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Air Force Looks To Laser-Proof Its Weapons
slugo writes "This wired.com article has probably the coolest laser destruction video you have ever seen. The video shows the Israeli and US Air Force working on laser defense systems. The US Air Force is starting to look for ways to laser-proof its bombs and missiles — with spray-on coatings, no less. They think everyone is going to figure this laser thing out sometime and need a defense against what they are already very good at — shooting things out of the sky with a laser."
Doesn't necessarily work as well as it does in scifi. Mirrors aren't perfect, and tend to gather things like dust, which reduce their efficiency even more. Not to mention different mirrors vary in their effectiveness with different spectrum lasers.
Shouldn't matter much, but at the high powers weaponized lasers operate at, they quickly destroy mirrors.
As for working on anti-laser stuff, well, it's best to keep three steps ahead militarily wise - tends to keep your casualties down.
I don't read AC A human right
The problems with lasers is that the need to punch through the armour in the time they can stay on target.
#1. Spin them. If the laser cannot hit the same spot for X fragments of a second then it cannot burn through (unless you get a bigger laser).
#2. For when the enemy gets a bigger laser, you coat the missile in a nice insulator. Something like carbon.
So now the laser has to punch through the carbon armour before the missile rotates new armour into sight.
Your first post is in as much danger from lasers as anything else. Which is none at all. It's been 25 years and untold billions of dollars secretly(gotta love the Cold War) pumped into viable military applications for lasers. What do we have to show for it?!? An entirely-useless-chemical-laser-carrying 747 that:
1) Has gotten so far in that last 12 years of focused development that it has finished "target illumination" testing.
2) Has 40 shot maximum payload (according to the entirely optimistic marketers of this project). They admit that it is only really specced for 20 shots now, though.
3) Does NOT have any variety shark attached to it.
I think Northrop Grumman, Boeing and all the other defense contractors had the following plan when they met with Reagan:
1)Convince The Gipper that Green lasers is just what's needed to kill the Red Communists. ("It'd be just like that recent film by that young George Lucas, and we know how much you love movies, Mr. President."
2) (optional) ???
3) Profit!!!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
If EEstor is real, no doubt the feds are going to buy a lot of this. We have railguns and lasers coming on line. Our new DDX will have both. The ABL is designed not to just shoot rockets, but also to take out sats (it is flying at 40-50K feet; a great deal less atmosphere). And of course, our f22 were designed to handle lasers and we will shortly have them on their. My understanding is that future guns for the F22 will also be rail guns. Funny thing is, that most countries are gearing up with crewed planes. We are moving towards automated because we have figured it out that a human is not going to be able to manuever fast enough to avoid these things. But an automated system combined with a remote pilot, just might. Even the M1 is to be modified for these. And EEStor may make it all possible. All these toys will be held back for the next real war (and not just a bungled invasion). I think that any pres that tries to bring these forward for something as small as Iraq/Afghanistan would be lynched by the DOD.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The resulting dispersal of the laser energy would prevent the missile from being seriously damaged.
The opinions expressed here are those of this individual, and may not reflect the policy or practice of the collective
We already have this. It's called the Phalanx sometimes, or just CIWS (close in weapons system). It features a 20 mm vulcan cannon, multiple radars, autonomous operation, and on top of that it can track multiple (dozens) incoming targets as well as its own outgoing projectiles. They can also network together to form a basewide protective shield. They are loaded with a tracer every 20 or 30 rounds and at night the bullet stream looks like the world's most powerful and accurate garden hose- one continuous stream of projectiles. The sound and feeling even from 200 yards is something you'll never forget, especially after you clean your pants the first time they fire without warning. Watching 5 of them fire in synch during a test is awe-inspiring (in good and bad ways, I guess).
Yeah, lasers, great... But in a deployed area, the CIWS provides early warning and interception of incoming mortars and missiles and doesn't require anything more than a generator and a full magazine. Someday lasers might provide an even better shield but until then we could use a few more CIWS in the field.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgpQBZF2sZQ
You should watch that video- dove or hawk, any geek has to admit that the phalanx is one bad ass mutha.
-b
No offense, but I've stopped responding to AC's.
