Posted on 06/11/2004 8:52:53 AM PDT by Tallguy
June 11, 2004: The United States military has already created combat laser weapons that work, and is now hustling to get some of these designs ready for troop use. In a program created by Congress, as a way to force the services to pool money for laser research and development, the U.S. Defense Department's High Energy Laser Joint Technology office (JTO) expects to demonstrate three different 25 kilowatt solid-state laser system designs by December. Solid state lasers only require electrical power to operate, so they are much more desirable for battlefield applications than chemical-based lasers (which consume exotic and corrosive chemicals to crate their laser light). More importantly, chemical lasers are limited, by the chemicals they carry, to a limited number of shots. Since both the Army and Navy are moving to hybrid-electric and electric systems in vehicles and ships, a solid state laser weapon could simply be plugged into a power source on the battlefield. The ultimate goal is to build a 100 kilowatt demonstration model by 2012, a laser weapon that would be powerful enough for missile defense and a variety of other applications. In the next few years, a 25 kilowatt system is being developed as that would weigh about 3300 pounds. Such a laser weapon would use whatever supply of electricity it could find in the combat zone.
Army, Navy, and Air Force participants all agree that creating the JTO got them to work together and get faster results than they would have on their own by spending their individual smaller funds. JTO was started in August with $30 million, combining separate funds from the Defense Department, Army, Air Force, and other organizations. The Navy hasn't joined up, but has people carefully watching the effort. The program is designed to have technology transfer "off-ramps" to take the core research and move it into service-specific programs once concepts are proved. For instance, the Army may take a 25 kilowatt system into field experiments to determine how effective such a system would be in destroying materiel such as tents and wooden ammunition boxes. Ultimately, the Army anticipates they would need 100 kilowatts to have an effective ground-based system capable of countering short-range missiles, artillery, and RPGs, as well as having secondary uses against unarmored targets like communications antennas.
The Air Force would like to have a 25 kilowatt system next year in combination with a relay mirror to demonstrate techniques and test effectiveness for shooting down cruise missiles. In addition, the Air Force is making noises they would like to look at putting lasers on B-1 and B-2 bombers for defense against surface-to-air and air-to-air missiles. Such a laser would also be powerful enough to use against cruise missiles and soft targets on the ground, such as fighter planes parked on an airfield. – Doug Mohney
"June 11, 2004: The United States military has already created combat laser weapons that work, and is now hustling to get some of these designs ready for troop use."
Over John Efin Kerry's dead body!! If kerry wins in November you can bet the house that this program dies a swift death.
Wake Up America!
Unless he rediscovers right wing extremism as the true source of terrorism. (sarcasm I think, it worked for bill)
re: headline - I think Scosia's doing just fine...
When this laser tech becomes common, it will lessen the advantage of airpower. If you can see an aircraft or missle you can shoot it down. Eventually you may not even have to see it just have the laser or other beam weapon to scan sections of the sky, like a TV cathode ray.
This is the missile defense. The idea of sending rockets up to knock the missiles down is a bust. You should be able to take out hundreds of missiles in a few seconds with lasers, though.
This is only tangentially related, but it seems likely that someday these weapons will be scaled down to handheld size.
I wonder if its worth laying the groundwork now so that these weapons are considered in the same way that handguns are (i.e. that citizens have a right to bear them for defense) and not cateogorized as "military-type weapons" subject to prohibitions.
Could you spray very fine particulate compounds in the atmosphere that might defeat-
deflect laser?
Bump!
No more ballistics testing.
Lasers right now are completely unregulated at the federal level as far as firearms. Same as Texas too.
And you can build a handheld blinding laser will little problem.
Yes, optical obscurants will have some application. But their are many situations where they are not practical. And if the laser is targeted by radar, or some other method, the laser would be able to burn-through in some cases.
When laser weapons become common, you may also see a small counter-trend away from precision strikes back toward barrage strikes. ie. If I can pickoff your Tomahawk cruise missile with a burst of laser fire, you are more likely to need more than 1 to do the job, just to make sure that the target gets serviced.
I'm not aware of a hand-held power source with enough energy density to make that happen. I think we're talking about vehicle mounted systems or static systems with a nearby generator.
Thanks for the ping!
Put together a 10kw CO2 or N2 Gas laser, use large (shotgun shell sized) capacitors for the energy source and a diffusing lens for expanded coverage.
It can be done I once did a science project on the feasability of hand held lasers. They won't kill, but they certainly can blind.
The next generation of Navy warships will be "all electric." The propulsion generators will be able to switch full power at will to exotic electric based weapons systems.
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