Navy To Deploy Lasers On Ship In 2014 402
Velcroman1 writes "The Pentagon has plans to deploy its first ever ship-mounted laser next year, a disruptive, cutting-edge weapon capable of obliterating small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles with a blast of infrared energy. Navy officials announced Monday that in early 2014, a solid-state laser prototype will be mounted to the fantail of the USS Ponce and sent to the 5th fleet region in the Middle East for real-world experience. 'It operates much like a blowtorch ... with an unlimited magazine,' one official said."
with frickin' lasers! (Score:4, Funny)
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Next up, sharks.
What makes you think they won't name the series of Laser gunboats after sharks?
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What makes you think they won't name the series of Laser gunboats after sharks?
Because the only cool names in the military are on the unit patches the soldiers wear. Everything else is an acronym for something that sounds like a Terminator T-1000 accessory.
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What makes you think they won't name the series of Laser gunboats after sharks?
Because the only cool names in the military are on the unit patches the soldiers wear. Everything else is an acronym for something that sounds like a Terminator T-1000 accessory.
Not so. During WW II the submarines were named for fish. That was fairly cool.
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Funny)
Not so. During WW II the submarines were named for fish. That was fairly cool.
Until you get deployed to the SS Flounder...
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Until you get deployed to the SS Flounder...
I should probably clarify my earlier statement: Unit names and ship names are cool. Everything else is boring. Of course, in some cases, the names are also comedy gold. Take for example the British... they named a WWI ship the HMS Cockchafer. Yeah. A testament to miserable Britain if there ever was.
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ugh.. the WW1 ship was the FIFTH ship to bear the name.
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Funny)
ugh.. the WW1 ship was the FIFTH ship to bear the name.
The 1855 HMS Cockchafer was a wooden screw.
Which explains the name.
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Informative)
Until you get deployed to the SS Flounder...
I should probably clarify my earlier statement: Unit names and ship names are cool. Everything else is boring. Of course, in some cases, the names are also comedy gold. Take for example the British... they named a WWI ship the HMS Cockchafer. Yeah. A testament to miserable Britain if there ever was.
Erm, in proper English the "cock" spelling can often be pronounced "coe" I.E. cockburn is pronounced "coeburn".
Not sure how Cockchafer is pronounced but it's an European beetle.
But your point about the English navy is dead wrong. They have all the good ship names, HMS Resolute, Repulse, Victory, Indefatigable. Way better than the USS Alabama or Gerald R Ford.
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:4, Insightful)
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But your point about the English navy is dead wrong. They have all the good ship names, HMS Resolute, Repulse, Victory, Indefatigable. Way better than the USS Alabama or Gerald R Ford.
What about the truly awesomely named HMS Dreadnaught?
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It's named after a Spanish explorer, you jerk!
(I admit, they should have used his full name: "USS Juan Ponce de Leon.")
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Informative)
Submarine named after a shark. Came to a rather bad end...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593) [wikipedia.org]
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Because the only cool names in the military are on the unit patches the soldiers wear. Everything else is an acronym for something that sounds like a Terminator T-1000 accessory.
Not only subs and ships as others have mentioned. Aircraft, both fighters and bombers, got very cool names, as did tanks and other armored vehicles. WW2 saw the Flying Fortress, Thunderbolt, Mustang, and Lightning aircraft names for the Allies, with names like Wurger (the "Shrike" or "Butcher Bird" Focke-Wulf 190A series, and the name was very well-earned with FOUR MG-151 20mm cannons standard, along with two 13mm MG-131 machine guns, and the fastest roll-rate of any fighter of the time) for the Germans, an
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"Panzer" sounds very much like the English word "panther" and many US soldiers in WW2 who didn't speak German (like my father in WW2) thought that's what it meant. I pointed this out to my father once long ago and his reply was; "Oh, really? Well, I just shot 'em, I didn't take German lessons from 'em. Cut your hair, ya look like a damned hippy!" LOL!
Strat
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Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:4, Interesting)
And that for an extremely cool reason [wikipedia.org].
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Interesting)
The pilots of those actual Falcons never called their fighters by the AF-approved name. They called it the Viper.
Named after the original Battlestar Galactica fighters, by the way.
