Based on the article similar devices are common and are intended as defensive “warn-away” signals and to blind certain threats such as drones, but can be used for harassment, as the Chinese evidently have done. I had heard of lasing incidents, but not that we had “rifles” with scopesights to aim them.

LINK

We've had them as early as Gulf War II, possibly earlier.

They were mounted on top of .50 cals, IIRC. I never read any articles about whether they were effective or not. They are primarily a tool of communication, but if your audience not as technologically advanced and doesn't know that the laser will soon be followed by something decidedly more unpleasant, they may not get the message (sort of like someone who doesn't know what electricity is seeing a stop light for the first time).

I've always thought having one would be really useful in a civil disturbance. But the only one I ever found for sale was beat to shit and very likely grey-market (mulsurp store outside of Fort Hood wanted $2200 for it and it looked like it had been in an IED detonation).

I guess with the distances in nautical environments, a scope makes sense. I'm also wondering what watch standers on subs would use to back up the dazzler, in terms of small arms: M14s?

When I was on subs (circa 1992-93) we kept M14’s for the simple reason that if you were doing work near the polar ice packs the M14 was effective against polar bears whereas the 5.56 ARs were supposedly not.

quote:

Originally posted by LDD:
I've always thought having one would be really useful in a civil disturbance.

The company mentioned in the above article offers an “Enforcer” model intended for civilian law enforcement. There’s a little discussion of it on the Internet (which I admit I haven’t read or looked at), but I have my doubts about how well something like that would work for its intended purpose. If it’s backed up with the credible threat of deadly force, that’s one thing; just as harassment that everyone becomes accustomed to is another. All it really takes is for a demonstration organizer to say is, “Ignore the green light; it’s harmless,” for it to have no practical effect.

I didn’t realize the devices had been around for so long; strange what one doesn’t learn.

Not even in the same ball park aside from the concept but we used some form of freakish green laser pointers to keep far cars back from our convoys in Iraq. Obviously it would be chased by the more serious stuff if they kept coming and wasnt used if they popped around a corner too close but, it worked well for us. That was relatively early on though.