not more so, and less dangerous to operate. And when I say "normal gun" I'm not suggesting weapon system development stops - just that smacking someone upside the head with a hard object kind of never goes out of style as far as weapons are concerned.

OA weapons might fall into the category of "neither" - how about a "gun" that's actually your friend Walter's house. Walter is a modosophont synsect - you have him and his family over for dinner on Tuesdays, his wife, Maude is really good at Parcheesi. When you point Walter's house at someone and ring the doorbell, Walter is trusting you that the person in view of his front door is a total piece of crap - and so Walter flies over there and bites him (delivering khaki goo, a cocktail of various poisons, an a few thousand brain eating amoebas - because f--- that guy). Maybe Walter's son, Eddie, is really good with computers - so, when you need to deal with a computer or a vec, you ring the doorbell and send Eddie. Eddie replaces their quantum encryption keys with your keys, allowing you to take control of said system.

[Rynn]

Well - I do kind of see the point about not passing muster for military use. It might not be 100% accurate, but I do see the point. Energy weapons require bigga-watts of power to do their job. Mashing all that energy into a small volume.... We have those objects now - they are called "bombs". When it comes to mashing huge amounts of power into a small pistol magazine, eventually it becomes dangerous for the soldier carrying it, and you'd be better off with a slug-thrower and a grenade. On his sci-fi science episode about lightsabers, Michio Kaku went over this and suggested the best use for such a device was to mail it to your enemy and hope that he turned it on.

I think this, and the rest of your post, touches upon the unspoken assumption of the thread that soldiers in OA exist as they do now and carry handweapons. In reality hand weapons in the setting are likely only used in sport, hunting or some kind of ritual combat. Combat bots with weapons grown into them (that can be repaired, modified or swapped out as needed) are going to be far more common.

[rom65536]

I think this, and the rest of your post, touches upon the unspoken assumption of the thread that soldiers in OA exist as they do now and carry handweapons. In reality hand weapons in the setting are likely only used in sport, hunting or some kind of ritual combat. Combat bots with weapons grown into them (that can be repaired, modified or swapped out as needed) are going to be far more common.

This is true, too.

Although, there's nothing stopping such a combat bot from being the "hero" of the story.

[Drashner1]

Well - I do kind of see the point about not passing muster for military use. It might not be 100% accurate, but I do see the point. Energy weapons require bigga-watts of power to do their job. Mashing all that energy into a small volume.... We have those objects now - they are called "bombs". When it comes to mashing huge amounts of power into a small pistol magazine, eventually it becomes dangerous for the soldier carrying it, and you'd be better off with a slug-thrower and a grenade. On his sci-fi science episode about lightsabers, Michio Kaku went over this and suggested the best use for such a device was to mail it to your enemy and hope that he turned it on.

But how much energy are you actually talking about here vs the amount of energy OA laser weapons contain?

This isn't Star Trek where pistol size energy weapons are depicted totally vaporizing a human size target in a second or three. Nor is it Star Wars where a flashlight size device is able to cut through inches of armored door in a matter of maybe a minute.

The page on handheld lasers gives the numbers for the type of weapons used in OA:

A 'standard' laser weapon using an ultracapacitor pack (the near future version based on the article and Luke's comments) can store 200,000J into a 1kg power pack, making it able to produce 20 full power shots. In the words of the article:

This is sufficient to overpenetrate a human, leaving a hole about the width of that produced by a .30 caliber hunting bullet, and will punch through all but the heaviest armor that a person can wear.

Checking this page on Wikipedia, we find that 200kJ is a a bit less than the kinetic energy of a car moving at highway speeds and that the kinetic energy of a bullet from an M16 is 1.8e3J. A bit more research on this page, indicates that an M16 generally carries a magazine of 30 bullets = 5.4e4J. Actually, I expect it would be more than this in the form of gunpowder (an explosive substance) since I very much doubt that the gun works with perfect efficiency.

Considering grenades, an MKIII grenade can apparently hold as much as 230g of TNT = 966,000J of energy (energy release of 1g of TNT = 4.2e3J x 230) = 966kJ. Which is more than 3x the total energy stored in the laser power pack. And people presumably carry such grenades around fairly regularly, possibly in multiples.

So, if carrying 966,000J + 54,000J = 1,020,000J around is considered an acceptable risk, then presumably carrying around approx 1/5 that much energy (with the ability to vary the output in various ways as detailed in the article) would also be acceptable.