Crew-assigned nicknames are almost always better and/or more-colorful than the official ones. For instance:
B-1: Lancer vs. Lawn Dart
B-52: Stratofortress vs. Big Ugly Fat Fucker (BUFF)
C-5: Galaxy vs. Fat Albert or Linda Lovelace (I presume that last comes from the fact that the C-5 can tilt the nose section upward to, err, "swallow" large items of cargo.
F-105: Thunderchief vs. Thud or Lead Sled.
F-111: No name at all! vs. Ardvaark or Switchblade.
Re: with frickin' lasers! (Score:5, Informative)
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The F-104 Starfighter was probably the most famous lawn dart.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-104#Flying_the_F-104 [wikipedia.org]
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Next up, sharks.
What makes you think they won't name the series of Laser gunboats after sharks?
Because they named the first one 'Ponce' [urbandictionary.com]!
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What, no photon torpedoes?
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navy isn't interested in those... they don't work on the borg
Re:with frickin' lasers! (Score:4, Funny)
Lasers, and drones. It's official. We have become the Amarr. [eveonline.com]
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Next up, sharks.
Erm, nope. Next up, Somali Pirates with mirrors
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More effective of a system would be a water-cooled hull of shiny metal. And what happens if you spray a fire-hose directly at the laser? You'll heat water, but not get much heat to the intended target. I don't see the laser being very effective against ships. It talks mainly about aerial targets,
Re: with frickin' lasers! (Score:3)
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Never heard of infrared lasers? You need to get out more.
Not unexpected (Score:2)
A fleet of these and all the missiles North Korea wants to waggle at the US will mean nothing.
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>> A fleet of these and all the missiles North Korea wants to waggle at the US will mean nothing.
Unless the missles work. Or the lasers don't.
Re: Not unexpected (Score:4, Informative)
From TFA: "close in" and "slow moving". So as long as the North Koreans can arrange to have their rockets hover over US ships on clear days, yeah, nothing to worry about at all.
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Exactly, lasers just can't deliver enough energy fast enough to take out missiles or anything but the slowest aircraft. Range is also a major problem because the light is refracted and dissipated in the atmosphere. It's a demonstration of the technology, with the hope that it can be developed into something more useful.
As for NK's missiles, if they have the range to hit the US then they are virtually impossible to stop. Shooting down ICBMs is pretty much impossible to do reliably, unless you are able to som
Re: Not unexpected (Score:3)
You should learn to google. There are multiple publicly documented examples of laser doing just that.
These were conducted in pretty 'ideal' conditions, clear sunny days, and from stationary immobile platforms, but it's been done and verified to work to at least some level.
Re: Not unexpected (Score:5, Funny)
Obviously, for piloted aircraft they just order all hands on deck with laser pointers.
Re: Not unexpected (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly, lasers just can't deliver enough energy fast enough to take out missiles or anything but the slowest aircraft. Range is also a major problem because the light is refracted and dissipated in the atmosphere. It's a demonstration of the technology, with the hope that it can be developed into something more useful.
The ill-fated ABL program solved both the energy and refraction problems, but that was a larger and more expensive laser (you can overcome atmospheric dissipation almost entirely if you can shape your lens on the fly to exactly counter the distortion of the atmosphere, which I believe is old hat for spy sats).
The equally ill-fated DDX program promised huge amounts of power to feed lasers and railguns, but I believe the type of engine that was proposed has since been abandoned, so I'm not sure where you could get enough power to take out a distant, large missile. It should still be fine for CIWS though.
As for NK's missiles, if they have the range to hit the US then they are virtually impossible to stop. Shooting down ICBMs is pretty much impossible to do reliably, unless you are able to somehow hit them all during the boost phase.
Not all long-range missiles are created equal. Sure, if NK is using a still-working Russian cold-war era ICBM, with all of its countermeasures, that's a hard target during re-entry. But they won't be launching "missiles", nor getting the advantage of MIRV, if they only have one warhead (which is one more than they likely have). If it's some homebrew NK-built missile, then it will be the easiest possible target (and last I heard we can hit those now), on the slim chance it even makes it across the ocean. Not a danger to ignore, by any means, but we've relied on deterrence for 60+ years now - any actual missile defense is gravy.
