Homing In On Laser Weapons 556
Bloodmoon1 writes "I just came across this article at GlobalSecurity.org that gives a very good summary of the current status of solid-state lasers as weapons. It gives you a good idea of where the JSF Laser system is at and just how much time, effort, and money has went into this project. Also has some basic, but very sufficent, explanations of some of the science behind the technology."
Missile (Score:5, Funny)
We`ll have to (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We`ll have to (Score:5, Informative)
Re:We`ll have to (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, but if you need to prevent this sort of thing from happening to keep your planes/boats/trucks up and running, then its worth looking into solutions. Who knows what`ll be effective? Perhaps some sort of sand/concrete which will degrade pleasantly? Layers of shiny foil which peels off revealing more foil below. Also, non/slow moving lasers will be the perfect target for counter-weapons to lock onto if they`re active for a few seconds at a time - usually you`d just get a flash as the weapon was fired - now you`ll have `I am here!` flashing lights (& heat).
Re:We`ll have to (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps by playing a Bach concerto and releasing a soothing lavendar fragrance as it melts to form a replica of Rodin's The Thinker.
Simple fix (Score:3, Interesting)
So you make your mirror subsystem disposable, and eject the spent mirrors like shells. Assuming you can get the desired result before or during the ablative process, you've got one shot, one mirror. We're used to such constraints with bullets and shell casings, and some disposable, portable ground-to-air missile systems, why not with mirrors?
Forget Stealth technology then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealth material generally works by absorbing the energy. The two defences won't be able to co-exist.
Re:Forget Stealth technology then... (Score:3, Insightful)
A laser weapon would STILL have to be targetted somehow. If the radar array can't see the aircraft the laser can't track/destroy it.
Re:Forget Stealth technology then... (Score:3, Informative)
F-117's are not invisible to radar, they just appear very small, approximately the size of a sparrow, and are usually over-looked by the radar technician as being natural phenomenom.
Also, they have IR emission reducing capabilities too.
The first comment was right. Defeating laser and radar are contradictory goals.
-- Admit nothing, deny everything, and make counter-accusations.
Naval Intelligence Motto
And inclement weather... (Score:3, Interesting)
I am not a physicist, but I believe that even the infrared laser beams would be scattered by rain or fog droplets, making a laser practically useless under such situations. Since the power of lasers as weapons is dependent on all of the light waves traveling in phase and in the same direction, something as simple as a drop of water could scatter laser light in all different directions, disrupting the beam and rendering it tactically useless.
Mirrors (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Mirrors (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mirrors (Score:2)
Re:Mirrors (Score:2, Interesting)
Given the powers at which these lasers operate, I imagine that the mirror would be effective shielding for a few tenths of a second before the energy not reflected built up enough to scorch the silvering. Once that happens you're dead.
Re:Mirrors (Score:4, Insightful)
Most mirrors are only about 95% reflective. The other 5% is transmitted through the mirror and absorbed (either by the mirror itself or the backing). Really good mirrors are about 99% reflective.
Now, let's assume that somehow you manage to "chrome" a missile such that it's 99% reflective (not bloody likely in real life, but we're talking theory here). Someone targets a 100 kW laser at you. The mirror reflects/scatters 99 kW of the energy, while 1 kW is absorbed by the missile itself.
It takes 216 kWs to heat 11 kg of steel by 10 deg C. Certainly you're not going to be able to keep the laser on the mirror for 216 seconds. But, that's ok, that's not the point. All you have to do is melt the mirror at contact point, degrading its reflectance so you can effect the missile itself. So how long does it take to boil the mirror into vapor? Probably a couple seconds. After which you have no effective defense and the 100 kW beam will boil off enough of the missile to render it ineffective. After all, you don't have to destroy it -- just alter the aerodynamics enough so it's incapable of targeting correctly.
You could spin the missile to reduce spot heating, but that's going to complicate guidance considerably. And, frankly, I doubt that you'll get more than 80% reflectance on this sucker, which changes the equation drastically. And, of course, your maintainance crew didn't leave any oil, grease, or fingerprints on the missile casing right? Uh huh.