Three words: Counter Battery Fire :)
Heh. Reminds me of a story about a sort of makeshift counterbattery fire someone once told me. Small Lebanese army military camp in Lebanon during the civil war, and every afternoon they'd go outside and play volleyball. Local shia militia jerks noticed the pattern and started dropping mortar rounds in the middle of their volleyball game every day. Immediate patrols trying to find them turned up nothing, as the shia militia jerks simply drop a few rounds, picked up the mortar tube, kicked sand over the base plate, and ran. Tiring of this, the Lebanese army guys measured the angle of the holes at the bottom of the impact craters made by the fuse assemblies being blown into the ground and used trigonometry to figure out where the rounds probably came from--- about a quarter mile away. Based on the size of the rounds, they knew the shias weren't taking the heavy base plate with them when they ran. They went out there in the middle of the night and, sure enough, right where they calculated, they found the mortar base plate. They picked it up, buried a big antitank mine underneath, and carefully concealed the plate just as they found it. Next day, they went out to play volleyball. Five minutes into the game, they head a loud explosion from the direction where the plate was. No mortar rounds ever interrupted their game after that.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Eh, if you can turn 15 mortars into 5, if have done yourself pretty good. On top of that, realize that the longer you fire mortars (especially against Americans or Israelis), the far more likely an artillery shell is going to come your way. Every time you toss up a mortar, a radar station is tracking it. The Israelis have gotten so good at it, that they can practically return fire before the rocket/mortar has hit the ground. These days, the only way Hamas and the like can take a pop shot across the border is to do it from a place of high civilian density, and then seriously run like hell the second they have unloaded.
Personally, I am kind of surprised that Israel hasn't put something like a phalanx in spots that are prone to rocket attack... though I suppose a few thousand bullets coming down into civilian areas might have something to do with it.
its going to be won in the economic arena, and the US is losing. in 30 years, we will have only fry cooks and customer service reps, everything else will have een outsourced or made automatic. a bunker will hold about 5000 computer/robot engineers, and massive hospitals will form the basis of the economy, as there will be no other jobs.
meanwhile, china will have a base on the moon, and still have only invaded tibet, and no other countries. but at least they cant shoot us with a laser.
I can see one huge advantage however to a laser based system:
1) It can be deployed in heavily populated areas without fear of killing an entire village down range.
If that minigun drops below 45* wouldn't it become a lethal weapon to all parties who happen to be down wind? Those .50 caliber rounds aren't light.
(not the original poster)
Fine. Grow more crops to use as fuel. Not like I ever gave a frack about the starving people overseas anyways. They really want to play ball with us, how about oil-for-food programme. Our food, their oil. Or they starve, and we take the oil after they're all dead. (I'm a cynical motherfucker, that's just how I roll.)
If what's in the open literature is any indication (...D instead of H for better atmospheric propagation as has already been discussed in this thread, NF3, and some other hacks that should be obvious...), we've got some pretty cool laser capabilities. I don't have a need to imagine, let alone know, what's behind the veil, but I'm kinda hoping we get a chance to find out just how far ahead we are.
That's not a crop growing problem. The problem isn't that crops can't be grown in Africa, for example. The problem is that the governments there are unwilling to do so. A good example is Zimbabwe. It used to be the bread basket of Africa. It was like the farm states in the US. However, Mugabe has put a stop to that. Now they are a net food importer and their production is next to nothing.
Food shortage these days really isn't a problem of production. We have the technology and the land to handle it. It is a problem of distribution. The places with large starving populations have governments that are not interested in allowing the problem to be solved, or sometimes have no real government at all and are anarchys more or less.
This isn't an easy "just throw money at it" kind of problem.
Imagine this: You have a culture. Let's say, a western culture. You grew up with that culture and for some odd reason, you think it's good. Sure, it ain't perfect, but hey, what is? You have your believes, which may or may not include some sort of God, you have your financial and commercial system which you consider ok, if not good, and you have your country which you consider the best on this planet by default.
Now someone comes in and says that everything you do is wrong. You're forced to work for The Man and his cronies, they are oppressing you and make you to work for pennies while they get rich, you lack the spiritual guidance of a strong religion and you have to be liberated from such an oppressive and outright spiritually and mentally sickening system.
Question for 500: Would you fight the Islam invasion? Let's assume for a moment that they and not you have the aircraft carriers, the ICBMs and tanks that outgun yours by a mile.
Because that's essentially what happens.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.