Can’t shoot? Got an extra 17 grand?
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Liberal Civvy sends us a link to an article about a $17,000 sighting system that takes all of the guess work out of long range shooting. The video from NBC illustrates the process of shooting the computer-launched bullet.
You pick your target by dropping a pin on it using the camcorder-like zoom lens. When you want to shoot that target, you line up crosshairs inside the scope with the pin you dropped. The weirdest thing is, when you squeeze the trigger, it doesn’t fire. You have to squeeze the trigger and line up the crosshairs with your mark. When you do, the gun goes boom, and the target takes a bullet.
Yeah, I can appreciate the technology, but this makes you the gun bearer for a computer. It’s probably valuable for a military application when every shot counts, but for civilians it’s just an expensive toy and the sport of it all is gone.
Category: Guns
So easy, even a caveman could do it. So with all of our technological advances in everything, where in the hell is my damn hoverboard?
Incoming Libtardom: EVERYBODY CAN BE A SNIPER NOW!!!!
Picture a cave man screaming in rage because your club has a rock tied to it, and he never thought of that. “Don’t you understand that you’re ruining it? The art of crushing in a skull with an almost superhuman bash? Your stupid rock will make it too easy to do what we do.”
Could I get one of these instead of a free phone?
Can you launch those 4th of July rockets with it?
Actually it (the concept) is not new.
While this rifle/scope system is a lot smaller and the configuration and software is new, the actual employed concept has been around since at least the late 80s.
While stationed in Germany (88-90 timeframe) we got to hands on demo a German sniping system that used a very similar concept. (I don’t remember the company’s name that was trying to sell it to the Germans, and we just got to try it out because we happened to be at the range at the same time.) The scope used then was actually bigger than the AN-PVS-4. It was connected to a computer, via cables, that was kept close by (in a van … the military version, not a civilian-car version.) The van had a little weather station that was also connected to the computer. Everything was monitored and accounted for: temp, pressure, elevation, gimbal, etc, etc. Even the crosshairs moved inside the scope and you had to realign before pressing the trigger.
It’s been to many years now to remember all the details, but I’m pretty sure it was never purchased or fielded by the US Military. At the time it was big, bulky and fairly unwieldy, (plus you had to have the weather station van and computer) but definitely a sign of times to come.
Pretty cool stuff actually … imagine this coupled with those new “steerable” bullets.
Gravel
I was fortunate to be stationed at APG in the early 90s and was working with Army Research Lab on another project. I was visiting the electrical engineer for our project when he showed me a scope much like this attached to an M16. As I recall there were some cables extending from the scope/rifle. I got to dry fire the weapon several times and I can tell you it was as mentioned, line up the dot on the target, squeeze the trigger, align the cross hairs on the dot and “click” firing pin released.
Shortly after that I saw a small article in Popular Mechanics, I think, show casing that same scope/rifle.
Cool Stuff.