The main stumbling block to SDI was tracking, targeting, and blasting a laser through several miles of atmosphere - all in about 10 seconds after launch. That or you wait until the ICBM is in space, in which case you now have to destroy (not merely damage) a dozen warheads and a couple dozen dummys. Which means you now have 20-30 targets to destroy in 30 seconds instead of 1 target in 10 seconds. Fun!
Spinning (Score:4, Informative)
Some missiles spin anyway. The Sidewinder missile was intentionally slightly unstable and spun so that it flew in a spiral. Its seeker had one degree of control, up-down relative to the center of the spiral. When the heat source it was looking at was near the center of the spiral, the spiral would narrow down towards the target. When the heat source was not near the center of the spiral, the spiral would broaden out in a cone until it reacquired the heat source. Fairly early in its development a filter was added so that it would ignore anything with the precise infrared signature of the sun.
Re:Mirrors (Score:2)
Well that or you just launch enough things -- the chemical batteries are only good for so long (I seem to recall an early prototype/design having 100 1 second burns, but I could be wrong).
Of course, if they're manned fighters then you're going to have an awfully hard time convincing those first 200 or so to launch.
Re:What good would Anti_Missle system (Score:3, Informative)
(1) Only works when everybody with sufficient access in the entire WMD system is rational. This is increasingly questionable; for an example, consider North Korea, which appears to prefer being able to hit the continental United States with a nuclear weapon (they have missiles with sufficient range, although accuracy has been questioned) to, say, being able to feed their people.
(2) Ignores the possibilities of accidental launches and launch systems which would have unclear authorship. For instance, it may be unclear who just launched an ICBM if it came from the middle of an ocean...
Re:Mirrors (Score:5, Informative)
In principle, yes. In practice, no. If you were to put a very high quality coating of silver (for visible wavelength lasers) or gold (for IR lasers) on your missile, in principle you could reflect 95 to 98% of incident light. Special optical coatings can result in >99% reflectance, but only over narrow wavelength ranges.
In other words, if the enemy knows the wavelength at which your laser operates, he can reduce the effectiveness of your laser weapons. For ground based installations, this still isn't a big problem--you just need a laser that's an order of magnitude more powerful, and you can cook even the reflective coatings on the other guy's missiles. I've done research work involving lasers in both physical chemistry and medicine, and I've seen a number of purportedly highly-reflective optical elements get toasted by a powerful enough beam. Also, high-quality optical coatings usually aren't meant to handle the stresses (physical and thermal) experienced by your typical missile (ballistic or tactical).
Re:Mirrors (Score:3, Funny)
Remember this is military spending here, normal sensible economics no longer apply. Remember the special air-conditioned hangers for Stealth aircraft?
A lot of incidental damage could be prevented by shipping any weapons in a protective sheath that could be removed when the weapon is either ready to fire or installed on the plane. Doesn't the cruise missile already come in a sealed cannister?
But if anyone is interested I'm planning on putting a bid in to develop nanotechnology mirrors. I've no idea how they would work, or if they're even possible, but they sound really cool. Going on yesterday's story about nanotechnology [slashdot.org], I have about as much of a clue as real military researchers.
I think I'm up to squandering a couple of billion USD before unveiling a can of silver spray paint.
Best wishes,
Mike.
Get out the Popcorn (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Get out the Popcorn (Score:2)
But seriously, I propose that all dictators be given 60 days to establish multiparty democracies. Failing this, aircraft and space based lasers will be used for the vaporization of all remaining dictators. Should they be replaced by other dictators, then the replacements should be vaporized as well.
Is it just me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or does this make someone else worried.
That man is kind of scary...
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it just me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Reading the comment as if Rumsfeld would be some wannabee massmurderer just for kicks and grins is a disgrace to one of the few people in the US cabinet that actually has a brain and uses it. Hope he doesn't click my sig.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:2, Interesting)
I really hope that article was hyperbolizing or sensationalizing Rummy's sentiment on laser-weapons, because anyone who gets "hot" or happy over killing someone does not belong in a position to do so. And yet we're sitting here, on the brink of war, with a bunch of war hawkin republicans whose only concern is that they beat the jones' in the weapons race.
