Posted on 12/19/2012 8:22:50 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Using lasers for tracking objects through the sky has been possible for years, but there's never been anything like Lockheed's new laser defense system successfully tested last week.
It's not that using high-powered lasers to drop incoming missiles is anything new, and was achieved by Boeing with a nine-year Air Force project that was canceled in 2011. That monster laser was packed into a 747 and designed to head off ballistic missiles fired at the U.S. from very far away. Raytheon then tested their laser defense on a drone for the Navy in 2010, but now Lockheed's distilled the process down for battlefield troops.
Here's how it works: Imagine being shacked up with a handful of others at a Forward Operating Base, way, way into enemy territory beyond any immediate help, behind some makeshift stone walls and plywood. Some are sleeping, while others stand watch using night vision to leach signs of danger from dark. When the attack comes it starts with shoulder launched rockets but rather than just seeing the flash and yelling for cover, the troops are protected by Area Defense Anti-Munitions.
Called ADAM, the small white trailer with the big laser takes its cue from radar blanketing the area three miles out. The radar has already kicked the laser awake when the guys on watch saw the flash. By the time they're diving for cover and warning their buddies, the ADAM has locked onto the rocket and is burning it out of the sky from over a mile away.
After keeping everyone from getting blown up, ADAM would then afford troops the time to coordinate their counter-attack where even more lives would be saved.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Success? Hmmmmmmmmm. Better kill that project.
Super! Turn it on incoming troops. Melt a few and the rest will get the message.
We already had this in 1975 tested in Nevada against aircraft.duhhhh.
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Why is BI the business propaganda arm for the administration comming up with this now ?
Practical battlefield laser weapons are still some years away from production and deployment. Aside from the limited case of population and area defense for the Israel, the energy and equipment requirements for high energy lasers make defensive naval use the most likely venue for large scale use.
This is about 1/4 the size.
Yeah, with a max range of 2 klicks, you're going to need a lot of small white trailers for coverage - PROFIT!
Iron Dome, already 70km. interception range.
They didn’t cancel it because it was successful. They cancelled it because it was only marginally successful, with big cost overruns, and other technologies proved cheaper and more effective. We don’t have to rely on the speed of lasers to intercept projectiles anymore, because we have better targeting and guidance systems, so we can hit a missile with a much cheaper and more reliable weapon than a laser.
And uses a $50,000 missile to kill a $500 rocket.
Profit!
Yep.
It could only kill missiles in the boost phase, when they’re the most vulnerable. That required the modified 747 to run a very predicatable racetrack pattern along the FEBA or hostile border.
Although, the variable cost of a laser firing (especially a solid-state laser) is signicicantly less than a guided missile. So, you might have a higher fixed cost and overhead, but much smaller variable costs per kill.
Between 1996 and 2004, the Army’s Theater High Energy laser (THEL) project out of Huntsville Alabama was shooting down inbound rockets with a liquid-fueled high energy laser.
The THEL looked much like a 30 inch diameter searchlight, also mounted on top of a “trailer-like” portable shipping container. The laser liquid fuel was in pressurized H2O2 and other tanks, also containerized.
So, of course, if I were opposing this system, first thing I’d do would be dropping a couple of dozen “dumb” mortar rounds .... on top of the radar. 8<)
You could do the same thing against a missile-based system.
Force protection is already a strategy for ADA sites.
It was still good that we developed the weapons, even if they didn’t prove practical. We came up with some innovations that we can use in astronomy and other applications, which we might not have discovered without all that fat federal funding chasing a weapons system :)
Agreed.
R&D is fine as long as you don’t rush into production.
ping
Well, save lives, except for the bad guys. Bada ping!
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