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Shooting down an ICBM is not impossible. Hard yes. If North Korea shot off an ICBM at the US we would multiple chances of shooting down. First would be with a sea based SM-3 then with the GMDs in Alaska and California and if we are lucky THAADs and then PAC-3s. We would not take on shot at it but I would say there is a very good chance that we could stop an NK ICBM since it would probably lack decoys and other penaids and there would not be hundreds of them.
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The Navy doesn't use guns to shoot down aircraft any longer, they use missiles, specifically, SM-2 and SM-6 missiles from AEGIS Cruisers and Destroyers. Those missiles can also be used to shoot down cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles. The CIWS (Phalanx) is used for close-in defense against missiles as an absolute last resort, but that capability is largely being moved to Rolling Airframe Missiles. To wit, the latest ships to come out of design in the US do not have Phalanx, they have RAM. I'm not su
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Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA(although horribly light on details) specifically mentions that these devices are too feeble and short ranged to pose any threat to such larger missiles. TFA also expresses uncertainty about hitting fast moving targets(I'd hope that the tracking capabilities are at least not-worse than existing CIWS hardware; but if it takes several seconds to set the target on fire, that would entail a greater delay...)
In fact, short of being a tech demo for something that might eventually be mature, it isn't entirely clear what this system can do that any of the better regarded WWII-era light cannon(retrofitted with modern targeting systems) couldn't...
Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Informative)
What it can do is not run out of ammo.
CIWS has 1550 rounds in its magazine - about 20 seconds of fire. At which point you'd better be praying that the other side doesn't have anymore missiles to toss at you, since you can't reload a CIWS quickly....
Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Funny)
CIWS has 1550 rounds in its magazine
Oh, those damned new magazine limit laws, again!
Re:Not unexpected (Score:5, Informative)
This laser is probably in the 10's of kilowatts, and even including inefficiencies, it's a pretty small load. The air conditioning in the bridge probably consumes more power.
A two litre diesel engine generator would produce enough power and run for hours on a jerry can of fuel. That's pretty good going for a weapon.
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In the case of the Cole, not likely. In-port ship self defense regs were very lax back then, and even in a port with potential hostiles, the threat envelope wasn't taken seriously. Again with the Stark, probably not. The Exocet flies faster than this is likely to be able to track and engage. The fire control radar likely isn't fast enough to complete a fire control solution against the incoming threat, and the laser likely won't be able to do enough damage to the missile before it hits. That said, this
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I think GP has a firm grasp of special relativity.
If your "missile" moves at light speed, it hits at the earliest time deployment can be detected. In the reference frame of the target, the moment of firing and the energy hitting are simultaneous.
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I pray that our leaders are not insane enough to believe that.
And I hope that an impenetrable anti-missile shield is never invented. We don't need one fewer reason to try to sort out our problems as civilized people. Arrogance+Invulnerability=Disaster for somebody.
Small Boats (Score:5, Funny)
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The ocean is big, and pirates are very small. Hard to spot. Sort of like muggers; not many, but they pop up anywhere. Also, Somali businessmen are financing theses operations for profit - ransom is lucrative. This isn't about kids on a boat. This is big business (while it lasts).
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A spray of water will probably do just fine to capture the bulk of the energy and convert it to vapor. The on-board fire-extinguisher can be used, simply pointing it at the attacker.
Re:Small Boats (Score:5, Insightful)
spray of water? too much effort.
smoke. much more effective, easier to generate, longer lasting.
lasers will see the return of smoke screens.
How effective is it? (Score:2)
TFA says:
Video released by the Navy shows the laser lock onto a slow-moving target, in this case an unmanned drone, which bursts aflame in mid-flight. The drone soon catches fire and crashes into the sea below.
But how well does it work against a fast moving target that's actively trying to evade a laser lock or even spinning to prevent a continued lock on any particular part of the target? Would a polished/mirrored skin work as a countermesure? How long does it need to be locked on the surface of the target to cause damage?
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Have they figured out how to stop a cohesive beam of light once it has missed the target? Didn't think so.
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Have they figured out how to stop a cohesive beam of light once it has missed the target? Didn't think so.
