Posted on 03/05/2015 6:42:31 AM PST by lbryce
Lasers have staggering range, can attack land or air-based targets and are dirt-cheap to fire, making them ideal for a military with one eye on the budget. Now, Lockheed Martin has worked out that the technology could also be used for stopping a car without resorting to lethal force. The company has been testing out a new fiber-optic laser, called ATHENA, which was able to burn through the engine manifold of a truck that was over a mile away.
For the purposes of the test, the truck had its engine and drive train running, although the vehicle itself was up on props. Rather than causing the engine to explode, as per Hollywood, the truck was simply rendered unable to move. Reading between the lines, perhaps Lockheed believes that the gear will be a useful, potentially non-lethal precaution against explosive vehicles being driven, at speed, towards infrastructure points, guard towers or military bases.
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
Lasers that can blow up trucks up to a mile away? I've seen lots of purty ISIS trucks, hundreds or more traveling in caravans unmolested and undeterred. Yeah, that word "experimental" comes up a lot. So why we can't we do some "experimental" blowing up of these stolen trucks?
Another thing. Pakistani skies are just crowded to the stratosphere with drones, killing all sorts of people. Why can't we get some of the same drones blowing people like those who recently killed a Turkish young man, cooked him, asked his mother to try this tasty treat and then to her insane horror told her she just ate her son?
I was curious.
If a laser weapon is just coherent light, wouldn’t a reflector make a good defense against it? A mirror, even?
So only drive in the rain or on low cover cloudy days.
I missed that story and gladly so
Way back when, similar reports like this were issued of a test by a White Sands facility (called HELSTEF). IIRC, that stood for High Energy Laser Systems Test & Evaluation Facility - a laser lab. Many big lasers, mostly chemical in nature.
They filmed a test of a laser taking out a booster rocket(leading everyone to think this is possible on a mid-boost rocket)...impressive....just like this shown here.
What I want to see instead of the result is the facility or physical plant it took to do it.
Mirrors on your roof and hood would prove to be very entertaining.
The weapon is code named “Jewish Lighning”.
So the guy in the car can jump out with his bomb belt and blow everyone up. Don’t sell those .50’s yet.
Turn the rear view mirror around and zap a bystander or two.
Mirrors, movement, dispersion lens, etc.
Yes, they all would work to a certain extent.
But with a powerful enough laser, the tiny defects of any of these defenses eventually fail.
The reason we don’t see these as battlefield weapons is that the power sources necessary are prohibitive.
Bullard Reflects, by Malcolm Jameson
Yes but there are limits. Mirrors do absorb some of the heat. Most mirrors/reflectors are not made of materials that allow that heat to be disbursed. Further, once the mirror starts to heat, the reflective qualities drop off. In short, you can laser burn a mirror or other reflective surface. It does take a little while longer though.
Keep this away from NASCAR fans!
I'm all for it, but we'd have to carry around the equivalent of the Hoover Dam electrical output, in our back pockets, to do that.
The power requirements are currently horrendous.
I remember some experiments at Balcones several years ago that actually dimmed the lights of Austin...and that was during the off-peak times of 2300-0500.
If my husband can pop balloons in the basement at 20 feet with a hand-held laser, the U. S. government can deploy lasers as weapons. Why this never really happens is beyond me.
Non-lethal?
Does it really never happen, or are they simply not letting the world know?
Classification has many levels, including beyond Top Secret.
I recall in one of these military laser stories a general asked a tech guy what would happen if they cover missiles with a reflective surface and then spin them. The tech guy replied with something like ‘Imagine the laser like a huge shotgun. Would spinning and mirrors stop a giant shotgun?’ I have no idea if that’s scientifically right or not.
FReegards
Sounds more like a description of a particle projectile cannon... very Mechwarrior.
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