The DC sniper guy had a brain, a pretty clever (and evil) one too. But unfortunately it's what you DO with your brain, not just having it, that matters.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Lasers are in line with Rumsfeld's idea of transforming the military, which is to come up with wonder-weapons that other countries can't emulate."
Uh, yeah. Guerillas, the Taliban, etc all have these huge stinger factories and AK factories, because they're really actually making them themselves.
Riiiight.
Just like everything else it'll take a year or two and then it's out on the weapons market and in five years more people like Saddam and the Taliban have laser batteries slicing and dicing US bombers into teeny weeny metal squares.
Other countries dont emulate weapons. They buy them, steal them, smuggle them or are given them. One thinks that a defense secretary would know this, but apparently learning requires actually having a brain. Maybe he can buy one on the black market.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:5, Interesting)
into the "engineering" phase (second phase of weapons development - research, engineering, and production) is quite revealing. For him to acknowledge publically any high-tech weaponry as making significant advances is, to me, quite shocking.
Also understand that the arms race, which has existed throughout human history, is exactly that: a contest to see who can come up with the most effective weaponry the quickest. In this era of asymmetric warfare, nukes are useless. We've got a rapidly growing asymmetrical threat against which our current best practices and tools are less than ideal. New weapons and tactics are needed to counter such a threat.
As to the open market availability of weapons for terrorists, sure, there's scuds (pun intended) available. As long as there are countries such as Russia and China producing cheap, reliable low-tech weapons, and other countries willing to act as brokers for these groups, there will be a channel. This, however, is a poor argument against transformation of our armed forces to respond to such threats, including development of new weapons that give our military another advantage. And, given the technical sophistication of the level of some of these new weapons systems being developed, it'll be years before opposing forces can produce clones in sufficient quantity to be worrisome. Case in point: look how long it's taken many countries to become nuclear capable. That technology is nearly 60 years old! Lasers have been around since 1954 (microwave, 1960 for an optical laser) and we still haven't been able to weaponize them to any significant degree. And much of laser theory and practice is in the open press, unlike many aspects of the nuclear weapons programs.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3, Funny)
Yep, technological superiority on the battlefield is moot.
Re:Is it just me... (Score:3)
Riiiight.
Sheesh
E = mc? (Score:5, Insightful)
Umm... anyone know how that is supposed to happen?
But seriously, I'm sick and tired of science related articles being written by journalists with no clue about the science they're writing about. These articles should be checked for accuracy by the people the story is about.
Re:E = mc? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Perhaps you should clarify your argument with the journalist's statement, and post your own facts to illustrate the point for those who don't know any better. Who knows, you may even help educate a future journalist.
Smoke and mirrors (Score:2, Funny)
Fancy a game of real-life Deflektor anyone?
The problem with mirrors... (Score:3, Informative)
The Airborne Laser (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Airborne Laser (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Airborne Laser (Score:4, Interesting)
These lazers to me sound like a perfect system to rain down lazers on enemy tanks from above. I need to double check the article about the range of these lasers
Another thing that makes these lasers allmost useless are sub launched missles... they will be launched from such a close range that there may not be enough time to shoot it down. and with the mobility of a sub.. well imagine trying to play whack a mole with the hammer and a whole football field full of these pop up moles.. can't whack em all..
these lasers would be great if used vs land targets. Now the really effective way to target missles being launched would be from sattelites.. as long as they ahave a good stationary orbit they can cover an area and fire on them as they come up
so my thoughts..
747 modded to fire these could replace things like the specter gunships...
sattelites are better suited to take on the missle threat...
then again this is my opinion..
Re:The Airborne Laser (Score:4, Informative)
The Air Force Airborne Laser (ABL) mentioned above will soon be joined by the ATL [flightdailynews.com] (Airborne Tactical Laser) of the Army. The ATL weighs between 4,500kg and 6,750kg [aeronautics.ru], and can be mounted on a C-130 transport, CH-47 Chinook helicopters, USN P-3 maritime patrol aircraft, or Osprey V-22s for ground attack purposes. Or it could be mounted on US Army tracked or wheeled vehicles.
ATL will have a "sealed exhaust system" and will not exhaust poisonous fumes like the ABL. It could defend against cruise missiles, intercept incoming artillery shells of up to 300mm, knock out SAM sites, or be used for ground attack. It has a maximum range of about 25km, and can be shot 100 times before reloading the chemicals.
