US Air Force unveils hand-held laser gun.

Yep, you read it right.

Set your phasers on STUN!




All joking aside though, the US Air Force has...

...unveiled its first hand-held laser weapon that gives security forces a non-lethal option for controlling crowds and protecting areas like checkpoints, according to service officials.

Here is a link to Janes extract on this:
US Air Force unveils hand-held laser gun

The extract further mentions:

While only in prototype form and years away from fielding, the weapon, known as the Personnel Halting and Stimulation Response (PHaSR) system, holds great promise, they said.

The PHaSR is about the same size and weight of a fully loaded M60 machine gun - around 9 kg - but shoots a low-power beam of laser light instead of bullets. The light it generates is capable of temporarily impairing an individual's vision, much like the disorienting glare one sees when looking into the sun, said the officials.

Upon completion of testing, one prototype will be handed over to the Department of Defense's Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) and the second to the National Institute of Justice (NIJ): the law enforcement arm of the US Department of Justice. Both organisations support the programme, with the latter interested in its civil applications.

In doing some quick digging on this, I ran across link to the Air Force Research Lab that gives a wee bit more information on the PHaSR, with picture.
ScorpWorks team develops PHaSR illumination technology



I wonder if there is a military version designed or being designed of the prototype PHaSR?


Thoughts and comments welcome.








seekerof

This is very interesting, especially in light of this report:

www.atsnn.com...

That explains the bids and proposal requests for R&D for Anti-Laser contact lenses to be developed for ground forces and aircrews.

The USAF is requesting some interesting items, for the lenses scroll down and use the ref# to locate for full description:

AIR FORCE
SBIR 05.1 Proposal Submission Instructions

-[snip]-

AF05-074 TITLE: Laser Eye Protection Contact Lens

TECHNOLOGY AREAS: Biomedical, Human Systems
OBJECTIVE: Develop Laser Eye Protection (LEP) in a contact lens format for aircrew and ground forces.........

.......Since the contact lens sits on the eye, the entire cornea and pupil are covered, so there is no chance of a reflection, or high angle incident beam, sneaking behind the LEP. Therefore, coupled with the appropriate laser protection technology, contact lenses provide a perfectly sized defense against eye injury, eliminating direct and off-axis retinal hazards from today’s most dangerous military lasers that operate in the far red and near infrared spectrum (670 nm – 1200 nm)......

AF Solicitation Site Link

.

We had this one a few weeks ago. Just another laser dazzler, a low-power version of the laser blinders of the 1990s.

these are useless, once you start to learn physics you start to realize how why "beam weapons" are a dead end

So it's a weapon that shoots bursts of enegry?

Or continuous lasar?

And what effect does it have on skin? Armour? A mirror?

Originally posted by warset
these are useless, once you start to learn physics you start to realize how why "beam weapons" are a dead end

Beam weapons are a dead end as long as the technology does not allow for the effective deployment of the weapons themselves. If you knew enough about physics you would be aware that beam weapons do hold some military use, be it stunning a person with a low energy burst of light, or heating everything inside a tank to the point that it all blows up.

I believe that for as long as people continuously dream about lasers, particle cannons, ion cannons, and other beam weaponry, there will always be attempts made at them, science fiction is only a portal to see into the future. What was once Science Fiction may one day be science fact and reality.

Shattered OUT...

heh, that gun has already been discussed though Seeker, still pretty interesting, though a bit...bulky...

Wow!
This looks pretty amazing.
I think we live in a very Revolutionary period in Human history, when lots of things will get revealed. In last 50 years Technology has developed with enormous speed - exponenitally.



Ofcourse, the Army (in this case the Airforce) are the first to "Introduce" the new technology to the People as a Weapon.

Typical.


"The best diplomat that I know is a fully-loaded phaser bank."
-- Lt. Cdr. Montgomery Scott ("A Taste of Armageddon")

"Ofcourse, the Army (in this case the Airforce) are the first to "Introduce" the new technology to the People as a Weapon"

Hardly! Laser dazzlers have been around for years.
What's so special about this one?