Remember the 'Star Wars project' of the '80's? Lasers! Lock and load.

[cbr3d.com]

Well something that is terrifying yet magnificent at the same time.  Remember President Reagan and his much vaunted Star Wars project?  Well the US is already building its first laser armed warships and now it looks like within 3 years the first battlefield lasers will enter service. 

Of course the great thing about the laser weaponary is that it will actually make such weapons like ICBM's obsolete as such, that must be somewhat worrrying for a certain country in Eastern Europe who keeps threatening to use nukes if they don't get their own way.   

Perhaps the Kremlin should have watched more SciFi television in their youth.   

[getagrip]

Battlefield lasers,  really?

I know I'm getting old cos the world is getting scary 

[Steve J]

Or just make the ICBMs with a shiny surface and the laser will more or less bounce off. I remember watching a programme years ago on this, and to shoot down a missile or plane, they had to fly in a straight line long enough for the laser to do damage. Things may have progressed since then but I remain to be convinced.

[getagrip]

Or, and I know this is totally crazy,  we just stop trying to kill each other 

[FierceKitty]

Every Russian or citizen of a then-USSR-dominated country that I've spoken to has remarked that they were convinced in the 80s that an American nuclear attack was being planned. I'm far from sure they were wrong.

[getagrip]

Was trying to explain to a bunch of teenagers the other day how real the threat of nuclear war seemed at that time.

[paulr]

I work with a guy from the former East Germany. Apparently their troops were really pissed off when they found out NATO troops got 'weekends off' as they were regularly on alert on the weekends.

All sorts of interesting stories like feeding radar data to SAM batteries and watching them track the NATO aircraft on the other side of the border. Their orders were to fire if the border was crossed

[getagrip]

When some of this info is disclosed it might make rather chilling reading

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Then we did have V-Bombers - fully loaded - doing "ferret" missions at very low level across Finland headed at Leningrad.

IanS

[getagrip]

Then we did have V-Bombers - fully loaded - doing "ferret" missions at very low level across Finland headed at Leningrad.

IanS

Ferret missions?

[toxicpixie]

Same thing the yanks did with B-52s - "probe" the Soviet defenses by flying squadrons of nuclear armed bombers at them repeatedly just to see what the Soviets would do when large the numbers of nuclear armed bombers cross your borders heading for your cities and industry.

And we bleat when maritime patrol aircraft get to a couple of hundred miles from our borders...

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Ferret missions?

Chasing rabbits down holes.....

No they looked for Air Defense radar signals so that the defense suite could be upgraded. That of course presupposed the fuses were still working.

IanS

[Orcs]

Or, and I know this is totally crazy,  we just stop trying to kill each other 

I can honestly say that is a wonderful thought.  Trouble is it does not work as there are two may evil people in the world

Remember "in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"

Or to put a modern slant on it

"In the land of the unarmed the man with a the AK47 is king"

We would be just handing things over to extreemists like IS.  Look where we got with Chamberlains appeasement policy.

[getagrip]

I can honestly say that is a wonderful thought.  Trouble is it does not work as there are two may evil people in the world

Remember "in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king"

Or to put a modern slant on it

"In the land of the unarmed the man with a the AK47 is king"

We would be just handing things over to extreemists like IS.  Look where we got with Chamberlains appeasement policy.

Agreed but I kind of meant everyone 

I know it will never happen but...

[Orcs]

Agreed but I kind of meant everyone 

I know it will never happen but...

We can but hope