Military invents cool version of laser tag

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/irspotlight.html

It's like "german spotlight", except they blow your head off when they see you. Must have been an AC-130 or Apache or something.

Anyway, the guy pointing the first laser at the target.... call me crazy, but is that thing visible to normal light? I don't think I'd want to be that guy. He's also pointing out where *he* is!

It's an IR spotlight, an thus only visible to people who can see IR. Luckily, Military night vision goggles can see IR in the right frequencies.

And it's a good thing we had that ban on sending/selling NVGs to Iraq!

And also, i think our military gunship's targeting system can automatically pick up these spotlights, although im not sure. Everything I have seen suggests they can.

Thats a wicked good IR camera.

[Edited on Oct 04, 2005 by psychoholicagogo]

Digital Camere sensors (including video camera sensors) are naturally very good at "seeing" IR, but are filtered to block it out.

damn.. they had something like that in congo.. the michael crichton book.. i'lll stop talking now...

And in this instance the camera is most likely filtered to allow a bit of the visible spectrum as most likely the beam being used to paint the target is of the lower range of the infrared spectrum, most likely 830nm. I've only used crappy cheap versions at work to find beams...

That's impressive. That's the first time I've seen a target getting "painted" with IR outside of the movies. Absolutely wicked.

From the rate of fire, I'm thinking AC-130 "Specter" gunship. But the subsequent missle strikes make me think AH-64. Either way, I would NOT want to be on the recieving end.

I love that mini vulcan. ..and why waste time using tracer rounds, get a spot light

Hooooooooooooolyfuckingshit. That was really....

...

...I think the term I'm searching for is "disturbing". Wow.

The future is now.

And the future is a violent, well armed mother fucker, that can see you in the dark.

I knew I *hearted* you.

Yah, this is all really cool, except that they likely just killed forty people.

I think this kind of equipment is terrifying. It's all well and good in the right hands but if an oppressive dictatorship ever gets up to the military and surveillance tech level of the US there is no way in hell that the citizens of that nation could pull themselves out from under the thumb of the dictator.

I'm going to agree with you.

Jeezum crow.

i'll bet the dude aiming that thing felt like a fucking Predator or something