Scaling up to the presumed Y11K version, we see from the same EG article that a 1kg power pack can hold as much as 20MJ. Ignoring the more advanced functionality and greater efficiency of Y11k laser weapons, this works out to an amount of energy roughly 20x as large as established above as being acceptable. Stored in a solid state and presumably quite durable and stable form. Presuming that each soldier was carrying an M-16 and several grenades and traveling in a small group with others similarly equipped, it seems likely that it is not uncommon for modern soldiers to find themselves in close proximity to this much contained energy (in the form of explosive substances). So, why would a solid state version storing electricity be all that much different?

Going back to the issue of vaporizing people and slicing through armored doors - It seems to me that these things are very desirable from a dramatic or special effects perspective but fairly pointless from an actual combat perspective. A person with a tiny bullet going through their brain/heart/major parts of their circulatory system/vital organs is just as dead as a person turned to plasma - and for a lot less effort. A door blown open with plastic explosive is just as open as one sliced through with a light saber - and such explosives can be made now and carried safely.

Rather liking blowing up a planet (unless your foe is hiding down in the core, why would you ever need to do that?), these sorts of things seem more designed to entertain and excite an audience watching a film than realistic depictions of advanced weapons.

My 2c worth,

Todd

[Avalancheon]

We don't give a date for handheld beamweapons coming into the setting but it's entirely possible they would be later than a few centuries. They may mature in a time when A) "human" soldiers aren't a thing anymore and B) machinery can be built as complex as an organism.

Okay, you have a point there. Having mature nanotechnology imbedded into a plasma rifle could help overcome some of the reliability problems. But how well can nanomachines handle high temperatures? Would they be able to patch up erosion spots in the barrel of a plasma rifle thats glowing white hot?

What is more reliable: a mechanical pump or a human heart? When we talk about technology in OA we're often talking of machines as complex as biological systems with the capability to self monitor, self repair, built with a lot of independent redundancy etc. It's not always true that more complexity is less reliable.

But that raises a question for me, how many different ways are there to design the same tool, especially if its something simple in nature? Lets say that in OA, you have primtech enthusiasts who like to use automatic rifles and gasoline engines: Would they look anything like the analogues we use today? Would a rifle built in the future use fundamentally different mechanical principles to achieve the same thing?

You're also making a bit of a false assumption that even if an item had relatively more failure modes that it is of lower utility. A modern fighter plane is hideously more complex than a spit fighter but that increase in complexity, failure modes and maintenance is more than balanced out by increased performance. In the case of beam weapons (which are not the only type of handheld weapon in the setting) the near instant muzzle velocity, immunity to most environmental conditions and ability to carry a lot of "ammunition" in the form of superconductive batteries (or even a backpack conversion reactor) more than makes up for their complexity.

Yes, but a fighter jet is an actual weapons system with many other sub-systems in its frame. Airborne fighters are going to be complex regardless of what you do (not so for a rifle). The cost/benefit analysis is different for them than for monolithic items like howitzers, mortars, and small arms.

Back to your statements above:

a) Pass the cost/benefit analysis of the military - what do you mean by this? Are you claiming some level of knowledge of how military cost benefit analysis is conducted? What is the context for the analysis in question? What starting assumptions are you (or the hypothetical military people performing the analysis) making as part of this?

b) It being 'somewhat unlikely that even mature energy weapons would be competitive with regular small arms' - What is your reasoning that leads you to this conclusion? Define 'mature energy weapon' in this context. What is the basis for this conclusion? Do you bring actual knowledge of small arms to the discussion or is this just a 'gut feeling'?

c) You not being able to see a laser weapon being carried into battle a century or two from now - Ok, but why not? Please explain what leads you to this view.

d) Lasers strengths not being enough to overcome their weaknesses - What strengths and weaknesses are you referring to? We can't think about or respond to the statement effectively if we don't even know what you are talking about.

I consider myself to be a military historian, although that simply comes from having read lots of books and papers. I have conducted my education at my own pace, outside of colleges or academys. I am not without some knowledge of how militarys decide to choose a new weapon...