Both the ABL and the ATL should be operational by 2006.
I can imagine..... (Score:5, Funny)
CAUTION: DO NOT STARE DIRECTLY INTO LENS
-Evan
Re:I can imagine..... (Score:2, Funny)
-Matt
Re:I can imagine..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Heh, like Claymore mines are labelled "FRONT TOWARDS ENEMY".
targeting system? (Score:5, Interesting)
I would like to know how such a weapon will acquire/track/target an incoming projectile. (That was not sarcasm; I really would like to know.) Mortar rounds generally travel in a high parabolic path - think of the St. Louis arch. Larger artillery shells - such as those fired from a battleship - follow a flatter trajectory. The targeting system would have to acquire a small incoming object, predict the path it will follow, and fire within a few seconds. That looks like a daunting task.
Re:targeting system? (Score:5, Informative)
They are very effective. They calculate the location of the firing tubes, and that information is passed to artillery units tasked to provide counterbattery fire (usually MLRS rocket artillery). This all happens very quickly - 30 seconds to a few minutes' time.
Re:targeting system? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:targeting system? (Score:4, Informative)
Sensors detect a target (e.g. infra-red senssors pick up exhaust plumes or radar picks up missile)
Kilowatt class Active Ranger System laser acquires and tracks target.
Tracking data goes to the Tracker Illuminator Laser, which locks onto the missiles body and determines the best position to hit the missile.
A third laser the Beacon illuminator bounces light of the laser to determine atmospheric interference.
Interference data allows the optics to be altered to 'correct' the COIL's beam so it is properly focused when it arrives on target.
Then the COIL (Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser) fires, and hopefully burns a hole in the target. Destroying it ouright, disabling it, or blowing its fuel tanks.
Re:targeting system? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:targeting system? (Score:4, Informative)
Present systems not only have to aquire the target, catagorize the target, determine the best weapon to use in response. Then there's the same problem with the weapon you use to retaliate -- it also doesn't travel in a straight line so you must compensate not only for the threat's non-straight-line behaviour but also your own countering weapon's non-straight-line behaviour.
Is you use the LASER, the second half of the problem goes away!
BTW: Aegis solves the problem in a manner that is elegent or brute force, depending on your point of view. It uses an electronically steered RADAR to track incoming targets, shoot a gattling gun in the direction of the target, then tracks both the incoming target & the outgoing rounds, uses this data to modify the direction the guns are pointed. Elegent in the simplicity of its concept, brute force due to the fact it applies massive processing power to allow it to track an enormous number of targets.
Re:targeting system? (Score:2)
Not quite, well, maybe for a ship and very close threats, longer range targetting (such as the ranges the ABL will have) do need the laser to 'lead' the target by a bit.
Those Aegis systems are rather impressive in action.
Re:targeting system? (Score:3, Insightful)
Provided you aren't relying on them to down a real inbound threat!
Re:targeting system? (Score:5, Informative)
It's a solved problem. The Sea Wolf [mbda.net] point defence system can shoot down 4.5-inch shells as well as supersonic missiles. Sea Wolf was first deployed in combat in 1982. Of course, you are likely to run out of missiles before they run out of cannon ammo, but maybe you can buy enough time to hit them with an Exocet [mbda.net].
Warships are expensive, so a lot of money has been spent on ways to protect them!
Re:targeting system? (Score:5, Interesting)
More info [navy.mil] is available. If you poke around online, you can also see some sweet movies of the thing. It just turns, tracks for a second, unleashes a wall of lead, then returns to the 'ready' position like it wasn't a big deal.
War is a daunting task. Fortunately, we've got some relatively clever folks thinking things like this up!
Re:targeting system? (Score:3, Informative)
In AEGIS we would fire an interceptor missile at a threat. The interceptor has mid-course guidance capability with a window of opportunity, so you can't fire the thing in the wrong direction and expect it to still hit the target. Therefore, your predictions must be highly accurate, accounting for wind, earth coriolis (the earth is moving underneath the projectiles), non-constant heterogenous gravity (weaker as the projectiles move further away from the earth, not in a straight line, and different for different parts of the earth).
