The whole incident with the DC sniper brought to mind the need to bring the Telesniper concept down to the masses so that any nutcake with a direct hotline to God :D can use it to avoid pesky witnesses and identification.

So, what do you do?

Well, you firstly take a cartridge of the caliber you'll be using, and remove the primer. Replace it with an squib so it can be fired electrically.

Next, chamber the round in a barrel you've bought anonymously through the net from one of the hundreds of parts dealers using a prepaid cash card and had delivered to an abandoned house.

Seal with epoxy and embed the chamber end of the barrel in a container that you fill with concrete. This gives it strength and weight for placement.

From previous experimentation using said barrel in an actual weapon, you've built an aiming device that consists of a barrel plug onto which is attached a small microvideo camera. This is attached to a small battery powered TV.

The camera has been zeroed with the impact point of the barrel during your test firings, so whatever is centered in the camera view is ground zero for bullet impact.

Set your one shot Telesniper up somewhere where you can engage a stationary target, such as a park bench, seat, or urinal :D

Once you've sighted in the weapon, you remove the barrel camera for future use, and attach the command firing circuit to the Telesniper. Could be as simple as a walkie-talkie hooked up with a DTMF decoder.

Or perhaps a prepaid pager dialed from a disposable cellphone, all bought several months prior so there's no way they can trace them back to the store they were bought at and try finding you via store surveillance tapes.

Anyways, once you see someone at ground zero, either directly or via a seperate hidden CCTV camera, you activate the weapon and continue on about your business.

Cost is minimal per weapon since it's only a barrel (under $200), a single cartridge, and some concrete. The aiming device, the expensive thing, is reuseable.

Since every barrel is unique, they can't connect crimes by ballistics, though obviously they could be the same type of device being used. But so what? If you're clever about it, and set them up days in advanced, no one will remember you by the time the device is functioned.

And you could be miles away if you set it off by pager while it's aimed along a bench during some public event, where you're sure to hit someone. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Oh, did I forget to mention how there's another squid that sets off the thermite in which the pager is buried in? Try figuring out what pager number that carbon blob used to have Mr. Piggie. :p

you can buy telelsniper systems from the web quite cheaply. an idea would be to strap explosives to the telesniper, and pack it full of ammo. then try and see how many people you can shoot, and when your telesniper runs out of ammo, or is about to get taken away, you explode the explosives, and, more dammage, and no eveidence.

the only problem I can see is not knowing the exact point of impact without a test shot. good idea for short range shots though.
IRISH

I don't think concrete is a good material to use, I think it acts as a wick with water. Obviously if this is standing still for several days dew etc may affect the reliability of this telesniper. Plus, I remember reading on some varmint shooting/reloading pages that primers of different strengths affect consistency, so the electrical squibs may make the device innaccurate over long distances.

Also, I'm unsure of how you intend to mount the video camera used for zeroing, without cutting rails and designing a mount for the camera how are you going to get it level+ensure it stays that way?

I think he meant stick it in the barrel...
right? Couldn't you just take your block with firing device inside, and either get a laser small enough to fit inside your barrel or rig up something that fits perfectly in the muzzle and holds the laser at the exact center of the barrel?
Then set your block, put in the laser insert (into the barrel, remember) turn the laser on or tape the button down somehow and point it where you want the bullet to end up. Then as you leave, you just remove the laser and go make a call.

I think this could work, despite it being suspicious and impossible to set up in the daylight.
EDIT: so basically I just went through all that trouble to tell you what he already did :"From previous experimentation using said barrel in an actual weapon, you've built an aiming device that consists of a barrel plug onto which is attached a small microvideo camera."
I'd think a laser would be a bit cheaper or at least less complex than a mini tv-camera setup

<small>[ November 03, 2002, 08:58 PM: Message edited by: Zach ]</small>

Zach, how would you be able to see what your aiming at?

I think NBK had watched the film The Jackle, and then a news report on the sniper..! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

Laser would only work during darkness, when someone creeping around in bushes might raise suspicion. TV works 24 hours. :) And it's not at all expensive. $20 for the camera, $20 for the TV.