That's a good point, but it seems easier to predict what the laser is going to hit when it misses the target than 100 rounds/second of 20mm Phalanx rounds. I don't think the current lasers in the KW range are a danger to spacecraft, so if you can't see anything behind the target, it should be safe to shoot. But if you're close to shore and you fire your Phalanx guns toward shore, you might be raining Phalanx rounds onto a shoreside town.
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or even spinning to prevent a continued lock on any particular part of the target
Well, THAT should be easy enough for the Iranian engineers to accomplish; all they need to do is equip their boats and UAV's with a single engine mounted off-axis... :p
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TFA says:
Video released by the Navy shows the laser lock onto a slow-moving target, in this case an unmanned drone, which bursts aflame in mid-flight. The drone soon catches fire and crashes into the sea below.
But how well does it work against a fast moving target that's actively trying to evade a laser lock or even spinning to prevent a continued lock on any particular part of the target? Would a polished/mirrored skin work as a countermesure? How long does it need to be locked on the surface of the target to cause damage?
I would guess that that information is classified.
Classified information, or is this a boondoggle "weapon system" that's deployed only because the military wants to claim that they are deploying a high tech weapon even if it's not effective against real threats under real combat conditions?
Re:How effective is it? (Score:5, Informative)
The first airborne drone to be shot out of the sky with a (chemical) laser was back in 1979 or 1980 - there was a picture in Aviation Week. Interestingly, this was several years before the DoD admitted even doing research in the area.
There is lots of information on the web about all aspects of military lasers, what they work on, pictures and videos of tests, evaluation of every issue mentioned in every comment here. I've been following this topic casually for some time, and the data is out there. Google is your friend. But I know, nobody on /. reads TFA much less research the topic - not picking on you, this is just a general statement of fact. :)
I will note that the major 'win' for laser systems and to a lesser extent rail guns is logistics. A military organization is basically like UPS - it's all about getting parts, ammunition, fuel, and people delivered where it's needed. Ammunition in particular is a huge PITA - dangerous in transit, bulky, and dangerous when stored on a ship. The classic 'torpedo hit' in the movies is when the torpedo penetrates one of the magazines on a ship, which then explodes en masse, and the ship splits in two - or in dozens! The cost of delivering the ammunition to the ship exceeds the cost of the actual ammunition, and delivery of fuel is several times as expensive as the fuel.
For perspective, the guns on the old battleships like USS Missouri took several 100 lb. bags of cordite to fire off one shell. That's a lot of explosive. Eliminating that explosive makes more room for actual delivered shells, and eliminates a ship's greatest existential threat - an exploding magazine.
Using rail guns the only explosives would be whatever the shell being shot contains (which, if it is hypersonic, may be none - kinetic impact may be enough). Using lasers, a nuclear ship could essentially shoot continuously (at some rate) indefinitely - they would 'never' run out of ammo. So yes, this is still experimental. They are still working on increasing operational (as opposed to research) power output to the 100 KW range where things really get 'interesting'. But General Atomic already has a 150 KW laser running in research.
Hmm ... (Score:2)
"obliterate".....I think not (Score:2)
disable" or "damage" would be more accurate descriptions based on the article and photos.
Austerity in action (Score:2, Funny)
Government spending is bad, unless of course you are mounting infrared lasers on Navy ships to shoot down Zeroes. Banzai!
Austerity my tired buttocks. They just don't like that, what was it, 48%. Spending is good when you fund jobs programs that make layzers.
Next up: lasers on planes, which will make targeted assassinations done so much more quietly.
Re:Austerity in action (Score:5, Interesting)
CIWS ammo 1 second fire: ~$250
Solid State Laser: ~$1
Yeah, no reason at all for the new system....
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blowtorch has magazines? (Score:3)
I always thought blowtorches has tanks of fuel, not magazines of fuel. Damn public school education!
Re:blowtorch has magazines? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, we have a congresscritter who thinks that magazines are the things that come out of the end of the gun, so you're ahead of the curve.
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And Wikipedia says: "A magazine is an ammunition storage and feeding device within or attached to a repeating firearm." Which indicates that a blowtorch does have a magazine of a tank, aside from not being a firearm, thus being incapable
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Well old-timer, when I attended public school in the 1960's and 1970's, we learned about this literary concept called the metaphor.
