I think the tech currently assumes a stable platform so the motion of the drone might make the gun move too eratically for the technology to work properly. But wouldn’t it be awesome if it did work? We could impove optics and stability on the drone and have them shoot specific targets from a kilometer in the air.
Assassin drones. No. Wait. NINJA DRONES!!!
When I fire a new gun, I never know where the break is so I am braced for the recoil for the entire pull. I don’t get the impression that the delay between pull and fire is entirely random or that prolonged. AFAICT, the delay is the time it takes for the reticle to line up with the original laser targetting. I also believe that the gun will only fire if you keep the trigger pulled so if you let go of the trigger one of the internal safeties reengage. So you pull trigger and the gun will fire as long as the trigger remains compressed. You can be braced for recoil for that long i think.
I’m not sure it doesn’t. Really, once you have pulled the trigger on this system, the computer is making all of the decisions. It seems like only part left is getting the plane to walk the crosshairs onto the firing solution itself, which seems like the easy part. I don’t see why the drone would have a problem waiting until the vehicle reaches its destination, and the occupants get out. The problem with waiting for the car to get to its destination right now is that there’s likely to be more collateral damage at its destination vs. while it’s on the open road. This also brings up the option of disabling the vehicle, waiting for everyone to get out, and then shooting the target in the middle of nowhere. However…
While I think the system is made for an inherently unstable platform, and just shoots when the conditions happen to line up for it, it does seem to assume that the shooter is stationary. Being able to calculate the shot from a moving location may make the software a bit harder to write. I don’t think it’s in insurmountable problem, though. A bonus for shooting from the drone is that a declination shot is the easiest to make (for us meat machines, at least, the program might have different problems), which I think it would usually be doing. A flying sniper would certainly be awesome in the biblical sense.
The reason I thought that self-guiding bullets might be more feasible for drones is just because of the time for the bullet to reach the target.
If you’re 10,000 feet up even a powerful rifle shot is going to take about 3 seconds. All the aiming skill in the world won’t help if they happen to move in that time, and now the target knows he’s being fired at.
Obviously the same is true of RL snipers, but the point is it’s not true of bombs (can’t be dodged in 3 seconds), so that is one reason we might continue to favour the latter.
Mijinn, the guided bullet would certainly make it better. The aiming system of this rifle is already using a laser, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t use both. However, 10,000 feet is going to take an awfully large laser.
I believe you can release the trigger and abort the fire if something crosses your line of sight.
Well thats what I meant. Putting the thing on a bipod tells me that the it needs stability, for now. Its just hard to aim a kilometer away if you are moving. I’ve taken a lot of shots at about 400 yards and breathing can take me off target.
Its not a matter of calculating, its getting a bead on something that far away when you’re moving.
Depends on the bomb or missile. A bomb dropped from 30,000 takes a lot more than 3 seconds to hit. A vehicle that chooses the right moment to get away might well survive.
Missiles are usually slower than bullets too, though there are exceptions. IIRC, there were gun/missile duels between the guns of Israeli tanks and the Sagger missiles of Eqyptian missile teams. Often the first warning tank crews had was the flame and dust of the missile launch. If they wanted to live they had to crank their turret around and fire an HE round at the missile crew. If their shell hit first, the missile would lose guidance and plow into the ground. The Israelis usually won, but not always.
But maybe missiles are faster today. And there are some “fire and forget” ones that will hit the target even if the launcher is killed a few seconds after firing.
Sorry, I was being overly figurative. The computer is making the decision when to fire, after you have made the decision to fire, which can be canceled until the computer has fired.
Well, the M-1 Abrams seems to solve that problem a lot better than you or I do (disclaimer: the closest I’ve ever been to an M-1 is seeing it on T.V.). But bringing up that makes me realize that this device is no great shakes for the military, (which it seems msmith357 was implying). They’ve had a big, bulky version of it for years. There must be another reason why they haven’t done it, most likely they’re not willing to get the assassin drones into rifle (or even autocannon) range.
All nerds bow heads in thanx, and praise be to the FanGhods! Finally . . . at long last . . . after all these decades of waiting . . . Finally, we have robots that can conceivably Turn Against Their Masters!
I’m not sure why that means its assassin level accurate but if it is then it seems to me the military already has the technology to do the same thing with drones.
Well, I don’t have any cites. However, a friend who was a tank driver in Desert Storm said they were traveling at full speed hitting T-72s while still being outside of the range of the T-72’s gun. I think it’d put either of us to shame.
I agree, there has to be a reason they’re not putting it on drones. I still think it’s the range of the projectile. A Hellfire’s range is about 5 miles, even a big Oerlikon gun’s range is puny at 1km.
Yeah, I would say landing a 120mm penetrating sabot round from a moving vehicle onto another moving vehicle over a mile away is pretty darn accurate.
“One downside to the TrackingPoint Rifle is that it costs up to $22,000, so it is slightly more expensive than had you just taken out a mafia contract on a gazelle.” – Stephen Colbert
While this is interesting, it isn’t really a threat to anybody. It’s not unlike ballistic computers that we have been using for years. Those are quite available to any resourceful person. In fact, there’s an app for it. I think we should be concerned a little more about 3D printed guns , but not by much. Creating explosives at home is quite an easy task as well, yet how many people do that?
