ehhh_yeah t1_ivrcbrg wrote
Reply to comment by rickyh7 in 3D-printed weapons: Interpol and defense experts warn of ‘serious’ evolving threat by mossadnik
So, moving past the small arms application, the other larger and more lethal applications that they’re worried about are probably drones and light duty “missiles”. Ukraine has pretty effectively demonstrated that a basic quadcopter can drop grenades. I recall reading somewhere that they’re printing the latch mechanism and have probably played around printing stabilizer fins for said grenades.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to start printing chassis’ or parts for literally anything. Yeah you’d need to incorporate a much deeper design understanding of things like mechanical and aerospace engineering, but there are skilled engineers all around the world living in areas under ITAR export restrictions from the west. Give them a printer and some high performance raw materials and you’ve got yourself some control surfaces and a camera gimbal for a loitering munition.
rickyh7 t1_ivs4mem wrote
Now THAT is a very hard thing to do, and also an area of interest for me and my friends. Check out a guy named Joe Barnard at BPS space on YouTube if you want to see exactly that in action. Requires a wicked amount of electronics and coding experience thought. To make it dangerous you also need to know how to mix explosives which is already a common watch item anyway. Restricting printers won’t fix that though because anyone smart enough to do what you are saying can make a printer from scratch
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