Weapons
From Future
From finding the biggest stick, to nuclear arms race, humans have a natural tendency to attempt to outgun their opponents, either to defeat them or to provoke enough fear to establish order, or just to discourage others from doing the same to them. On this basis it can be assumed that humans will develop new weapons from new technologies or even to develop new technologies to make new weapons possible.
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[edit] Ballistic Small Arms
The 20th century assault rifle has established itself as an efficient tool and as such it has forced modern militarys to change their tactics and equiptment to deal with it.
New innovations such as caseless ammunition are present in the designs of many firearms and may be typical in the 21st century. Combined grenade launcher-carbine/personal defence weapon systems such as the US OICW (Objective Individual Combat Weapon) are being developed by several countries at present but have shown themselves to be too bulky and not particularly ergonomic.
"smart bullets" have been conceptualized that can turn corners in order to eliminate an enemy behind cover, or so that a soldier could fire from behind cover.
[edit] Magnetic/Rail Guns
Weapons that fire a solid projectile via electromagnetism have been hypothesized and if this technology were to come to fruition then these rail-guns or coil-guns may very well replace current firearms. These weapons, other than being more expensive than current small arms, would probably fire a similar projectile to similar effect, except that it may be possible to very quickly change a power setting and an adjustable rail to switch the rail-gun from one calibre to another within minutes. Essentially it could be used as something akin to a P90 for fighting in built up areas against an unarmoured opponent while reducing the risk of collateral damage (a higher powered projectile may pass through a hostage-taker into a hostage), and then switched to something more like an M82 for an urban sniper role. This could happen if current trends continue to work towards modular platforms for small arms rather than a single object (consider the XM312 being converted to an XM307 within minutes, and the XM8 family)
[edit] LASER
A laser weapon would work by heating it's target with a concentrated beam of light (not necessarily visible) causing it to melt or burn. If a sufficient and portable power supply where available, these weapons could become cost-effective and logical.
As anti-tank weapons they could set off reactive armour, "cook" conventional munitions within the tank, and melt parts of the tank causing a malfuntion.
As an air defense weapon they could hit any target they could see within their effective range unlike guided missiles or ballistic projectiles which have to compensate for the movement of the target, so long as the light was not refracted somehow.
- Many counter measures against laser damage to missiles have been proposed, these range from ablative coatings on the missile to spinning the missile to spread the heat over a larger area.
[edit] Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs)
Currently important in reconnaisance, UAVs will become increasingly important in warfare against slow moving targets. This will put a premium on light weapons that they can carry easily. Initial 'weapons' are likely to be designed to damage sensors. UAVs will be able to aproach very close to their targets, and target sensors with great accuracy.
[edit] Nanoweapons
- See nanoshield discussion at LifeBoat
