this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
254 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
82745 readers
3076 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Notably absent... the explosives.
But sure, if you are wondering how folks out in Yemen or Gaza managed to retaliate against their oppressors for so long, this is a textbook example of how and why. What's being proposed is collection of technology we've had since at least the 1960s that's slowly made its way into civilian circulation.
Also...
I mean, we're seeing what "just-launched prototypes with no effective track record" have accomplished on the Ukraine-Russia front-lines and it's a decidedly mixed bag.
I think a harder question to answer is "Who would be interested in putting one of these into practical use?" And that gets to the real value-add of a Stinger MANPAD. Namely, the humans willing and practiced enough to use it.
Also - and again, this cannot be overstated - the model above has no explosives installed. Idk how confident I'd be around one of these things if it was actually armed.
You can deploy a lot of $96 semi-effective hardware and improve it vs something that might be thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands to deploy.
:-/
I mean, time will tell. To date, this particular iteration of technology has a 0% success rate in doing anything but farming clicks.
You don't need explosives. It has a spot in the front for a camera. One of the new microcontrollers with AI accelerators can do face recognition extremely quickly. It would be possible to use it as an assassination tool.
Even if you changed nothing about the design, the speed and mass of the thing hitting a person in the face could kill.
As the bps space YouTube channel has shown, reliability is paramount in any launch, especially a guided launch.
That and people duck when shit flies at them, unless it's supersonic, which again, as bps space has shown, control of a supersonic flight is extremely difficult to get right.
This is a guy who landed a hobby rocket like a tesla booster.
But at $100 a pop, you could have backups. (or payloads)
:-/
I think
Is a more accurate assessment.
Why kill only one when you can do a whole blast and get a multi-kill?
It's not a MANPAD really.
The sensor package has no IR sensor (or radar unit) and no way to proximity fuse.
It has GPS, accelerometer and barometric pressure. It's more like a rocket powered artillery shell than an anti-air weapon.
Or, given the lack of payload, it's more like a high speed burrito delivery device.
See, now you've got my interest.
future Taco Bell vs future Del Taco during dinner rush:
Plastic explosive triggered by electrodetonator is quite safe.
Oh, I know this one!
Atomize* some propelant, boom, explosive.
* english choose the dumbest word for "zerstäuben".
Atomize, from the original Ancient Greek adjective atomos, meaning "uncuttable" or "indivisible".
Seems pretty apt to me. You have rendered it into its smallest constituent pieces through physical means, any further reduction requires chemical processes, or high energy physics. Coincidentally, a simple spark provides both.
The trick is to get the atomized propelant to "boom, explosive" at the target and not in your backpack.
Also, you probably want a "boom" sufficient to accomplish whatever demolition you're planning, which - again - raises the stakes regarding what's in your backpack.
There's a classic little film called "The Wages of Fear" that explores the hazards of amateurs transporting high explosives over long distances.
There are plenty of very safe HEs.
Tannerite comes to mind. It explodes from a high impact, and little else. I'm not sure what sort of yield you'd get. That stuff mostly just makes a pop and smoke.
I have heard of people using it on stubborn tree stumps, but that's several pounds of the stuff.
I mean, spray the leftover fuel into the oxygen-filled head only on target? It wouldn't stay atomized for long anyway. And for the boom, the shell needs only be strong enough. Wouldn't that work?
Sure, there's more effective explosives.
Idk, you wanna find out?
Listen, if you've got the specs for military ordinance and want to say "We've done this a thousand times, it works fine" that's one thing.
But it's very much another to just wave your hands and announce "you know, the boom-boom juice goes here and the detonator goes there and it'll probably do something."