Dawn of the Airborne Laser 572
Yonzie writes "As you may have heard, there are a number of competing franchises working on a functional laser weapon. Popular Science has an interesting story about `The Wall of Fire', an airborne laser designed to fit in the belly of a 747. Apparently, this is powerful and precise enough to destroy enemy intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles in mid-flight.
I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough." This is the big daddy of the JSF laser that we've mentioned before.
Obligatory Austin Powers quote (Score:5, Funny)
Number 2: "*ahem* Dr. Evil, it's about the sharks. When you froze them, they were put on the endangered species list. We tried to get some, but it would have taken months to clear up the red tape."
Dr. Evil: "You know, I have one simple request - and that is, to have sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic collegue informs me that that can't be done. Can you remind me what I pay you people for? Honestly, throw me a bone here. What do we have?
Number 2: "Sea Bass"
Dr. Evil: "Riiiiiight..."
Number 2: "They are mutated sea bass."
Dr. Evil: "Really? Are they ill-tempered?"
Number 2: "Absolutely."
Dr. Evil: "That's a start."
Re:Obligatory Austin Powers quote (Score:3, Funny)
"Stop humping the laser!"
Not sure there's any scrambling involved... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not sure there's any scrambling involved... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not sure there's any scrambling involved... (Score:2)
It is expensive, but during the Cold War we always had some nuclear-armed B-52s flying in the air ready to attack if needed.
During peacetime, we frequently have E-3 Sentry AWACS aircraft doing the same kinds of patrols. I guarantee you that right now, in the Persian Gulf area, there are E3s, RC-135 Rivet Joints, E-8C Joint STARS and other huge aircraft in pretty much constant orbit, along with KC-135 and KC-10 aerial refueling aircraft.
yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:5, Interesting)
This is because missle fuel tanks are under high pressure so that the fuel can help form part of the structure for the missle to support the weight of the fuel. If a laser can weaken the walls of the fuel tank then the missle's structure will fail, and the missle will break up.
Anyway these lasers have to hit a missle right after it launches or else the tanks have lost too much pressure and the laser won't do any damage... the presenter defended this by saying you want to shoot down a missle close to launch anyway because you don't want the debris from the missle falling on any friendlies... and this is a good argument (the scuds shot down by patriots in gulf war I caused a lot of damage when they fell out of the sky).
I do have to wonder, though, if the missle launches can be detected and the missle targeted quickly enough for these lasers to work... and what about missles with solid rocket motors? I doubt the laser would be any good against these at all.
Re:yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:5, Interesting)
Most model rockets today are powered by solid-fuel engines, and if you expose them to heat they'll do wonderfully-interesting things.
ScottKin
Re:yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:2, Informative)
Most **NUCLEAR** weapons use an **ATOMIC** device to start the reaction of fusing atoms together. So unless blowing up the missle releases enough energy to rival the hiroshima or nagasaki blasts, I think you'd be ok. Of course, there will be some localized radiation, but not a mushroom cloud.
Remember -- there's a big different between nuclear and atomic weapons -- nuclear weapons mimic the sun, by fusing multiple atoms together. Atomic weapons split atoms.
Re:yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately the last decade or so our technology has become such that such things aren't nearly as rare as they once were. So now we tend to monitor the plutonium or enriched uranium. I suspect that will become problematic soon as well, for a variety of reasons.
It really is a miracle no one has nuked anyone since WWII.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:yeah, but you got to hit the missles early (Score:3, Informative)
and what about missles with solid rocket motors? I doubt the laser would be any good against these at all.
Clearly, it would have to have a different effect. Solid rocket fuel might be ignitable by the laser, though, so imagine what would happen to a missile that had a hole in its side and hot rocket fuel burning and spewing heat and exhaust out that hole. I suspect a solid rocket would disintegrate quite quickly. And since SRMs generally burn from the inside out, I suspect destroying a missile powered by an SRM would be possible later in the boost phase.
Yes, but different problem though (Score:2)
So this ONLY works when the enemy does not have a chance to make a *premeditated* attack. In other words, it only works when we bomb them first.
In this scenario, they would be scrambled before, say, we bomb Pyong Yong or Bejing, not once we get word of impending attack.
well (Score:2, Interesting)
That's why you keep a few of the birds in the air on alert at all time.
Seriously, you dont think the engineers who know what they're doing thought of that?
Re:well (Score:2, Insightful)
The whole point of having it mounted in a 747 is altitude. From a few miles up they can take down the missiles while they're still hundreds of miles away on accent, long before they come over the horizon for any "laser turret" to be able to shoot. This way you're not raining flaming debris and whatever nasty warhead shards down on your own toops, but rather on theirs. As far as speed, yes, have them up there 24/8
Re:well (Score:2)
A 757 can go about 500 MPH, this is about 10 Miles per Minute.
