Posted on 10/14/2009 6:21:45 PM PDT by Nachum
The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) ray-cannon, mounted in a specially-equipped Hercules transport plane flying above New Mexico, has now succeeded in "putting a hole in the fender" of a ground vehicle driving along beneath it.
The not particularly awesome result was announced by Boeing, maker of the ATL, yesterday.
"In this test, a directed energy weapon successfully demonstrated direct attack on a moving target," said Gary Fitzmire, Boeing raygun veep. Though that is nothing new; Boeing's Humvee-mounted "Laser Avenger" ray-turret shot down a small flying robot earlier this year
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
Think about what it would do if it were aimed at your chest, instead of a car hood.
Probably what was said after someone demonstrated black powder, cloth and gravel poured down a piece of pipe and touched off with a fuze.
You don’t need to use an elephant gun to kill a flea.
Probably what was said after someone demonstrated black powder, cloth and gravel poured down a piece of pipe and touched off with a fuze.
You don’t need to use an elephant gun to kill a flea.
If you’re talking about Ada, I’d much rather use C++.
sniper satellite somewhere 200~300 miles high up in overhead orbit
this tech could also easily work as defense against AA missiles, something that grows more important as enemies are researching new ways to detect stealthy aircraft.
You’d send in a squadron defense aircraft armed like this, and it would shoot down the missiles aimed by defenders against the attacking element of aircraft. Attackers could simply stay on target.
Or you’d have an unihabited smaller version escort a flight of anti-ship missiles. This l’il guy would shoot down the defending missiles, leaving all friendly missiles intact until the closing phase, where they would only be attrited by CWIS.
That doesn’t look like a fender.
I want to see how the Hercules transport plane transformed into a gunboat. That’s gotta be way cool.
And, WHOSE car was it???
Top of the fender just inside the top edge.
“The not particularly awesome result...”
I suspect similar near-verbatim quotes might be found from sword-weilders
about the first few shots from the first blunder-busses and muskets.
But you might not be able to locate such quotes.
Because after a bit of perfecting of said gunpowder-powered throwers
of lead...those same sword-yielders went to the rubbish-heap of
history at a much younger age than untold generation of their
sword-bearing ancestors.
And they bled out before they could scrawl out in their blood an
account of how a simple country rube with a musket (and absolutely no
skill with any sort of sword) mortally wounded them FAR beyond the
reach of any sword.
to bad the ‘test target’ in this vid wasn’t wearin’ a turban! (I love the smell of burnin’ diaper in the morning.) with apologies to kilgore of course.
“No, not at all. It depends on what your objective it. If its to destroy the vehicle, it can be done much more cost effectively with a TV or laser guided bomb. If its to disable the vehicle, you can simply drop sharp objects on the highway ahead to blow out the tires.”
And if your objective is to shoot down an ICBM launched from Cuba 400 miles away? What gets to the missile faster, a bullet or light? I have no problem with this in our arsenal. If you’re looking for funding cuts, let’s start with ACORN and work downward...
LOL
Detractors of the first firearms demonstration would have pointed to the much greater range, reliability, rate of fire and accuracy of longbows and crossbows.
Initially, such directed energy capability would fill a very narrow operational niche. In the case of a vehicle barreling down a desert road containing high value targets whose value is higher alive than dead, such system offers an ability to disable the vehicle rather than obliterate it as is currently done via predator strikes.
Uh, this won’t shoot down a missile—not even close. Yes, there is an ABL platform that might (someday) be able to do that. However, its only got enough power for one or maybe two shots. If its aloft and in position.
Should we invest in military R&D? Absolutely. But lets invest in something that makes sense.
There are easier ways to destroy or disable a moving vehicle that don’t require millions of $$ in R&D.
Yeah, well UCANSEE2 caught on pretty quickly back in #21 that the target doesn't have to be a moving vehicle.
Just think of all the money that could've been saved if a sattelite could've zeroed in on Saddam Hussein!!!
I don't know... They didn't say this was the limit of the power they had available, did they? Might be a modest power proof of concept. Actually with super accurate weapons like lasers targeting and target motion compensation is the hard part. It is one thing to have a "pretty good" idea of where something is, then shoot a smart weapon at it. This engagement sequence relies on the weapon for terminal guidance.
But with a directed energy weapon, the "launch" platform, no matter how far away or doing who knows what in terms of motion relative to the target is the final arbiter of hit/miss.
I think it is yet another step on the path to effective directed energy weapons.
Someone else a while back pointed out that if a solid state laser system could be made small enough... Well, take the STOL version of the F-35... Pull the vertical lift turbine out, and put a generator in there on the shaft from the engine. Quite possibly more than enough power for an escort directed energy fighter that could fly with a strike group and take out *all* the SAMs launched at the group.
Imagine this device used on people. Naturally the Warsaw Convention means we’d never do that.
This is only the start of what is now a proven weapons system. The consequences are monumental.
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