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Airborne Boeing Laser Blasts Ground Target
coondoggie writes "The airborne military laser which promises to destroy, damage or disable targets with little to no collateral damage has for the first time actually blown something up. Boeing and the US Air Force today said that on Aug. 30, a C-130H aircraft armed with Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) blasted a target test vehicle on the ground for the first time. Boeing has been developing the ATL since 2008 under an Air Force contract worth up to $30 million."
Someone find the house full of Popped Corn!!!
--- no sig to see here... move along.
Stop playing with yourself!!
They missed and cooked their server instead.
Table-ized A.I.
A mirror surface will harden the target, but even the best mirrors do not reflect all light and a combat laser can still burn a hole in it very fast.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Thank god this circumvents the stipulation in the Geneva Convention against weapons that cause blindness. As the lasers purpose is stated as an anti-vehicular weapon, the side affect of inducing blindness is A-OK.
I meant the reflections. Are they willing to blind anyone within eyesight?
30 Million is pretty small money for the DOD and for Boeing. There must be more money in this project somewhere.
I suppose that would fall under the category of collateral damage, and they're probably expecting everyone within sight of the target to be, well, "The Enemy(tm)."
It's still a chemical laser. It's quite possible to make chemical lasers powerful enough to be used as weapons, but so far the equipment has been too big to be very useful. The Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser is able to shoot down artillery shells and small rockets, but the equipment takes up three trailers and costs too much.
The solid state laser people are catching up. The current output record is around 100 KW. This is enough to be marginally useful for anti-aircraft use. Around a megawatt, things start to get militarily interesting.
Cooling is a huge problem for the solid state devices, though. With the chemical lasers, most of the heat is dumped with the spent chemicals. For the solid state devices, the gear has to be cooled, and efficiency is only around 20%.
The purpose of this tool is war. So, yes.
According to as post on Wikipedia, each COIL burst produces enough energy in a five-second burst to power a typical American household for more than one hour
The purpose of this tool is war. So, yes.
We already have plenty weapons with lots of collateral damage and they're being used, that was never in dispute. The question was how can this be a weapon "with little to no collateral damage" if in fact the reflections do collateral damage. If we didn't care about colleteral we could just throw a nuke at it.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Wow, according to the article, the laser is supersonic. Good to know.
I was looking for a good place to crack a "Real Genius" joke. There's already a thread about popcorn... something about a "Real Genius" thought of that...
A mirror surface will harden the target, but even the best mirrors do not reflect all light and a combat laser can still burn a hole in it very fast.
Surprisingly, a mirror wouldn't work nearly as well as cheap glossy white paint.
Mirrors reflect (typically) 60-70% of the light that hits them, turning the rest into heat. Cheap, glossy, exterior-grade white paint often reflects in excess of 90% of the light back.
In other words, mirrors would turn about 4x as much of the light into heat as the white paint will. The difference is that mirrors reflect light without losing its coherency. White paint, on the other hand, just reflects the light in random directions.
Worried about teh lazers? Paint your tin foil hat white!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
No, permanent blinding weapons are illegal
Blinding weapons are banned by 1995 United Nations Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dazzler_(weapon)
http://www.icrc.org/ihl.nsf/0/49de65e1b0a201a7c125641f002d57af?OpenDocument
Did you read your own links? From the second:
Causing blindness is not a combat function of this weaponry; it's a side-effect of the other side trying to subvert the weapon. They were also not specifically designed to have such an effect. Their goal is to blow shit up from the air, with a particular emphasis on fired projectiles but probably used for vehicles as well (as per this example). In most cases there won't even be anybody around to get blinded.
A bullet through the eye can cause blindness too, that doesn't make it banned. Intent matters.
You're screwed if you're a ground target. On the other hand, a lot of laser systems (although not necessarily this one) are aimed at intercepting missiles. Missiles have more options...
