Well, here’s a candidate for “Stupid question of the month,” but here goes…Throughout the years, I’ve noticed, as I’m sure everyone here has, a trend in weaponry in sci-fi movies, and other genres of films that involve a lot of shooting…Robot Machine or Laser guns, set up in a fixed position, that automatically track and fire upon anything that crosses their area of surveillance. They show up so frequently that I was led to wonder if they weren’t all inspired by some real-life weapons project (Even one that never got past the “Popular Science” article stage). Anyone remember anything like that in real life (Not using lasers, I’d assume)? Or did Hollywood betray my trust and just start ripping the idea off from one show or another till it had become a cliche?
Well, thanks for your time, and an apology to the mods for taking up valuable web space with my idiocy.
Ranchoth
We have a vendor that does some work at my company installing security equipment and surveillance cameras. He brags that he gets to keep all kinds of demo equipment from manufacturers. He was telling me about some type of automatic weapon he had mounted on his roof, with motion sensor and camera. If the motion sensor detected something outside of his house (usually deer), it would swing the rifle and camera to bear on the unfortunate intruder. The camera would beam a PiP shot to his television, which he could change to ful screen if needed to get a better view. If he desired, he could press a button on his television remote that would let the weapon rip. Bye, bye deer. Cooooooollll. BTW, he lived way out in the boonies so I’m guessing he didn’t have to worry about children looking for their lost ball.
The Phalanx is a weapon of the Navy Aegis Radar weapon system. It is designed as such that if the ship were to be attacked, the CO would let the weapons systems take care of itself unless there was intervention by a person. It can identify and track submarine, surface, and air borne targets at the same time and send out missles, helicopters wirh anti-submarine torpedoes, fire the gatling guns, tell a aircraft carrier to send interception jets. You name it. All this so the people can make the decisions. Also, its assumed friendly forces will have radar transponders, or a similar such device, that will tell the system that they are friends, etc.
If you ever get a chance to be in Virginia, head to Norfolk and then to the Nautalis museum and they have a live demo of it. It’s actually way way cool. SOmething out of a sci-fi movie, really. It shows your ship on a large projected map, your known friends, known enemies, and unknowns. Sub, surface, air, etc. very cool.
I really think its a matter of time before the Navy and other military branches have automated patrols…
There’s also the Predator and the Global Hawk, both of which can be armed and defend themselves autonomously.
And the U.S Navy is studying an unmanned ship that is basically a big floating weapons platform. I imagine it will be able to defend itself autonomously.
Do you have a link for that? I know the US Navy considered (and discarded) a design for a carrier-sized cruise missile platform that would so automated that it could get by with only about 50 crew. However, I haven’t heard any serious talk of a fully automated ship.
There were such weapons (machine guns) installed in the Berlin Wall. They killed people. They did not identify friend of foe, they just detected motion, and delineated any object moving toward the wall beyond a certain point to be a target. They had to be turned on or off by a central power/control system. Rumor had it that it was designed to fail-armed, although I never saw proof of that.
Tris
“It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.” ~ Fyodor Dostoevski ~
Well, I had a source, but I don’t have an on line cite. I got the information in a debrief on why I should stay the hell away from the wall while serving in the US Army in Germany during the sixties.
Here is a reference to the phenomenon, though, from a web site linked.
"On all the borders of the Communist countries, the European ones in any case, you can find electronic killing devices. These are automatic devices for killing anyone who goes across. But people here say: ‘That doesn’t threaten us either, we are not afraid of that.’ " ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~
As it happens, I do electrical/combat systems design work for Aegis destroyers, and I would love to work on such a thing. The so-called Arsenal hip program is dead, though…
It used to be the case that landowners would set spring guns; a loaded gun on a swivel with the trigger attached to a tripwire; the tripwire could be tripped by a person moving in either direction and the gun would swivel as it fired.
Having a hard time finding links to the unmanned ship I was talking about. I saw it on a 1-hour special on unmanned vehicles, I think on the Discovery channel. As I recall, it was designed for Littoral warfare, in ‘high threat’ environments. Similar to the arsenal ship, but unmanned instead of having a small crew.
The closest thing going to that was the DD-21 program, which was killed some months back. A program was hastily put together to replaceit, DD(x). Lead yard design was awarded to the Gold team (Northrup grumman, et al) but the Blue team (General Dynamics and others) has filed suit to re-examine the award. We’re waiting on the results of that suit. None of these vessels are intended to be unmanned, though…