There are laser boresighters that slip in the end of the barrel using a barrel plug.

Moisture from the concrete isn't going to be a problem because the chamber is sealed with epoxy, hence watertight, eh? <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

As for the primer issue, that is a possible complication. However, since this weapon is a one shot deal, nothing says you have to use smokeless powder as a propellant. A charge of AP would fire out a bullet at much higher velocity than would be possible in a gun. Like a one fragment claymore. :D Though test firing would be expensive at $150/test. :(

Perhaps a really cheap telesniper could be made using a length of steel tubing as a barrel, and saboted muzzle-loaded hollowpoints as ammo. That'd bring a telesniper down to under $50/shot. :D

zeocrash:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">you can buy telesniper systems from the web quite cheaply.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">Really? :rolleyes: Please post a URL for these cheap telesnipers. You're a good candidate for BFL.

i take it back if you're extremely rich you can buy a telesniper of the web.
yeah they're slightly more expensive than i remember
**many apologies**

EF, the telesniper idea has been around/sold to law enforcement/discussed on our beloved forum quite some time before the bad remake of The Jackal was screened.
The only thing I don't see with the setup discussed (public location/random target) is the advantage compared to a normal remote-controlled bomb/directional charge.

Looks like NBK is expanding his chicken army. A squid that can set off thermite is one smart squid.

Just couldn't resist :D

I think he ment "squib" :) and I have a video not of a telesniper per say but more of an SUV that has a .50 cal cannon on it that can fire at 600 yards and hit an 18" target 10 out of 10 times! this is the ultimate weapon someone attempting an assult on a large group of people should choose, the platform is very sophisticated and stabe. Check it out:

<a href="http://www.ibistek.com/activeprojects/files/cobravid9-02/COBRA.MPG" target="_blank">http://www.ibistek.com/activeprojects/files/cobravid9-02/COBRA.MPG</a>

That sounds like my fantasy of having 4 homemade RPGs that can simultaneously rotate in any direction all welded to a platform that can easily be removed and installed to the bed of my truck... then we'll see which crazy MF out there wants to tail-gate me! :D

Remember a thread at the old forum where I discussed the idea of having a pickup truck with a quad .50 or such concealed under a camper shell? Well, here's the concept made real.

This'd have been quite the equalizer for the LA bankrobbers. :D Come get some piggies!

When a group of people are killed, the event becomes a generic bombing. For instance, when that moron in finland blew himself up, did anyone hear about the victims? No, just a body count.

Whereas, when people are picked off one by one, the media has time to tell about them, making the killings seem more "personal", bringing the paranoia home to the masses. :D

After each DC sniper victim was shot, their life story was in every paper.

Besides, bombings are sooooo 20th century. We're in the 21st century, and it's time to make a clean break with the past and head off into the brave new world of telesnipers and meat puppets. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" />

And I'd like the cops to show how they captured the sniper...a mass of slag in a block of concrete. :p

want to REALLY reach out and touch someone???

<a href="http://members.aol.com/gunfreak/vulcan20.jpg" target="_blank">http://members.aol.com/gunfreak/vulcan20.jpg</a>
from:
<a href="http://www.serbu.com/" target="_blank">http://www.serbu.com/</a>

just 6$ a pop in quantity of 10+ and they are already have an electric primer! :)
granted they are just practice rounds... but fuck, a 20mm steel slug propelled by as much powder as there is in probably a few ar-15 clips is going to REALLY mess someone's day up... I dont remeber where the link is, but I do recall one dealer selling incindiary and armor piercing rounds for the m61, but they were much more expensive...

you would have to make your own barrel, m61 barrels are extraordinarily hard to come by.... but look on the bright side.. the boire would be big enough to fit a cheap web cam in! no need to spend alot of money on a tiny video cam!

as a side note, i thought I should add that if anyone does decide to buy some of these rounds (hell i bought 10 of um from the guy just because i thought they would be a kick ass paperweight to have and give to friends), anything larger than a .50 cal (with the excpetion of muzzle loaders, ect) is considered a destructive device... you can NOT make a firearm with these things without federal liscences up the yin yang... even if you made a bolt action, single shot rifle out of one you would still need a class II FFL... if you plan on doing something illegal anyways, fine, just wanted to give a heads up for anyone who wanted to obey, or even make it look like you were obeying the law :)

