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Warships May Get Lasers For Close-In Defense
King Louie writes "Raytheon and the US Navy have successfully tested a ship-borne laser capable of shooting down aircraft. Video at the link shows the 32-kilowatt solid-state laser shooting down an unmanned aerial vehicle. The technology is apparently mature enough to be deployed as part of ships' short-range missile defenses, a role currently filled by the Basic Point Defense Missile System (based on the Sea Sparrow missile) and the Close-In Weapons System (based on a 20mm Gatling gun)."
Is it shark-mountable?
Does the price include the shark handlers?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
no robo sharks!
The best part is the Siemens Wind Energy Advertisment before the video. Apparently a with a few Windmills and a laser. Pew, Pew, Pew, we can finally have a green war!
You're being too literal. It could be used for anti-missile defense.
20 miles isn't far for a 32 megawatt laser I think. 32 megawatts is a lot.
The article says kilowatts.
>> And what if it's a cloudy day?
Crank up Dark Side of the Moon and spark one?
32 kW, not MW, thats kilowatt, not megawatt.
Fricken ships! With Frickin laser beams!
Pointing lasers at aircraft might get the navy arrested.
Is this thing single use? Could we string 10 of these together and use it for laser launch vehicles out in the middle of the pacific?
There are numerous advantages to using lasers instead of traditional weapons:
*) Longer range
*) Better accuracy
*) Unlimited ammunition
*) No pollution from spent weapons
Man the laser-harpoons!
Seems like they had to hold the laser on the target for a long time until it worked. If you can keep a laser beam on target that long, you might as well use the laser to guide an effective, high explosive round to it.
As a military contractor, I encourage the addition of new systems onto NATO ships.
As a Mechwarrior fan, I say bring on the Clan-LAMS. 1d6 heat?
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
FTFS:
"The technology is apparently mature enough to be deployed as part of ships' short-range missile defenses"
Name...That...Autocomplete!
How long was I asleep? TFS sounds like it could be properly used to discuss weapons systems of interstellar fighters.
...shows the 32-megawatt solid-state laser...
From TFA:
...which is made up of six solid-state lasers with an output of 32 kilowatts that simultaneously focus on a target.
As my stat mech professor once said, "but hey, what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?"
Wouldn't fog refract the laser beam and make this useless? It's foggy often at sea.
And what if it's a cloudy day?
Lots of steam?
All I can picture is one of the only good parts of Star Wars Episode 3: the opening battle where star destroyers and CIS ships are broadsiding each other with lasers.
Nice. So, we don't have money for the unemployed, for the ill, or even for veterans benefits, but we can afford laser systems to shoot down planes for imaginary invasions.
Seventy percent of the defense industry is a private set of corporations whose economic incentive is to discover (or invent) threats, and then sell the government the contract to fight this imaginary enemy. Sounds like a nice recipe for solutions that exacerbate the underlying problems, and not by accident.
I don't know much about lasers so perhaps someone can answer this:
If I were to make a missile/plane/uav with a chrome coating, something mirror-like and reflective, would the laser still work?
~Syberz
Red lasers on one side, blue lasers on the other. I keep forgetting which is which...
Eh, megawatt, kilowatt, what's an order of magnitude or 3? We're talking lasers here.
Presumably, the reason for replacing 20mm Gatling guns with lasers is, ultimately, about missiles. 20mm DU rounds, in quantity, move pretty fast compared to aircraft; but substantially less fast than one would like compared to decent missiles. Photons, while they lack the punch, are much zippier...
Now, since the only reason to adopt this(no doubt more expensive and power hungry) system is that offers hope against missiles, why testing against UAVs? Well, if I were an optimist, I would say that this is just one of the tests in the development process. If I were a pessimist, I would say that the fine folks at Raytheon are following in the time-honored tradition of anti-missile systems, and responding to the fact that the problem is hard by moving the goalposts until their system is up to the "task"...
Hopefully, well before deployment, it will see proper "red team"/"green team" type testing, where the opposing force, made up of the most devious and talented people at their disposal, is free to try every sneaky, optically confusing, silver plated, ablative armor protected, etc. hypothetical near future threat that they can come up with against the system. A very valuable learning exercise....
One of the biggest concerns is that in a war with China or North Korea they would swarm our aircraft carriers with airplanes and missiles. Developing something like this to counter the asymmetric warfare would be huge.
"What you do is stand off 20 miles and shoot a missile at the ship.
So an anti-plane laser is not all that useful. And what if it's a cloudy day?"
No chance the Navy envisioned those conditions as a possibility, nope, none. Falkland Islands, where are they?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
FTFY
- it takes 10 to 30 seconds to burn a hole,
- can't handle more then one aircraft at the same time (if they had more power on board they would have way more then 32kW beam),
- easy to target - follow the light to the slow moving ship,
- you need atomic energy on board to drive it.
