It is no secret that many modern high technologies were originally created in the depths of the military departments. The same example with the Internet has long been blunt. And how many developments the general public has no idea ... "We have such devices! But we will not tell you about them! ” It is obvious that in the overwhelming majority of cases we will not learn about the true state of affairs at the forefront of military technical thought — secrecy. Therefore, when it becomes known about the adoption of the next sample, this means that it began to be developed many years ago. But for us it turns out the highest military technology.

It so happened that the majority of the developments presented below are made in DARPA. Not because we love our most likely adversary so much, this organization simply knows how to promote its own developments. Alas, the achievements of Russian researchers from the military-industrial complex are often unknown to the general public and even to many specialists.

Small arms

Five years ago, an experimental batch of XM25 grenade launchers was supplied to the US contingent in Afghanistan for military tests. They use special 25 mm caliber programmable grenades. Using a rangefinder built into the grenade launcher, the shooter determines the distance to the target before firing, it is entered into the grenade, and it automatically explodes in the air above the target, flying a predetermined number of meters. According to reviews of Americans, the maximum firing range is about 500 meters, which allows you to stay outside the aim fire of most small arms.
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But still, the XM25 is expensive. At the conclusion of the production contract, they promised to reduce its cost to $ 25,000 per unit, and the cost of one grenade from $ 1,000 (!) To $ 35.





A more recent development is the EXACTO homing bullet (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordnance) for .50 caliber sniper rifles. The bullet is able to maneuver a little in flight, adjusting the trajectory. In the bow is an optical sensor. Apparently, the principle of operation is similar to rockets and laser-guided bombs, when the operator (in our case, a sniper) after a shot illuminates the target with a laser beam, on the spot of which a flying projectile is induced. The maximum firing range of such a bullet is more than a sniper - almost 2 km.



Of course, this is still far away:



... but the first steps have already been taken.

Aviation and Cosmonautics

In modern military forces it is already difficult to overestimate the role of aviation and satellites, it has become almost decisive. And in the future, the leading role will definitely belong to what flies. Today, more active expansion of satellite constellations is hampered by the very high cost of their launch. The ALASA (Airborne Launch Assist Space Access) project is aimed at solving this problem. It implies the launch of small launch vehicles from the board of conventional fighters, which will not only drastically reduce the cost of the satellite launching procedure, but also do it much faster, almost on request.



This project, in turn, is associated with another DARPA development, the SeeMe project. The idea is to put a significant number of relatively cheap microsatellites into orbit, which for 90 minutes will provide actual images of the desired surface area. Each satellite will have a diameter of about 1 meter, a thickness of about 30 cm and a weight of just over 11 kg. The cost of each satellite is approximately $ 500,000.



With the help of ALASA, a couple of dozens of such satellites will be launched into low orbit, which will work from 45 to 90 days, after which they will gradually burn in the atmosphere. Thus, the SeeMe project is viewed as a kind of further development of the idea of ​​unmanned reconnaissance drones, which are quite vulnerable on the battlefield, including for hacker seizure control.

Fleet

The newest US destroyers of the Zumwalt class are already very high-tech weapons themselves, given the highest level of ship systems automation. And their appearance is just fantastic.





But the whole cymes is in the weapon with which it is supposed to equip them. It is nothing more than a railgun, an electromagnetic gun, in which no explosives are used at all for shooting and hitting targets. The shell, which is a metal block, accelerates between the rails under the influence of Lorentz force. The initial velocity of the projectile will be hypersonic and will be as much as 8000 km / per hour. At the same time, the firing range promises fantastic for such a weapon - 200 km. With such a speed of flight, even if it drops 2-3 times when approaching the target, the projectile simply does not need explosives, to hit the target with a sufficiently large kinetic energy.

Ground troops

We will not mention the whole line of robots created in DARPA, only lazy people do not write about them. Another thing - the domestic program of military robots. We also have it and it is developing. For example, here is such a microbmp Platform-M.





As a weapon, this robot carries a large-caliber machine gun and four rocket launchers. It is also equipped with radar and optical electronic reconnaissance stations. The robot can not only be controlled by the operator, but also work in automatic mode, while in ambush or patrolling the territory.

Another interesting representative of domestic combat robots is the MRK-27 BT. It looks more than inconspicuous, like some kind of draft:



His armament is quick-detachable and can quickly change depending on the task. In addition, this baby has a higher mobility on the battlefield and is resistant to tilting (although it is hard to believe), compared to counterparts from the United States.

Lasers

In recent years, this is a very popular topic. Today, lasers are mainly used in rangefinders, target designators and devices for blinding enemy surveillance equipment. Americans write a lot about the great role of lasers in the future and their success in developing air defense and missile defense systems. However, experiments with the use of laser weapons began several decades ago, during the times of the USSR, including ours. But some significant successes have been achieved only now: in a number of countries, near-radar air defense installations have already been created that can shoot down drones. And even, allegedly, small rockets. For example, American LaWS.



It is impossible not to recall the project to install a high-power laser on the Boeing 747-400F to shoot down ballistic missiles, widely circulated several years ago. However, no significant results were achieved, and at the end of 2011 the project was closed.

The systems of high-energy directional radiation, which include lasers, there are a number of problems that greatly hinder their use for military purposes. The most important is the defocusing of the beam, a strong drop in energy density with increasing distance. Add to this a very large power consumption, low efficiency and high heat. In the coming years, one can hardly expect breakthroughs in the field of laser weapons.

Conclusion

In fact, all of the above can depreciate in an instant after Russia or the United States put into service hypersonic missiles deployed on aerospace aircraft. Today, not only there is no interception technology, but even the discovery of a speeding up hypersonic rocket surrounded by a plasma cloud arising from the gigantic speed of flight (5-10 Mach). Moreover, even in the foreseeable future, the emergence of such technologies is not expected. Such a rocket can strike at any point on the planet for an hour, and until the moment it hits, the enemy will not know that it has already been attacked - the plasma cloud will protect the rocket from being detected by radar.

There is already fit to talk about obtaining a radical military superiority, which will lead to the redistribution of all geopolitics. And now Russia and the United States are intensively developing hypersonic media and weapons of destruction, trying in every way to overtake each other in this race. For example, our first hypersonic rocket, called the X-90, was created in the late 1970s.



After the collapse of the USSR, the program was closed, but due to a number of indirect signs, the work on the hypersound has been resumed long ago and is in full swing. In the USA, a number of hypersonic projects are also developing at a gallop, of which the most promising are the X-37 aerospace aircraft.



Weapons have always attracted and will attract men. We are drawn to him, I want to hold him in my hands, sit at the sight, present myself in battle. But it is best to satisfy your craving for weapons in virtual worlds. Let's play better in shooters, strategies and simulators, and in the real world create, not destroy.