The equation for filtering in this case is quite a mess. I'd imagine predicting for a laser is much easier because your interceptor is much faster, more stearable, etc.
If you're really interested in how it works, get a book on the Kalman filter. By the way, this technique is also useful in enemy AI development for games!
Tactically Flawed (Score:2, Interesting)
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Once their exact location is determined (in a matter of milliseconds) they can be targeted and destroyed.
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Cool, but expensive one-shot toys.
Re:Tactically Flawed (Score:3, Informative)
If the target had a laser sensor, it could figure out where the fire is coming from, but I suspect the target is going to be having other concerns once it receives the laser pulse.
Re:Tactically Flawed (Score:3, Informative)
"beam is expected to take anywhere from five to ten seconds to burn through the casing"
That was from an article about the ABL mounted on a 747.
But as you said, if you're getting hit with a megawatt laser beam, you've got bigger problems than finding out where it came from.
And when that something firing is the size of a 747, finding it probably isn't such a huge problem.
Re:Tactically Flawed (Score:2)
Some things further complicating returning fire against the laser:
* unless you have a laser of your own, you'd have to attack the aircraft with a missile, which is vulnerable to being shot down by the laser.
* the other point that comes to mind is that the sort of technology to acquire and target and engage at great range these flying lasers are going to be available to very few countries, possibly even only to the US for some time. Certainly against the sort of enemies the US is likely to be fighting in the near-ish future, there will probably not be a way to fight back.
Re:Tactically Flawed (Score:2)
Re:Tactically Flawed (Score:3, Insightful)
You might think so, but tracer ammo has been around since WW2 and it's still in use today. That suggests that being able to locate a weapon that is firing at you while it is firing isn't as big a tactical advantage as it might first appear.
Frickin' Lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Dr. Evil: Back in the 60's, I developed a weather changing machine which was in essence a sophisticated heat beam which we called a 'laser.' Using these 'lasers' we'd punch a hole in the protective layer around the world which we called the 'ozone' layer. Slowly but surely ultraviolet rays would pour in, increasing the risk for skin cancer, that is...unless the world pays us a hefty ransom?
No. 2: Ahem....that also already has happened.
Dr. Evil: Shit!
Frickin Laser Beams! (Score:3, Funny)
from the now-all-we-need-is-some-sharks dept. (Score:5, Funny)
From Austin Powers [google.com]:
Wavelength? (Score:3, Informative)
But what the world really wants to know is . . . (Score:2)
Soon (wrings hands) (Score:5, Funny)
I'll be able to walk into a store and ask for: "Phased plasma rifle in 40-watt range. "
Excellent... Oh wait. 40-watts isn't very much. Is that what the Terminator really asked for? 40 watts? Sheesh. I could just hook up a light bulb and start shining bright lights in people's eyes. Perhaps the idea is to convince them to stare into the bulb for hours on end (like several of my classes that I attended) and eventually go blind-ish...
I will be back...
Re:Soon (wrings hands) (Score:3, Informative)
Jon.
Asteroids (Score:2, Insightful)
It's not entirely impossible that a large asteroid will head straight for us at some point... and somehow I don't think a re-enactment of Armageddon would work!
Asteroids! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Asteroids (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm torn... (Score:4, Interesting)
But then there is that overly logical Marine in me that says sounds unreliably. Much rather have a tried and true missile. This is is going to be very interesting to see when it actually goes into service how well it performs and is used. I could see this project either changing the way the military develops and uses weapons, or eliminating the whole idea for at least 50 years.
Re:I'm torn... (Score:2, Interesting)
BTW, thanks for your willingness to serve our country. Good luck in your endeavours and Godspeed.
Re:I'm torn... (Score:2)
The AMRAAM and the new Sidewinder are both well worth the money we've spent. Particularly the new Sidewinder. Most air to air engagements (with fighters) occur at close range. Hence an upgrade to our heat seeker has been needed for quite a while.
Thank you for thanking me, it beats being called a babykiller (yes I already have been.)