If they have to defend against Anti-Ship Missles; perhaps lasers can do a better job of defending against 20 missiles coming in at mach 2.5.
Can it make popcorn?
I see a great need for a UAV-mounted Jiffy Pop module.
It is a moral imperative.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Oh well, so use lightweight ablative coating. With the typical times of flybys / warning before missile hit, that shouldn't be much of a problem. For some bonus points, make the coating release a barrier (in whatever form - aerosol, plasma, who cares as long as it works)
Real bonus points: add retroreflectors; they might work only for a short time and reflect only a small part of incoming radiation...but there's bound to be something delicate on the other end. For that matter - how hard millions of toy balloons with small retro- and ordinary reflectors scattered in the area can be?..."99 Luftabaloons" might have been prophetic, in a way ;)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Chinese have developed and are testing the Dong Feng 21D missile, capable of accurately targeting and hitting a moving navy Aircraft Carrier from 2000 miles away. US experts are scared. Since capabilities of this missile are not fully known to US Navy, their strategy to combat it currently is SM-3 interceptor rockets launched from Aegis destroyers and cruisers that escort Aircraft Carriers.
Problem with that is that the reloading capacity of these Aegis equipped ships isn't fast enough to protect against a volley of Dong Feng 21Ds. So they are pretty much screwed. Currently Aircraft Carriers are the most effective way of projecting current US air superiority anywhere in the world. Imagine the implications of a bunch of US carriers being sunk.
This laser defense system may be Navy's answer to this new missile threat.
This offers far less hope against missile swarms and fast cruise missiles then lead-spewing kinetic weapons. With this you need to affect a single point on the missile from the front for quite some time to get results. If it's a fast cruise missile with mach3-mach5 terminal approach, laser is useless - it simply won't have enough time to do damage. So is kinetic CIWS. Missile based CIWS has a chance as it can engage at decent range and score a one shot kill.
Against swarms, this is even worse. You have to burn every individual missile, retarget and burn next one. Even if by some stroke of luck you succeed in this titanic task and can get missile terminated in say 3 seconds of burning it (completely impossible with laser as weak in tests), all that opponent needs to do to counter it is to program missile to go into a spin in terminal stage, making it impossible to focus at a single point of the missile. Or install a high-albedo tip. Or just attack in a stormy weather where laser energy will dissipate into water droplets long before it hits the missile.
Kinetic CIWS like phalanx/kashtan on the other hand actually have a decent chance of shooting slow and small missiles of this kind down, as they can usually kill a missile in one-two hits and are largely unaffected by weather conditions. Missile CIWS are better, but tend to get overloaded with sheer numbers.
All in all, this is just a PR stunt to show US taxpayers that their money is spent on yet another hollywood-style toy with little room for real life applications. This is a weapon for space age and space warfare where weather does not exist and laser can be effective at far greater ranges.
...for protective eyewear.
Also:
"We have enemy contact, everybody put on your shadesss..."
I am assuming the sensor package on the missile will be pointed toward the ship it is supposed to attack. So painting a mirrored surface on the missile may not help the missile's sensor package.
In addition the laser doesn't need to destroy the missile. It only needs to destroy enough of the missile so that it falls out of the sky.
Architectural plans are like computer source code with a couple of differences: You only compile once.
Mods, do you so easily fall for broken window fallacy?
Hey, I've got an idea, let's just give money to groups who say that what they do will get rid of the probem of unemployed / undesirables. One calling their product "Soylent Green" seems legit.
One that hath name thou can not otter
"Swarm[ing] our aircraft carriers with airplanes and missiles" is NOT "asymmetric" warfare. That is your basic nation to nation warfare, where someone has the guts and sense of honor to fight in compliance with the rules of the Geneva Convention. Asymmetric warfare would be someone floating a civilian boat up the the warship and setting off a suicide bomb. Google "USS Cole (DDG 67) on October 12, 2000" for an example.
This might be useful against drone attacks in small numbers, but the recharge rate between firings may limit it to very small numbers on days when the attacking missile, drone, or converted suicide Chinese aircraft (Taiwan says they have many hundreds of thousands aimed at them) are flying in a straight pattern on a clear day where you have clear line of sight.
In other words, most of the time it won't work against a large-scale planned assault mixed in with planes piloted by humans, or even human-operated drones (pretty cheap).
But it might be useful against terrorist attacks and small rogue nations like Burma.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If it takes 15 seconds to knock down an unhardened target in perfect conditions, then nice science project, but you guys have still got work to do.
Off the top of my head,
a) Reflective surfaces
b) dispersing reflective particles from the aircraft as soon as a laser is detected
c) ditto, thick smoke
d) attack when it's raining
Add any of these, and it might take 1 minutes to bring down a bad guy,
How far will a missile travel in 1 minute at (how fast is a ship to ship missile any how ?)
