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U.S. Developing 100-Kilowatt Laser for Strike Fighters
redwolfoz writes "New Scientist reports that American defence contractors, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, are developing a 100-kilowatt infrared laser weapon for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter that may be powerful enough to blind people on the ground, even if they are relatively far from the target."
In a related story, American troops have been seen rolling large tinfoil balls filled with an unknown substance into strategic locations around France.
Never confuse volume with power.
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You could put an eye out with those things.
blinding people violates geneva convention
Only if that was the intended effect of the weapon. If it's a laser weapon that is designed for use against planes, anti-aircraft installations, and ground vehicles that could accidentally blind someone standing nearby, it's considered legit.
... as they like to say, meaning, "Stuff that the weapon did other than what it was supposed to do." Like the article says, this isn't a blinding weapon; it's an honest-to-god laser gun (as opposed to the laser targeting systems we've been using for quite some time.) It's designed to blow up or disable vehicles, artillery emplacements, etc. Might people nearby be blinded by reflections? Sure, and people nearby when a bomb hits might be blinded (or worse) by shrapnel. I think this is much ado about nothing, to tell the truth. Battlefields are dangerous places. No amount of tech is going to change that.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
whilst I deftly dodge the obvious "Real Genius" and Austin Powers references :) ...
;) sorry...hehe
any optical engineers in the audience care to comment on the likelihood of these accidental reflections causing blindness?
to be sure, if this 100KW NIR laser was fired into the cockpit of a plane, and some of the beam were reflected into the line of sight of the crew...don't we think they've got some more immediate problems than blindness? no more flight electronics...plane going down...ahem.
I think that the article fails to address that accidental reflection would be dependent upon the material being hit. Certainly most glass substrates would reflect some, but the power behind that beam is enormous!
my math regarding optical incident and accident angles is a little rusty...can we have some factual analysis here?
"Will you and the "laser" get a friggin room?"
^^ obligitory reference
I have a question: how practical is this, really? The article tells us that you get two four-second shots, spaced four seconds apart, and the laser then needs 30 seconds to cool down. This is hardly what I'd call a practical battlefield weapon, especially given the modern war methodology of one well-coordinated, completely overwhelming attack. Why use a laser with such poor fire times?
Think about it. You go in and you can drop, depending on the fighter between 6 and 24 500-pound bombs, in more or less one go, which is going to pulverize everything in the area... Or you can loiter around as a sitting duck for anti-aircraft fire and pop off two four-second laser bursts every thirty seconds.
Now, the other thing, and IANALS (I Am Not A Laser Scientist), my understanding is that solid-state lasers are a bit fragile at the moment. How is this thing supposed to handle the G-loads experienced by a strike fighter?
Also, maybe I've been watching Real Genius a little too much, but I was always under the impression that a kilowatt laser wasn't that impressive.
There's no reason to adopt laser technology of the kind mentioned in the article, when bombs are safer for the pilots to use, have proven reliability, and are more combat-effective. This leads me to believe that this is either another money-pit for the Department of Defense, or the capabilities of this laser are grossly understated.
blog |
The Geneva Convention is something diplomats agreed to during peacetime. Once a real war breaks out, it goes out the window. Both sides blatantly violate it, but only the losing side gets prosecuted for war crimes. The Geneva Convention is a piece of paper, nothing more.
How ya like dat?
Others have already pointed out the factual error involved here, so I'll simply point out the philosophical one: It's not so much that teh law doesn't apply to the US Military (which isn't to say that it always does), so much as that we work to ensure that the law is crafted in a way that allows us to do the things we want to do.
:)
Same diff really, but obviously this way is vastly superior since you can always end up on the side of law (which you crafted to favor yourself). Isn't being a superpower great?
The enemies of Democracy are
Argh. I hate wading through all the "jokes" from the peanut gallery.
:
Ignoring the legal ramifications (and frankly, nobody can stop a powerful country if it wants to ignore any convention) there are two interesting effects of non-lethal weapons
1) injuring one person removes at least two people from the battlefield, because one other has to care for him. This is why it's considered more desirable to maim than kill.
2) the effects of the weapon last for decades. If you blind 10,000 enemy troops, they will then be an economic burden on their country for the rest of their lives.
Nasty thing, the military mind.
read the article.... they explain the loop holes in the Geneva Convention ban on using lasers for blinding.
Rip form article follows....
