Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System 246
stephencrane writes "Northrop Grumman is making available for sale the FIRESTRIKE weaponized laser system. The solid-state laser unit weighs over 400lbs, sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack and can be synchronized with additional units to emit a 100 kW beam. It looks like some piece of stereophonic amplification equipment out of the '50s. Or Fallout 3. The press release suggests that FIRESTRIKE 'will form the backbone of future laser weapon systems.'"
More details? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another bullet point is that TFA states that "The firm has said that at least eight of these can be linked up to get a proper 100 kilowatt beam" but how exactly would that be done? this [primezone.com] provides an idea, anybody "in the know" wanna chime in?
defense (Score:3, Interesting)
So what exactly happens when they point the laser at a tank with a bunch of large corner cube reflectors mounted on it? I mean, if even a fraction of the laser energy comes back I could see this being a real problem.
so what next ? (Score:4, Interesting)
ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun.
but what can i do with that ?
explode a potato in a 10 minutes static shot ? or melt aircraft wing in 1 second ?
also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:More details? (Score:4, Interesting)
The HMMWV is not ideal for mobility. It is a cheap light tactical truck.
Where a laser would be a good fit is in upcoming hybrid-drive FCS-type tracked vehicles. Tracks give far superior mobility, more usable interior space, and can carry more armor. The hybrid electric system offers plenty of electrical power.
Multiple lasers is the key (Score:3, Interesting)
Using multiple such things, each of them too wimpy to cause much damage seems important. First, it makes it much harder for the enemy to knock them off — hitting one unit disables a small fraction of the whole. Second, the power can be concentrated at different targets depending on the need (soldiers, a missile, an artillery shell, a plane) — rather than the all-or-nothing of a single giant laser. And third, an errant device will not be as harmful — for example, if, when the network of these are shooting at an incoming missile, one of them hits a civilian plane or some other unintended object. No problem — a single beam is too weak to be really harmful.
Now, of course, they would need to be very precisely targeted and coordinated. Fortunately, we have GPS and powerful computers...
Re:so what next ? (Score:4, Interesting)
The explanation I've heard is that even though you see the light being diffracted or reflected, it's still being absorbed and re-emitted at the photon level. The material has to be able to stand up to the energy of the beam. Most mirror surfaces would quickly decompose.
Re:so what next ? (Score:5, Interesting)
ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun. ... but what can i do with that ?
To provide a sense of scale, industrial laser cutters (CO2) tend to run from 100 W to 3000 W. The smaller of these lasers is five times more powerful. I imagine it could cut through an aircraft's wing in milliseconds at most; due to weight limits they aren't very thick. Of course, you'd need to do more than just bore a hole through the wing to bring down a plane.
It's worth noting that a sufficiently powerful laser will actually vaporize the surface, rather than just melting it. It can essentially cause the surface to explode from the sudden influx of heat, resulting in far greater damage than a simple cut.
also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?
At these power levels even an optics-quality mirror tends to absorb too much energy to remain effective. Even if it's just 0.1%, that's still 150 W to 1 kW being absorbed, which will quickly heat the mirror to the point where it becomes opaque.
If you could make it work, though, a retroreflector [wikipedia.org] would be even better than a mirror, since it would redirect the laser back at the source.
15kW is not very much. (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess it is on the verge of being practical. But not much more, yet.
Re:Blind soldiers (Score:3, Interesting)
There's a material out there, google for it, that can go from a transparent material to a mirrored material in around 11 seconds when current is applied to it. I could see that being used as a windshield for whatever vehicle carries these devices, and activated before firing the weapon.
Not so. (Score:3, Interesting)
Assuming that is true... that a reflective surface must absorb the light before re-emitting it in a complementary direction -- would be to assume that, for example, white paper must absorb light and then redirect it in order to accomplish its reflective quality, while a black piece of paper would simply absorb the light. If that were the case, not only would the black piece of paper become warmer (as it does), the white piece of paper (or other efficient reflector closer to ideal) would actually become cooler, since it must expend energy to absorb then re-emit the light in a direction opposite to the direction the light originally entered. (Even you admit that energy is expended in the process of reflection.) That might only be a small effect, but it would be noticeable.
Not only would the material reflect the light, it would become cooler in the process.
Most reflectors are less than ideal, but the basic principle still holds. You don't get something for free.
Not only that, but a good many designs for relatively high-powered lasers rely on internal reflection from mirrors to achieve the lasing effect at all. If what you claimed about reflectors were true, these lasers would not even work! Their end mirrors would melt down before light were ever emitted from the device. But lase and emit they do, easily enough to melt several inches of steel, without a shred of problem with (or heating of) the mirrors.