So if a missile was launched, you would probably have to be within firing range when the missile was launched. Probably this means actually being in enemy airspace. A SAM in enemy airspace would be more than capable of taking down a 747 if we are dealing with a country that can launch much more complicate ICBM's.... So if, say, North Korea decided to launch an ICBM against us, this would hot help us at all.
It would help instead if we bombed them first ahd had a few of the birds around to make sure they could not retaliate. So, it encourages pre-emptive war-- indeed it is a weapon of pre-emptive war. It hence provides no real defence of this nation outside of that.
Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)
If you make inflamatory comments (read: North Korea) and suddenly these planes are flying overhead, it makes attemping an armegeddon solution much more tenuous. Now, you have to begin your preemptive attack with another attack on a plane. The element of complete surpise is gone.
Sure, you can push the button. But now, there's a chance that this will do nothing other than assuring your instant demise.
In other words, even if you're willing to commit suicide to kill your enemy, there's a chance that even that won't work.
Think of it as sitting down to play russian roulette with someone and they insist on adding more bullets to the gun.
Do you want to go first?
The more dangerous we make war for those who would want to wage it, the more of a chance we have of fear of war convincing people to pursue peaceful solutions.
-Brett
Re: Speed of reaction (Score:2, Interesting)
Scramble?! (Score:2)
Scramble? I think the idea is to keep a laser platform airborne at all times, similar to the way AWACS aircraft work.
Morning Commute (Score:2, Funny)
Red light, huh? *ZAP* Not red anymore...
Size.. (Score:4, Interesting)
The other aspect that makes this an interesting weapon to have on a 747 - let the 747 fly into enemy territory with an escort fighter squadron - the fighters protect the 747 - which protects the fighters and maybe bombers from enemy missles.
This would be a great thing to have in Command and Conquer: generals...
Although I wonder about the speed it can defend itself - what happens if you shoot ten missles at it?
Re:Size.. (Score:2, Informative)
These lasers are not meant for shooting down surface to air missiles. This laser is designed to kill much larger and (initially) slower targets like ICBMs.
Re:Size.. (Score:2)
Wrong purpose (Score:3, Informative)
It is a first step, a baby step weapon. You have to take that first step sometime.
Re:Wrong purpose (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Size.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Guess what...war begets war. Weapons beget weapons.
Uh, no. War begats peace. Overwhelming weapons begats non-proliferation.
Why do you think the world has as much peace as it has? It's the called the US Military. The bigger the imbalance of power between the US and the rest of the world, the less the rogue nations will be tempted to invade their neighbors. Unfortunately, expansionism is alive and well in the middle east.
Someday all the countries of the world will be stable democracies, but that day is not today.
Re:Size.. (Score:4, Insightful)
The last war on Iraq did not bring peace.
On the contrary, it brought a lot of peace ... to Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, who was next.
Millions more people have died as a direct result of that war because of the sanctions imposed on Iraq.
*cough* Are there actually people who believe Hussein's propaganda? "Millions" (not that many, but let's pretend) have died because of SADDAM HUSSEIN. They have plenty of money, and plenty of food. Hussein intentionally starves his people so that he can feed his military machine.
Re:Size.. (Score:5, Insightful)
War begats peace. [...] Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.
I should just ignore something this absurd, but... it's kind of frightening that someone moderated it up.
The word "is" in this context means equivalence. "Freedom is equivalent to slavery" is a contradiction, as is "ignorance is equivalent to strength".
You'll note that nowhere did I claim that "war is equivalent to peace", and in fact, the whole concept has nothing to do with the subject at hand.
The word "beget" means "leads to". Too many people have no concept of what "peace" really means. Stop and think about it for a second... WAY too many people think that "being in favor of peace" is some noble position to take. It never occurs to them that EVERYONE IS IN FAVOR OF PEACE. DUH!
It takes no courage to advocate peace, because there is no one who doesn't advocate peace. Everyone's goal is peace; the only question is how to achieve peace.
You cannot achieve peace by appeasing military dictators with expansionist goals. It's worth pointing out that the same debates took place in the 1930s during Hitler's rise. Imagine if the world had had the guts to stand up to Hitler at the time. Everyone knew he was dangerous, but everyone wanted "peace at any cost". And that lead to millions upon millions of deaths.
The peaceniks seem to think that if we just disbanded the US military then suddenly the world would join hands and weep with joy at world peace suddenly attained.
Re:Size.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Since the massive armament of Israel and Egypt following the 1973 war, how many times have they fought? How many times did they fight before the US armed the crap out of both of them?