Why the Geneva Convention will not stop blinding by laser
Article 1 of the Geneva Convention's Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons has laudable aims. It states, "It is prohibited to employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision."
But Article 3 opens the door to lasers that blind so long as that was not their aim. It states: "Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol".
Big question is whether the US plans to take advantage of this loop hole to blind enemies on purpose (excluding the usual collateral damage and "accidents" that occur).
- HeXa
The real problem is getting the axis of evil to use blue lasers while the allies use red lasers.
Go Joe!
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
This reads as FUD to me. A bunch of unverified concerns regarding a weapon that isn't off of the drawing board.
And FYI, the purpose of the laser is to attack electronics targets not to blind civilians. Blinding is a side effect everyone is afraid of (and, as FUD is want to do, implied to be the real goal of this weapon).
Also the US, a country that has shown that even it is unwilling to disregard the Geneva Conventions, wouldn't be so stupid as to blatantly break the GC.
I know there are going to be people asking why is blinding worst than death according to the Geneva Conventions. Well the gist of the GC is that combat should be a noble enterprise: weapons should avoid unnecessary pain and suffering. It would be nice if wars could be fought kill-less. If not, then if injuries would be simple things that just disable combatants for a period yet don't leave them scarred for life. But since neither of these are too realistic, it is best to make sure that we are not just going out and crippling people (combatants or civilians) en mass. That is why biological, chemical, blinding weapons, and non-Full Metal Jacketed ammunition are illegal under the GC.
What is music when you despise all sound?
They were supposed to have 5 megawatts by mid-May.
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
Great, we've found a loophole to create a large scale blinding weapon. We call it a weapon for destroying hardware, but we are also embarking on sister program to create special protective goggles for our soldiers. Why on earth would we need those if the danger of blinding is so small?
Lets revive the microwave beam weapons while we are at it. We'll pretend they are for disrupting electronics or radar mapping, but they also do a great job of interfering with brain activity. (You only have to head the brain a couple of degrees.) We'll make protective headgear for our soldiers.
How about poison gas? I'm sure flourine and chlorine gasses do a great job of disrupting (corroding) electronics. We already have protective gear for our soldiers for that.
Or better yet, we could use tiny, indiscriminate robot devices that detect humans and explode and cripple anyone that comes near them for years to come. Oh wait, we already have that one and refuse to join in a ban on their production and use.
I'm glad we are the good guys.
I was always under the impression that a kilowatt laser wasn't that impressive
you have been watching too much real genius. one of my friends works with a multiple-laser mass spectrometer over in atmospheric sciences (the Single Particle Laser-Ablation Time-of-flight Mass Spec, SPLAT-MS, if you're curious) - they have a 1.5 watt, 20ms pulsed CO2 (infrared, same wavelength range the military wants to use) laser that will cause third-degree burns if you put your hand in the beam for *two pulses*. now this laser they're talking about is a 100kW; i don't know if the solid-state is less efficient than the gas laser, but either way there's still going to be a lot more than 1.5W coming out, for a lot longer than 20ms. i'd like to see what happens if you blast a chunk of asphalt with that sucker - the SPLAT laser makes little firepuffs of burning tar vapor; the military laser would probably "ablate" (vaporize) the entire rock. and to ice the cake, IR laser emission is totally invisible, even the scattered stuff...
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Only if that was the intended effect of the weapon. If it's a laser weapon that is designed for use against planes, anti-aircraft installations, and ground vehicles that could accidentally blind someone standing nearby, it's considered legit.
It's entertaining, but a little worrying to see how military lawyers interpret things like the Geneva Convention and other documents supposedly governing the acceptable conduct of war. One example is the use of White Phosphorous, a powerful incendiary distributed over a target area using explosives. It comes in everything from grenades to mortars to bombs. Due to the horrific burns it causes, it is prohibited for use against personnel, but can be used against materiel, i.e. equipment. This is a matter of interpretation, after all, rifles and backpacks are equipment, they just happen to often be found in close proximity to enemy soldiers!
It's important to understand that the West is supreme in battle not because of divine right or objective moral superiority, but rather because our culture has elevated warfare to its most efficient. It is debatable whether wholesale blinding of enemy soldiers (and indeed, any civilians who happen to be in the vicinity) is more or less humane than the traditional form of battle, in which some individuals are wounded and killed, but the majority, even in the defeated army, escape more-or-less unscathed.