The U.S. army has been using the M-16 pattern rifle for over 50 years now, despite numerous attempts to replace it: There was the ACR program of the late 80s, and the OICW program in the 90s. The XM-8 rifle was mechanically identical to the M-16, but had far superior ergonomics. It would have been a great replacement weapon, but the U.S. army decided not to go through with it. The costs did not justify the performance returns, in their opinion. The U.S. is extremely stingy with programs for small arms: They'd rather spend their money on big ticket items like missiles, jets, ships, and tanks, to the result is that they get stuck with somewhat obsolescent hand weapons.

While other militarys are less obstinate in that regard, my reasoning holds firm. Even when they become practical in the distant future, handheld energy weapon would not pass a militarys cost benefit analysis. They might be used in niche applications, but its unlikely they will ever replace the rifle as a premier small arm.

Fair enough - but please explain how you are determining how far that is and that this distance is cannot be 'traveled' by expert systems and superbrights and just ongoing improvements in the state of the art?

Again, you're making pretty firm declarative statements without providing any reasoning to back them up.

They can only streamline the design of a plasma rifle by so much, because there are certain irreducible elements required for it to work. Again, this weapon requires 1) cyrogenically frozen hydrogen, which must be 2) superheated to a plasma, then 3) forced down a magnetically sealed barrel, and 4) follow a vortice tunnel created by a laser beam.

Its certainly possible to make this weapon work, its just not going to work as consistently as a mere projectile weapon. Its common knowledge, for instance, that bolt action rifles are more reliable than semi and full automatic rifles. Unless mechanical engineering undegoes a fundamental change at some point in the future (such that they use completely different designs for automatic rifles and whatnot), we should expect that to remain true.

Please provide proof for these declarative statements. Not only regarding the current state of the art, but also demonstrating that it is physically impossible for laser weapons to ever be improved to the point that these issues can be made to go away. We generally prefer online references and journal articles whenever possible.

BTW solid-state lasers with no moving parts are already a thing.

Thats an unreasonable demand, because I can only extrapolate from what is currently know about science and engineering. There might be some enabling technology which would make laser weapons as reliable as rifles, but people can't exactly predict that sort of thing. But as for my point about 'more advanced weapons having a higher chance of failure', I can offer an interesting anecdote for this. On another forum, I spoke with some firearms savy guys about the use of burst fire in automatic rifle. (I.E, when the rifle fires three rounds at a high cyclic rate, usually 700 RPM or more) They pointed out that such a feature has a knock-on effect in complexity that requires more parts than is first apparent, because the rifle must fire three rounds and no more (!) even if the trigger is held down. Rifles capable of burst fire need a complex and relatively fragile clockwork mechanism compared to those without it.

BTW, I already knew about the solid-state lasers, they were part of my 'certain exceptions.'

Please define 'soldier proofed'. Also, what you mean by 'future infrastructure'.

Coming at this from another direction, are you asking us how such a device might work or stating it as equivalent to a law of physics that such a device can't be made?

For that matter, what is the context you are talking about? Are we talking about using such a weapon (or any energy weapon for that matter) in space? On the ground? Underwater? Etc. Some weapons can be tremendously effective in one environment, but not much good in another. So the desired operating environment needs to be specified.

'Soldier proofed' is when a piece of equipment is made durable enough for the rigours and abuse of warfare. A colleague of mine was criticising laser surveillance equipment when he said the following: ''A physicist may consider such a laser system perfectly fine, an electrical engineer may consider it slightly troublesome yet functional - a soldier would probably put it in the trash after a couple weeks if no-one was held accountable for it.''

And just so we're clear, I'm not trying to get these subjects retconned or stir up ridicule about them. I'm merely offering my opinion that plasma weapons would be difficult to soldier proof, even with the manufacturing techniques and materials we would expect to see of the future.

What is a phaser for purposes of this discussion? Yes, I know what they are in a general way in the context of Star Trek. But I (and probably many other people here) have no idea what you're talking about when you mention particles that don't/can't exist. Please unpack your statements like this or we can't really address them constructively.

I meant phasers as they were described in the star trek encylopedia. The weapons which produce a beam of subatomic particles called rapid nadions. Such particles are fictional, of course, and have propertys that defy the laws of physics.

[Rynn]

Okay, you have a point there. Having mature nanotechnology imbedded into a plasma rifle could help overcome some of the reliability problems. But how well can nanomachines handle high temperatures? Would they be able to patch up erosion spots in the barrel of a plasma rifle thats glowing white hot?

