[ableChair]

This could be for everyone:
This would not be a conventional laser. This would have to be a high-powered laser as it would be fired from a great distance, through lots of atmosphere and glass. The USSR used this idea as a way of blinding pilots in wartime and developed powerful lasers for this purpose. It doesn't burn skin, but it's enough to damage your eyes. The crewmember is being treated for an eye injury.

[Titan Magroyne]

Thankee kindly for the explanation.

[lonevoice]

This would not be a conventional laser. This would have to be a high-powered laser as it would be fired from a great distance, through lots of atmosphere and glass. The USSR used this idea as a way of blinding pilots in wartime and developed powerful lasers for this purpose. It doesn't burn skin, but it's enough to damage your eyes. The crewmember is being treated for an eye injury.

Bloody hell! What now?

[skyman]

If this is true it is very serious.

I believe the P-3 pilot received injuries that permanently injured his eye site. If this new incident happened in U.S. this could be a real threat.

[AdamSelene235]

This would not be a conventional laser. This would have to be a high-powered laser as it would be fired from a great distance, through lots of atmosphere and glass. The USSR used this idea as a way of blinding pilots in wartime and developed powerful lasers for this purpose. It doesn't burn skin, but it's enough to damage your eyes. The crewmember is being treated for an eye injury. Blah blah blah. You have no idea what you are talking about. Have you ever even built a laser?

A simple Nd:YAG laser would do the trick. I had an intern who built one into a children's toy pistol producing 50 mJ of Q-switched light for <$200.

A Joule at 1064 nm isn't hard to do.

[El Gato]

This would not be a conventional laser

Depends on what you mean by conventional. I think a surgical laser might be able to do this, and certainy an industrial cutting laser could. No, you couldn't do it with a little laser pointer.

[pbear8]

OK, as this is obviously a serious threat, is there a defense available? Glasses or a window shield which would prevent this spectrum of light from passing through?

[Conservative4Ever]

Would this be ChiCom doing?

Red

[gitmo]

How large would a device like this be? Especially if it had the ability to target a pilot in an aircraft?

[Servant of the 9]

This would not be a conventional laser. This would have to be a high-powered laser as it would be fired from a great distance, through lots of atmosphere and glass. The USSR used this idea as a way of blinding pilots in wartime and developed powerful lasers for this purpose.

This could be some type of industrial laser, stripped of it's safety equipment and with sights mounted.

So9