Lasers in the colonies

Okay, here's my counter arguments:

1) You comments about lasers and the power 
involved may or may not be right. Obviously the 
US military finds the idea of a portable laser 
weapon very feasible as they've got something 
queued up. Once, of course, the power issue is 
resolved.

2) Foggy days will suck as will really dense 
atmospheres. In thin atmospheres, the laser will 
work really well. The lasers lack of kick (hence 
high FP) may well be a fine compensatory 
value. 

3) You might think you'll remain functional with 
a 2mm hole burnt through your head, but I 
have my doubts. At any rate, I heartily advise 
you not to attempt to experimentally determine 
this. 

4) The argument about a 2cm hole assumes 
that I don't drag the beam across you or put it 
on a wider beam. I think temporary or 
permanent blinding plus a nice third degree 
burn across a 4" wide strip of your head might 
put you out of the fight. Burns hurt a lot. And 
blinding with lasers is quite feasible. (Visors 
could maybe stop it - assuming it can't shoot 
through them - but people often have their 
visors up (or helmets off) when humpin' 
through the backwoods, even if they had one in 
the first place. 

5) The argument about a 2cm hole ignores the 
explosive effects of flash-heating the water in 
your cells. BANG! Can you say chunks blown out! 
OUCH! Probably quite disabling. 

6) Reflec or Ablat? Har de har har. Fine for a 
panzer (who'd hiding that class 5 GEV anyway), 
absolutely unlikely for anything other than PA 
and even then I have some doubt. Think that 
perhaps armour that will reflect a laser will 
perhaps have a _low_ chance of managing 
stealth in any EM spectrum? I do. You _might_ 
be able to successfully layer it, but then again 
maybe not. 

7) A laser might, as I mentioned, have other 
settings to make it multi use - everything from 
starting a fire, acting as a flashlight, being used 
as a LoS comms, etc. Can a gun do that? Uhh... 
not by its basic nature!

8) Power: If I can put enough power into a 
single cell (hence no need for a power for the 
weapon) to induce fusion for a DFFG, then I 
think the laser problem is well and truly a non-
problem. 

But this has devolved to just about as useful of 
a conversation as the religion thread - it hinges 
on the same projections about what might 
happen. Since it is an entirely conjectural event 
many many years hence (who in 1820 would 
recognize today's world?), we're into the realm 
of "might as well do what  you want and PSB it 
because you're probably wrong..... but then so 
is everyone disagreeing with you!". 

---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site
"In God We Trust... on Cold Steel We Depend."