Not a lot of complex chemistry survives incredibly high temperatures so likely not, though I'm not terribly convinced that a plasma "rifle" is possible. Most things I've read on plasma weapons talk of them being short range vacuum weapons. In any case the point being that if you make the weapon incredibly sturdy and include active internal repair you can mitigate the complexity cost to boost the ROI.

But that raises a question for me, how many different ways are there to design the same tool, especially if its something simple in nature? Lets say that in OA, you have primtech enthusiasts who like to use automatic rifles and gasoline engines: Would they look anything like the analogues we use today? Would a rifle built in the future use fundamentally different mechanical principles to achieve the same thing?

Fundamentally I suspect not. Practically there will likely be all sorts of improvements. On the minor improvement front consider how much more ergonomic rifles are today compared to one hundred years ago and how much more sophisticated ad-ons like scopes are. As a more major example improvements in materials science could lead to all sorts of drastic improvements; tougher components with stainless surfaces could allow for more powerful chemical propellant, foamed diamondoid casing could make a much lighter rifle etcetera. Beyond that you can work in highly reliable smart features like gyroscopic stabilizers, Friend-Foe trigger release and bullets that can do anything from track their target to be rapidly printed from stock metal powder to create a variety of types (piercing, hollow-point) on the fly.

A good comparison over guns (which are a relatively recent invention) would be bows. Bows and arrows have existed for thousands of years and fundamentally they operate the same today as they have done since ancient times. But if you compare a modern olympic bow (made of lightweight composite materials with balance stabilisers and fibre glass arrows) to one from any other point in history there's a marked improvement.

Yes, but a fighter jet is an actual weapons system with many other sub-systems in its frame. Airborne fighters are going to be complex regardless of what you do (not so for a rifle). The cost/benefit analysis is different for them than for monolithic items like howitzers, mortars, and small arms.

Part of what I was getting at is that in OA a "soldier" is a weapons system with many other sub-systems in its frame. The increased complexity over a meat body with a chemical/mechanical bang-bang tube pays dividends in performance despite the greater failure modes.

[Drashner1]

Okay, you have a point there. Having mature nanotechnology imbedded into a plasma rifle could help overcome some of the reliability problems. But how well can nanomachines handle high temperatures? Would they be able to patch up erosion spots in the barrel of a plasma rifle thats glowing white hot?

Just a point of clarification here:

In much of your replies in this post you only mention 'plasma weapons'. Earlier you spoke in terms of 'energy weapons' and most of my replies have been focused on 'laser weapons' - which are a totally different type of weapon from a plasma weapon. Are you saying you are only interested in discussing plasma weapons now, or is this just a coincidence of phrasing in this post?

Re your question above, agree with Rynn that nanotech isn't going to be running around in white hot operational conditions. However, you could, in principle, have nanotech or microtech or synsects running around doing repairs and maintenance on the device (including 'healing' erosion spots) during a device's periods of down-time or storage.

Also, as Rynn notes, plasma weapons are most often discussed in terms of use in vacuum, not atmosphere. Hellbores can be used in atmosphere, but are in something of a class by themselves and rely on magnetic monopoles - and even they mainly used in space.

Would a rifle built in the future use fundamentally different mechanical principles to achieve the same thing?

Assuming you mean a projectile weapon type rifle, then probably not fundamentally different principles - but that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a massively (fundamentally?) different weapon.

The muskets used during the Revolutionary War use the same fundamental principles as a modern M-16 (or equivalent), but modern weapons demonstrate a range of capability that would likely have been astounding to soldiers of the time. Similarly, modern aircraft operate on the same fundamental principles as the plane the Wright brothers flew - but have built on those principles to produce performance that would have seemed near magical to the Wrights, most likely. The same can be said of automobiles, computers, and various other things, depending on how one is defining 'fundamental principles'.

Yes, but a fighter jet is an actual weapons system with many other sub-systems in its frame. Airborne fighters are going to be complex regardless of what you do (not so for a rifle). The cost/benefit analysis is different for them than for monolithic items like howitzers, mortars, and small arms.

Actually modern guns (rifles, pistols, etc.) are also part of a 'weapons system' and cannot operate for very long without it. Mines extract various metals and chemicals, refineries and factories process and shape them, and a global supply chain transports the finished products to the people wanting to use the weapons created. The same goes for the bullets that turn the weapons into more than a club.

While a few hobbyists 'make their own bullets' (which my grandfather did) even in that case, there is considerable infrastructure behind them since I'm rather doubting very many of them mine/refine/forge their own bullets. And certainly no significant number of people are handcrafting modern weapons from base materials.

