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Laser Weapon Shoots Down Airplanes In Test
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!"
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...
So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?
Yeah, but if you make your plane shiny and reflective, you make it a lot easier to target with other weapons, like missiles.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
So when do our soldiers get to stop dying because of homemade street bombs?
When we stop invading other countries?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Apparently they capture the heat generated by the server as it gets slashdotted to recharge the laser. Keep clicking the links lads, it's your patriotic duty.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Unless you have a gigantic Jiffypop skillet in the foyer! Then it's popcorn for everybody! (At least until the Mythbusters go and ruin my fun.)
Wouldn't making your plane or missile shiny / reflective defeat these things pretty easily?
The answer is no, because no shiny surface has 100% reflectivity (your bathroom mirror probably tops out at around 85%): some of the light will always penetrate to the base layer, and if the surface is being hit by a megawatt weaponized laser, it'll just burn straight through.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
The goal for the 747-mounted laser is to shoot down missiles on the way up (when they are over bad guys) versus on the way down (like the Patriot missile). That's why it's on a plane, not a truck.
Well, the fact that they are over the people who just launched the missle is a side benefit, and doesn't really factor into why they are shooting it at that stage.
In the primary phase, the missile is pretty limited in what it can do. It has to gain altitude and speed, and really isn't/can't be built to perform evasion at that point. Combined with the fact that the earlier you hit it, the more combustible it actually is.
On the way down, what you are faced with is a VERY fast moving object (assuming you don't target the countermeasures) that has already demonstrated that it can resist the high temperatures of re-entry and consists of very little in the way of combustible materials. It can also employ a variety of measures to alter its trajectory (more than on the way up).
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well, that's easy... just attach 30 bathroom mirrors IN SERIES. that would reduce it it 1% of the original.
-- I was raised on the command line, bitch
Czarangelus...
I always wondered where you would pop up after you were banned on Fark. (A pretty impressive feat in its own right). Needless to say, you certainly haven't stopped with the flamebait.
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Once everybody dies, there will be no more evil. Problem solved.
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.
So, a Beowulf cluster of bathroom mirrors, then?
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Really? We couldn't have won WW2 under the rules we use now? What new rules are those, exactly? Because, you know, the phrase "people no longer have the stomach to do what needs to be done" is pretty scary sounding. What exactly did we have the stomach for then that we don't now? Nuclear bombs?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Will will stop invading when they promise to stop trying things like hijacking planes and flying them into really tall buildings to kill a few thousand civilians.
What country were those hijackers from, again?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
instead of a police action where every activity is on film or subject to investigation.
Well, the obvious difference is that the Nazis, Italians, and Japanese were the national leaders of their countries. Now we are not at war with Iraq or Afghanistan, we are working with the Iraqi and Anghani governments against irregulars within their borders. You fight these battles two very different ways.
What do you suggest we do differently?
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Carpet bombing industrial (ie, population) centers. The fact that we don't anymore has more to do with the availability of precision bombs than development of new ethics.
What industrial centers? Afghanistan is probably the poorest country on Earth. If it's not #1 then it's certainly in the top ten. I don't think mass bombardment of "industrial centers" is going to have much effect on an enemy whose primary weapons are AK-47s and homemade bombs.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Applying the methods used to win WW2 to the operations in Afghanistan or Iraq wouldn't end the insurgency in either place.
It wouldn't hurt. In WW2 we subjected enemies who declined to follow the laws of war to summary execution on the battlefield. Read what happened to the German soldiers who fought behind the line under a false flag during the Battle of the Bulge. It was even worse in the Pacific theater -- the Japanese committed so many war crimes under the cover of white flags (perfidy) that our troops stopped attempting to take prisoners and just shot "surrendering" Japanese troops on the spot.
The tactics of WW2 (mass bombardment, armored warfare, submarine warfare, etc) aren't very relevant here but we could certainly learn a thing or two from the way the Greatest Generation behaved on the battlefield. Tying one hand behind our backs and following the rules when our enemies refuse to do the same is extremely foolhardy. You don't fight fair -- you fight to win. We used to understand that. Our enemies still do.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Thats a bit like a Cleveland Borwns fan saying "Our record wouldnt suck so much if we played by NBA rules".
Until the terrorists start fielding standing armies and holding ground, I will continue to ignore anyone who compares todays conflicts to World War 2. Eexcept to make snyde comments, of course.
