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Comments: 419 +- Technology: Airborne Boeing Laser Blasts Ground Target on Wednesday September 02, @11:34PM
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by
samzenpus
on Wednesday September 02, @11:34PM
from the lazlo-approved dept.
from the lazlo-approved dept.
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technology
coondoggie writes "The airborne military laser which promises to destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage has for the first time actually blown something up. Boeing and the US Air Force today said that on Aug. 30, a C-130H aircraft armed with Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) blasted a target test vehicle on the ground for the first time. Boeing has been developing the ATL since 2008 under an Air Force contract worth up to $30 million."
"Unibus timeout fatal trap program lost sorry"
- An error message printed by DEC's RSTS operating system for the PDP-11
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Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
Someone find the house full of Popped Corn!!!
Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
> Dude, seriously. That was a pretty corny joke.
And yet there's a kernel of truth to it.
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
What truth would that be? I'm all ears.
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
You should take it with a grain of salt...
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean seriously. How did they get the shark to fly?
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
They just took jumping the shark to a whole new level...
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Re:Quick! (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Quick! (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, I've been married for 10 years!
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And Kent? (Score:5, Funny)
Stop playing with yourself!!
Pocket change! (Score:5, Insightful)
Still a chemical laser (Score:5, Interesting)
It's still a chemical laser. It's quite possible to make chemical lasers powerful enough to be used as weapons, but so far the equipment has been too big to be very useful. The Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser is able to shoot down artillery shells and small rockets, but the equipment takes up three trailers and costs too much.
The solid state laser people are catching up. The current output record is around 100 KW. [northropgrumman.com] This is enough to be marginally useful for anti-aircraft use. Around a megawatt, things start to get militarily interesting.
Cooling is a huge problem for the solid state devices, though. With the chemical lasers, most of the heat is dumped with the spent chemicals. For the solid state devices, the gear has to be cooled, and efficiency is only around 20%.
Is this really what passes for jounalism today? (Score:4, Insightful)
According to as post on Wikipedia, each COIL burst produces enough energy in a five-second burst to power a typical American household for more than one hour
Re:Is this really what passes for jounalism today? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Is this really what passes for jounalism today? (Score:5, Informative)
What's wrong with that? Unless you're complaining about the use of Wikipedia, everything in that sentence is perfectly within norms.
A typical American household uses about 11,000 kWh [energy.gov] per year.
A very simple use of Google's calculator function will tell you that this equals 1,255 Wh per hour [google.com].
This in turn is 4.52 megajoule [google.com]. Expended over 5 seconds, this is 904 kW [google.com]. Pretty close to a megawatt laser.
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Faster than a speeding bullet? (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, according to the article, the laser is supersonic. Good to know.
Actually the first SUCCESSFUL attempt... (Score:5, Interesting)
It was only half successful.
It did destroy the target which he described as a "basketball sized item" while traveling at ~450mph or whatever a C-130 cruises at (not supersonic). Unfortunately one of the chemicals has a ph of 17 and is stored at 2500 psi. When the tank developed a leak everyone had to don gas masks, move the cockpit and then make an emergency landing before it ate the plane. A full hazmat crew run by the company had to be flown in from Albuquerque to run decontamination.
It makes me think that perhaps if they just shot those chemicals rather than the laser it might be just as effective and quite a bit cheaper.
Re:Actually the first SUCCESSFUL attempt... (Score:5, Informative)
Only aqueous solutions are limited to pH below14.
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GOLD: Effective counter measure against the ABL (Score:4, Insightful)
So if this really is a 1MW laser, then only 20kWatts of energy gets through. Plus, the beam diverges, so at a long distance the beam diameter might be something like 1meter. The USAF probably can't even run this laser for very long or else it will self destruct. So, 20kWatts of energy that is pulsed for a few seconds over a 1meter area? You can design a missile to withstand that. Just plate it with gold, and put on some aerodynamic heat sinks and/or shield and/or insulation.
Re:Sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
I meant the reflections. Are they willing to blind anyone within eyesight?
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose that would fall under the category of collateral damage, and they're probably expecting everyone within sight of the target to be, well, "The Enemy(tm)."
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of this tool is war. So, yes.
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of this tool is war. So, yes.
We already have plenty weapons with lots of collateral damage and they're being used, that was never in dispute. The question was how can this be a weapon "with little to no collateral damage" if in fact the reflections do collateral damage. If we didn't care about colleteral we could just throw a nuke at it.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Compared to a missile, this does little to no collateral damage, because most targets don't walk around wearing mirror-covered suits. Do you understand now?
