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Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System
stephencrane writes "Northrop Grumman is making available for sale the FIRESTRIKE weaponized laser system. The solid-state laser unit weighs over 400lbs, sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack and can be synchronized with additional units to emit a 100 kW beam. It looks like some piece of stereophonic amplification equipment out of the '50s. Or Fallout 3. The press release suggests that FIRESTRIKE 'will form the backbone of future laser weapon systems.'"
This pic from TFA shows a "heating/cooling" interface which shows that the units are going to need a coolant circulation system which would makes the whole system more cumbersome than it appears at first glance. With each LRU at 400 pounds + the cooling system I doubt these would be mounted on a hummer.
Another bullet point is that TFA states that "The firm has said that at least eight of these can be linked up to get a proper 100 kilowatt beam" but how exactly would that be done? this provides an idea, anybody "in the know" wanna chime in?
So what exactly happens when they point the laser at a tank with a bunch of large corner cube reflectors mounted on it? I mean, if even a fraction of the laser energy comes back I could see this being a real problem.
ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun.
but what can i do with that ?
explode a potato in a 10 minutes static shot ? or melt aircraft wing in 1 second ?
also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
When the military gets laser rifles, it'll be that much easier for to make the case for why "assault rifles" should be regulated like bb guns.
Using multiple such things, each of them too wimpy to cause much damage seems important. First, it makes it much harder for the enemy to knock them off — hitting one unit disables a small fraction of the whole. Second, the power can be concentrated at different targets depending on the need (soldiers, a missile, an artillery shell, a plane) — rather than the all-or-nothing of a single giant laser. And third, an errant device will not be as harmful — for example, if, when the network of these are shooting at an incoming missile, one of them hits a civilian plane or some other unintended object. No problem — a single beam is too weak to be really harmful.
Now, of course, they would need to be very precisely targeted and coordinated. Fortunately, we have GPS and powerful computers...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Unless it is a pencil-thin or smaller beam, 15kW is just plain not very much. I mean, it's a lot of energy, I wouldn't want it pointed at my couch... but it is only about as much as you would get out of 150 light bulbs. Maybe even less, considering the conversion factor.
I guess it is on the verge of being practical. But not much more, yet.
There's a material out there, google for it, that can go from a transparent material to a mirrored material in around 11 seconds when current is applied to it. I could see that being used as a windshield for whatever vehicle carries these devices, and activated before firing the weapon.
I should not even have to explain -- because if you knew squat about this, it would not be necessary -- that there are, among other classes, "first-surface" mirrors often used in telescopes. Look it up. And even that is just one example. A mirror -- and even first-surface is only one subset of the available kinds -- does NOT have to "absorb" the energy in order to reflect it. That is a huge assumption that is simply false.
Assuming that is true... that a reflective surface must absorb the light before re-emitting it in a complementary direction -- would be to assume that, for example, white paper must absorb light and then redirect it in order to accomplish its reflective quality, while a black piece of paper would simply absorb the light. If that were the case, not only would the black piece of paper become warmer (as it does), the white piece of paper (or other efficient reflector closer to ideal) would actually become cooler, since it must expend energy to absorb then re-emit the light in a direction opposite to the direction the light originally entered. (Even you admit that energy is expended in the process of reflection.) That might only be a small effect, but it would be noticeable.
Not only would the material reflect the light, it would become cooler in the process.
Most reflectors are less than ideal, but the basic principle still holds. You don't get something for free.
Not only that, but a good many designs for relatively high-powered lasers rely on internal reflection from mirrors to achieve the lasing effect at all. If what you claimed about reflectors were true, these lasers would not even work! Their end mirrors would melt down before light were ever emitted from the device. But lase and emit they do, easily enough to melt several inches of steel, without a shred of problem with (or heating of) the mirrors.