How many times since the United Kingdom and Russia got nukes and horribly dangerous arms have they fought over Central Asia? How many times before 1914 did the Russians and United Kingdom squable over Central Asia?
How many times since France got nuclear weapons have the Germans invaded them? How many times before that did the Germans invade them?
Since the United States and the Soviet Union got nuclear weapons how many citizens of either country have died from the use of those weapons in a war?
The United States and Soviet Union along with Egypt and Isreal since 1973 have illustrated that having the ability to destroy your enemy along with leaders that care for thier people and thier nation makes for a more stable and lasting peace than disarming or waging a defensive strategy.
Re:Size.. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you wake up.
War is bad but there are plenty of things that are worse. Ask any survivor of the concentration camps who was liberated by the Allied Expeditionary Force whether they think war is 'cool.'
Pacifism can be more evil than killing people in some circumstances.
-ccm
Anyone got any facts? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anyone got any facts? (Score:2)
Only russia, china, and the US really have ICBMs that can get across the globe.
For the long range missiles, you probably have somewhere around 30 min from launch to when it hits. The shorter the distance, the less likely you will nkow it was launched, because it will be flying lower, and therefore have a smaller radar sig.
Re:Anyone got any facts? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Anyone got any facts? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone got any facts? (Score:3, Funny)
You see, if you heard about a missile launch, you know that a lot of other people will hear about it too. The media will make great profits on letting those at the soon-to-be ground zero know they are fux0r3d because the people that aren't fux0r3d are gonna stay tuned and watch you get fux0r3ed. Each and everyone of the fux0r33s is going to run out of their house, down the front steps, and right out to their cars while screaming wildly in terror. In unison, they will all back out of their driveways and come to a complete stand-still because the moron at the end of the street forgot something in the house and double-parked with his hazard lights on while he runs into the house. Even if you get lucky and have no such moron on your street, you will eventually find one somewhere that will be obeying the speed limit while trying to exit the blast radius.
I think the best bet is to stay put if you are near a major city because its harder to hit what you're aiming for than it is to hit what you weren't aiming for. Everyone that lives in the suburbs, you're fux0r3d.
Oh, shit, I live in the suburbs!
Re:Anyone got any facts? (Score:3, Funny)
Use of 747-Mounted Laser (Score:2)
The idea is for the 747 to be launched before the US engages in combat. The 747 would be kept circling (at a safe distance), sniping away at missiles inbound.
Just think of the 747 as a sniper, backing up our military.
Re:Use of 747-Mounted Laser (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Use of 747-Mounted Laser (Score:2)
This has got to really be about something else, just consider:
Were any serious enemy planning on using ICBMs anyway: That's a very expensive approach. If you are assuming ICBMs, then you are probably assuming a nuclear attack. That's the only thing that even moderately makes sense. But most of the coast is serviced by freighters with registry from places like Switzerland or the Congo, so all that is needed is a few freighters with heavy nuclear weapons...they don't need to be made light... hidden aboard. You don't bother to tell anyone who's on the ship. Time things right, and they all go off below water level before the first one is inspected by customs. No more coastal cities. And much cheaper than ICBMs. You don't even need to purchase the freighters. Now I admit that the timing is a bit tricky, but it's nothing compared to getting an ICBM to work correctly.
So this has got to really be about something else.
(Remember: Star Wars was a first strike weapon, not a "defensive shield", no matter how it was sold to the public.)
Airborne laser is not a fighter aircraft. (Score:5, Informative)
It is not "chasing" missiles anywhere...it's shooting them from several hundred miles away. It sits on a 747 because it's huge...nothing smaller will hold the laser.
You don't "scramble" these things like fighter aircraft. They sit up in the air like an AWACS, and they shoot down missiles IMMEDIATELY after launch. With any luck, the missile will fall back down amongst those who launched it.
Sniping (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't expect we will, but the psychological effect on the head of, say, North Korea must be tremendous.
Re:Sniping (Score:4, Informative)
I can think of two technical reasons: range and target locking.
Range: While 100 miles is certainly a decent distance, these 747's aren't going to be flying over the battlefield. Like AWACS, JSTARS, and like aircraft, they'll be flying a racetrack pattern over friendly territory where they'll need their 100 mile range just to see targets in the combat zone. Most generals/Heads of State don't hang around in battlefields. And if they were for some reason that close, they'd likely be hiding in a bunker.
Target locking/acquisition: Targets that are easier to acquire with long range sensors: things with rocket motors/hot metal skins (infra red), radio transmitters sharp metal corners (radar reflection). Targets that are harder to acquire: things with temperatures not too different from their surroundings, made of organic materials, and surrounded by many less valuable vesions of themselves (general surrounded by 10,000 men).