Re:I'm torn... (Score:3, Insightful)
I've no doubt that the first laser weapons will be pretty poor. But back in the 50s there were probably overly logical Marines just like you saying they'd rather have a tried-and-true machine gun fitted to their planes. Once a concept has been proved to work, the military have a history of being quickly able to turn it into something practical.
Like Akira.. only for real (Score:2)
Just for your information (Score:2, Informative)
Lightning is 1,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000 joules.
Basically they are trying to make a weapon that could blast the hell out of that tree in your front yard, but right now will have to settle for your cat.
To put this in prespective, the adverage person uses 64,800,000 joules a month, or 18 kilowatts... So for every time they fire this baby, they are blowing 50-100 bucks....
They essentially are what cause the blackouts in California.
Re:Just for your information (Score:2)
I had to read that in context twice. For a second it sounded like you were implying the military wanted to use human beings to power these laser machines, a la "The Matrix".
("It turns out we were wrong... the reason the machines began growing humans for power is because they couldn't afford the electric bill for their satellite television any more.")
Re:Just for your information (Score:5, Informative)
What are you talking about? A kilowatt is a measure of power, and a joule is a measure of energy. The two are not directly comparable without a time factor thrown in. Do you mean a kilowatt hour is 3,600,000 joules?
By your calculation, lightning is 280-2,800 kilowatts (0.3-2.8 megawatts). As we all know, lighting is more in the range of 1.21 gigawatts (humor intended, but general priniciple remains the same). It's not like lightning strikes last for an hour.
------
"To put this in prespective, the adverage person uses 64,800,000 joules a month, or 18 kilowatts... So for every time they fire this baby, they are blowing 50-100 bucks....
They essentially are what cause the blackouts in California."
What the fuck are you talking about? This [enron.com] causes the blackouts in California, not some sergeant flipping the switch on $100 of electricity.
Not Just Lasers (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing not widely covered in the normal monkey media: Gulf War II will almost certainly premiere our new "directed energy" weapon systems which have quietly been brought out of the labs over the past year or so. From the (admittedly basic) descriptions given to the non-monkey press by those in the know, the systems work with microwaves to zap electronic gear. They're mounted on precision guided bodies (not bombs per-se, but probably shaped a lot like them) and are one-shot items.
The idea is superpowerful microwave radiation can fry anything with transistors in it, even stuff buried deep underground. These things deliver a burst of microwaves that fry things within a (classified) limited range. It's not clear if they can be directed or if it goes off in a sphere like a ghostly bomb.
The reason they aren't already mounting these things on F-16s and just pressing buttons is a) the range is really short right now and b) they aren't directional enough yet and would end up frying the electronics of the shooter, which would be annoying to the pilot.
Tanks (Score:2)
Civilians lose (Score:3, Interesting)
With such lasers, a fighter jet could destroy ground targets with pinpoint accuracy, significantly reducing the chance of injuring civilians.
uhmmm... no!
The problem with lasers is, that once they hit something the beam will reflected beam/beam fragments will be able to blind people in a LARGE area (as in a radius of several miles) around the target...
Soldiers will be able to wear protective gear...
Civilians probably won't...
Civilians lose...
If anyone has ever worked with really powerful laser you'll will know how strict the safety regulations are... and you'll know how difficult it is to find all the reflections from an experimental setup.
Geneva convention (Score:3, Insightful)
Next Gen & Counter (Score:3, Interesting)
"A Navy ship could use the laser, with its beam traveling at the speed of light, to fend off even the fastest missiles. And ground troops could use a Humvee-mounted version of the weapon to instantly knock out incoming enemy artillery and mortar shells. "
This is, of course, an arms race. So what happens when they're not firing missles anymore, but lasers?
I'm not suggesting it's a bad idea. I'd just love to see what protection they'll propose when our opponents get up-to-speed. I also have to wonder if there is a low-tech way of defeating it (remember when we spent millions coming up with a pen that would write in zero-G and the Russians just used pencils?)...
Re:Next Gen & Counter (Score:3, Informative)
There's a page for this on the Urban Legends Reference Page [snopes.com].
Apparently, there are a number of problems with pencils, including the flammability of wood/graphite in the pure oxygen atmospheres that were used at that time, and that conductive graphite dust could drift into electronics and cause a short.
