Might wanna look up just how many watts you can get outa a gallon of jet fuel...
Posted on 12/03/2018 10:11:11 AM PST by SleeperCatcher
The U.S. military has been working to develop laser weapon technology in earnest since the 1990s, initially as a missile defense technology. And while that application certainly remains an objective of laser weapon design, the Pentagon has begun exploring new uses for the technology as advances are made.
Hypersonic technology is a game-changing technology for ballistic missiles, but speed-of-light laser weaponry would negate hypersonics. If U.S. Air Force developers can miniaturize power production to the point where lasers on fighter planes become lethal enough to use in combat, their potential is substantial.
For one, fighters would never ‘run out of ammunition.’ Currently, fighters can only carry so many air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles; lasers giver fighters the potential to have limitless ammunition to use against air and ground targets. Also, a laser-equipped fighter could fire several hundred shots on a single gallon of jet fuel.
(Excerpt) Read more at greatpowerwar.com ...
Oh. Too bad. I thought the real advances would be in having transgender pilots, and fuel that is environmentally sustainable.
/s
A bigger game changer was that a couple months ago an American Reaper drone shot down another drone in trials using a Stinger missile.
It's about energy delivered to the target. It would take a _lot_ of fuel to fire enough shots that are energetic enough to do real damage. Hundred of kilowatts or better.
What happens to the misses? Does the laser beam travel off into space and kill some unsuspecting alien and her kids? Or, hit the ground and blow up a gas station?
That’s the reason the F35B may end up being such a game changer
To defeat an AA missile, you don’t have to blow it up.
You only have to dazzle the optical seeker, which by requirement is made to be highly sensitive.
Might wanna look up just how many watts you can get outa a gallon of jet fuel...
“What happens to the misses? “
A miss aimed downward might damage whatever it hits, mitigated a bit if the initial beam was focused on the target. The unfocused miss beam would still be dangerous to people down below. In all likelihood a missed beam would be swept along the ground, since it would be trying to track a moving target, so that would limit exposure to any specific point.
Laser light scattered off of a target would also be dangerous. If te target was made to be mirror-shiny then that deflected beam would be hazardous.
Upward-aimed beams would just keep going, gradually becoming unfocused due to diffraction and possibly deliberate defocusing.
A ground observer watching an aerial fight using high energy lasers would risk eye damage. And laser goggles would only help if the goggles were for that specific wavelength. Watching with binoculars would protect against wavelengths greater than 2 microns and less than .4 microns but if if the attack laser is in the visible that woud be quite dangerous.
I’ve always imagined that lasers would become viable when they were able to produce energy cells that were similar to a cartridge.
1 shot per cartridge.
Of course that doesn’t allow for a prolonged burn - but I suppose you could have different “calibers” and such for duration.
In games they over heat or run out of power and you have to wait for cool down and recharge ,LOL
Some people on the ground in war zones during WW II were killed by all the extra “misses” during air combat.
Even a LASER beam diverges. The answer to your first question is certainly no, to your second ... probably less damaging than a missile or explosive shell that misses its target.
It’s supposed to be sharks man, sharks! Sharks with laser beams.
“Big sky” theory says that you have to aim carefully at something to hit it. Of course, unless you are pointing upward with a laser, you are going to his something - but the probability of hitting anything that matters is quite small.OTOH . . .
George McGovern was a bomber pilot in WWII,, and he had occasion to jettison a bomb far away from any city - and out of all the acres and acres of empty dirt it could have hit, it destroyed a farmhouse! McGovern was appalled.
In a further unpredictable twist, he later met a man who lived in that house at the time! And, far from being bitter, the man was so invested in ultimate Allied victory in the war that he took the attitude that “If they need to do that to win the war, I’m for it!"
Most of the breathless Popular Mechanix type articles gloss over just what it is that kills the target. Always trying to portray it as an instant kill death ray. "Dwell time" is never mentioned.
Trying to hold a laser long enough on a target that refuses to sit still is an issue.
Combat lasers aboard aircraft will likely be powered by small fuel cartridges. They will have capacity limitations similar to cannon rounds. The cartridges will probably be single-shot and ejected from the firing mechanism when empty.
The advantage of the laser round is that it will instantly hit whatever it points towards at any visible range.
Put that in a drone craft with autonomous targeting and area-denial software, and you will have your game changer.
Of course, you can also build a ground-based laser battery that uses large, heavy capacitor banks and a steady state conventional generator for power source. That unit would have unlimited shots as long as the fuel tanks have something in them.
Another "game changer".
This century is not turning out the way that I hoped it would.
Planes with frickin’ lasers!
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