Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Israel rolls out laser defense system

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 250 posts

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#121

Post by golergka »

skinnymuch wrote: post #87
golergka wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assume this implies killing all Israelis too? Yes. > Quite a statement to make about the vast majority of Gaza citizens that can barely survive. Talk to them. Personally, I think that the reason this conflict is so misunderstood in the West is that you guys are just too distant from the cultural norms of the region, and literally can't believe that millions of people could openly and unapologetically be pro-genoc…

I have talked to some. You didn’t respond to any other parts of my post. Especially the main point I made of the listing of states in conflict where it is similarly not possible for the smaller side to wipe out the nicer one. The point of that is to show how unreasonable expecting any of those smaller states or people to ever be able to do a serious amount of damage to the stronger power. It is a stretch to say “mill…

> Especially the main point I made of the listing of states in conflict where it is similarly not possible for the smaller side to wipe out the nicer one.

You're conflating the sides of the conflict here. It's not palestinians versus israelis, and it started much earlier than in 20th century. Arabs have already wiped out all the jews from their states already in 1940s — some managed to flee to Israel, but many more were just killed.

Yes, Israel managed to build bridges with some arab governments, from Egypt to Saudis, especially lately. But don't conflate government with countries. The majority of arabs all over the muslim world, both Sunni and Shia, despite their internal differences, offer wide popular support to complete genocide of jews.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#122

Post by LorenPechtel »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #84
hadlock wrote: post #32

I'm curious where the tipping point is, where the military response exceeds the financial cost of a political response. It's one thing to have tensions simmering on both sides of a border, it's another that one side feels wronged and is lobbing bombs over the fence. The fact that they're having to develop a laser defense system to defend against lobbed bombs seems like it's time to reevaluate political solutions.

There are really only three solutions. One, Israel annexes Palestine in its current form, and ceases to be a Jewish state. Two, Israel annexes Palestine after removing its current inhabitants. Three, Israel stays in a state of low-grade warfare while carving out the most desireable bits of Palestine for its settlers as its population grows. One is untenable for obvious reasons. Two is untenable until memories of the…

Israel would like peace, but they know it's not feasible. Peace will only come about either with the at a minimum extirpation of Jews from the area, or with the backers deciding they don't want to support the war anymore--and that would require at a minimum a serious threat of Israel going nuclear, probably actually nuking somebody's capital.

Hence the low-level conflict is the least bad choice.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#123

Post by AussieWog93 »

opwieurposiu wrote: post #28
sandworm101 wrote: post #21

I will believe it when I see it. Focusing that much light on a small moving object, through layered and moving air, with an intensity to burn through metal would be an achievement. Burning through enough of that metal to degrade a falling rocket (as opposed to during boost phase of flight) is even harder. For all the talk about cost reduction, have a look at what realworld laser armor costs. Painting the nosecone of…

At the current power level, this laser is mainly useful against drones. There is a limit to how much laser power you can shoot through the air. When the threshold for breakdown is exceeded, a high density plasma is produced which is opaque to visible and infrared wavelengths and thus absorbs the laser radiation. The moon does not have this laser power limit, but moving Tel Aviv to the moon would quite expensive and y…

> but moving Tel Aviv to the moon would quite expensive and you would lose the mediterranean climate

On the flip side, you'd be really far away from Iran.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#124

Post by nekcihc »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #84
hadlock wrote: post #32

I'm curious where the tipping point is, where the military response exceeds the financial cost of a political response. It's one thing to have tensions simmering on both sides of a border, it's another that one side feels wronged and is lobbing bombs over the fence. The fact that they're having to develop a laser defense system to defend against lobbed bombs seems like it's time to reevaluate political solutions.

There are really only three solutions. One, Israel annexes Palestine in its current form, and ceases to be a Jewish state. Two, Israel annexes Palestine after removing its current inhabitants. Three, Israel stays in a state of low-grade warfare while carving out the most desireable bits of Palestine for its settlers as its population grows. One is untenable for obvious reasons. Two is untenable until memories of the…

In first solution - it depends. There is also option, that Islam ceases to exist(all according to islamic scriptures). Palestinian Arabs in that situation can convert to Judaism or whatever and anyone who would be able to find Jewish ancestry who were converted can probably easily find those roots. Though in that case, borders of Israel would include more than Palestine.

