DARPA Creates Bullet That Can Think For Itself, Change Course Mid-Flight

[blackrave]

Other than that, I could definitely see a use for this sort of thing on vehicle mounted guns. There's all sorts of potentially crazy applications. Like, take the A-10. Imagine if you had a guy on the ground (or even another A-10 or UAV up in the air) laser-pointing individual targets. All the A-10 has to do is shoot in the general direction and the rounds are going to home right on in.

The problem with this is that the cost-per-bullet will be astronomical in comparison to old bullets. while the 3 billion dollar budget sure can afford it, this is going to be like the protective exoskeletons. fully in working order, but deemed too expensive to deploy. its cheaper to replace a wounded solder apparently.

Mass-production would make this cheaper
But still not so cheap to shoot from billion-rounds-per-second-miniguns
So I agree that A-10 most probably won't be loaded with such ammo

Mu issue is with penetrative capabilities of said bullet
To pierce armor bullet need 3 things- energy, mass and strength
Energy is clear (its .50BMG after all)
Mass is questionable but manageable (if bullet is too light just put heavy metals where possible)
What is improbable is strength- I really doubt that camera-tip is strong enough to slice through vehicular armor
And given advanced armor plates (like Cryron for example) eventually will be in vests, soon even soldiers will be protected well enough to withstand hit from such bullet.

So only thing I see this bullet good for is assassinations

 

[Ihateregistering1]

They keep talking about "Wanted", but really this made me think about the old Tom Selleck movie "Runaway", where the bad guy (who was played by Gene Simmons of "Kiss"...yes seriously) had bullets that would track their targets after you fired them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/

Actually a pretty decent movie. Man I miss the 80's.

 

[Rolan Storm]

'Although I have to admit, the concept of a bullet that can chase you is a little bit terrifying.'

Yeah, because idea being shot at with regular rounds is right as rain. It was mentioned correctly above this ammo is costly, too costly to influence warfare to any noticeable degree at the moment.

Now there is another thought: how about such ammo in shooter games... given to the enemy NPC?

 

[Kevlar Eater]

Awesome! Now we're one step closer to this gun:

 

[Avaholic03]

Although I have to admit, the concept of a bullet that can chase you is a little bit terrifying.

Well it's not like you could see a bullet coming and dodge it to begin with, so aside from some specialized cases, this won't be any more deadly than a generic 50 cal.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Judge: Did you shoot that man?
Man: Nope the bullet changed direction, i was just target shooting and the bullet just took off with a mind of its own.

Seems like they are storming forward with the non human army. After all, why spend money training a man to shoot well when the bullet can do it itself. I thinking they will attach these to drones and robots as well.

 

[Scorpid]

And lo, the Dark Age of Technology began. In 100's of millinia to come when Mankind has expanded to the stars and this technologies production is all but forgotten its appearance shall be the deus ex machina of many conflicts between divinely engineered super soldiers and the vast array of dark beings that seek our extinction or enslavement.

 

[FalloutJack]

Roger snip

Zorg snip

Actually, I'd been thinking of another movie.


Yeah, well, I'm from the 80s. These things happen. Problem is, this ain't cost-effective. Bullets that shoot straight will always be cheaper and needed more often. Bullets that shoot the hell through things instead of around them will STILL be cheaper and needed more often. This idea is neat, but not worth doing.

 

[weirdee]

I wouldn't be so quick to talk about added costs. After all, if more shots accomplish what they were meant to do, that means firing less of them, right?

The other thing is that our mass production capabilities are becoming significantly more effective every year.

 

[FalloutJack]

I wouldn't be so quick to talk about added costs. After all, if more shots accomplish what they were meant to do, that means firing less of them, right?

I dunno about that. They teach you to shoot straight as per default when you're given a gun in whatever service you're in. What will happen to training if this becomes regular? Will a soldier be able to handle himself when the inevitable bullet-confusing device comes into play? Imagine how this plays out on the battlefield. An enemy who has classic weapons and one blanket jammer device suitable for ruining the guideance for incoming projectiles is the opponent. That technology exists now for missles, which makes it possible to turn a bunch of soldiers aiming where they want to kill eveything to a bunch of guys missing like hell and maybe hurting their own guys while an enemy who always shoots straight attacks them in traditional fashion. I'm not really seeing its mass-application. I think basic training is a more valuable asset.

 

[K-lusive]

Snip

I see this being used for snipers firing at long ranges.
If you need to hit something 1, 2, 5 miles away I can see it helps a lot if you have a bullet that does all the wind speed and direction and curvature of the earth calculationey things for you so you only need to laserpaint your target's head for a sec. Means you can be in and out of a bad spot much faster. Kind of like an on-the-fly IRL aimbot.

 

[FalloutJack]

Snip

I see this being used for snipers firing at long ranges.
If you need to hit something 1, 2, 5 miles away I can see it helps a lot if you have a bullet that does all the wind speed and direction and curvature of the earth calculationey things for you so you only need to laserpaint your target's head for a sec. Means you can be in and out of a bad spot much faster. Kind of like an on-the-fly IRL aimbot.

That might be worth doing, something small-scale where that would apply. Though...which is better in terms of cost and use? Guided sniper bullet or guided rocket?

 

[weirdee]

I wouldn't be so quick to talk about added costs. After all, if more shots accomplish what they were meant to do, that means firing less of them, right?

I dunno about that. They teach you to shoot straight as per default when you're given a gun in whatever service you're in. What will happen to training if this becomes regular? Will a soldier be able to handle himself when the inevitable bullet-confusing device comes into play? Imagine how this plays out on the battlefield. An enemy who has classic weapons and one blanket jammer device suitable for ruining the guideance for incoming projectiles is the opponent. That technology exists now for missles, which makes it possible to turn a bunch of soldiers aiming where they want to kill eveything to a bunch of guys missing like hell and maybe hurting their own guys while an enemy who always shoots straight attacks them in traditional fashion. I'm not really seeing its mass-application. I think basic training is a more valuable asset.

at the same time, lowering the barrier to entry was what made guns originally more useful than bows despite guns generally taking longer to load back then, since you could hand a gun to a person with less training than somebody that had to have the arm strength and steadiness to use a bow, and then use them to cut down trained soldiers that the enemy would have to scramble to replace. as for "jamming" them, that would depend on how the bullets are tracking the target, and having those countermeasures might be relatively simple, or impractical/too expensive (or in some cases, make them easier targets for other weapons like drone strikes or just plain give their position away), so we don't know what will happen yet.

in any case, since we already have aim assist technology that relies on visual information rather than laser tagging (which will probably be employed in tandem with this technology if it is pursued further), it will be pretty hard to say "well, since this one person is really good at using a gun, they'll be able to outmatch five or ten other people augmented with computers that can aim and fire faster than any human could possibly ever think"

 

[Sampler]

Ultra bright l.e.d's to countermeasure and confuse the tracking system?