Re:Next Gen & Counter (Score:3, Informative)
(*) There are conflicts today where old weapons -- even as old as spears and machetes -- are side-by-side with moderately old weapons (AK-47s, for instance... and the explosive grenade goes back at least to the late 1700's, as primitive explosive-charges were thrown to detonate the powder magazines in ships... and the general concept of the gunpowder firearm goes back to the late Middle Ages; RPG-7s) and where more modern weapon systems (vehicles with reactive armor, laser-guided missiles, Phalanx CIWS) are practically non-existent.
Hell, have you ever seen a Palestinian fire an automatic rifle -- perhaps a Kalashnikov or a captured Galil or M16 -- at an Israeli Merkava, when the latter is buttoned up? It's futile, as the bullets have neglible chance of finding a spot penetrable by the small rounds (/maybe/ the vision block), but that doesn't mean that they've ditched their rifles and are now swimming in RPGs.
Weapons cost time (training), money (lots), contacts (need to find somebody who'll sell... for an example of a client with problems, I doubt that the radical Islamists can readily buy modern weapon systems from the US, Russia, China, or Israeli as they are all involved in ongoing conflicts with their brethren... well, maybe they can go to France. *shrug*)
The last major weapon system concept to be completely obsoleted was probably the battleship, which yielded to the aircraft carrier battlegroup, and even now there are still gun-armed ships meant for surface engagements, I'm sure.
(*) Remember when Snopes debunked the "NASA Space Pen" nonsense" [snopes.com]?
Mildly Shocked no one has put these up (Score:4, Informative)
A bit of Karma whoring here, wish I'd gotten online sooner so that people would see this much earlier:
TheHigh Energy Laser Systems Test Facility [army.mil] (so-called HELSTF). Let's see if Tom's webserver can survive this...This is the laser test facility for the army and navy at White Sands Missile Range. They've got the world's most powerful laser (MIRACL: Mid Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser) there.
Being developed for them, by Livermore by the same guys that are doing the National Ignition Facility is a solid state laser [llnl.gov]. It works.
Also at HELSTF, and the first functional laser weapon, is Tactical High Energy Laser [trw.com] (aka THEL, and I hate that URL, btw...)
Search TRW for more stuff on lasers as well as Lockmart and Boeing, of course.
Why no laser sniper rifles? (Score:3, Interesting)
America is screwing up (Score:3, Interesting)
Like Britain creating HMS Dreadnaught, this technology will be the seeds of our strategic decline.
You're right... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Ob Austin Powers (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, Geneva Convention bans blinding weapons (what party poopers), but accepts that combatants may be blinded as a side-effect of the use of a normal weapon.
So, while you can blind someone with it (e.g. a pilot) at a much longer range than the range you could destroy missiles/planes/etc, once you are within that lethal range blindeness created by the weapon would be a side-effect, not the main effect.
Bit of a grey area.
Power source Re:Not a feasible weapon (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not a feasible weapon (Score:3, Informative)
Reply to the story, not the headline (Score:2)
Re:Not a feasible weapon (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, I'll bite. Where does E=mc^2 come into this? I've worked with lasers for a number of years, and I have yet to see any of my lasing medium converted directly to energy. Lasers operate by kicking atoms into an excited state (usually an excited electronic state) and then emitting light when excited atoms relax back to ground state.
For the record, small lasers don't require "gigawattage" to operate. I have a laser pointer that runs on one AA battery--I'll be giving a talk using it in a couple of hours. A laser designed for a weapons application would be larger. Still, I could assemble a carbon dioxide laser that could start fires from several hundred feet away and still be light enough to carry--and operate for a while on a moderately hefty battery back.
Granted, I couldn't destroy missiles with it, but the article discussses lasers that are mounted on aircraft or vehicles, or are part of fixed installations. You don't need a large power supply for even an extremely powerful laser if it only fires the very short pulses (microseconds or nanoseconds) that would be most useful for military purposes.
Re:Interesting, but is it legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting, but is it legal? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Unlimited use in battle! (Score:4, Informative)
Assuming he has an infinite energy source on board too, of course. Otherwise firing the weapon will decrease range/endurance by increasing fuel consumption. Currently the opposite it true, because it reduces weight.
