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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.'"
Northrop is also working on a weaponized shark system.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Apparently, he is the only one who could defeat this system, due to his rhinestone covered suit.
It's a solid state laser weapon.
Those things you're doing with that stuff you just bought? That's not what it's for! -
We are gonna need a bigger shark.
Yahoo, laser sharks.
(And a whale to carry the power pack)
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?
"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."
Now you can see why DARPA's working on exoskeletons.
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
So what do we do with all the blind civilians and soldiers then? I assume soon blindness will be fully curable but I also assume there will be shortages so that only people in the military will have vision during wartime?
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
How much ya wanna bet the Army/Navy will weld a handle on the bloody contraption and call it portable?
Now if I could get this mounted on my flying car (http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/15/007225), like, that would be totally awesome.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
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.
a sudden spike in sales of mirrors throughout the Middle East.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
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.
It doesn't sound like an anti-tank weapon. More like a means of frying eyeballs.
So what happens if it is mounted in a suitable high office in New York. You could cripple the city for a while. Drawing the curtains will not help. And the good news is, the operators do not have to commit suicide. The targets are stationary and keep office hours. It could be programmed and left. Visual Basic sounds appropriate.
Can it blow up a house using a giant jiffypop container?
Fight Spammers!
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Since before the dawn of time, Man has dreamed of the laser cannon - even when Woman said it was dumb and that the costumes on Star Trek were ridiculous.
The ancient Hebrews called it "Uriel" - "the flame of God". The Romans had an entire god (Apollo) devoted to the laser cannon and its many uses. The Greeks dreamed of Prometheus stealing the laser cannon of Zeus and giving it to mortals. In Norse mythology, the end of Ragnarok is marked by the wolf Skoll consuming the last remaining laser cannon and condemning the world to a laser cannon-less eternal night.
Today, the laser cannon is at last ours. Thank you, Northrop-Grumman, and thank you, US military-industrial complex. The spirits of countless millennia stand in silent awe at what you have wrought.
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
UPS won't ship more than 150 pounds. You should have hired a courier (and told them "no signature required," so they can leave it on your doorstep).
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.
Smokey says "Only YOU can prevent huge frickin' weaponized lasers!"
The top two articles at the moment on Slashdot:
>Northrop Grumman Markets Weaponized Laser System
>Pentagon Clears Flying-Car Project For Takeoff
Has the future finally arrived?
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
So, if I buy this new toy, how many C-Cell or 9V batteries do I need? The companies are usually to cheap to put them in the box.
FIRESTRIKEâs can be linked together to get a more powerful beam
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads!
You just got troll'd!
this as FIRSTSTRIKE?
'Impossible' is a word that humans use far too often. -- Seven of Nine
You joke but it's developments like this that put Revelations in a new light (no pun intended).
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Cause I think this is more deserving of the moniker than the current Etherkiller.
Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen.
This is what the right to bear arms is all about! I want that laser for self-protection!!
Low Power Setting Provides nominally 100 watt alignment beam
Article is here.
"Alignment beams" are normally low-power (a few milliwatts) visible beams used to indicate the path of an invisible beam. I guess with this one you'd point the alignment beam, move the glowing/smoking spot to your intended target, then hit the big switch.
Oh Christ, not the end-times again?!
I'm not even 30, and as far as I've kept track, I must have been through at least four of those bloody things. Let's see, just off the top of my head: Gorbachev's birthmark made him the 666; and I suppose that means he must have invented RFID too at some point; Iran was supposed to nuke the world sometime last year. Hmm, I know there've been more. Oh yeah, the formation of the European Union was supposed to be curtains for sure, but unless they plan to end the world through the phantom menace of trade regulations it's just not happening.
None of them have lived up to St. "Moldy Rye is Safe to Eat"-John's promises though; kind of anticlimactic. I'm getting jaded, and laser-planes just don't cut the mustard. I demand more! Let's genetically engineer some GIGANTIC SCARLET BULLS and put some whore-riders on 'em.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Just put a solar panel on it and aim the laser at the panel. That should provide loads of power!
Mine.
7.62NATO (used in the old Phalanx Anti Missle System's miniguns) delivers about 400 joules at 500m. This laser needs about 27ms of on point contact to do that. Of course I'm assuming that the laser isn't affected much by water vapor in the air. And that heat is as effective as kinetic energy.
75kW Generators (TFA says it's 20% efficient) are basicly small trailer/pick-up bed sized. But that includes a 4L Diesel engine and a fuel tank. Share the vehicles motor and add some energy storage like a bank of capacitors so you can move and fire. Put a big radiator on the roof for cooling 600 Prescotts :) and you're good to go. I think you could shoehorn it into a Hummer sized vehicle.