Funny thing about that metaphor trick, it wasn't new then, and it's still used today.
Damn public school education!
Indeed.
Kim Jong Un says: (Score:5, Funny)
Modular systems on Navy ships (Score:5, Interesting)
I've read a few articles about the future directions the US Navy wants to take for ship technology. Basically, they want the ship to have a huge amount of electrical generation capacity onboard, then multiple redundant busses to route the power all over. Propulsion will be giant electric motors driving propellers or waterjets. Power can also fire railguns and now lasers.
If they have multiple generators as well as multiple redundant busses the ships might not have any single spot where damage could put the ship out of commission.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_electric_propulsion [wikipedia.org]
Railguns and lasers also have the nice property that they don't explode when hit. A magazine full of gunpowder, or a rack of missiles with liquid fuel, could explode when hit; but railgun projectiles just sit there, and the laser doesn't even have any consumables other than the electricity.
Let's just hope they don't use Windows 8 for the power management computers.
It's also the Navy that's funding Polywell Fusion. (Score:4, Interesting)
... future directions .. for [US Navy] ship technology. ... they want the ship to have a huge amount of electrical generation capacity onboard, then multiple redundant busses to route the power all over.
Note that it's the Navy that's funding the polywell fusion generator research. If that works out, you're talking a nuclear fusion power plant that would fit in even very small ships, taking far less room than existing engine systems, producing hundreds of megawatts output per unit, with efficiencies of 60% or greater nuclear-reaction-energy-to-electricity, from minute amounts of hydrogen and boron fuel, with negligible, easily-shielded, radiation from low-level side-chain reactions.
This would be ideal for such a ship.
Re:Modular systems on Navy ships (Score:4, Informative)
Only one technology can deliver that: Nuclear power.
If you read the Wikipedia page I linked, you will see that the Navy is planning to use a combination of diesel generators and gas turbines. The gas turbines are good when you need a whole lot of power, but don't throttle down well; the diesels are less efficient at high power but do throttle down well, so between the two technologies you can scale up the power from a little to a lot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_electric_propulsion [wikipedia.org]
these weapons are no less dangerous than a room full of conventional ammunition -- large amounts of electrical equipment failing in a contained area can wreak devastation far in excess of what a torpedo could do.
I'm not certain I am following... it sounds like you are saying that a room full of electrical equipment explodes more dangerously than a room full of gunpowder-filled brass shells or a room full of missile fuel and explosive warheads? In short, that electrical equipment explodes worse than things designed to explode? This seems counter-intuitive.
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There is no comparison between an arc flash and a magazine explosion. The former kills a few people. The latter would wipe out half a town if it happened at port, and shatter every window for miles.
Just watch videos of WW2 battleships firing their main guns. The shock waves are incredible, and those are just single rounds being fired (and only the force of the propellant - not the shell).
No question that ship-mounted weapons are nothing to play around with no matter what technology they employ, but an el
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I can't believe there is a "USS Ponce"! (Score:4, Informative)
Definition of ponce
noun
1: derogatory an effeminate man.
2: a man who lives off a prostitute’s earnings.
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Now we know why Village People did the song In the Navy.
USS...? (Score:2)
Blowtorch? Do they mean flamethrower? (Score:2)
"The very existence of flamethrowers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'" --George Carlin
It's all about swarm attack (Score:3, Informative)
These probably are not meant to kill anything but suicide attack boats.
CIWS and even 5-in guns with optimized shells are not good at killing agile craft at ranges beyond point-blank. When a small target with judiciously applied armor jinks, it is almost unkillable until the time of flight comes under 3 seconds (about 1-2 km), as any "motivated" use of the rudder causes a wild displacement in deflection that makes perfect aim mean a perfect miss on every shot. The "best" fire control in such a condition is a pattern of fire about the projected aim point, and this actuarial risk is moderate to a determined enemy who has numbers on his side: the guy you fire at goes defensive and becomes all but invulnerable while his friend bore in with rudders centered and throttles opened wide.
These weapons, if they can keep their power up with enough regularity, will bleed a swarm attack at the intermediate range, leaving the ballistic weapons for the few that might have bobbed past.
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Navy "What do they do?"
