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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.
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.
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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
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
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.
The calculation isn't an easy one, as there are a number of factors involved:
* Is this near infrared or far? A CO2 laser will put out far IR, with a wavelength of 10.6 microns. At that wavelength the light will damage the cornea, and possibly the lens of the eye. Near IR (under 1.4 microns) will damage the retina, possibly causing a foveal blind spot.
* Specular or diffuse reflection? The big problem with lasers is that you have a serious amount of power focused in a very collimated beam, all of which can get focused into a very small part of the eye. It's a question of intensity -- power per area. Diffuse reflection will send the laser power all over the map, but less of it will get in the eye. Direct reflection won't be spread out over as much of an area, but if it gets in your eye, eyoikes.
We're talking 100 kW, which is a giant dumptruck full of power. A 100-watt CO2 laser, which is nice and invisible, will give you serious burns with a beam that's a centimeter in diameter. Now imagine focusing that power down into your eye. And that's three orders of magnitude less power than this 100 kW laser.