Directed Energy Weapons

Shiny!

None for ground combat. Useful for space combat since no recoil.

>>32361972
Maybe if they developed personal shields.

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>>32361972
a long range beam weapon could be a real nasty anti material thing. cut a beam across a radar dish or slice open a gas truck.

also could lay down cover fire like crazy, could see it mounted like a semi static turret for base protection in shitty places with caves and rocks. lay down literal continuous cover fire as long has you have power, and like focus crystals or how every these things would work.

The whole free ammo from the sun thing is kinda a bonus. and if battery get super great ammo capacity is only limited by efficanecy.

Thats kinda the whole 40k lasgun thing, free bullets, big mags, carry easier, no bullet drop and no recoil means easy to train.

>>32361976
High energy densities would have plenty of recoil actually. Ion or plasma beams especially, since they eject mass.

Functionally? I don't know. hard to speculate on tech that is on a napkin at best.


Financially how are you going to compete with ballistic designs that can achieve 95% of the same effect for 1/10th the cost?

>>32362037
Interesting. So you're saying they may actually be more economical... seems unlikely though. Currently the amount of energy you'd need to be effective is considerably more than it takes to mine and process lead and chemical propellant. In order for it to make economic sense, energy would have to be vastly cheaper than lead and gunpowder, but dirt cheap energy will also bring down the price of bullets. There would have to actually be lead scarcity in order for that to work.

Though the tactics of infinite suppression fire may make lead relatively scarce. So there's a tactical advantage. Hmm... I wonder how you'd exploit that.

Talking completely out my ass here, could you set up no-fly zones with always-on laser beams? Possibly centered around fusion plants with enough spare energy to power other operations and install fortifications?

>>32362096
>energy would have to be vastly cheaper than lead and gunpowder,


Don't put the cart before the horse.

Energy doesn't grow on trees. But frequently needs expensive generation and storage requirements. Rare earth material batteries. Fuel cells. Generators. Complex firing mechanisms.

Meanwhile the AR platform is almost 3D printable with modular and simplistic design. The only problem is ballistic ammo is heavy and requires extensive logistics chain for steady supply.

>>32362037
>literal continuous cover fire
If the power is available, having enough coolant may become the new "ammo" concern in this scenario. Good news is you could probably get a rotating swap going with a set amount of it (assuming the coolant doesn't break down or something with use, I don't really know anything about that).

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>>32362037
>tfw when there will never be hellguns or hotshot lasguns that can fuck over space marine power armor

Well at least carapace armor, readily available caseless ammo, and gauss guns might be a possibility.

>>32361972
Pro:
less moving parts

Cons:
More complex parts
If the power packs explode, infantry man = burning man

>>32362153
Yeah, I've been rather skeptical of the idea of powered armor. If you're going to strap a power source to provide locomotion to armor, why not just build a tank?

Seriously, what purpose does power-armored infantry actually serve? Supposedly the army is still looking into it.

>>32362168
Gee, I don't know. What does being able to carry a fuckton more sound like?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hkCcoenLW4

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>>32362178
I think he was referring to shit like this, not so much being able to carry stuff with caving in your knees and spine.

>>32362238
*without

On another note, how possible does anyone here think it'll be to gene-mod people or at least clone spare organs?

>>32361972
Lasers are silent and invisible, I could see SF teams using them but for basic infantry ballistic is unbeatable logistically speaking.

>>32362244
>gene-mod
Making immortal telepathic rats is already possible, problem is being allowed to do it to humans.

>>32362238
Well you can't get a tank indoors without removing a few walls which might not be a good thing if you still want to actually use the building.

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>>32362238
>>32362178
Actually, this was my objection.

What use is 1 ton infantrymen? I guess he's a minitank? All terrain tank? Power-armor is just really tiny mecha, and pretty consistently the answer to mecha is "no, just use a tank".

>>32362372
I figure you were talking about "realistic" power armor, not the stuff powered by meme magic and GW.

In that case, at least the Sisters of Battle are now useful beyond imperial sanctioned fapping material.

>>32362286
>immortal telepathic rats is already possible
What? Link?

>>32362372
A tank that can go indoors.

>>32362168

Carry a lot more, less or almost no fatigue beyond being awake, greater protection (no expert on IEDs but I assume power armor could allow carrying greater protective and heavier protective material?), less readily vulnerable to ATGM than a big honking motherfucking tank, able to go indoors, won't require gasoline fuel or whatever tonks 30 years from now are running on. Think about how we use tonks with smaller silhouettes and don't go with big retarded nazi supertanks anymore. If you can get the role of an Abrams in a smaller package, why wouldn't you use it? If you can put a 120mm or 80mm gun on a chassis 7 feet tall and as broad as two or three men as opposed to 35 or so feet broad from back to front and a fraction of the tonnage, why not? Something you can drop out of a C130 and transport infinitely more easily than a tank.

