3 ms·

No, an invisible infrared beam reflecting off of dust or water vapor is still invisible infrared light.

gotocake 8y ago
Fair enough, but those wavelengths are visible with night vision gear. Either you work in visible wavelengths and worry about dust, or you work in IR and draw bright lines for anyone with NVG.
- phonypc 8y ago
  It would have to be night time or otherwise dark and there would have to be enough dust/whatever in the air and you'd have to be expecting a laser attack. And then you'd have two seconds to follow the 'shot' back to its origin.
  - gotocake 8y ago
    In order... It would not have to be night time, modern NVG is quite adaptable. It would also be trivial to deliver something using the same tech as primative NVGs or basic FLIR as a countermeasure. Dust isn’t required with IR, the whole beam will be very visible on NVG. Where are you getting “2 seconds” from as the time necessary to kill someone with this laser?
    - skeoh 8y ago
      I believe "2 seconds" is in reference to the following sentence in the article: > It can fire more than 1,000 “shots”, each lasting no more than two seconds. The implication being not that you have two seconds to kill someone but that you have two seconds to follow the beam from its destination to its origin.
    - phonypc 8y ago
      Article states a 'shot' lasts no more than two seconds. Who said anything about killing? The use case seems to be incapacitation and starting fires. Why would particulate matter in the air not be required? There's plenty of video on youtube of IR laser pointer operation through night vision. It works the same as a visible laser. Given you have IR laser detecting equipment suitable for daytime use (I'm not convinced your could adapt existing night vision equipment to the task) that would still require you to be expecting a laser attack to deploy it. Come to think of it, it's not a given that the weapon even uses a wavelength visible to night vision devices. They don't cover all of infrared.

Fair enough, but those wavelengths are visible with night vision gear. Either you work in visible wavelengths and worry about dust, or you work in IR and draw bright lines for anyone with NVG.

phonypc 8y ago
It would have to be night time or otherwise dark and there would have to be enough dust/whatever in the air and you'd have to be expecting a laser attack. And then you'd have two seconds to follow the 'shot' back to its origin.
- gotocake 8y ago
  In order... It would not have to be night time, modern NVG is quite adaptable. It would also be trivial to deliver something using the same tech as primative NVGs or basic FLIR as a countermeasure. Dust isn’t required with IR, the whole beam will be very visible on NVG. Where are you getting “2 seconds” from as the time necessary to kill someone with this laser?
  - skeoh 8y ago
    I believe "2 seconds" is in reference to the following sentence in the article: > It can fire more than 1,000 “shots”, each lasting no more than two seconds. The implication being not that you have two seconds to kill someone but that you have two seconds to follow the beam from its destination to its origin.
  - phonypc 8y ago
    Article states a 'shot' lasts no more than two seconds. Who said anything about killing? The use case seems to be incapacitation and starting fires. Why would particulate matter in the air not be required? There's plenty of video on youtube of IR laser pointer operation through night vision. It works the same as a visible laser. Given you have IR laser detecting equipment suitable for daytime use (I'm not convinced your could adapt existing night vision equipment to the task) that would still require you to be expecting a laser attack to deploy it. Come to think of it, it's not a given that the weapon even uses a wavelength visible to night vision devices. They don't cover all of infrared.