Really, it sounds like a replacement for something like the Phalanx or semi-fixed medium to heavy machineguns. It has the bonus of being really accurate, so set up however many automated turrets you want and slave them to a targeting or master laser.
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As a matter of fact, I have had a 100mW pocket laser, and liked to pop balloons and such with it. 100mW is a bit light to try lighting cigarettes though. You had better mount it on a tripod to hold it steady.
I also know of people who have home-built 50KW nitrogen lasers. (Yes, that was 50KW, and yes, no mistake, that was nitrogen!) And they are powered by relatively small batteries or wall power supplies. But they are large, and very short-burst, and so need serious lens work to burn anything.
Which brings up a point: it is not the wattage that matters, beyond a certain minimum. That 50KW laser will seldom burn anything, because the pulse is so short. The relevant term here is not Watts or KWatts, but KWH! Power x time = energy.
A MW burst of power, over a short enough time, would hardly be noticeable. But a MWH can run a small city for that hour.
The point is that this is a MILITARY laser! It has to burn serious shit, like kevlar personal armor and steel-clad warheads. And 15KW is pretty goddamned lightweight for that, unless you can aim it and hold it perfectly steady for a good period of TIME!
Yes, I understand that they can also be combined to bring heavier firepower to a target. But that is not the same as having all that firepower in one place. The logistics can be difficult.
All I was saying, if you read my whole comment, is that this is beginning to become practical. But it is on the far low end of the scale.
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?
I guess the designers have this as an eventual goal.
No, it isn't. A thousand or even ten thousand horsepower isn't squat, unless it is exerted over TIME. A 180 horsepower laser, over one millisecond of time, equals barely enough for you to even notice that it is there, much less burn anything of any consequence.
Everybody here so far has been confusing power with energy, and that is a pretty big goddamned mistake.
I predict the consumer versions will have a USB interface and Windows-only drivers... :/
Ezekiel 23:20
"Where is the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!"
-Troll, Flamebait, and Offtopic are NOT equivalent to disagreement.
exoskeleton research has to do with mechanical assistance of human muscle; it has absolutely nothing to do with armor.
Fuck that.
I want 5 megawatts by mid-May.
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.
Then again, I'd much rather have one of those flying cars from the other article. They seem much more useful in everyday life, if you can pay for the gas.
But make it the size of a rifle so I can get a head shot from 10 miles away, it's a brave new world of assassination, nothing visible, no noise, and nothing left over for CSI.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I'm curious just how useful this will be. Is there any reason our military should buy this?
Congress shall make no law infringing the right of the people to keep and bear 100KW lasers.
--
make install -not war
If you've ever tried to shine a laster pointer on that bald guys head 20 rows down at a rock concert, you know that this is not a trival issue.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Be the first kid on your block to be the last kid on your block!
I'll rejoice when their stock price goes back up.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
No seriously, though.
The United States Military isn't, in my opinion (get out your tin-foil hats), in the habit of developing a brand-new and potentially game-winning technology, and promptly running to the phone to make a press release. Between this and several other more benign, as several medical advances reported on recently, I can't help but wonder what has happened in the international community that would prompt this type of activity. What type of non-public intel would instigate a response of this kind from the U.S. Military, an organization that has previously only let the world know they had radar evading aircraft some twenty years (or some such) after they had been in operation? Could it be that some other potentially less-than-friendly has developed some other or similar "Star Wars" type tech? And, I mean other than those we currently suspect of trying to develop nukes.
And please, don't hesitate to tell me I can go back to my conspiracy theorist secret bunker, as I've got plenty of canned food to last.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Sweet! The internet connectivity will make it really easy to update the firmware!
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
Does it support Power over Ethernet?
With all the shiny reflective surfaces in Dubai, the entire city could be destroyed by the ricochets.
They call those "specular reflections" and yes, you could end up with a lot of blind citizens if someone cut loose with a high-powered laser. The human retina is extremely easily burned by even low levels of coherent light. The thought of a hundred kilowatt laser being used in the open in a heavily populated area is unnerving.
The original Geneva Convention banned a lot of weaponry (mustard gas, etc.) that would leave large numbers of mutilated or otherwise severely-handicapped people after a conflict ended. I have the feeling that high-powered laser systems may end up in a similar situation, for the same reason.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You mount it on a Warthog! Or a battlemech, but those are so nineties. Anyway, you guys all ask the wrong question. The real questions are
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.