With the world economy in the toilet, all-time record in unemployment, massive desertification, energy shortage, more than 1 billion starving, epidemics of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, global warming, what we really really need is the ultimate super cool weapon.
Not that I believe your premise, but what better time to have a superweapon than when other countries start getting desperate enough to attack?
I assure you - the Cleveland Browns would still suck if they played by NBA rules. They could fuck up a game of Calvinball.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
A couple comments here are focusing on stealth, that's not the big question.
There is not a single US Gen 2+ stealth aircraft engaged in Iraq/Afghanistan. F-117s have been retired, B-2 are not needed. The aircraft over there are relying on a variety of other IR countermeasures (tactics/flares/directed IR) to defeat threats.
TFA is talking about shooting down UAVs, which pose a unique problem because they are very small and can be made out of low-tech composite stealth materials like frickin balsa wood. That, combined with a naturally low IR signature because of their low performance envelope, make it hard to target then with traditional guided weapons (IR and Radar guided).
The key question, which TFA avoided giving details about, is what range they are talking about. If the range is = a 25mm chain gun, this system has little value yet, as if you can find it and track it, a turreted chain gun is already very deadly, the ballistics models aren't that hard to compute. But those weapons are also very easy to fly above.
If this laser has a range of, say, 8 miles (40,000-ish feet), then things could get interesting. Data that would also be important is how long the laser needs to stay on target, and how small the beam is. If the beam is 1" wide, and must stay on the same spot for 1/2 a second, it could be defeated by old-fashioned 'jinking' which would move the beam around and diffuse the heat. But if it's 1/100 second, then again, it's really deadly.
Finally (and then I'm done), this laser is really cool, but must be guided by something... at 40,000 feet (or at night), you'll need something better than a Mk 1 eyeball to find and track the target accurately enough, just like you do today, and that's where countermeasures could be applied.
But a really good EO/IR guidance system that can find/track targets up to 40,000 feet on a clear day at night and a laser that can kill in 1/100" second (or close), and you've got a game-changing technology, forcing aircraft to hope for cloudy days.
You might want to talk to the residents of Dresden circa 1945. While the war in Europe was not yet over, it wasn't far from completion, and most of the reasoning for bombing it look to have been retrospective and stretched. Even Churchill, rarely one to shy away from attacking the enemy to advance even small objectives, distanced himself from it after he realized what the effects were.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
It wouldn't hurt.
Yes, yes it would. It would hurt tremendously. It has hurt tremendously to the extent that we've used them.
The tactics of WW2 (mass bombardment, armored warfare, submarine warfare, etc) aren't very relevant here but we could certainly learn a thing or two from the way the Greatest Generation behaved on the battlefield. Tying one hand behind our backs and following the rules when our enemies refuse to do the same is extremely foolhardy. You don't fight fair -- you fight to win. We used to understand that. Our enemies still do.
What you need to understand is that "win" means different things in different conflicts, and the "win" in state-vs-state warfare like WWII is monumentally different than "win" in a counter-insurgency nation-building conflict like we are now engaged in. Our enemies understand this, but many still don't understand that even though it already bit us in the ass in Vietnam, then again in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because they refuse to see that these wars are not just different from WWII tactically, but in their fundamental objectives.
To fight an insurgency you need intelligence from the locals. To get intelligence from the locals, they need to be on your side. For them to be on your side, you do need to fight "fair". Refusing to take prisoners, shooting anyone who looks like they might be an insurgent, "rigorously interrogating" suspected insurgents, being cavalier about "collateral damage" -- all these things lose the support of the locals, and thus cause us to lose the war.
Fighting to win? You're talking about fighting to lose. The rules of engagement that our soldiers abide by are critical to ensuring that we can succeed. Does "tying one hand behind our backs" make it hard to succeed? Absolutely, but without that it would be impossible to succeed. Don't like fighting wars where you must tie one hand behind your back to have a hope of winning? Well maybe you shouldn't get into that kind of war. There's another lesson you should learn.
The enemies of Democracy are
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)
The carpet bombing and artillery shelling of WWII had two effects. First it did reduce the ability to wage war through the destruction of industrial facilities. Also, since we were bombing the living crap (killing) civilians in their homes, it broke the will to fight of the civilian population. We tend not to do that anymore, so we are ignoring a major component of how wars are won due to us wishing it wasn't true.