I imagine we have much worse than a simple pulse gun. if our black ops scientists are doing anything with taxpayer dollars surely they've come up with a ray gun or anti-matter dissipation device.

Laser guns have been thought of before.

The main limitation seems to be its power source. The laser still needs to produce light and heat etc, this all comes from something.

As far as I know there isn't a very light weight to high power battery yet. Bullets are still used as they are very reliable and work in almost any conditions.

I would place my money on the army with 10 pallets of bullets then 10 palets of AA batterys

Go Mega Man

Go!

Couple reasons, as I see it, why we still use bullets.

Number one, as someone else mentioned, is the power source. The weight of a weapon is VERY important in choosing what will be the standard issue weapon. The reason we switched to M16s from M14s was because of weight. Weight of the gun, and of the larger ammunition. There is also the recoil factor as well.

There isn't any batteries currently made that can store the kind of energy required to supply any decent number of "shots" from an electricity based weapon. Also a factor is how volatile most of our current high capacity batteries are. War is tough on tools, and people probably don't want batteries catching fire or exploding all over soldiers.

Then you have to recharge, or replace the batteries. This brings more on-site equipment, and you are going to have to have a local energy source to tap into.

Also, while a laser may be good at cutting, it's not so great at causing catastrophic damage to tissue. With a military weapon your goal is to kill the enemy in as little time as possible. Putting a tiny neat little hole through him won't accomplish that, unless you specifically hit the heart, brain, etc.

Where as with a bullet, there is a ton of damage done to the body. It doesn't put a nice neat bullet shaped hole in someone, is tears them apart and opens up a large cavity inside them, damaging organs and tissues a lot farther away from the point of impact than a laser would.

Until we make huge advancements in battery technology, I don't see lasers being used for infantry weapons. Even then, it seems something like coil guns would be better. It still uses a projectile, but uses magnets to propel it. If you google them, you can find quite a few really cool designs. They are, for the moment, more useful than rail guns on the small scale, because rail guns tend to destroy the rails after a few shots, where as coil guns don't.

That is a pretty cool looking laser gun though!

Laser weaponry in field operations is much better suited to fixed installations like artillery batteries (not the electric kind). Second most feasible operations use would be in mobile armored deployments (tanks or those transformer-like exoskeletons from the Avatar movie) that have sufficient engine capacity to generate the required energy to power the laser. IMO laser deployment as a personal weapon for ground forces is unfeasible due to the limitations everyone has already commented on. Of course, we may all be overlooking some classified power source (nuclear? fusion?) that may have been developed in a small enough platform to be "worn" by soldiers. If some completely mobile power source (or free energy from thin air) is developed - then we might see energy weapons being deployed to infantry. It seems to me that airplanes, ships, tanks, fixed installations and satellites (maybe) will have to suffice for the time being.

ganjoa

Do guys have an inordinate fascination with guns and tools? A lady asked me that.

That and women, I said.

Also you have to consider that a simple concrete block wall is plenty sufficient to protect against a laser small enough to be man-portable. Now if that guy is carrying a .50 cal or 7.62mm firearm... That concrete block wall will do little to save you.

Now a laser small enough to fit in a C-130 or on a tank chassis might be able to cut through that wall. But in that case even time tested and well proven weapons still seem to be preferred.

In the meantime, man-portable lasers are more likely a disruptive technology in that they're potentially cheap and easily hidden and can do things like blinding people instead of killing them. (Retinas and eyeballs are very fragile and somebody sniping them from afar could be a serious problem for a more organized military.) Parts salvaged from everyday things like CD players can be weaponized in this aspect. The downside is that any laser in the visible spectrum also paints a bee-line towards its user if there's anything like smoke, haze, or fog in the air. Laser weapons of this type are also more like something an insurgent or rioter would use, rather than something the military or police would since they tend to be illegal in concerns to most arms treaties and agreements.

It's much easier to carry ammo rather than a massive battery to power these types of weapons (aka Lasers).

OK that is slick! So I didn't see what the laser was from? Is it a blu-ray? It is fascinating on what people do is their spare time..lol I mean common now, it might not be "practical" but you know it would be awesome to say "I own a REAL[I], functioning, laser pistol!" lol

Grim

looks dangerous