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Er, not exactly? (Score:5, Informative)
From WP [wikipedia.org]:
The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) program is a US military program to mount a high energy laser damage weapon on an aircraft, initially the AC-130 gunship, for use against ground targets in urban or other areas where minimizing collateral damage is important. The laser will be a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL). It is expected to have a tactical range of approximately twenty kilometers and weigh about 5,000â"7,000 kg. This program is distinct from the Airborne Laser, which is a much larger system designed to destroy enemy missiles in the boost phase.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Not really. First, this is the ATL. It is a different craft with a different mission. It is designed to take out targets on the ground.
Second, for us to take out China's missile, we would have to have multiples of these craft located deep inside of this countries AND all over the world. The reason is that China has a number of boomers and is building 1-2 new nuclear boomers EACH YEAR. In fact, they will surpass America's count in the next 2 years. As it is, China now has boomers patroling both the American Atlantic and Pacific seaboards as well as the Mexican gulf (Venezuela has begun quietly allowing them to have port calls). We also know that China has at least 10 boomers, and will surpass it within 4 years (more likely 2). In addition, to be able to take out all of China's sites with this would require us to be in every country that surrounds China, with multiple aircraft (and russia would require at least 4 to 8 of these). Think we can swing that? Neither does China. TO be honest, we will probable need a lot more. China appears to be building new nuclear warheads. They restarted their factory last decade. They started their build-up before we decided anything about the ABLs.
Finally, the ABL shooting horizontally will have a range of around 500-700. It it probable that it would have a range far shorter over china due to their pollution. In addition, this craft will become more ineffective on 2'nd and third round since dust would have been kicked into the air.
Neither the ATL nor the ABL will be a threat to China's missiles.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty much every vehicle I've ever been in has at least one side mirror.
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
No, permanent blinding weapons are illegal
Blinding weapons are banned by 1995 United Nations Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzler_(weapon) [wikipedia.org]
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/49de65e1b0a201a7c125641f002d57af?OpenDocument [icrc.org]
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
Did you read your own links? From the second:
Causing blindness is not a combat function of this weaponry; it's a side-effect of the other side trying to subvert the weapon. They were also not specifically designed to have such an effect. Their goal is to blow shit up from the air, with a particular emphasis on fired projectiles but probably used for vehicles as well (as per this example). In most cases there won't even be anybody around to get blinded.
A bullet through the eye can cause blindness too, that doesn't make it banned. Intent matters.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Creating a blinding weapon is illegal. Creating a destructive weapon that may blind as an accidental side-effect is perfectly fine.
By 'perfectly fine', I mean within the terms of international agreements on the conduct of war.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Informative)
Yes but please see "Article 3" in your link.
Article 3
Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol.
So if one of those common laser targeters or this super laser can blind you, they still comply since they weren't designed specifically to blind people, they come under "incidental or collateral effect".
You're just not supposed to:
"employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision"
So just blind people and say "Oops".
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Interesting)
Do yourself the favour of looking up which sections of the Geneva Conventions the USA is a signatory to. Then read those sections. Then come up with examples of us violating those sections.
Be aware, by the by, that we never signed on to the sections giving near-blanket immunity to guerrilla forces
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Informative)
I've not heard a valid example of the US violating it.
Do you consider general Taguba, who conducted investigation of Abu Ghraib valid source? According to him [telegraph.co.uk] prisoner were raped among other things. Is it good enough example of violation for you? I also remember (not link this time, but should not be hard to find) of hooded prisoner attached to multiple wires. The whole scene looked like something from Frankenstein.
Remember, the Geneva conventions are primarily concerned with the treatment of uniformed members of national military forces (and includes definitions of such).
Whole 4th convention is about civilians. Most relevant here is article 5, talking about spies and saboteurs (or in American newspeak "illegal enemy combatants").
Direct quote: [http] "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be." Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
It also is only in force when engaged in war with another state that is also bound by the convention.
Like Iraq which ratified it in 1956? Ah, I forgot: you just need to slap 'liberation' sticker on your invasion and it is ok.
Legally, at least; morally/politically is a different game, of course.
What is the problem? You just need to redefine 'morality', like 'torture' and 'war' got redefined.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
Close you missed the some key aspects of the article 5.
"Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."
A protected person detained as a spy or saboteur. Non uniformed terrorists do not fall under the "protected person" definition. So they are not protected by the GC.
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee, Statement at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)
US-Confederate general (1807 - 1870)
All the people crying OMG WE HAVE INTERNATIONAL LAWS AGAINST DOING THIS AND THIS AND THIS are the kind of people who don't understand this fact. The more horrible war is, the less likely it will happen. The population of the west today just doesn't get that war is ugly, they've pacified themselves culturally to believe that war is NOT the ugly horrible thing it always was, and always will be, and seem to think that OMG A CIVILIAN DIED THIS IS AN OUTRAGEEEEEEEEEEEE is how you should respond to finding out 20 enemy fighters died...but 1 civilian did as well cause the enemy was hiding in a family's house. I don't really care that I'll get modded as flamebait/troll because this is the fact of life in western society. They've been pussified since WW2 and can't handle a real war. God forbid the chinese or russians ever decide to have a real war with another country, the citizenry of the west will collectively shit their pants and break down into tears at the 'atrocities' they'll hear about that happen in what a real war should/does look like.