<small>[ November 05, 2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: pyromaniac_guy ]</small>

20mm Vulcan/M61 barrels aren't that hard to come by, apparently. Big Sky Surplus ( <a href="http://bigskysurplus.com" target="_blank">http://bigskysurplus.com</a> ) sells the barrels for $350 apiece, all kinds of 20mm ammo ($5 per round in quantities of a hundred rounds, pricier for less than that), 20mm chamber kits, and even an adapter to use .50 caliber primers in 20mm shells. I'd still stick with the .50 for a telesniper, anyhow. 20mm seems a little like overkill against just people, and a .50 BMG bullet could do just as good a job on anyone, even wearing some of the best police body armor. For vehicle-mounted applications (presumably for anti-vehicular use against cops, or mabye the abovementioned asshole tailgaters :p ), though, a 20mm might be just the ticket...

A43tg37 ,
you ever buy anything from that dealer? it's too bad he didnt have more pics, but some of the photos he had looked a bit odd, for example, the 20mm vulcan muzzle brake he has a photo of looks like little more than a piece of box steel welded onto the end of a barrel, and is unlike the photos of any vulcan or vulcan style cannon i have ever seen... but holey hell! the guy claims to have a 90mm tube and dummy rounds!!!! now that would make a REAL telecannon... wouldnt even need to put a camera into the bore to sight the thing in, just take the round out and look through the tube! lol!
I'ma have to buy me some of those phalanz projectiles before someone goes and makes them illegal to own...

pyromaniac_guy,
No, I've never bought anything from them. However, at <a href="http://www.nmpproducts.com/rt07.htm" target="_blank">http://www.nmpproducts.com/rt07.htm</a> there is a picture of a 20mm single shot cannon someone made with a barrel and parts from Big Sky Surplus (that was back when Big Sky Surplus was still CDSS Inc. Right now, if you call the number listed for CDSS on that webpage, you'll get Big Sky Surplus); it appears therefore that this company is legit and not some fraud like Information Unlimited or other "exotic weapons" companies.

One item of interest I found at <a href="http://bigskysurplus.com/misc.htm" target="_blank">http://bigskysurplus.com/misc.htm</a> was this:

B-29 SODIUM FILLED VALVE---- $39 ea.

I wonder how much sodium you'd find in a lifter valve for a bomber engine? :) And only $40 with no "legit business" bullshit from chemical suppliers.

And full length 20mm barrel blanks for $300? :D Even using inert ammo...the possibilities! :)

Oh, a good way to bait someone into standing still is to superglue a gold dollar coin to the sidewalk. Guarentee you that anyone walking by it will stop and try to pick it up. If set up right, the telesniper will be directly over the coin, blowing their brains over the coin since their heads will be directly over the coin as they're bending over it.

Just found a link about some remote rifle:
<a href="http://www.precisionremotes.com/" target="_blank">http://www.precisionremotes.com/</a>

An application is to rescue hostages... :D funny since the hostages are the one to take the major risks.

These remote systems are specific for a few weapons such as M16, but I guess adaptating it shouldn't be too difficult. But you would need to re-calibrate the pointing device, more difficult.

NBK2000,
if you are looking for sodium metal on the cheap and without questions, i know a guy who sells the stuff in bulk.. i have no friggin clue where he gets it, but his prices are cheap (around 230$ delivered, for 10 lbs) and he sure has a lax sales policy... send him $$ and you get sodium in an UNMARKED box!

the guy is rather foolish really, when he first shipped me a brick (10 lbs is almost as big as a loaf of bread) it was simply in a single (thin) garbage bag, wrapped in cardboard, and sealed with tape.. no outter box, no vapor barrier, no metal can packed under agron, no dessicant, no hazmat lables, nuthin... when i got the box i didnt expect it to be the sodium, I order alot of stuff mail order and from ebay, so given the packing i just figured it was some ebay crap... i cut the ting open with my pocket knife, and in doing so i cut into the plastic bag it was wrapped in... once i got it unwrapped imemdiatly the surface started to tear, sucking moisture from the air (seeing as we normally ahve 110% humidity here). luckily i had a 5 gal can of gas in the garage.. i put the sodium brick into an empty 5 gal paint can and covered it with gas as a temproty method of storage... can you imagine what would have happened if a mail carrier inf lorida would ahve dropped the thing in transit... especially if it was raiing out? once sodium starts burning, it doesnt stop easily!!!