First, a missile can spin. That help keeps the laser off one spot. Next is to introduce a wobble - difficult to do, although with modern control systems not completely impossible - that also keeps the laser hitting a varying spot. Lastly, if your rocket has a cryogenic fuel (i.e., LOX + LH2), you can pump your fuel through capillaries under the skin of your rocket before entering the rocket motor. That'll absorb whatever energy the laser does impart. Of course, that doesn't work with a ballistic missile after its ascent stage... but at that point you're hopefully relying on decoys.
A mirror surface will harden the target, but even the best mirrors do not reflect all light and a combat laser can still burn a hole in it very fast.
Any laser that can melt mirrors very quickly would self-destruct even faster unless its own mirrors were constantly changed. Well, I s'pose you'd only have to change the surface rather than the entire mirror. Either operation would be tricky to do precisely in field conditions. Also remember, the atmosphere itself is gonna tend to scatter that beam, so if you want to melt mirrors from a distance, your own are gonna have to get considerably hotter.
A decent reflective surface seems like it would be good enough to protect a building from this, although if the planes can also drop, say, rocks, that takes care of that. On a person, running around with a mirror would not do wonders for concealment. Personally, if I thought I was gonna be on the wrong end of a hurtin' laser, I'd light a smoky fire, kick up lots of dust, and/or wear thick layers of heat-resistant material like Kevlar while moving around a lot.
My company's developer had a side job as "computer support engineer" for this group a couple month ago (translate: 45/hr to configure software and as a human "fail-safe"). They actually did the first test fire a month or two back.
It was only half successful.
It did destroy the target which he described as a "basketball sized item" while traveling at ~450mph or whatever a C-130 cruises at (not supersonic). Unfortunately one of the chemicals has a ph of 17 and is stored at 2500 psi. When the tank developed a leak everyone had to don gas masks, move the cockpit and then make an emergency landing before it ate the plane. A full hazmat crew run by the company had to be flown in from Albuquerque to run decontamination.
It makes me think that perhaps if they just shot those chemicals rather than the laser it might be just as effective and quite a bit cheaper.
From WP:
The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) program is a US military program to mount a high energy laser damage weapon on an aircraft, initially the AC-130 gunship, for use against ground targets in urban or other areas where minimizing collateral damage is important. The laser will be a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL). It is expected to have a tactical range of approximately twenty kilometers and weigh about 5,000â"7,000 kg. This program is distinct from the Airborne Laser, which is a much larger system designed to destroy enemy missiles in the boost phase.
A great example is silver. In the very close UV, like 310 nm, it's completely transparent. Light goes thru it perfectly. by the time you get to Green light, it's over 90% effective at reflections. Good, somewhat expensive, white paint used as a reflectance standard is good between 250-2500 nm. The type of laser they have is about 1000 or so nm. Using frequency doublers you can make that high UV in 3 jumps and below the bottom of where the paint can reflect well. I've used such high powered lasers in Academia. Doublers are common.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
What international convention is the US a party to, that it doesn't follow? Specifically?
Firing at civilians is illegal too... but dropping a bomb on an enemy that is surrounded by a thousand civilians is perfectly fine.
Creating a blinding weapon is illegal. Creating a destructive weapon that may blind as an accidental side-effect is perfectly fine.
By 'perfectly fine', I mean within the terms of international agreements on the conduct of war.
Depends if the reflection deflects perfectly or if it bounces off a rounded angle and deforms. If it's rounded it will lose nearly all of it's power at distances exceeding "half the fucking planet".
How do you kill that which has no life?
I've not heard a valid example of the US violating it.
Do you consider general Taguba, who conducted investigation of Abu Ghraib valid source? According to him prisoner were raped among other things. Is it good enough example of violation for you? I also remember (not link this time, but should not be hard to find) of hooded prisoner attached to multiple wires. The whole scene looked like something from Frankenstein.
Remember, the Geneva conventions are primarily concerned with the treatment of uniformed members of national military forces (and includes definitions of such).
