ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle.

[NAC4EV]

As the U.S. prepares for war in space, China’s bringing the space war home. Its ZKZM-500 laser assault rifle is reportedly capable of hitting a target from a kilometer away, igniting flammable objects, and burning through human skin. And it’s ready for production, the researchers behind the project claim.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a22027915/china-laser-assault-rifle/

 

[GagHalfrunt]

A laser rifle is no match for a good light saber.

 

[PottedMeat]

Also, it’s difficult to believe this weapon is as powerful as advertised. Although the article discusses the weapon’s burning effects in detail, the ZKZM-500's wattage is conveniently left out. The U.S. Military is currently funding research into laser weapons that can do everything the ZKZM-500 reportedly can, but they are multi-kilowatt devices that are so large they must be mounted on armored vehicles or ships. Such a weapon may eventually reach the handheld stage, but nobody is quite there yet. (The weapon would also quickly grow so hot after even a few shots it would require a cooling mechanism.)

Power storage is another problem. The ZKZM-500 can reportedly fire a thousand two-second shots, the equivalent of 33 minutes of laser power, from a “lithium battery.” There’s no way a weapon the size of a rifle can store that much energy internally given today's technology, even if it were stuffed with batteries. To store the equivalent of 33 minutes of laser power would require a considerable power supply outside the rifle itself.

it's junk meant to siphon money from the chinese government.

 

[SMOGZINN]

igniting flammable objects,
burning through human skin

If you carefully read this sentence it very specifically does not say that it can do either of these things

capable of hitting a target from a kilometer away,

from that range.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I doubt it is true but there are ways to get enough joule inside a capacitor for a high energy discharge.
One way to do it is to charge a capacitor to a very high voltage by using a step up converter or flyback converter and discharge the capacitor at once over a laser. But the charging would take time and would still drain the battery. Nothing is ideal and efficiency is always less than 100%. Similar how camera flashes work. I once made a led flash that way with a powerful white led of a few watts. What i did was charge a capacitor to about 20V from two 1.5V AA batteries with a step up converter. And then connect the led to the 20V. All controlled by a microcontroller.
Quite a flash for such a small led.
I have also worked on a project were we charge a 400uF capacitor to 700V. Charged that is 98 Joule and is discharged ideally in a millisecond into a target. That is 98000W for a millisecond long.
The reality is a bit different. But you get the idea.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Honestly high powered lasers scare me more than guns. A gun will kill me, and that's that. A laser will blind me, ruining my life. I would rather die than go blind. You don't even need that much power to be dangerous or light things on fire. 1 watt is way more than good enough and anyone can buy such a laser. I imagine even taking beam spread into account it would be dangerous at 1km.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Honestly high powered lasers scare me more than guns. A gun will kill me, and that's that. A laser will blind me, ruining my life. I would rather die than go blind. You don't even need that much power to be dangerous or light things on fire. 1 watt is way more than good enough and anyone can buy such a laser. I imagine even taking beam spread into account it would be dangerous at 1km.

This thing can't be dangerous at 1km. If it managed to blind someone it would be purely on accident. To blind someone they would have to hit a 1.5mm target at 1km with a tight beam handheld weapon, twice. I would hazard to guess that there are not many marksmen in the world that could accomplish that shot consistently at 30 meters, much less 1000. Even then their weapon could be thwarted by a good pair of sunglasses.

 

[Rifter]

This thing can't be dangerous at 1km. If it managed to blind someone it would be purely on accident. To blind someone they would have to hit a 1.5mm target at 1km with a tight beam handheld weapon, twice. I would hazard to guess that there are not many marksmen in the world that could accomplish that shot consistently at 30 meters, much less 1000. Even then their weapon could be thwarted by a good pair of sunglasses.

Not to mention the optics to focus the beam that small at 1km as far as i know dont exist. And if they do would be insanely expensive and likely not small. Sunglasses wouldnt help but there are glasses that will, but you would need to know the spectrum of the laser and match your protective eyewear to it.

 

[Red Squirrel]

This thing can't be dangerous at 1km. If it managed to blind someone it would be purely on accident. To blind someone they would have to hit a 1.5mm target at 1km with a tight beam handheld weapon, twice. I would hazard to guess that there are not many marksmen in the world that could accomplish that shot consistently at 30 meters, much less 1000. Even then their weapon could be thwarted by a good pair of sunglasses.

It's a laser, all you have to do is wave it around in a crowd you'll eventually hit people. Pilots get hit with them all the time because people think it's funny to point it at airplanes. People are doing this with much lower power lasers like 5mw. Even those will cause eye damage at close range, and eye strain/temp blindness at far range.

Sun glasses won't protect you from that, you need special laser grade glasses. Even refraction from surfaces can be dangerous if it's powerful enough. These things have applications as hobby etc but they need to be respected as being very dangerous.

 

[Rifter]

It's a laser, all you have to do is wave it around in a crowd you'll eventually hit people. Pilots get hit with them all the time because people think it's funny to point it at airplanes. People are doing this with much lower power lasers like 5mw. Even those will cause eye damage at close range, and eye strain/temp blindness at far range.

Sun glasses won't protect you from that, you need special laser grade glasses. Even refraction from surfaces can be dangerous if it's powerful enough. These things have applications as hobby etc but they need to be respected as being very dangerous.

Indeed, i own 4 pairs of protective eye wear to cover the whole spectrum and a few lasers over the 1W range. Safety is a top concern when operating them. 5mw though is safe even at close range.

I think what most people miss is its going to be hard to make a laser weapon because its almost impossible to focus the beam in a perfectly straight line and even if you do thats not good enough you want pinpoint focus on the target, there is always a focus point and thats where most of the energy is focused.

For example lets say i took one of my 1w lasers and focused it at 30 feet. It would ignite paper pretty easily at that distance with a focused beam. But at say 10 feet, or 50 feet, it wouldnt even get it warm, not enough power focused at those distances.

To militarize lasers you would need to have optics that continually shift the focus distance to match the target distance, and we are talking very fine precision optics here that likely wouldnt survive being banged around on the battlefield.

Not to mention the power source you would need for high powered lasers would be beackpack sized or larger perhaps even vehicle mounted.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Oh yeah focusing it would indeed be tough. Suppose if you can make it just stay a perfect straight line it's not an issue but that's easier said than done as well.

I could see these being used onboard satellites actually. You could shoot it down to earth to your target. Ex: an ISIS oil refinery to try to make it catch fire. You have practically unlimited power in space because solar works rather efficiently and does not require any physical consumable on board.

 

[Rifter]

Oh yeah focusing it would indeed be tough. Suppose if you can make it just stay a perfect straight line it's not an issue but that's easier said than done as well.

I could see these being used onboard satellites actually. You could shoot it down to earth to your target. Ex: an ISIS oil refinery to try to make it catch fire. You have practically unlimited power in space because solar works rather efficiently and does not require any physical consumable on board.

The issue with a perfectly straight line, if you can even get it that perfect, is it still isnt focused enough you would need like orders of magnitude more power than if you focused the beam to a pin head tight spot, most lasers have a .5mm-2mm emitter.

So lets say you have a 1mm laser emitter , thats spreading the power over that whole 1mm circle, and you would need likely 10w+ to say light a piece of printer paper on fire with it, where you can do the same thing with a 1w or even down to 500mw laser focused to say a .01mm tight spot. because that .01mm tight spot will have all the power on it vs a 1mm spot spreading it out over a much larger area.

If ive learned anything from my laser hobby its that focus is literally everything.