I consider myself to be a military historian, although that simply comes from having read lots of books and papers. I have conducted my education at my own pace, outside of colleges or academys. I am not without some knowledge of how militarys decide to choose a new weapon...

Fair enough.

The U.S. army has been using the M-16 pattern rifle for over 50 years now, despite numerous attempts to replace it: There was the ACR program of the late 80s, and the OICW program in the 90s. The XM-8 rifle was mechanically identical to the M-16, but had far superior ergonomics. It would have been a great replacement weapon, but the U.S. army decided not to go through with it. The costs did not justify the performance returns, in their opinion. The U.S. is extremely stingy with programs for small arms: They'd rather spend their money on big ticket items like missiles, jets, ships, and tanks, to the result is that they get stuck with somewhat obsolescent hand weapons.

While other militarys are less obstinate in that regard, my reasoning holds firm. Even when they become practical in the distant future, handheld energy weapon would not pass a militarys cost benefit analysis. They might be used in niche applications, but its unlikely they will ever replace the rifle as a premier small arm.

Actually, none of what you've just said here in any way demonstrates that handheld energy weapons would not pass a military cost benefit analysis. You haven't included any details at all about how what such an analysis would consist of, for one thing. Nor do you show what factors a given military would be considering when doing such an analysis. For completeness it would also probably be necessary to know the nature of the weapon system being considered, how it operates, and what benefits, features, costs, and limits it has.

At best, you've shown that militaries (particularly the US military) change slowly and are conservative about such things. Which says more about the psychology of such organizations than it does about the capabilities or limits of energy weapons.

I would also point out that even the US military does change out its weapons over time (50 years isn't really very long, actually). Modern soldiers aren't using Revolutionary War muskets, nor WWI or II weapons.

Thats an unreasonable demand, because I can only extrapolate from what is currently know about science and engineering.

It's an entirely reasonable demand, given that you've been making absolute declarative sentences on the subject while providing no supporting information or evidence or arguments to back up your statements.

You also keep mentioning 'reliability' as if this is the absolute be-all and end-all of any consideration.

Spears, bows and arrows, and swords are all vastly simpler than even a bolt-action gun - by your stated reasoning it would seem the world's militaries should still be using those instead of modern (and much less 'reliable') weapons. Of course, we don't do that.

The reason (that you're rather leaving out) is that 'reliability' is not the only (or most important) factor that is considered when thinking of weapons systems. Range, destructive power, and the advantage it provides on the battlefield are also things that are going to be considered (or demonstrated).

'Soldier proofed' is when a piece of equipment is made durable enough for the rigours and abuse of warfare. A colleague of mine was criticising laser surveillance equipment when he said the following: ''A physicist may consider such a laser system perfectly fine, an electrical engineer may consider it slightly troublesome yet functional - a soldier would probably put it in the trash after a couple weeks if no-one was held accountable for it.''

I don't see any inherent reason yet why you couldn't design a laser weapon that could be used to dig a trench in the rain and still work fine afterward.

Laser surveillance equipment is also a fairly new tech and very 'early days' in its development. It seems very likely that the state of the art will advance and produce much improved equipment over time. This has happened numerous times over the history of weapons. And again, this seems more of a problem with the process used by the military to develop and roll out new systems than anything inherent in the systems themselves or the physics underlying them.

I meant phasers as they were described in the star trek encylopedia. The weapons which produce a beam of subatomic particles called rapid nadions. Such particles are fictional, of course, and have propertys that defy the laws of physics.

I've never read this book (but may try to look up what a phaser is supposed to do, time permitting), but this again takes us to the question I asked earlier:

When you speak of 'energy weapons' using terms from SF are you saying you want something that does exactly what the SF describes in all respects? Or just something that does some of these things or is 'in the ballpark'?

Todd

[stevebowers]

If you have a weapon that fires ionising radiation, it will just make the target sick - and possibly kill them in the long run - but it might not incapacitate the target immediately. Most radiation weapons are inadequate when used in fire fights. There isn't a weapon that would paralyse a human without the risk of lasting damage or even death.

Even nerve gas jets or tranquiliser darts would have a reasonable chance of killing the target - unless the gun, or the gun-user, is smart enough to act as a competent anaesthetist, there is always a risk of overdose or other trauma.