I'll give contact info for the guy, for anyone who wnats it, via private email...

Patent 3,204,527 comes in mind. "Micro meteorites".

Is it me or is everything about random terror thease days, carried away with the hypes of the new century. This whole thing sounds a bit sick.

No sicker than the weapons the governments of the world are developing for their use. :)

Kornification, the precision remotes site is run by the people who developed the telesniper concept in the first place. So that's nothing new. Though I see they now have a .50 version. :D

http://cs-people.bu.edu/aaron/turret/turret.htm

A home-brew sentry gun. Obviously and easily modified to be a telesniper, or could be left on automatic, with the exe being run at power-up, which in turn is powered from a battery and a timer.

The design would need bulking up a bit, but standard techniques exist for that already.

to better your chances of hitting something, and lower the cost profoundly, why not use a shotgun shell, a rat trap w/ a pin soldiered to it, and some kind of remote trigger (or a tripline)

this takes away the need of a barrel,
due to its small size, it is much easier to conceal
(add some green and black spraypaint for camouflage)

the shortcomming of this would be its limited range, hence its not a sniping device, but it would be effctive.
thats just my two cents

A while back I ran across electronicly activated primer from remington. The primer are called EtronX (http://www.remington.com/firearms/centerfire/700etronx.htm).

http://www.binocularsdirect.com/Adirondack_Optics_Rifle_Scopes/dprfljnzocylhod.html

Could probably be modified to run as a web cam, or the guts could be removed, and replaced with an IP camera. IP cameras are getting very cheap now, like all technology.

The USB port is rapidly becoming the de facto standard for a lot of interfaces, from cheap media readers and thumb drives all the way to audio devices and all the way down to toys.

It would seem that someone at Marks & Spencer's saw this thread, because this christmas they were selling a simply brilliant USB controlled missile launcher! Check out http://search.ebay.co.uk/usb-missile_W0QQfromZR40 for ebay listing of it.

It fires three Nerf style air powered darts, and has a fairly full range of motion. And pretty much anyone with a bit of a clue could mod this to point a webcam, or pretty much anything else, in any direction they want. Which could be very interesting...

Earlier in the discussion there was mention of using black powder bullets which led me to the thought of using an entire black powder rifle. They can be purchased fairly inexpensivly with no permits or paperwork in most states and with the use of pyrodex or the like can produce devestating effects at close range.
<A HREF="http://www.cva.com/products/rifle_buck.htm">145$, complete rifle.</a>

I was looking through a catalogue the other day, and stumbled across the perfect system ready for use and enhancement. Powered satellite dish drives. Designed to turn at least 180 degrees, azimuth tilt, sub-degree accuracy, and designed to take a heavy loading, of a big dish in windy conditions. And pretty low cost, too!

With the ability to move the device through big angles quite rapidly and then hold them solidly, the fine aiming device can be both heavier duty and far simpler, as it needs to cover less than a degree of sweep. The dish could even be left in place as cover, or even used for ELINT or audio collection!

I had seen one of these dish servo setups in the past and thought them quite excellent for this very purpose.

They'd be good for pointing in the general direction as described, but a much more refined controller would be needed for actually hitting the target, as an accurate rifle has a dispersial of 1MOA (Minute Of Angle) or less. A degree is 60MOA, much too coarse for long range, but more than adequate for covering your backyard, eh? ;)

http://www.live-shot.com/

Hunting via web-based Telesniper! :D

A remote-controlled helicopter gunship platform:

http://komodo.fullvoltage.com/AutoCopter_Gunship.mpg

An airborne telesniper if used as such. :)

Seeing as I've no desire to go to Federal prison, I'll keep obeying the law; that doesn't mean that I'll abandon this wonderful idea of getting a way to make a relatively inexpensive telesniper accessible to the masses.

