Re: Laser snipers

On Mon, Sep 17, 2001 at 03:09:15PM -0400, Chris DeBoe wrote:
>
>So, questions for you educated blokes:
>a. would/could a military laser weapon be invisible/inaudible?  Or
would it
>be useless to snipers due to signature?  (assumes a standard Earth
>atmosphere with no unusual components)

An infra-red laser wouldn't necessarily leave an obvious trail; that's
about all I can think of.

>b. in a zero gee environment, would lasers have *no* recoil?  This
doesn't
>seem logical because we've talked about a lasers as a ship drive, so
there
>has to be some recoil....but how much?  Either as compared to a rifle,
or in
>SI units.

Trivial. A laser-drive uses _huge_ amounts of energy.