Defense contractor - "The first one will light your enemies on fire and incinerate them. The second one one will give your enemies a nasty sunburn"
Navy - "The first one"
Actually, I'd be curious to know why they use IR.
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Re:An Infra-red laser? Why? (Score:5, Informative)
The reasons are simple - it is easy to build solid state IR lasers and hard to build solid state lasers at other wavelengths. The bandgaps of most of the convenient materials, which are easy to work with fall into the infrared region. This is also one of the reasons why do we use IR for fiber optic systems (850 nm, 1300 nm and 1550 nm).
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I'd assume that the wavelength chosen represented a compromise between what team engineering could get to operate without catching fire and the wavelength that theory would expect to be transmitted most efficiently in the atmosphere(and, in a naval context, that probably means generous doses of water vapor and possibly aerosol droplets in addition to the usual oxygen/nitrogen).
Anybody more familiar than I with variations in transmission efficiency by frequency have a guess as to whether IR was chosen for go
Re:An Infra-red laser? Why? (Score:5, Informative)
Probably both. The cross section for Rayleigh scattering (scattering from things smaller than light's wavelength, like atoms in the atmosphere) goes as 1/lambda^4, so longer wavelengths scatter much less strongly. This scattering is what makes distant landscapes look hazy, and the sky away from the sun look blue (scattering bluer light back towards the earth instead of letting it pass straight through); as you move to the red and near IR, you can get much clearer views of distant objects (thus also more effectively laser-zorch them).
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I think they were playing Battlefield 3 and said, "hey this would be awesome with a laser!"
Funny thing is the USS Ponce is a landing ship and the whole back of the ship opens where the fantail would be.
But it is a landing ship and lightly armed as navy ships go, so running away seems a viable tactic.
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Many of the weapons on naval ships can't fire forward. Usually a ship needs to keep a threat to either side for all the weapons to come to bear. For things like anti-missile defenses you want to have the missile approach perpendicular to your course anyway. A few reasons for this:
1. You're going to be firing flares and chaff, and you want the missile to go after those, and travelling at a right angle to the missile means that the bearing angle between you and the decoys is maximized (that is, after it p
Re:An Infra-red laser? Why? (Score:5, Informative)
It's more complex than that. You want a laser in a frequency you can generate easily, focus well with optics, and that will not be absorbed by water vapor, gas, or dust. Higher frequencies don't necessarily net you any kind of energy efficiency yield (while per-photon energy is higher in higher frequency, you can just produce more photons for the same energy cost, so there is not efficiency gains from the physics). This [fas.org] [PDF warning] report gives quite a lot more technical details (including, yes, they do use IR), but not all of them.
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It's probably due to scaling problems. Every type of Laser scales differently with regard to the power of the beam. Then there's the cooling and power supply.
Not to mention that the frequency doesn't really matter when you're pumping Kilowatts of energy towards the target - you want to melt the target, after all. And IR can do that just as well as UV.
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Maybe being invisible is a good thing, especially when you could try to reflect/douse the area in water if you saw where it was hitting.
You'd think all of this would be illegal under The United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons [wikipedia.org].
I imagine everyone on board will be blinded. I also imagine blinding a whole crowd of spectators would only take one piece of shiny metal.
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The convention you linked to specifically deals with laser weapons designed to blind - they're prohibited - and specifically omits other laser weapons which are not specifically designed to blind the target.
Yes, if your face happens to be in the path of this beam, you will probably be blinded - but that's really of minimal concern, because your head will probably also be incinerated in the process - this beam's purpose is to burn a hole in your aircraft/ship, and cause you to lose control and sink/crash.
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Protocol IV, 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."
Looks like a loophole large enough to fire a multi-kilowatt IR laser through...
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Re:Safety (Score:5, Interesting)
War is about murdering the other people and breaking their equipment before they use their equipment to murder you. If you're using a laser, or a bullet, or a missile, or any of a myriad of weapons against a boat or an airplane, then it had damn well better pose enough of a threat to you that you are perfectly okay with everyone on it dying, and perhaps maybe even want to kill them. This isn't a "less-lethal" weapon (and I agree with your assessment of tasers and microwave pain rays); it's a "you, over there, die" weapon.