The point is the definition of "large". The article suggests that reflections from the laser could blind from several kilometers away, which in contrast is an unlikely distance to be struck by shrapnel.
"Surgical strike" won't look so good in the PR if even on a perfect hit you end up blinding everyone looking out the window of a hospital three kilometers away.
The enemies of Democracy are
With modern computer aiming technology, you could take out an enemy plane with one shot of this sucker (assuming it's powerful enough). You get on his tail, get him in the reticle, and boom. 1 second later he's got serious airframe damage. 4 seconds later he's a rapidly expanding ball of vapour and titanium shards.
If it's powerful and accurate enough, you could hit him before he's more than a blip on your radar screen. Just like a missile, except that all the chaff and flares in the world won't save him.
War sucks. If we put half as much $ and effort into figuring out how to cure diseases and end poverty, as we do into these fucking Dr. Strangelove, penis-waving weapons systems...
Freedom: "I won't!"
Here. Also being considered for the AC-130 gunship. Explanation of aiming problems, one turret or two, etc. Much more detail.
Infuriate left and right
My, my... quite the little tirade you had there.
First of all, anything on that list would be easier to do with conventional weaponry. If we felt like invading Iraq and taking all their oil we wouldn't do it with a plane-mounted laser that can only fire twice without a cool-down period. We'd roll over them with tanks and machine guns. It's tradition after all.
Secondly, providing that the link that you provided wasn't a sham (Which it probably is), bombs would -still- be a more effective way to go about it. The lasers could certainly -blind- everyone in the convoy, but killing them would be more difficult. And holding one on a manaquin for long enough to get that particular toasty look from the photograph would be damn difficult indeed.
Continuing on. Depopulating the west bank with lasers. Funny thing really, the world has these things called "Nuclear armaments" they would do a far better job of clearing out an area than a mere beam of light (So far).
Your last statement is just hilarious. If some little Chinese girl were making Nikes slow, they certainly wouldn't blind her. What use is a blind worker? Perhaps they would beat her, but that is another story.
So... all in all... you made a series of poorly thought out, stupid comments. Then you tried to use emotionally charged subjects (Chinese labor, West bank territory, terrorism) to support these stupid comments, but you really didn't even do a good job of that.
Come back when you have developed a brain.
With my dying breath, I curse Zoidberg!
Lasers are common in the military, primarily for range finding and illuminating targets for laser-guided weapons. Although these lasers are not powerful enough to destroy objects, they can cause serious eye damage. In at least one case they were used by a Russian ship in American waters to damage the eyes of a helicopter pilot observing the vessel.
Also, the US Armed Forces have researched this issue extensively, and most aircrew helmets and visors are now designed to protect the wearer from laser-induced eye damage - accidental or otherwise.
Intentionally blinding people or building a weapon designed to blind people is against a treaty the US ratified way back in 1999. They're saying this weapon is designed to destroy vehicles, but also happens to blind people nearby. My first thought was, "It's a weapon, weapons are supposed to hurt people. So what." Then I started thinking about a) We're building a multi-billion dollar next generation strike aircraft that blinds people? That's not very impressive. And then b) If we're advertising ourselves as the Good Guys, maybe we shouldn't be finding loopholes in international treaties. But at least it's better than completely ignoring the treaty like we're doing for Star Wars.
-B
So lets get this straight, under the Geneva convention its against the rules to build a weapon that can only maim or mutilate somebody, but its all right to build a weapon if it has a reasonable chance of killing a combatant?
Yes. It's supposed to be the more civilized way to make war. If you think about it, all soldiers who go off to war realize that it may result in their death. Not many think about the potential of being maimed or crippled for life. In the eyes of the government, death is an acceptable side-effect of war. But if someone is crippled or maimed in war, they become a burden on their family and society. If you die your family will probably get over it in a year or two. Your widow/widower won't have your income to help support them, but they will probably find another spouse and go on to make another family. If you come back maimed or crippled, your family may still lose its source of income and will have an additional burden of having to support you. If you can no longer be productive the family may stay together, but they may be driven into poverty. This can be disastrous for a family and to a nation (on a large enough scale).
Think about it this way: what if the Allied and Axis soldiers and civilians killed in World War II were only blinded or otherwise maimed instead? Can you imagine the vast problems that recovering nations would have had trying to integrate and support the millions of victims? It would be only towards the end of the 20th century that the nations involved would have begun truly recovering. In the eyes of governments (and many people), killing is better because your can start over with a relatively blank slate.