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From: slouie@uts.amdahl.com (Shelley Louie)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Particle Beam Gun
Message-ID: <10412@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 20 Oct 89 01:42:15 GMT
References: <10315@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
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From: slouie@uts.amdahl.com (Shelley Louie)

Even before the problems of development of particle beam weapons and/or
kinetic motion weapons (ie. Gauss guns), there is the problem of its
impracticalities in terms of being a line-of-sight weapon.  The Navy's
empathsis on missles would still exist even if a cheap energy weapon
were developed today.  I would contend however that such a weapon would
be ideal for use in an anti-air capacity if it were able to fire fast
enough. The ability to rapidly fire a accurate series of small shots
over a line-of sight difference would make a fantastic middle-range
point defense and play havoc in an anti-aircraft situation.

As for orbiting sattilites to be used as ultra-high level bombers,
the needed mass and accuracy would make such a weapon impractical
except vs a clustered target such as a town.  Smaller individual targets
would be next to impossible to hit on a steady basis.  Too many variables
to contend with.

-shelley