The wonderful part about openly developing such technology is that, by Federal laws here in the USA, it's perfectly legal if you follow basic rules set out in the 1934NFA - legal to the point that you could lug the entire setup to a range and test it to make sure you got everything correct, which in my mind is quite nice.

I look forward to the day I could actually start offering a setup to be used with whichever rifle you'd like to use for less than $500; and since it's not a firearm by Federal standards, I wouldn't have to keep records of sales other than price/amount - no names, no ID, nothing.

Maybe then politicians would get the hint.

The telesniper idea is certainly an intriguing one. The military's strategy is actually surprisingly similar to NBK's initial post and also the one about the quad .50's based off a pickup truck. It's been brought up in other parts of the forum but they call it metal storm:

http://www.metalstorm.com

The relevant part to this discussion is that the bullets aren't loaded into the chamber like conventional weapons, but rather are stacked inside the barrell and the primers detonated electronically, enabling very rapid fire.

As I understand it that's essentially the same/similar concept as the NBK's initial post, thought the mechanism for creating the electrical circuit was different (by pager vs. direct radio control).

If anyone has seen the new Logitech QuickCAM Orbit ( http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2204,CONTENTID=10628 ) they might be thinking what I thought...

Then you look at the software that comes with it, which features *real-time* face movement tracking, eye tracking, etc. for free, as well as the ability to track your head by panning the camera, keeping you in the frame all the time. And you get to thinking some more...

A telesniper with a basic movement tracking system that would carry on if radio was jammed or lines were cut would be brilliant. The jammers would think they were simply on the wrong frequencies, and change again, and never yield any results!

From USPTO:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,859 (1999) describes the use of infrared radiation from a target imaged on a pyroelectric quad cell through unspecified optical filters, to cause a solenoid to pull the trigger on a gun. Pyroelectric detectors require the use of a mechanical chopper to modulate the incident optical beam on and off, with the inherent disadvantages of mechanical complexity, fragility and loss of half the target signal time. Further, use of a pyroelectric quad cell significantly limits the detection range due to its electronic noise. Additionally, no method is taught for interpreting the signal to differentiate human radiation from, e.g., flames. No provision is made for compensating the point of aim for target motion or weapon motion. The invention cannot deal with separate or overlapping targets, but would shoot exactly between two targets standing near each one another. The aiming disadvantages of mechanical percussion firing are further increased by the taught impulse motion and delay in action of a solenoid.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,370,914 (1983) teaches a gun-aiming method for calculationally averaging the swings of a rifleman's point of aim by gyroscopic measurement. The rifleman first designates the desired point of aim using his trigger switch. As said above, it is unclear why shooting at that point would not be preferable to later swinging back to that point and electrically firing the weapon. Of further disadvantage, the sighting method is taught by its claimed results, not as an limitable design or manufacture. Further, the use of a visible-light camera is taught and illustrated and claimed, which greatly limits the use of the method in combat. Further, no method for electrically firing the weapon is taught, but the electrical firing is simply invoked without teaching. Finally, no provision is taught for correcting for the effects of angular velocity either of the target or of the weapon; thus at best the taught method of aiming would be accurate only for a stationary weapon and stationary target. :rolleyes:

U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,688 (1995) shows the use of a television camera as a weapon sight for aiming, wherein the rifleman designates the "target" by placing the scope crosshairs on it and partially depressing the trigger. While it is not clear why the rifleman would at that point prefer simply to kill the target, this patent invokes an undisclosed "autolock-follow processor" circuit to differentiate and follow a target and ignore the background. Such capability is not generally known in the art. Further, the weapon is described simply as "fired electrically" and no useful firearm method is taught.

U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,972 (1997) discloses an electrically discharged firearm in which a heat sensitive primer is ignited by a voltage induced across a fuse wire extending through the primer....

In the anime series Ghost in the Shell, S.A.C 2nd GIG, episode 14, "Poker Face", the tactical use of a telesniper is shown.