Re:Airborne laser is not a fighter aircraft. (Score:4, Funny)
Do they sit on the quad damage too?
Matter is still conserved when missiles explode (Score:2)
This was one of the problems with the Patriot Missile system in Part 1 of the Yankee-Iraqi war.
To the extent that Patriot could hit its target (it was pretty good, but not as good as the hype), it was quite useful for point defense of radars, anti-aircraft guns, surface-to-air missile launchers, etc., but not very good at protecting Israeli apartment buildings or large camps of ground troops, which still suffered damage from tons of flying shrapnel.
This weapon is even more specialized in its applications...
Re:Airborne laser is not a fighter aircraft. (Score:3, Informative)
no harm in having (Score:2)
Progress happens.... We must not impede progress by trying to find value in it.
Laser on a 747? (Score:2)
If the 747 were too slow to avoid missles, wouldn't a laser mounted on a rotating joint be useful in fending off incoming attack without requiring the plane to scramble? The whole point would be to pick them off before they can get close enough to do damage.
Of course, I doubt you'll see these on commercial 747's. How many pilots could you trust not to play with the laser.
Flight #343, please desist in using the laser for non-defensive measure, it is not intended for roasting flying fowl.
Kent, this is God..... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Kent, this is God..... (Score:2)
Fast weapons don't need fast planes (Score:2, Insightful)
The speed of the plane is pretty much irrelevant when you're talking about a plane that can fly at high altitude with a weapon that can hit a target less than a second after hitting fire, every time. There would be no reason for the plane to 'scramble' anywhere.
I really can't see... (Score:2)
Aim at the missiles source
Scramble a 747? I think not (Score:2, Interesting)
That's not how the military would use a weapon like this. Instead, they'd have several 747s, and they'd keep one or more aloft at all times. It's not designed to shoot ICBMs down in the descent/re-entry phase, but to shoot down most any missile in the ascent phase soon after launch.
More Pretty Pictures (Score:5, Informative)
FAS: Airborne Laser [fas.org]
"Lockheed Martin Space Systems, a member of Team Airborne Laser (ABL), has begun fabrication of the revolutionary, high-energy laser weapon system's turret assembly at its Sunnyvale, Calif., facility.
"The turret assembly, located on the nose of the system's modified 747-400 Freighter aircraft, houses a rotating 1.5-meter telescope designed to locate hostile missiles while in their boost phase."
SpaceDaily: LockMart Begins Building Airborne Laser Turret [spacedaily.com]
Re:More Pretty Pictures (Score:4, Funny)
I can see it now in John Carmack's blog:
Attempted our first high altitude launch today. Everything was going fine, but then there was this bright purple flash and the rocket just exploded. Suspect the jumper cables we used to connect the battery to the control computer. More details once we look at the flight data we got.
Star Wars (Score:2)
Of course, having this kind of planes or satellites is not very nice.
Re:Star Wars (Score:2)
Not an option, because the US signed the Outer Space Treaty [fas.org] on January 27, 1967, indicating that space should only be used for peaceful purposes.
Re:Star Wars (Score:2)
I graduate in may... (Score:2)
...
.....
I can dream can't I!!
Who do it hit if it miss de missle? (Score:2, Interesting)
serious science questions -- Won't all that energy do some very interesing things to the air it passes through? How about dissipation or atmospheric diffraction? What about very fashonable chrome plated missles? What about the "bad guys" with a ground-based version of this thing pointed at the 747?
Focal point (Score:2)
Imagine if the aircraft were at 40,000ft looking down on a launch site, it spies a missile, shoots, misses and smokes a school!
Well, if that didn't happen, you can bet thats what your enemy's propaganda will tell you happened.
Response Time and Quantity of Strikes (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Response Time and Quantity of Strikes (Score:2)
These kinds of lasers are already used in turrets in northern Israel to protect the population against smaller missiles/katiushas coming from Lebanon.
Two words (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, as cool as a big laser is it seems as though the defense to this multi-billion-dollar system is to polish the outside of the missile to reflect the beam.
Re:Two words (Score:2)
Nature of reflection is that it works based on percentages. Some of the light will make it though the shell. This is totally unavoidable. The trick is nailing the frequency in such a way that something inside (or the outside shell) the missle will have near 100% absorbtion. Jack up the power high enough and no matter how shiny and polished that missle is, it's going down.
Even if one could make a shell that was immune to this laser, I would assume the cost of doing so would be so high that only the riches nations would access to it. So that practially speaking, it's still effective. Remember, the only nations the USA has been at war with since WW2 are 3rd world nations.
I know what we should call this... (Score:5, Funny)
Turrets vs. aircraft (Score:3, Funny)
But a stationary turret, now that's FAST compared to the missles, right?
