Snipers go to considerable lengths to hide their locations, and the sounds of their gunshots are a key give-away - even the best mufflers only diminish the sound of the shot. (I learned this in the movies, so it must be true.)

Police forces around the world are adding gunshot detection devices that triangulate the source of the shot. No doubt these are being, or will be shortly, deployed in theaters of war. And no doubt these devices will make it very difficult for our intrepid death squads, um, counter-terrorist groups to carry out their murders, um, targeted assassinations.

So these handy little wireless devices are designed to be scattered randomly around the area ahead of time, and are primed to fire at the exact same moment as the sniper rifle. The multiple shots then present an insurmountable obstacle to determining the source of a gunshot from sound alone, whether or not your rogue state sponsor has equipped you with with gunshot detectors. Indeed, with some ingenious placement, we will have likely you shooting at your fellow jihadists in response.

(I am assuming we will only equip our own death squads with these devices since, you know, we're the good guys.)
-- DrCurry, Jan 16 2013

More devices to scatter around the city... Dispensable_20Radar_20Detector_2fJammers
[normzone, Jan 16 2013]

Wiki expounds on gunfire detectors http://en.wikipedia...iki/Gunfire_locator
[DrCurry, Jan 24 2013]

Too funny. I may as well start wearing earplugs now...
-- normzone, Jan 16 2013


They must have already had these during the Kennedy assassination.
-- xandram, Jan 16 2013


I think this can be foiled because of the speed of sound. Those scattered-around shot-detecting devices won't all hear all the fake shots (and the real shot) at the precise same moment.

So I think it will be possible to triangulate on every single one of those sound-sources. The ones that are nearby the target can be discounted, because if the shooter was that close he would be seen.

You will have to have distant and very loud noisemakers to properly confuse the law; until ballistics reveal which way the bullet came from; they won't know which direction to search, giving time for the shooter to get away.
-- Vernon, Jan 16 2013


I was hoping this would be something to help you win eBay auctions.
-- UnaBubba, Jan 16 2013


Actually if the sounds are sequenced within a few milliseconds of each other, and are actually identical (to within the limits of distortion) you wouldn't be able to triangulate, since part of the triangulation is the timing between sounds.
-- MechE, Jan 16 2013


[MechE], sounds originating from different locations will still arrive at OTHER different locations at intervals based on the locations more than on the timing of sound-generation. If I wasn't clear, I'm talking about multiple locations for receiving the sounds. ONE location receiving sounds can certainly be fooled as the main Idea here describes, but it is not so easy to fool many locations that way.
-- Vernon, Jan 16 2013


Brillaint. +
-- blissmiss, Jan 16 2013


//[MechE], sounds originating from different locations will still arrive at OTHER different locations at intervals based on the locations more than on the timing of sound-generation. If I wasn't clear, I'm talking about multiple locations for receiving the sounds. ONE location receiving sounds can certainly be fooled as the main Idea here describes, but it is not so easy to fool many locations that way. — Vernon//

You are just wrong about this. One receiving location would not be able to triangulate at all, period. You need at least 2 locations, guaranteed, and even then it would not be real accurate, since you can't use dishes for this- each would need to be omnidirectional (because the sniper could be in any direction) and rely on phase and time differences, amidst echos. Throw in identical closely timed signals from multiple locations, and it would be an impossible problem, because of the "time differences" aspect of this. It would have no way of knowing if it is detecting the time difference between the real sound arriving at location A, and then location B, or the time difference between the real sound arriving at location A and the fake sound at location B, since they are supposedly identical sounds.

That being said, I think it would be about impossible to produce identical sounds, as a real shot would involve a moving, supersonic shock wave... hard to replicate with a stationary device.
-- Kansan101, Jan 16 2013


I believe Kasan is right.

Also does anyone know if Obama plans to ban these sorts of rifles?
-- bob, Jan 16 2013


Yeah, I know it is wireless. But the devices (loudspeakers) are not moving at 1100 feet per second making a loud shock wave as they move.
-- Kansan101, Jan 17 2013


Theatres of war, such as the one in Colorado?
-- RayfordSteele, Jan 17 2013


Add some photographic flash repeaters to the scenario to create fake shot sources too.
-- piluso, Jan 18 2013


Kansan: evidently it is possible to use the sound of the bullet, coupled with the sound of the muzzle blast, to identify the source, but the bullet must pass within 50-100m of the sensor. However, my assumption is that we can recreate the sound of a bullet flying as well as a gun firing. (If necessary, we could always rig up multiple guns, though I guess that would make the system significantly less wieldy.)
-- DrCurry, Jan 24 2013


I plussed the idea, it would work well, I think.
-- Kansan101, Jan 24 2013


Better and more realistic than noisemakers (which risk battery failure, someone unplugs it to plug in a waffle iron, cat lies on top of speaker and muffles sound etc) would be remote control real guns. They could fire blanks, for safety's sake. You could use a mechanical timer.

After you are done assassinating people these guns could be used like a clock tower, sounding the hour by going off all together. It would become a comforting noise - sort of beating the aural swords into plowshares.
-- bungston, Jan 25 2013



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