Re:Killing people (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I never read anything that said solid state lasers would be used as anti-personnel weapons. I read that they would be used for defense, with the abilty to remove live missiles and mortars. Which, if you think about it, is a way to reduce the risk of loss of human life going into war.
Basically, these would be used as a defense mechanism in conventional war. Contrary to popular belief, military objectives during conventional war are not to inflict human casualties, but to eliminate the threat in the most efficient way possible. Loss of life does happen, however, and any effort to reduce the loss of life during war would be applauded, I would think.
-AAAWalrus
Re:Nice use of our tax dollars (Score:2)
History repeats itself... and those who don't learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them, too.
Re:gimme war (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the reasons why the Great Powers were able to roundly abuse other nations is that they
And when nations, in the name of international law and peace, turn the other cheek to an aggressor when those same laws are abused, the results are generally obvious -- the aggression continues. Condemnations have never practically stopped a massacre, nor have battalions been routed by a tongue-lashing, while negotiations fail when there is genuinely nothing to discuss because there is nothing of perceived satisfactory mutual benefit regarding an issue.
Re:gimme war (Score:4, Interesting)
the do-nothing attitude about war that you demonstrate leads to disgraceful events in history like hitler's gambit for the sudetenland before world war ii. if you don't know what i am talking about, do some googling and learn what an avoidance of war really means: just creating the conditions for an even greater, deadlier war at a later time. you can't push war away and hope it will go away. if you push war away, it simply festers and the conditions for it grow worse until it finally does punch through and there is no avoiding it at all. you have to face war when you recognize it, deal with it, and move on. you can't avoid it. nobody likes this, but you can't hold it against them for recognizing reality for what it is. don't shoot the messenger just because you don't like the message.
if some person or country aggressively approaches you with war on their mind, you cannot save yourself by capitulating to their every demand. nor is a "let's hold hands and sing campfire songs" attitude going to change the attitude of some very evil people in this world. you have to defend yourself from them or you actually encourage them to be more aggressive if they get the idea you will not oppose them with force, if necessary. do i like this? no. but not liking it doesn't make this obvious truth go away. that's just reality. face it.
there is nothing wrong making jokes about war either. humans make jokes about all sorts of bad things, like priests abusing boys, that are just plain evil, but serve to psychologically relieve our nervousness. more basic psychological human nature for you to try and understand.
by the way, your obvious arrogance is perhaps a more dangerous aspect of human nature than any discussion of war on slashdot could ever be. more evil flows from human arrogance, that you seem to have gallons of, than perhaps any other human failing. there are wonderful, accurate, logical, straightforward arguments against war to be had out there, but your arrogance demonstrates none of that, and your mean-spirited words only serve to reduce the power of those who argue rationally against war.
your meanness is just mental masturbation, making you feel better about yourself at the expense of other people's respect for you. by talking about "the average cow grazing in Wal-mart" you reveal a hatred for the common person on the street. i have 1,000 pounds more faith in those "cows grazing at walmart" to make the right decisions about life and liberty than i do in an obviously mean-spirited, common-person hating, arrogant and smug person such as yourself. think about that before criticizing what you see as "warmongers."
look at your own evil before criticizing the perceived evil in others. arrogance such as yours has spawned more useless horrible wars than anything else has. you have blind self-love that leads you to treat others arrogantly. news flash: sunlight does not shine out of your butt. you are only human too. your arrogance puts you far closer to the human evil that spawns war than a thousand austin power jokes and bin laden ass-kicking tirades ever could.
that's my rant for the day.
Re:giggles (from the article) and a question (Score:3, Interesting)
Outside of space telescopes and cleanroom labs, have you ever seen a 99.92% reflective mirror _stay_ that way? A smudge of oil on the surface would vaporize instantly, heating the mirror up and deforming it slightly. This causes the mirror to not be quite so reflective, so it absorbs even more heat, etc, etc.
Fortunately for the US military, the only practical defense to a laser would be something that could instantly conduct the heat the laser generates around the rest of the vehicle; the parts not being fired at become a giant heatsink. I don't know if electrical superconductors are also heat superconductors, but either way, such a material is much further away on the horizon than high-power solid state lasers.