Destroy a missle, make a dirty bomb? (Score:2, Interesting)
I mean, the radioactive material in the bomb would hardly be vaporized I imagine, and instead would disperse down from whatever altitude the intercept occured at to contaminate the underlying area. Ok, it seems that we want to destroy the missle in the ascent phase of flight and thus the contaminated area might not be anywhere in the US, but still....
An old project (Score:2)
Drifting ever so slightly offtopic, here's a question I've always had about lasers: why don't SWAT teams use them? I know we don't have laser rifles or anything like that just yet, so any laser would be rather cumbersome. Still, for long hostage standoffs and the like, when you have plenty of time to get massive equipment into place, wouldn't a weapon that fires at lightspeed be rather useful? It'd certainly be the most accurate sniper weapon ever.
Re:An old project (Score:2)
Re:An old project (Score:2)
btw, we have been sharing similiar laser technologies with our allies.
In the meantime, while I think these projects are way cool I'm not keen on seeing coverage of this in the press. Our enemies do not need to be aware of either our military tactics or the weapons we may use for our attack.
Guh... (Score:2)
Re:Guh... (Score:2)
Uses of ABL (Score:2, Interesting)
"I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough."
The ABL is meant to loiter a few hundred miles off like an AWACS or JSTAR and fire it's laser at battlefield or medium range ballistic missile during thier launch phase when they are moving slow, full of fuel and at max dynamic stress.
It's not a Bamm! Bamm! Kerplow! X-Wing or Star Trek device, but more like the big slow laser of the Death Star, focusing on the missile and knocking it out.
These bad boys won't scramble, a 747, 757, 767, 707 used by the military can remain aloft for 24-36 hours and have an unrefueled loiter of 12 hours. They have all the hardware to refuel from tankers in mid-air.
I'll use North Korea as an example. Things get hot and an ABL is deployed, the US knows where the missiles will be launched from, say No-Dong on the coast. So the US leaves an ABL with a couple US or JSDF F-15s about 120 miles out over the Sea of Japan with a brand new Arleigh Burke - Flight IIA destroyer which has some ABM capability in Navy Area Defense SM-2 Block IVA surface to air missiles. When the DPRK lights off a missile for the US or Japan, the ABL gets a shot and so does the destroyer.
misunderstanding of logistics (Score:2)
In addition, a nuclear launch site situated in say, North Korea, is under eye in the sky monitoring at all times. When they go on alert, so do we. If the missile has to go 5000 miles, we've got a pretty good lead time on it as medium range ballistic missiles arent really going all that fast.
the third part is a deterent. If you are going to nuke somebody, you hit them hard. If they can retaliate, then you're screwed. If they can shoot down your missile, shooting it off in the first place was accomplished nothing and made you the biggest target in the world.
Now all we need is a room-filling Jiffy Pop and... (Score:2)
Cute, but not very effective (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Clear flyable weather. While you can detect the thermal blooms of launch, you can't rely on that for tracking, thus the need for a ranging laser. Will this work if you've got 5-10k ft of cloud cover to visually confirm the target? How about minor-major turbulance?
2) Total aerial supremancy. As with AWACS, you'll need to dominate the skies to the point where SAMs are not making the plane suddenly jink and miss the shot at the wrong time.
3) Target overload. If there are a "lot" of thermal blooms, how long will it take to determine which one is shooting the real missle? Which is just an fire/explosion on the ground? Recall that Iraq is tasked with destroying 100+ short-range ballistic missles. How do you tell a 200km range missle with a nuke vs. a 50km one with conventional explosives. You have 20 shots to figure it out.
4) Equipment. How long to reload between shots? Fast enough to take a second shot? What sort of stress does this put on the plane and the internal equipment? If you do miss, can you still track the missed target?
5) Limited range. From the description it can cover a few hundred square miles. Say 400 square miles or an area of 20 miles by 20 miles. Expand that by constantly flying large fig-8s and you got maybe an area of 3000 sq. miles covered for about five minutes every hour. Lots of luck tracking down the right five minutes of launch...
If this was fully operational during the 1991 Gulf War, it might have saved a few lives and eased the stress level in Israel and Saudia Arabia, but I doubt it would have gotten more than one or two missles. And this works only on that level. A battlefield defense versus an enemy with some ballistic capability, without significant air support, and limited firing capabilities.
It is a big step forwards though. I'll give them a few years to see if they can miniturize to limited fighter usage. Now THAT would be worthwhile.
Re:Cute, but not very effective (Score:5, Informative)
The system uses 2 tracking lasers to compensate for up to 500 miles of atmospheric distortion, and since the platform will be flying at 40,000 feet (well above 99.99% of weather systems) and it will only take seconds for an ICBM-class missle to reach that altitute, cloud cover and the minimal amout of turbulance are non-factors.
