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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, June 14 2012 @ 11:45 AM EDT |
For the record, we do have fully automated self-aiming
cannon already - except that the sensing and control systems
are usually not integrated into the cannon itself. There's
no need for that when the cannon is sitting on a navy
destroyer with highly sophisticated sensor and computer
systems. Also, the sensor systems tend to be bigger than
the cannon itself. So are the ammunition feed systems,
which have to be automatic too. :) For large-caliber land-
based systems, there are military reasons for keeping the
sensors physically separate from the actual cannons (you
want to keep the cannon hidden, but the sensors by
definition have to be relatively exposed). It's also
usually more practical for the control system to be
separated from the cannon. For one thing, a large-caliber
system usually only needs one control system for multiple
cannons. For another, cannons give off a lot of vibration,
which is bad for computers.
There are hand-held weapons which integrate rangefinding and
a targetting system, but since they're hand-held, human
muscles do the physical part of the aiming. Laser
rangefinders were the key here; previously you had to use
one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:American_soldiers_use_a_co
incidence_rangefinder.jpg
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