The conflict from Islam POV is about which religion is better. That is biggest weakness of Islam in the region, where Jews were living in Medina and Mecca long before Islam was arisen and where majority of Arabs were Christians up till Middle Ages. So, even if it takes another 1000 years, I would put money on that Jews will survive, while Islam will be long forgotten history.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#125

Post by dundarious »

towe12301923 wrote: post #73

> "If we can intercept a missile or rocket with an electrical pulse that costs a few dollars, we will essentially neutralize the ring of fire that Iran has set up ... This new generation of air defence can also serve our friends in the region, who are also exposed to grave threats from Iran and its proxies. This is admirable. Instead of playing the typical offense-first arms race, they are in a defense-first technolo…

The Israeli Defense Forces use bulldozers, assault rifles, sniper rifles, white phosphorous, shells, missiles, attack helicopters, cluster bombs, and massive bunker buster bombs. The fact that they have so conclusively won the offensive/violent weapon arms race is readily apparent in the casualty statistics.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#126

Post by trhway »

propesh wrote: post #44
propesh wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ill never forget when the Iron Dome was first rolling out, this rocket researcher on the internet said it couldn't be done. He explained it pretty well, and I was convinced. Search google for Iron dome doesn't work (looking back to 2010-14) And yet, it does work (mostly). So basically what I'm saying, this stuff is hard, and few people in the world can even verify your claim, never mind have access to the tech or AI…

Here is the article: https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/07/15/172055/an-explan... Again, not sure if this turned out to be correct; but from reading reports on the ground and the lives Israel claimed it saved (and building more of them,) it seems evident he was in fact wrong.

He seems to be just a theoretic, not an actual military nor weapons manufacturer. From the start his pondering about unimportance of hitting engine instead of warhead is already very wrong and very theoretic. It is also very theoretic wish to hit the rocket frontally, I mean it would be great, it is a wet dream of any air defense, yet on practice hitting sideway chasing from behind is more realistic and still works great usually.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#127

Post by chongli »

sandworm101 wrote: post #27
simplyaccont wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I will believe it when I see it. Focusing that much light on a small moving object, through layered and moving air, with an intensity to burn through metal would be an achievement. Burning through enough of that metal to degrade a falling rocket (as opposed to during boost phase of flight) is even harder. it's been working 20 years ago. it's just systems were too big. you needed 2-3 tracks to supply energy to laser…

Any foil will do, just as the JWST's sunshield is effective against all the wavelengths coming off the sun. Gold or silver is best, but aluminum foil from the grocery store is extremely reflective across all wavelengths we would call laser. Just giving the metal rocket a good polish would make a significant difference.

Aluminum foil reflects about 85% of visible light. Gold reflects 98% of visible light. Neither of these materials would be effective in protecting against a 100kW laser. That remaining 2% is 2kW of light energy directed at a small target. It’ll rapidly ablate the gold foil and then the target will begin to absorb the full power.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#128

Post by senectus1 »

The last time I saw Israel doing something like this it was an infrared laser, each laser used a massive "chemical reaction battery" to power the laser. But each burst of shots used a big sea container looking battery that churned out some truly hideous chemical waste.

I wonder how they plan on powering this new system.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#129

Post by nickff »

jimnotgym wrote: post #102
RegnisGnaw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These "advanced" rockets will be more costly, which means your more limited on how many you can afford to fire. Thus Israel can intercept these "advanced" rockets with other solutions: Iron Dome, Arrow 2, Arrow 3, and David's Sling. The Iron Beam is the low cost per intercept solution, meant to intercept cheap unguided ballistic rockets.

Other people on here have suggested that tin foil will do as protection, or metal polish for that matter. Im guessing this will make no difference in the number of rockets at all

Random commenters on HN are not smarter than the Palestinians nor the Israelis involved in this conflict. I am sure that 'tin foil' (by which I believe you mean aluminum foil) will not work.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#130

Post by LorenPechtel »

skinnymuch wrote: post #78
jlawson wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

The Palestinians? They have not made it clear at all. TMany people living in Gaza, one of the poorest, unsafe, strips of land with the least amount of autonomy or basic human respect given, don’t have time and energy to focus on a goal of utterly conquering and pushing Israel to the sea. I assume this implies killing all Israelis too? Quite a statement to make about the vast majority of Gaza citizens that can barely…

Gaza used to be the most prosperous Arab nation that didn't have oil. That's not good for recruiting cannon fodder so they launched the second intifada to destroy the economy.

They focus on destroying Israel because it brings them money.

Post reply on HN