2) Total aerial supremancy. As with AWACS, you'll need to dominate the skies to the point where SAMs are not making the plane suddenly jink and miss the shot at the wrong time.
SAM's have a limited range, and if anything would be more concerned about strike fighters that are bombing them, not to mention the fact that I'm certian we'll have a sufficent number of EA-6B Prowlers in the air jamming and scrambling the SAM's to avoid long range radar-tracked launches. The ICBM's, in the case of North Korea, would need to rapidly head out over the pacific to reash the US, giving us plenty of controllable airspace to park a 747.
3) Target overload. If there are a "lot" of thermal blooms, how long will it take to determine which one is shooting the real missle? Which is just an fire/explosion on the ground? Recall that Iraq is tasked with destroying 100+ short-range ballistic missles. How do you tell a 200km range missle with a nuke vs. a 50km one with conventional explosives. You have 20 shots to figure it out.
Trajectory tells you all you need to know. A short range weapon will have a much lower track than a long range missle, which will need much higher altitude in order to reach its intended target. A basic knowledge of the opponents ballistic missle capability and a few seconds of tracking data is typically sufficent to provide a fairly accurate track and intended destination for the weapon. Additionally, stationary ground-based heat 'plumes' don't move, and would be easily detected as just that, a ground fire.
4) Equipment. How long to reload between shots? Fast enough to take a second shot? What sort of stress does this put on the plane and the internal equipment? If you do miss, can you still track the missed target?
A good question. Since the reaction that powers the laser is chemical based, it would be interesting to know what the regeneration time is. Stress on the plane should be minimal (there's no real signifigent 'moving parts' to the weapon to induce stress), and it maintains enough reactants for 20 shots.
5) Limited range. From the description it can cover a few hundred square miles. Say 400 square miles or an area of 20 miles by 20 miles. Expand that by constantly flying large fig-8s and you got maybe an area of 3000 sq. miles covered for about five minutes every hour. Lots of luck tracking down the right five minutes of launch...
Generally, if we know an opponent has intercontanental capability, we have a fairly good idea what track a missle would need to take to reach us. In the case of a massive country like the USSR, such a weapon is virtually meaningless, but in a small country like North Korea, it should be simple to cover their launch trajectory.
Re:Cute, but not very effective (Score:5, Informative)
The system uses a deformable mirror to compensate for phase distortion that occurs naturally in the atomsphere. This was one of the biggest achievments they made back in the early 90's. The whole system has a number of controllable that allow it to adaptively compensate for not only variance but turbulence. See here: http://www.spie.org/web/oer/december/oer_dec95_1.
Also, at 40k feet, this is ABOVE the cloud layer. Once you detect the heat bloom, and there will be a large heat bloom as the missles are essentially standing on pillars of fire, the system begines to prep and waits for the missle to break through the cloud layer, at which point it can target it, measure the return radition from the targeting laser, compensate for distance/atmosphere, and take a shot at it.
This thing is 'parked' in a figure 8 pattern at above 40k feet. SAMs can't reach it. AWACS hangs out at above 29k because of the radar it uses and the value of said radar at 29k. And yeah, duh, you want to keep some sort of enemy fighters away from them. This is a non-issue for the US right now. We have air superiority.
It waits for a missle to break through the cloud layer. If something busts through the cloud layer, at this time it's first come first get shot down. If 100 are launched, and there's only 2 ABL's flying around, yeah, some will get through. But i don't think the people saved from the 20 or so that get shot down are going to complain.
Military secret, but "experts" guesstimate less than a minute.
It's range is again secret but it's assumed to be "100s of kilometers". I'm not going to do the math, but covering say a circular range of 200 miles, at 40k feet gives your a ground coverage of a much larger aspect. Throwing a few of these over North Korea could neuter them on the spot.
-Malakai
Imagine if (Score:2)
Non-technical problems (Score:2, Interesting)
- The gun and its carrier are incredibly expensive.
- Nuclear missiles have become incredibly cheap.
- Knifes are even cheaper.
That means: While the U.S. are so fixated on high tech weapons and the incredible power of money to buy and develop superior weapons, more and more people suffer from hunger and distress.People occasionally get angry over their situation.
If such angry people go to the next shop and buy themselves a knife, or something worse, they can do real big damage to western civilization, as we have seen with 9/11.
And such people, no laser cannon can stop.
But ... the money for one of such megalomaniac laser guns could have brought a considerable number of people an existence worth to live for.
The money the U.S. and G.B. gave to Saddam Hussein when he was their big friend, could have been used for the benefit of Iraq's people and democracy.
