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.'"

Comments

In other news

[Daimanta]

Northrop is also working on a weaponized shark system.

Re:In other news

[cayenne8]

I wonder if this laser can pop popcorn? From long distances? In someone's house?

Re:In other news

[Adriax]

I can guess how that board meeting went:
Engineer: *holds a model shark in one hand, a model of their laser system in another* "Behold!" *mashes two models together*
Cue large round of applause and back patting from board members.

Re:In other news

[AnarkiNet]

You don't weigh any less in water, but someone "picking you up" or "carrying" you while in water is aided by the fact that people are buoyant. I can guarantee that a 400lb metal box is not buoyant in the slightest.

Re:In other news

[je ne sais quoi]

...I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "I drank what?"

Wayne Newton being held by the miliary

[2.7182]

Apparently, he is the only one who could defeat this system, due to his rhinestone covered suit.

Yes but

[Anonymous Coward]

We are gonna need a bigger shark.

More details?

[Ethanol-fueled]

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?

Re:More details?

[d3ac0n]

from here: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htm

The High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV) is the replacement vehicle for the M151 series jeeps. The HMMWV's mission is to provide a light tactical vehicle for command and control, special purpose shelter carriers, and special purpose weapons platforms throughout all areas of the modern battlefield. It is supported using the current logistics and maintenance structure established for Army wheeled vehicles. The HMMWV is equipped with a high performance diesel engine, automatic transmission and four wheel drive that is air transportable and droppable from a variety of aircraft. The HMMWV can be equipped with a self-recovery winch capable of up to 6000 pound 1:1 ratio line pull capacity and can support payloads from 2,500 - 4,400 pounds depending on the model. The HMMWV is produced in several configurations to support weapons systems; command and control systems; field ambulances; and ammunition, troop and general cargo transport.

Sounds like the Hummer can carry quite a FEW 400 pound laser packs. In fact, a light and fast platform like the HMMWV is IDEAL for a weapons system like this. I expect we'll see this deployed within 10 years.

Re:More details?

[couchslug]

The HMMWV is not ideal for mobility. It is a cheap light tactical truck.

Where a laser would be a good fit is in upcoming hybrid-drive FCS-type tracked vehicles. Tracks give far superior mobility, more usable interior space, and can carry more armor. The hybrid electric system offers plenty of electrical power.

Re:More details?

[jank1887]

it's not a weight issue. it's a power issue. the Humvee can't just run one of these off it's alternator like it can with the air conditioning. It's a high power laser system, which needs a lot of back end support (cooling, etc). Probably not made for a HMMWV. Maybe one of the larger vehicles. Notice from the release that operation is "Continuous, as long as power and coolant are provided". So power's not internal, it has to be hooked to some sort of converter. That will likely be another box almost as big as the laser itself. Cooling will be a third box (that must be powered too) also about the same size. These are big.

so what next ?

[Atreide]

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 ?

Re:so what next ?

[stdarg]

The explanation I've heard is that even though you see the light being diffracted or reflected, it's still being absorbed and re-emitted at the photon level. The material has to be able to stand up to the energy of the beam. Most mirror surfaces would quickly decompose.

Re:so what next ?

[bziman]

also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?

Not quite... a reflecting surface has to absorb all the energy and then re-emit it when it is reflected. With a regular mirror, it's a piece of glass with a silvered back. This would rapidly heat up and destroy the glass, and the silvering. With a highly reflective metal surface, it would still heat it up and destroy its reflective properties with hasty abandon. Do a google search for anti-missile lasers to read how a laser weapon actually works.

Re:so what next ?

[JesseMcDonald]

ok for christmas I get my brand new 15kw or later my 100kw laser gun. ... but what can i do with that ?

To provide a sense of scale, industrial laser cutters (CO2) tend to run from 100 W to 3000 W. The smaller of these lasers is five times more powerful. I imagine it could cut through an aircraft's wing in milliseconds at most; due to weight limits they aren't very thick. Of course, you'd need to do more than just bore a hole through the wing to bring down a plane.

It's worth noting that a sufficiently powerful laser will actually vaporize the surface, rather than just melting it. It can essentially cause the surface to explode from the sudden influx of heat, resulting in far greater damage than a simple cut.

also laser is light, therefore someone just needs to diffract or reflect the stream to be protected ? is that right ?