Whole 4th convention is about civilians. Most relevant here is article 5, talking about spies and saboteurs (or in American newspeak "illegal enemy combatants").
Direct quote: "In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be." Seems pretty clear, doesn't it?
It also is only in force when engaged in war with another state that is also bound by the convention.
Like Iraq which ratified it in 1956? Ah, I forgot: you just need to slap 'liberation' sticker on your invasion and it is ok.
Legally, at least; morally/politically is a different game, of course.
What is the problem? You just need to redefine 'morality', like 'torture' and 'war' got redefined.
After the ascent stage you're dealing with a vehicle designed to survive reentry. Somehow I doubt you're going to do much damage to it with a teeny little laser.
> No, permanent blinding weapons are illegal
Yes but please see "Article 3" in your link.
Article 3
Blinding as an incidental or collateral effect of the legitimate military employment of laser systems, including laser systems used against optical equipment, is not covered by the prohibition of this Protocol.
So if one of those common laser targeters or this super laser can blind you, they still comply since they weren't designed specifically to blind people, they come under "incidental or collateral effect".
You're just not supposed to:
"employ laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision"
So just blind people and say "Oops".
Close you missed the some key aspects of the article 5.
"Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity and, in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be."
A protected person detained as a spy or saboteur. Non uniformed terrorists do not fall under the "protected person" definition. So they are not protected by the GC.
Mirrors reflect (typically) 60-70% of the light that hits them, turning the rest into heat. Cheap, glossy, exterior-grade white paint often reflects in excess of 90% of the light back.
Finally, an explanation for the Stormtrooper armor design!
with remaining eye?
International conventions haven't prevented war, torture, genocide or other massive human rights abuses. They are the constructs of an intellectual class that has their heads in the sand until it is to late to prevent the very acts they claim to be preventing.
Boo, Fuckity, Hoo. War is SUPPOSED to be inhumane, SUPPOSED to be degrading, SUPPOSED to be horrible.
It is well that war is so terrible - otherwise we would grow too fond of it.
Robert E. Lee, Statement at the Battle of Fredericksburg (13th December 1862)
US-Confederate general (1807 - 1870)
All the people crying OMG WE HAVE INTERNATIONAL LAWS AGAINST DOING THIS AND THIS AND THIS are the kind of people who don't understand this fact. The more horrible war is, the less likely it will happen. The population of the west today just doesn't get that war is ugly, they've pacified themselves culturally to believe that war is NOT the ugly horrible thing it always was, and always will be, and seem to think that OMG A CIVILIAN DIED THIS IS AN OUTRAGEEEEEEEEEEEE is how you should respond to finding out 20 enemy fighters died...but 1 civilian did as well cause the enemy was hiding in a family's house. I don't really care that I'll get modded as flamebait/troll because this is the fact of life in western society. They've been pussified since WW2 and can't handle a real war. God forbid the chinese or russians ever decide to have a real war with another country, the citizenry of the west will collectively shit their pants and break down into tears at the 'atrocities' they'll hear about that happen in what a real war should/does look like.
Weapons like this actually make an ICBM strike *more* likely against the US. If conventional war were to break out between the US and a country like China, with neither party really wanting a nuclear escalation but reserving their nukes as a deterrent, they'd be afraid that if they lost the ability to effectively shoot down aircraft over their territory they'd also lose the ability to launch ICBM's in case of escalation. So, at the first sign of the US gaining air superiority, they'd go ahead and launch ICBM's.
Not really. First, this is the ATL. It is a different craft with a different mission. It is designed to take out targets on the ground.