Odds are we'll get more drones than power armor but you never know.


Also question:

With the energy needs will you get laser small arms before magnetic/gauss small arms? Or vice versa?

>>32362410
Can't find a reliable source right now but searching for either ability gives plenty of results.

>>32361972
For normal infantry? Not really.

Projectile weapons are much more economical, harder to break, easier to fix, and they kill even better than DEWs of the same weight.

DEWs could be great for CIWS, or for taking out tank optics and the like.

So my guess is that we'll first see DEWs as
1) APS for tanks, with limited charges
2) CIWS for nuclear-powered ships.

>>32362372
I suggest you to read starship troopers, it shows how useful an empowered suit could be

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>>32362063
Reactionless drives will probably be developed well enough by the time 'directed energy weapons' are feasible for manufacturing on an infantry-wide scale that the issue of directing pure energy without recoil wouldn't be difficult to absolve.

>>32361972
It depends on the exact qualities of the weapon. But lets assume a weapon with the relative destructive power, range, and dimensions of an M16A2. The directed energy weapon would have no recoil, it would have a completely flat trajectory. It would be extremely accurate hitting exactly where it was pointed. It would be possibly simplify logistics, charging could be done in the field for multiple weapon sized using only a generator and extra fuel. It would be nearly silent at the operator end, might not be very loud where it hits.

Disadvantageous: Depending on atmospheric conditions it would be quite easy to see the source of fire. Smoke, dust, and fog could dissipate and degrade effectiveness. Armor could be much lighter depending on the exact nature of the weapon. Reflective material could deflect a great deal of energy that would normally have to be stopped with armor.

>>32362594
> Reactionless drives

Jesus Christ man, that's seriously high-end sci-fi.

>>32361972
Well I remember there were a few stupid faggots talking about plasma weaponry beimg the next big thing. Any thought on why they aren't stupid?

>>32362953
They're stupid.

Plasma is hard to generate, hard to contain, and disperses extremely quickly.

There's nothing it can do well.

>>32363069
then why did the DoD ghost that plasma toroid weapon

>>32363354
Same reason Russia released info about the fake SATAN-II ICBM. It's a show of power.

>>32361972
if you don't care about international law, man-portable weapons that can make the enemy blind and give them 3rd degree burns up to several kilometers could be available right now.

>>32362441
Ferromagnetic metals are lighter than lead. If you have abundant portable energy, then there may be a slight logistic advantage to gaussian small arms.

I'm still skeptical because ferromagnetic propulsion would also be susceptible to ferromagnetic shields. Not to mention the small arms themselves could be damaged by a magnetic DEW.

You lose one of the main advantages of rail guns if you don't crank it up to 11x10^23. Gaussian small arms otherwise have the same recoil, but more delicate and finicky. Still, that's technically an engineering problem that could be theoretically solved. Not like we've put as much effort into gauss rifles as we have AR platforms.

Anyone in sci-fi know of a recoil solution to allow infantry to carry rail cannons? If so you'd outperform standard ballistics, but I have no idea what that solution would look like.

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http://www.amazing1.com/ultrasonics.html
Why is it always lasers and plasma guys?

This is an ultrasonic pain field generator. Right?

Im thinking in the front grill of a vehicle would part a protest like the red sea.

This page has EMP and ion guns too.

>>32366537
Hmm, I've got some stuff I need to keep thieves away from, and cameras and guns are only a deterrent really. How large an area of effect/power draw per year/effective are these?

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>>32366060
Recoil? Easy enough. I can think of several solutions:

1) Brace the gun against something other than the squishy soldier.
2) Don't brace the gun at all, make them single-shot and bring spares.
3) Make it recoilless by ejecting something backwards with equal but opposite force.
4) Make the gun really heavy.
5) Screw worrying about recoil, shoulders are replaceable.
6) Tie two guns together back-to-back and have them cancel each other's recoil.

Pick one.

>>32366755
1) Then it's not portable.
2) This still kills the soldier.
3) Uh... maybe. But this means you can only fire it when there's no friendlies behind you? It shoots through mountains dude.
4) Then its isn't portable. Even with power armor. Right now this is the kinda thing you mount on a cruiser.
5) Even assuming you have replaceable shoulders, this means the gun flies away every time you fire it.
6) This is basically the same as 3, but with twice the energy and a structural point on the gun that needs to be able to withstand two rail gun blasts designed to pierce hardened bunkers. Are you sure you've through this through?