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seamusTX wrote:

MechAg94 wrote:Imagine a pistol or rifle with a compact built in aiming system that accounts for distance and all sorts of other factors.

Some kind of electronic ranging system would be useful with rifles, though I have to think the U.S. military has already spent millions on research that didn't work out.

At practical handgun distances, the sighting systems that we have are more than adequate. I know some people shoot handguns 100 yards or more, but that is a specialized hobby.

- Jim

Automated ranging and fire control...that's perfectly reasonable. Kind of a portable Phalanx CWS.

seamusTX wrote:One EMP blast, and modern society is toast.

BTW, a certain large, Communist country in Asia demonstrated its ability to shoot down missiles yesterday.

Here I go with the thread drift again.

- Jim

Respectfully, that's only partially true. I used to do RadHard work at Motorola Semiconductor. Radiation-hardened electronics are perfectly capable of surviving an EMP attack. Military communications grids were designed with this in mind. As for the rest of society, yeah they'd be having a bad day.

I think steerable ammo is the next major revolution. We already have armor piercing incendiary, time delay explosive, etc. The main problem is hitting the target, especially at long ranges, or where the target is moving erratically. Guidance systems have already impacted every other major weapon system...bombs became JDAM's, artillery became CopperHead, rockets became Mavericks and Hellfires, bazookas became Javelins and TOW's, AA flak became Phalanx and Standard, V-2 became Tomahawk, torpedoes became MK48 ADCAP Mod 7 (CBASS) . The ONLY major weapon system that hasn't experienced the guidance revolution is small arms. Think about a SR-25 .50cal sniper rifle round cruising at 3,000fps and able to course-correct on it's way to the target. Scary.