I'm quite critical of the US military contracting industry and of US military policy, but saying "this weapon is bad because it might kill people" is a little disingenuous. It's a weapon; it's for murdering people. If you don't think something's important enough to kill anyone who gets in the way of it, it's not worth going to war over, since that's what war is.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
War is about murdering the other people and breaking their equipment before they use their equipment to murder you.
No it isn't, you nitwit. War is about achieving specific objectives by force. The force doesn't have to be lethal, and very often it isn't. As even Sun Tzu wrote, "Preserving the enemies army is best, destroying it second best." Your myopic, sociopathic way of looking at war is disturbing in the extreme. Thankfully, the modern military has no use for poorly-adjusted rambos like yourself.
If you're using a laser, or a bullet, or a missile, or any of a myriad of weapons against a boat or an airplane, then it had damn well better pose enough of a threat to you that you are perfectly okay with everyone on it dying, and perhaps maybe even want to kill them.
Terrorists have just taken control of an oil tanker in San Francisco's bay. They have over a hundred hostages and have threatened to blow holes in the hull and scuttle the ship, causing a massive environmental disaster, unless a dozen of their copatriots from Guantanamo Bay are released. You have twenty four hours to comply. Do you:
a) Blow up the tanker with your orbital ion cannon because war is about murdering other people, and thus causing a massive ecological disaster and billions of dollars in economic damages, or;
b) Sneak a small team of Navy SEALS on board, neutralize the terrorists, and retake the ship with minimal casualties.
As anyone who doesn't have a serious screw loose in their brain can see, there are military options that don't involve going all murder-happy... because, you know, the military, unlike you, doesn't have some deep-seated anger management issues.
If you don't think something's important enough to kill anyone who gets in the way of it, it's not worth going to war over, since that's what war is.
What disturbs me about your logic here is that murdering people is 'Plan A' in your world, and 'Plan B' isn't. The military isn't some gun-ho institution where people get to freely kill others. There are rules of engagement and a whole host of other things designed specifically to limit the loss of life whenever possible. And despite us having nuclear weapons, for example, we still rely on less damaging weapons all the way down to rubber bullets and tear gas. The military wouldn't need any of these options if it didn't make saving lives a priority. That's ultimately what our soldiers do: They don't take lives, they save them. Ours, to be precise. War is often about protecting what we value most, not just kicking sand in other people's faces.
Re:Safety (Score:5, Insightful)
Terrorists have just taken control of an oil tanker in San Francisco's bay. They have over a hundred hostages and have threatened to blow holes in the hull and scuttle the ship, causing a massive environmental disaster, unless a dozen of their copatriots from Guantanamo Bay are released. You have twenty four hours to comply.
Do you understand that this isn't an example of war? Unless you agree with Bush's definition of the "War on Terror."
Re: (Score:3)
War is about achieving specific objectives by force.
That's a very Bush Jr. definition of war. You do not need to look any further than Iraq, and you will see that your "definition" falls apart, as they did not "achieve" anything by being invaded (aka "at war"). Next time you need to define something try opening a websters' dictionary or something.
Terrorists have just taken control of an oil tanker in San Francisco's bay....
Yes, I we all know that the Terrorists is the only credible "military" threat that you can come up with. No, scary Terrorists is not what we have military for, and hopefully military is never called into a SF bay, b
Re: (Score:3)
That's an absolutely massive strawman you've set up there.
Actually this is a reductio ad absurdum, not a straw man. But you were very close. I'm trying to demonstrate the absurdity of saying that every military engagement (war) necessarily leads to loss of life. I'm mocking the original poster's assertion that "war = murder". And it is a legitimate argumentation strategy, though it requires a certain degree of finesse that I often lack, since I prefer to go for a snarky shock and awe campaign when I post here over the coldly academic approach.
Re: (Score:3)
Only until it runs out of fuel.
Tens of kilowatts is eights of horsepower. That's a drop in the bucket compared to just the ship's lights.
I wonder if it has enough fuel that, if it weren't cruising around, it could run its generators and fire the laser continuously for several times the duration of WW II.
And then there's the prospect of being refueled.
If you want to get picky about "unlimited fuel" you can claim that a device that will run until the heat death of the universe isn't "unlimited".