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One of the aims of this program was to essentially give any 18 year old kid the tool set to perform like a highly trained sniper. There will still be a need for
by ahoodlum 12y ago
One of the aims of this program was to essentially give any 18 year old kid the tool set to perform like a highly trained sniper. There will still be a need for marksmanship training but this enables the minimum standard of marksmanship for its user to be akin to an expert. Ballistics computation is complicated but this simplifies it to a more straight-forward "point and shoot" approach that almost anyone can understand.
- phaus 12y agoSeems like a silly thing to focus on. Learning to shoot accurately is by far the easiest part of becoming a sniper.
- XorNot 12y agoThink bigger: a drone at 2000 ft having to deal with the cross-wind from different altitudes.
- spingsprong 12y agoDrones don't use 50cal machine guns. What they use is missiles and bombs, and they've been guided for decades.
- moe 12y agoJust guessing, but maybe future drone models (esp. low altitude ones) will use machine guns?
- spingsprong 12y agoThese bullets are not going to be used from a machine gun. It would make zero sense. They're for long range sniping.
- moe 12y agoWell, sniper drones then?
- BugBrother 12y agoCough... five comments and no one wonder about the possibility of shooting at drones with this rifle?
- bmelton 12y agoImpractical. The effective ceiling of an MQ1 Predator is 25,000 feet, which approximates to 4.5 miles. The effective range of a Barrett M82 (50 Caliber rifle) is approximately 6,000 feet, and that's not shooting straight up. Point blank (which, despite the common vernacular meaning 'really close', actually means 'the range of the bullet before you have to adjust for elevation') is 1500 feet, past that, gravity begins taking over. TL;DR, the range of a Predator drone is definitely greater than the naked eye's visibility range, and even with optics, target acquisition is nearly impossible, and even if it weren't, unless it's flying very low relative to its ceiling, you can't hit it anyway.
- XorNot 12y agoMissiles have the problem of collateral damage. Anytime you explode things, shrapnel and shockwaves will endanger people you may not see nearby. What you'd like to do is put a drone in the air where you can lase 5 people, and have it precision assassinate them. Then have it loiter and wait till their colleagues show up, who, by observing their actions, you can assassinate them to. The size of a bullet means you'd have a lot of operational time would be very long - you could carry hundreds of rounds on a drone, that would still be just as capable of disabling vehicles or hitting passengers.
- mikeyouse 12y agoThat may be true, but the harder parts about being a sniper get a lot easier if you're as accurate from a mile as today's snipers are from 200M.
- beachstartup 12y agoi don't know... i think the missions will just get harder. or remain just as hard, to up the success %.
- elmin 12y agoYes, either of those would make the project a success, no?