Instead it was only for another paid war, in which the U.S. also supported the other side, Iran.
It HAS to sit on a 747 (Score:3, Interesting)
I saw a show about this, they had a beam stabilizer assembly about the size of a VW beetle. And even then it didn't take much turbulance for it to go completely off target.
Military Strategy Not Your Strong Point? (Score:3, Funny)
You could mount the thing on a Krispy Kreme truck as long as you had line-of-sight to the target. Speed of light is just a tad faster any than missile.
And you don't scramble them. You keep them in the air patrolling.
So I suppose ... (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm perhaps we are a little too focused here (Score:3, Insightful)
UMMM imagine an awacs and a couple of these things being used for air deffense. Picture an awacs circling in friendly airspace right behind the zone of conflict. Two airborn platforms circling some optimum distance away to cover maximum territory also in friendly skies with a reach of several hundred miles ( longest air to air missle range in US inventory is still the Phoenix at ~100 miles. ). In sight are all the primary airfields of the enemy. AWACS detects fighters being scrambled in response to an allied sortie. They slap their gear up and then get lit up like the fourth of july. No million dollar missle expended, no multimillion dollar interceptor and its priceless crew placed in harms way penetrating enemy airspace to engage the enemy. Just a single shot from an energy weapon system that can provide far more shots than can be physcially carried in the form of a missle. IE you spend 200 million building the plane but get thousands of shots from the system vrsus 200 million for 200 missiles with a million dollar price tag... which I belive is roughly the current cost of an AMRAM.
If they have line of sight to a ground target they can light it up as well with less potential for collateral damage from shrapnel and initial explosion that you have from current convetional munitions, less likely hood of a targeting malfunction. Granted thats only as good as your intelligence but unlike current munitions your percentage of hitting what you aim at would be essentially 100%. Secondary explosions, damage from fires started would still be an issue.
This is like putting a howitzer on a 500mph mobile platform that has speed of light ammunition 40,000 feet up in the air... its INSANE what the potential is for an aireal laser with sufficient power to be a weapon at line of sight distances from jet cruising altitudes.
And I hope no one says targeting is an issue... I garontee targeting subsonic and low supersonic munitions succesfully to their subsonic, low supersonic targets is FAR more difficult than hitting a subsonic, low supersonic target with a beam of light. Were pretty good at the former, the latter is a piece of cake by comparison. The trick is building a mobile laser with a directable enough beam to take advantage of our ability to target and the speed of light.
Scramble? Who said anything about scrambling? (Score:4, Interesting)
kept flying in a coverage zone. They are there for
altitude, not intercept. Since you can't use a
space-based laser by treaty, it's the best, cheapest
way to get wide coverage.
As regards speed, the laser travels at c, which
is plenty fast.
Really Number Two (Score:3, Funny)
Still a bad idea though. (Score:3, Informative)
And this is not just my opinion. For more information on the dangers of these sorts of things, I recommend "Star Wars: A Defense Expert's Case Against the Strategic Defence Initiative" by Robert M Bowman, and his site at http://www.rmbowman.com/ssn/
Also check out his program you can buy at a http://www.alternativeradio.org
Basically, I do agree that if you do the math, these are only useful as weapons designed to follow-up with a pre-emptive attack. These are hence profoundly destabilizing and so they will provide no security for the US.
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:3, Insightful)
The Gulf War featured numerous Scud missles launched by Iraq with no more than a general "gee I hope it hits my enemy not my friend".
In short this would be a normal battlefield weapon used to increase the effectiveness of our military and reduce friendly or innocent casualties. It "destabilizes" no more or less than the USA developing a better gun or fighter.
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:2)
The ABL has been mentioned as an eventual component in not just Theater Missile Defense (over a battlefield), but also the National Missile Defense system.
The intent is to keep these aircraft flying continual patrols from a base in South Korea. If sensors (on another aircraft, also continually patrolling) detect a blast like an ICBM takeoff, the laser will be fired at the rocket.
It's called Boost Phase Intercept [osd.mil].
Only if a rocket evades the ABL is will interceptor "kinetic-kill vehicles" be fired at it. (This is the NMD component whose questionable testing procedures have been been all over the news)
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:2, Interesting)
Then show us the math.
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:3, Informative)
Basically, the fast-burn configuration *doubles* the accelleration of a ICBM by using rapidly burining solid fuel rather than slowly burning liquid fuel.
Assuming we are dealing fast-burning missiles (which are not common today, but could be if a country wanted to use them. The Minuteman missiles and MX are both fast-burn), the window of vulnerability for the missile would be 1/4 what it would be for a slow-burn missile (distance varies with the square of the accelleration).