At these power levels even an optics-quality mirror tends to absorb too much energy to remain effective. Even if it's just 0.1%, that's still 150 W to 1 kW being absorbed, which will quickly heat the mirror to the point where it becomes opaque.

If you could make it work, though, a retroreflector would be even better than a mirror, since it would redirect the laser back at the source.

Re:so what next ?

[bziman]

A mirror doesn't "absorb all the energy and then re-emit it", at least not in any meaningful sense.

Check your quantum physics. In fact, there are only a couple of ways that photons interact with matter... if there's no interaction at all, the photons pass right through. That's "transparency". There's also the photoelectric effect, where photons interact with electrons, which rise to higher energy states, absorbing the photons. The new configurations aren't stable, so the electrons rapidly fall back to their original state, which emits a new photon. On a reflective surface, the atoms are aligned in such a way that the new photons are lined up very precisely, such that they match the photons that were absorbed. Otherwise, you might get a spectral reflection (i.e. shiny), but not coherent. In non-reflective surfaces, the photons are absorbed and the electrons either remain in their excited state, or photons are emitted that are different than the photons that were absorbed (for example, when you shine a black light on a white surface, the emitted photons are at a different wavelength than the absorbed photons). Either way, the entropy of the material is increased (i.e. it is heated), though the entropy is obviously greater when no new photon is re-emitted. There are other quantum interactions possible at higher energies, but the idea is the same.

There's a good layman's explanation here, and a more comprehensive look in Dick Feynman's book.

Re:That's no home stereo...

[narcberry]

sends/receives instructions and data via an RJ-45 jack

Don't worry guys, the TSA is working hard on updating their "do not mix with aircraft" list to accommodate this.

Can it make popcorn?

[www.sorehands.com]

Can it blow up a house using a giant jiffypop container?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a historic day

[blincoln]

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.

FIRESTRIKE? Watch out for Smokey

[fortapocalypse]

Smokey says "Only YOU can prevent huge frickin' weaponized lasers!"

The future!

[Zouden]

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?

Re:Blind soldiers

[level4]

If you're being shot in the face with a 15KW laser, I think blindness is the least of your worries. A direct shot from something like this will lead to blindness in the same way a bullet in your eye leads to blindness. The unit is a weapon and will be treated like one, I doubt they'll be waving it around as a joke any more than they shoot people with real bullets for a joke.

More interesting is the question of backscatter - lasers can be reflected. In fact, it would see the primary means of protection against laser fire would be a mirrored surface. On any kind of complex surface that will indeed produce a lot of scattered rays of lesser, but still blinding, power.

I would assume that the primary envisaged use case of this thing, right now at least, is anti-missile, especially at sea. Anti-ship missiles typically have a curved, if not spherical, tip, which in future will presumably be covered by a mirrored coating as a counter to the existence of laser defense systems. At least some of the laser light, then, will likely reflect back at the ship, with unpredictable intensity.

The advent of this kind of thing may indeed precipitate an interesting change in how military personnel dress and expose themselves in combat situations. Mirrored helmets for everyone who could possibly be in range would seem a likely first step ...

Disclaimer: I know nothing about laser warfare that I didn't learn from Culture novels!

Re:15kW is not very much.

[leighklotz]

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.

Well, lessee...a 100mW (20dBm or 0.1W) collimated burning laser will pop ballons and burn dark objects such as electrical tape. This one is 15KW (~72dBm) so that's ~72-20=52dB times the power, or about 15KW/0.1W=150,000 "burning lasers", assuming Northrop-Grumman can collimate a laser as well as some guy on Instructables.

Re:15kW is not very much.

[Khashishi]

I guess you haven't worked with lasers much. A 3 Watt CO2 laser will burn paper in less than a second or so. Light bulbs put out a lot of power. If you hold on to a light bulb that's on, your hand won't last very long. Nevertheless, the destructive power is small compared to conventional weapons. The advantage here is accuracy.

Re:Well

[rubycodez]

Your right to bear arms only includes the types known to the Founding Fathers, therefore you shall only be allowed to bear laser muskets.

Ethernet?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I predict the consumer versions will have a USB interface and Windows-only drivers... :/