Somebody get me a laser pointer.

The Zero's Chinese performance was ignored by the U.S. command prior to pearl harbor, dismissed as exaggeration. That's actually the crux of my point.

Exceptional moments do not change the rule.
Yes on occasion a wildcat would get swiss cheesed and not go down, but 99% of the time when swiss cheesed they went down.
Yes, there were wildcat aces that did fairly well (and Zero aces that did even better), but 99% of wildcat pilots were just trying to not get mauled.

Hellcat didn't enter combat till mid 1943, and it is the correction to the mistake. The F6F should have been the front line fighter at the start of the war... and could have been made sooner had Japanese tech not been ignored/dismissed as exaggeration.


Russian quantity as quality? At the start they were shot down at a higher ratio than the manufacturing counter ratio (by a lot). It was a white wash in favor of the Germans.
It took improvements in Russian tech to turn the tide in the air. Lend-lease only constituted about 10% of their air force at the peak. Russia had to improve their own forces, so they did. By the end, planes like the yak3 were par with the best.


The Mig31 is a slower Mig25 with a digital radar. Their version of the F14, not really ahead of the times, par maybe.

F15 is faster than either mig29 or Su27 (roughly Mig31 speed).
F16/F18, at altitude, are moderately slower, but a wash at sea level.

Why would they shoot and run?
We have awacs, we would know they are coming, so the only chance to shoot would be at max range. Max range shots are throw-away shots, they basically won't hit unless the target is unaware, which it won't be unaware because of the RWR. Just a slight turn and the missile can't follow after tens of miles of coasting and losing energy.


Chinese railgun is in sea trials, right now. Not some lab test. It wouldn't be on a ship without first having the gun proven, the mount proven, the fire control proven, stationary testing completed, etc.
2025 is the estimate for fleet wide usage.
Try finding a picture of a U.S. railgun aboard a U.S. ship.


Why would a laser rifle not work, when you can buy crap like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7baI2Nyi5rI
There's ones made in China, too : https://www.sanwulasers.com/customurl.aspx?type=Product&key=7wblue&shop=
That will light paper on fire ~instantly, and it's just a pitiful hand held laser pointer.
An actual weapon would be orders of magnitude stronger than a handheld toy.
It's an excellent covert operations weapon, silently blinding and starting fires form kilometers away.


Russia does not need to sink a U.S. carrier for no reason.
And the U.S. has no interest in giving Russia proper a need to defend from a U.S. carrier. For the very reasons you mentioned.


What Russia can do is proliferate such a missile, and effectively deprecate the U.S. carrier group as a military unit.

We need carriers to get our air force to wherever we need it to be.
If everyone had these missiles, we would have no way to deliver our air force by naval means.

Russia has land access to Europe, Asia, Africa. They can send planes to anywhere they need to go, from land bases. Russia doesn't /need/ a navy.

Most of the planet does not have a navy worth sinking. It's just us. This is the kind of weapon that disproportionately affects us.

-scheherazade

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Laser Pointer - Mythbusters Bust Moon Landing Conspiracies. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

"Studies have found that even low-power laser beams of not more than 5 mW can cause permanent retinal damage if gazed at for several seconds; however, the eye's blink reflex makes this highly unlikely." wikipedia

Red laser pointers normally output 5mW or less.

No trauma, don't hate them, don't love them. Would be perfectly happy without them. But I'll let them stay...For now. Except for the scary big ones in western Australia. Those bastards need to go. Someone put a giant laser pointer in space and make them all run into the ocean/off a cliff. Thanks.

Yeah-Right now I'm projecting a thousand laser pointers directly into your retinas with the hope that when your sockets are free of those squishy fluid bags in the land of the blind, the no-eyed man man behind the dark sockets remains perfectly satisfied in the darkness of his own kingdom.

Believe me Sigmond, projection is as far afield of my issues with this particular round of banter as that dashing ape of yours is from knowing shit about that .45-

A bit crowded! It needs sharks with laser pointers.

Lulz....since when can you legally confiscate anything anywhere even if its on your property? (BTW she was a building manager not an owner)

But sir...i didn't steal their wallet. I CONFISCATED it. Carry on then....

You're lucky you were able to bully those laser-pointer KIDS into giving you their pointer. They could have easily told you to buzz-off. Then What? Then you could have either awkwardly sat back down or you could have been the 'crazy lady' in a movie theatre.

The only legal thing to do is have a chat and if that doesn't work, call the authorities.

She wasn't stealing it, she confiscated it while they were engaged in something they were explicitly told not to do... ON HER PROPERTY.

A few years ago, I went to see Inception at the cinema and some little scumbags kept shining a laser pointer at the screen. After about 30 mins I figured out who it was, walked up to them, and told them to give it to me, or there would be trouble. They did, I gave it back to them after the movie. Was I stealing?

"They might have been within their rights to beat her senseless until she let them go."

No, they wouldn't have. Not even close. She wasn't holding them against their will, she took their board. By your rationale, a student would be entitled to beat a teacher senseless if they took the cell phone off them in class.

Frankly, fuck them. She asked them to leave and they deliberately set out to provoke her. They're cowardly little shits and they can count themselves lucky if they don't get in trouble.

edit: upvote, because as @spawnflagger says, I hope they get nailed because of this.

Lets just stick to laser pointers to get our cats attention.

raccoon : garden hose :: cat : laser pointer

I could have saved the city much easier with a red laser pointer.

Your video, Cat and Parakeet Chasing Laser Pointer, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

I'm going to give this one more shot in as layman's terms as I can.

-Moving the direction of a beam of light does not speed the light up.
-The distance the beam travels in each direction is the same.
-The distance and/or speed of the light can only be measured from point A (The laser pointer) and point B (The moon in question).
-There is no measurement from Point B1 (the left side of the moon) to Point B2 (the right side of the moon). No matter how fast you shake the pointer around.
-The light that hits B1 is not the same *Blip of light that hits B2.
-You are NOT pushing the light around, you are projecting a separate wave of light to each new co-ordinate as you move it around.

An example: Imagine you tie a piece of thread from point A to point B1, then imagine you flick the beam to B2. You will now have a new thread from A to B2 and not from A to B1 to B2.