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Laser Weapon Shoots Down Airplanes In Test

Posted by Soulskill on from the phasers-on-stun-good-luck-kirk-out dept.

airshowfan writes "Boeing's directed-energy weapons (a.k.a. frickin' laser beams) have been getting some attention lately. The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is a C-130 that famously burned a hole through a car's hood, and the YAL-1 AirBorne Laser is a 747 that shoots a laser from its nose that is powerful enough to bring down an ICBM. But even cooler is the Mobile Active Targeting Resource for Integrated eXperiments (MATRIX), a laser that is mounted on a truck (which probably costs less than a 747, but who knows) and that can shoot down small aircraft, as shown in the picture on this article. (The Laser Avenger supposedly also has this capability). We live in the future!"

3 of 627 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Shiny things? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    Let's get that out of the way.

    Ignoring the fact that you can't make an object shiny enough, because there'll always be a thin layer of dust, crud, or even oxides on the surface...

    ...if you dump enough energy into the air near an infinitely-shiny object to explosively transform the nearby air into a plasma, the shiny object still probably gets a big dent in it. Probably even more so if the shiny object is supersonic.

  2. Re:Shiny things? by mea37 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Optical vs. radio is just a choice of wavelengths. Whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can be used to detect you. Whatever wavelength you choose to be "not shiny", can be used to destroy you.

    I wish GP hadn't bothered to mention the problem of stealth, because it's diverting attention from the point that matters - no material of any sort can be kept sufficiently reflective under combat conditions that the laser wouldn't destroy it. So really, even whatever wavelength you pick to be shiny, can still be used to destroy you.

  3. Re:or we start treating it like a war by vertinox · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just a word about Afghanistan...

    The Soviets tried invading it like WWII and still lost.

    They had no qualms about carpet bombing villages or shelling it ground level. They would even storm them with full tank brigades.

    They would execute suspected guerrillas on the spot without question.

    They still lost that war.

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)