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
I was looking for a good place to crack a "Real Genius" joke. There's already a thread about popcorn... something about a "Real Genius" thought of that...
A mirror surface will harden the target, but even the best mirrors do not reflect all light and a combat laser can still burn a hole in it very fast.
Surprisingly, a mirror wouldn't work nearly as well as cheap glossy white paint.
Mirrors reflect (typically) 60-70% of the light that hits them, turning the rest into heat. Cheap, glossy, exterior-grade white paint often reflects in excess of 90% of the light back.
In other words, mirrors would turn about 4x as much of the light into heat as the white paint will. The difference is that mirrors reflect light without losing its coherency. White paint, on the other hand, just reflects the light in random directions.
Worried about teh lazers? Paint your tin foil hat white!
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
A great example is silver. In the very close UV, like 310 nm, it's completely transparent. Light goes thru it perfectly. by the time you get to Green light, it's over 90% effective at reflections. Good, somewhat expensive, white paint used as a reflectance standard is good between 250-2500 nm. The type of laser they have is about 1000 or so nm. Using frequency doublers you can make that high UV in 3 jumps and below the bottom of where the paint can reflect well. I've used such high powered lasers in Academia. Doublers are common.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Funny)
Let me get this straight... Are you telling me I have to modulate my shield frequency?
KHANNNNNNNN!
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Re:Sigh (Score:5, Funny)
Mirrors reflect (typically) 60-70% of the light that hits them, turning the rest into heat. Cheap, glossy, exterior-grade white paint often reflects in excess of 90% of the light back.
Finally, an explanation for the Stormtrooper armor design!
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
First, a missile can spin. That help keeps the laser off one spot. Next is to introduce a wobble - difficult to do, although with modern control systems not completely impossible - that also keeps the laser hitting a varying spot. Lastly, if your rocket has a cryogenic fuel (i.e., LOX + LH2), you can pump your fuel through capillaries under the skin of your rocket before entering the rocket motor. That'll absorb whatever energy the laser does impart. Of course, that doesn't work with a ballistic missile after its ascent stage... but at that point you're hopefully relying on decoys.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Funny)
After the ascent stage you're dealing with a vehicle designed to survive reentry. Somehow I doubt you're going to do much damage to it with a teeny little laser.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Interesting)
A mirror surface will harden the target, but even the best mirrors do not reflect all light and a combat laser can still burn a hole in it very fast.
Any laser that can melt mirrors very quickly would self-destruct even faster unless its own mirrors were constantly changed. Well, I s'pose you'd only have to change the surface rather than the entire mirror. Either operation would be tricky to do precisely in field conditions. Also remember, the atmosphere itself is gonna tend to scatter that beam, so if you want to melt mirrors from a distance, your own are gonna have to get considerably hotter.
A decent reflective surface seems like it would be good enough to protect a building from this, although if the planes can also drop, say, rocks, that takes care of that. On a person, running around with a mirror would not do wonders for concealment. Personally, if I thought I was gonna be on the wrong end of a hurtin' laser, I'd light a smoky fire, kick up lots of dust, and/or wear thick layers of heat-resistant material like Kevlar while moving around a lot.
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Re:Sigh (Score:4, Insightful)
The laser itself needs several small laser-quality mirrors. The target would need a much larger quantity of the same mirrors, and in the same spectrum as the weapon. A plain bathroom mirror is not smooth enough to reflect that much without those imperfections absorbing a good bit of energy. If the laser really does use 'as much power as a household over an hour' then we are talking about 10kwh. 3.6E7 joules, over how ever large the surface area of the 'impact' point is, and you end up with a lot of heat in that 5 second burst.
Nope, that is definitely is going to take high quality mirrors to protect. For a moving target, say a rocket that is going to undergo high G acceleration, those mirrors will probably not survive launch. Other mobile targets, maybe. Buildings, well, putting meter tall neon letters on the roof saying 'this building is important' would be just as conspicuous. Mirrors, meet Predator. I think it has 500lbs of some iron that it would like you to meet.
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Re:no collateral damage (Score:4, Insightful)
A 'ship' can just light up the sky with its weapons based laser system and the tame media will never know.
Thank god the embedded media will never tell the truth about weapons that cause blindness or phosphorus weapons
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Re:no collateral damage (Score:5, Interesting)
~William Tecumseh Sherman
More quotes... [thinkexist.com]
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