The article does not state the range of the laser, but the JSF laser had a range of a few miles. My guess is that this would be much more powerful. Maybe 40 or 50 miles? Since the plane is moving 10 miles per minute (600/hr), this means it has to be within 70 miles or so of launch in order to have any chance at all. Even the diagrams in the article seem to assume that the plane is in enemy airspace when the missile is launched. The only time this would happen would when we were trying to prevent a retaliatory strike.
In other words, this weapon is a weapon to reduce the power of deterrence, not one to reduce the likelihood of a premeditated attack by a a rogue state.
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:2, Insightful)
That only works for stable enemies. If we only had to deal with relatively stable foes, such as the USSR or China (or even N. Korea!), then we wouldn't worry.
But our enemies since, oh, 1990 have been, without pause, rather unpredictable cooks.
Deterrence Assumes a Rational Enemy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure we can continue to build ICBM's and other intermediate range nuclear missles, but the history of warfare is such that once a weapon is found it's only a matter of time before a defensive counter-measure is built. Should the US sit on its thumbs while other countries build these defensive weapons?
Someone will eventually acquire similiar technology that could neutralize an incoming ballistic missle. At that point does the US have the right to pursue development of these defensive weapons?
Of course, maybe then it will be too late to defend ourselves.
Re:Still a bad idea though. (Score:3, Interesting)
If he sounds like he if he is preaching, he is good at that too-- He is a Catholic Archbishop... In fact in the original article you cited, he gave his email address associated with his work with the Catholic churth.
The real reason that America is a target for terrorism is that we support the right of the Nation of Israel to exist, and the Arab Muslims want the Israeli's "exterminated".
First, Israel is not the great beacon of civility in the Middle East that some make it out to be. Fortunately (at least for the moment) Arab Israeli parties (such as Hadosh) are able to participate in the Knesset, but Arab Palastinians are generally highly opressed, and Arab Israelis do not have the ability to buy land in most of Israel. They were where the African-Americans were in this country at the turn of the century, but able to vote more freely. I am ignoring for a moment the fact that Israel has more UN Security Council resolutions outstanding against it than Iraq does.
Due in part to their poverty, the Arab-Israelis' birth rates are *double* those of the Jewish-Israelis, and so many are predicting that a Jewish state of Israel will cease to exist within the next 40 years or so when Jews cease to be the majority citizens. Unless Israel wants to have another holocaust, their only hope of remaining a Jewish state is to fully integrate their Arab citizens into it (Arab-Israelis are currently about 20% of the Israeli population). And if we include the people in the occupied territories, Jews will be a minority west of the Jordan river by 2010. This last statistic is exactly why Israel is preparing for unilateral separation by building the fence more or less along the 1967 border (including through Jerusalem!) even thouhg they are telling the people that they will never leave. Fortunately the Israeli Supreme Court *has* been quite moderate in these matters (Abraham Barak has even indicated a willingness to see Israelis stand trial at the International Criminal Court).
Regarding the Anti-Ballistic Laser (to return to the topic), I strongly suspect that the rationale is that this will allow us to attack nations like PRDK without having to worry as much at the consequences. But what good does it do against a nuclear bomb delivered in a ryder rent-a-truck? In reality it just encourages nations to sponsor terrorism when they feel threatened, and this is *not* the trend we want to promote.
Re:What if there's no friendly air base near by? (Score:2)
Theoretically you could land and launch a B-52 from this so a 747 is probably not a problem.
Re:Star wars! (Score:5, Interesting)
It will fly above the clouds. No fog or rain at 40,000 feet. It will also target missiles that have cleared the cloudbank, while they are still on ascent.
Re:Star wars! (Score:2)
Re:Isn't there a reason this doesn't exist yet? (Score:2)
As such, the ABL makes an incredibly poor strategic missile defense. It's mobile and powerful, but doesn't have the reach to stop launches from within the sovereign territory of a strategic hostile.
As to the "missile defense" agreement, the US seems to be edging out of this. Strategic defenses are still pie-in-the-sky, but things like the ABL make defending against third-world wannabes with "the bastard love child of SCUD" missiles practical.
Re:Watch your words (Score:3, Insightful)
You are right about the need to be close, but wrong about ICBMs. It does not matter what type of missle it is (bigger is better in fact) it only matters whether you can get close to the launch site. You may also be underestimating the range. At 40,000 feet the horizon is much further away than a few dozen miles, and even if you are trying to hit a target in the boost phase the target will still be well above sea level. I'm too lazy to do the calculation, but at a guess a 747 at 40,000 feet could probably see an ICBM at the top of its boost phase (which for ICBMs is very high) from several hundred miles away.
I would think that range would have more to do with the power of the laser, than the horizon.