Second, for us to take out China's missile, we would have to have multiples of these craft located deep inside of this countries AND all over the world. The reason is that China has a number of boomers and is building 1-2 new nuclear boomers EACH YEAR. In fact, they will surpass America's count in the next 2 years. As it is, China now has boomers patroling both the American Atlantic and Pacific seaboards as well as the Mexican gulf (Venezuela has begun quietly allowing them to have port calls). We also know that China has at least 10 boomers, and will surpass it within 4 years (more likely 2). In addition, to be able to take out all of China's sites with this would require us to be in every country that surrounds China, with multiple aircraft (and russia would require at least 4 to 8 of these). Think we can swing that? Neither does China. TO be honest, we will probable need a lot more. China appears to be building new nuclear warheads. They restarted their factory last decade. They started their build-up before we decided anything about the ABLs.
Finally, the ABL shooting horizontally will have a range of around 500-700. It it probable that it would have a range far shorter over china due to their pollution. In addition, this craft will become more ineffective on 2'nd and third round since dust would have been kicked into the air.
Neither the ATL nor the ABL will be a threat to China's missiles.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do yourself the favour of looking up which sections of the Geneva Conventions the USA is a signatory to. Then read those sections. Then come up with examples of us violating those sections.
Be aware, by the by, that we never signed on to the sections giving near-blanket immunity to guerrilla forces
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The laser itself needs several small laser-quality mirrors. The target would need a much larger quantity of the same mirrors, and in the same spectrum as the weapon. A plain bathroom mirror is not smooth enough to reflect that much without those imperfections absorbing a good bit of energy. If the laser really does use 'as much power as a household over an hour' then we are talking about 10kwh. 3.6E7 joules, over how ever large the surface area of the 'impact' point is, and you end up with a lot of heat in that 5 second burst.
Nope, that is definitely is going to take high quality mirrors to protect. For a moving target, say a rocket that is going to undergo high G acceleration, those mirrors will probably not survive launch. Other mobile targets, maybe. Buildings, well, putting meter tall neon letters on the roof saying 'this building is important' would be just as conspicuous. Mirrors, meet Predator. I think it has 500lbs of some iron that it would like you to meet.
Compared to a missile, this does little to no collateral damage, because most targets don't walk around wearing mirror-covered suits. Do you understand now?
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
"This thing can blind someone on the moon."
Yeah well the sun can blind me from the frickin' SUN.
"Yeah, those morons should've made their tanks from black holes. (Hint: if you can see it, it reflects light.)"
OK so according to you, something that can blind you after traveling millions upon millions of miles through space will also inevitably blind you upon reflecting off any visible surface? Just like, you know, looking outside during the day?
Thanks for letting me know I've been blind since the first time I looked out a window. I feel real silly wearing these glasses, since I apparently haven't been able to see at all for quite a while now.
You're a moron.
Let me get this straight... Are you telling me I have to modulate my shield frequency?
KHANNNNNNNN!
When was the last time you saw a person/vehicle/whatever having a mirror?
Pretty much every vehicle I've ever been in has at least one side mirror.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
The article says that the the ABL uses a COIL laser which has an output wavelength of 1.315 Âm, the wavelength of transition of atomic iodine. What reflects light well at that infrared wavelength? Gold. Yup, just plate your missile with gold and it might be able to survive hits from a laser like this. They probably use gold on the mirror(s) used to aim this laser. The reflectivity of gold at 1.315 microns is about 98%.
So if this really is a 1MW laser, then only 20kWatts of energy gets through. Plus, the beam diverges, so at a long distance the beam diameter might be something like 1meter. The USAF probably can't even run this laser for very long or else it will self destruct. So, 20kWatts of energy that is pulsed for a few seconds over a 1meter area? You can design a missile to withstand that. Just plate it with gold, and put on some aerodynamic heat sinks and/or shield and/or insulation.
"Uh, no, only Americans have convinced themselves that due to not having a war on their own soil in 150 years. Europeans (both West and East) are damn fucking well aware of how nasty and horrible war is."
The United States had war on its soil until 1890 (119 years ago), mass terrorism in 1993, 1995 and all out war in 2001. Or don't you remember the 3000 people dying back then?