There, a sniper uses a 20mm telesniper to as a decoy to draw fire away from his true position, allowing time to relocate to a new sniping location.

And it's clever that he loaded the TS with only one shot, to prevent it being used against him. :)

Now there is a commercial manufacturer of a net-enabled telesniper:

www.wisnipe.com

What I like is that they are proposing that it be accessed over the internet via username/password log-in.

0_o

Perhaps they haven't heard about the countless instances of people using Google to find webcams and passwords for same?

It's one thing if someone hacks into the video feed of your internet Bird-Cam. It's an entirely different story when they can aim and fire a live gun!

Oh, and the scenario of using these things for bank or embassy security? Ludicrous!

The fact that you're installing a remotely-accessible weapon in a bank or embassy makes it a supreme target for criminals and terrorists! :rolleyes:

Imagine this scenario:


Hi. I'm your robber for today. I've hacked your gun-turrets, which you will notice are now aimed at you, and will gladly use them to kill you if you don't toss all the money in the vault out the back door into the waiting van."


Care to imagine what'll happen after that?

That would make an assassination really easy... really, really easy.

Of course, a telesniper would make it really easy anyway. It's just that you wouldn't have to pay someone to install the box for you, and it wouldn't be noted during the security sweep.

A RealVideo feed for a demo of a remote firing station.

rtsp://real.gannett.speedera.net/real.gannett/atpco/blackwater/2005/RemoteFireingStation.rm

Very nice.

Mine's smaller and lighter and less accurate. :-( But it's network IP and radio enabled. If I get it up and running, I'll post some stuff about it.

The goal is two axis, but I figure with an auto shotgun it would be fine with just the one. I also want to remove the radio element and get it network only, since this will allow finer control and more distance. Currently it's more tele-spray-n-pray than sniping. :-)

This might be stupid, but has anyone seen Mission Impossible 3 yet?

4 Barrett .50 calibers punching holes in a building, controlled by one dude with 4 of those roll ball mouses and infrared cameras.

Ever think of the movie business, NBK?

A company called MaxStream is now marketing the XBee XTender Wireless Bridge, a wireless router that can control devices up to 40 miles away. I just thought this might be of some considerable benefit to the telesniper, such as controlling a webcam, and activating the telesniper from far far away. This one device could control a host of assorted nasties.

The article about the XBee is here: http://edageek.com/2006/10/25/maxstream-xbee-xtender-wireless-bridge-zigbee/

I just had an interesting idea: it would not be that much harder to fully automate the firing process.... It'd be interesting if you could simply take your mouse, create a box around your target's torso, and then hit "fire". The computer would then do some quick mildot ranging, automatically adjust the vertical axis for firing, and then prompt for the final go ahead before taking a shot.... I can just see the news stories now.

If you made a reliable enough product, you could even shove the setup on a little remote controlled vehicle(sort of like EOD's bomb defusing "robots"), and market it to the military or something.

If you are fully automating it, why have two steps? The computer IDs the targets (OCR for "OLIS") and do the maths right away, whilst sending an alert to your pager/cell/lair. If you don't respond, it assumes they already got you, and it fights back on your behalf.

I think a neat slaved system that maps all the telesnipers onto one map screen would be great, as you could have a target shot by several TSs at the same time, with auto-selection of the two that are most likely to hit/kill (by factoring in range, likely body armour, wind direction, obstructions and cover) so that there is nowhere to hide. With a multi-screen set-up you could control an entire battlespace. With some anti-armour gear and some prepared traps you could hold off a small army.

A remote-controlled helicopter gunship platform:

http://komodo.fullvoltage.com/AutoCopter_Gunship.mpg

An airborne telesniper if used as such. :)

Wonder how long until the USAF takes its own revenge and sends a UAV / Predator into a target. I have heard they can use one to paint a target for a paveway now.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but they already have armed UAVs:

'http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/systems/armed-predator.htm'

I was thinking more along the lines of flying into a target as opposed to using additional munitions or lasing a target to achieve the same purpose.

a la Twin Towers 2: Desert Storm in a Teacup.