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In other news, there appears to be a curious increase in the density of sharks near US Navy based locations. It is unknown whether the sharks are being coerced to these hot spots, or whether they are gathering from their own free will, but some of the sharks appear to exhibit some kind of a 'metal saddle' (for want of a better description) over their backs, almost like as if something were meant to, y'know, be attached to it. A spokesman was not available for further comment.
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That isn't really "asymmetric" in the usual sense. It would be two conventional army/navy/air force units hitting each other with the weapons of the day. Totally standard nation state stuff. Now, that said, it might be that such an encounter would be, for America's much prized and oh-so-very-expensive aircraft carriers, the equivalent of what happened to Battleships during WWII(where it was demonstrated, repeatedly, that the heaviest naval guns couldn't match the range of bombers and fighter/bombers, and that mounting a few perfunctory AA guns on your battleship couldn't do jack about that fact)... A few battleships survive as curiosities, or as comparatively cheap ways of bombarding basically supine near-shore targets; but they are basically all scrap, now.
An advance in missile technology that takes missiles well out of the targeting ability of phalanx guns could do the same for aircraft carriers, which would sort of demote the US navy from "scary" to "eh" in a few hours... Hence, presumably, the interest in lasers and railguns and suchlike exotic ultra-high-velocity stuff.
The more "asymmetric" possibility of anti-ship missiles would be that, if they can be built into suitably rugged and easy to use one-time-use packages, programmed just to hit the biggest ship in range, or the one closest to the direction it was pointed, when used, you open up all kinds of fascinating capabilities for whatever ragged non-state-actors you are using as puppets at the moment.... Missiles are more expensive than artillery; if you are going to be shooting lots and lots of them; but offer greater portability and one-time punch....
If, for instance, anti-ship missiles, in a package large enough to crack a modern warship at least enough to require it to return to port for repair(and to cook off the onboard munitions, if lucky) and small enough to transport on a civilian truck or smallish boat, pretty much every modern navy in the world would have to triple the onboard laundry facilities to deal with all the shitting themselves... Near land, any dinky little shack with a seaward-facing window could pop a missile at any second. At sea, any civilian fishing boat in range is a potential threat(but you aren't allowed to just butcher them all). One of those fiberglass mini-subs that they use for drug running, which probably peanuts for a radar signature and can just quietly move around on electric engines, could pop up and fire at any moment. It would get ugly...
A 32 MW laser would be a fine alternative to a gatling gun - 32 MW is a lot of power, you don't need to paint a single spot on an incoming missile. The laser in the video was just a few kW, and so took several seconds to kill a drone. The gatling guns also kill one threat at a time, and it takes time to get a few rouns into an incoming missile (the first few rounds usually miss, the gun tracks both rounds an missile on RADAR and corrects fire until it gets it right), and once you do the remains are still a serious threat that will cause real damage and casualties. A laser has a lot more potential to cause a catastrophic kill of the missile, where the remains aren't nearly as threatening (and all the fuel is gone) when the ship is hit.
But gatling guns deal with threats that make it past the missiles, and the advantage of the Sea-Sparrow-based defenses is you can launch all your counter-missiles rapidly against many incoming threats at once, at medium range. A laser cannon might grow into that role, but it would be much harder (and have enormous power demands, but then we do need to protect ships with nuclear power, so maybe that's OK).
The other nice advantage of a solid-state laser is that it's not used up after one engangement. The gatling guns require significant service after minimal use. Can the Sea Sparrow-based CIWS can be "re-stocked" at sea?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
"Yeah. Too bad, though, since dropping gravity bombs from planes had its heyday during 1935 to 1955."
There have been more (tonnage) dropped since 1955 than in the 2 decades you mentioned. (And thas even discounting JDAM's and laser guided gravity bombs. Of course nearly all of it was dropped by US or 'Allied' planes.
"Nobody's tried doing that for a long long time."
Not against the US navy, since it has always had air superiority since after the Vietnam war. However The Royal Navy suffered many hits during tthe Falklands war in 82. Only one warship was sunk by an exocet missile.
"What you do is stand off 20 miles and shoot a missile at the ship"
Hopefully the laser can hit the missile too. But I doubt anyone could get within 20 miles of a carrier battlegroup if it was in open water.
Having success against targeting drone is one thing, but up against the living?
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Really? do they really think we all believe the Navy/Raytheon has the same video capability as say, 1957?
Black and white splotchy jerky dropped frames....really, are the lemmings really that gullible?
Come on now, my phone takes better video then that....
Why am I betting dollars to doughnuts that was highly doctored to fuzz out details, considering camera tech these days, it would be exceedingly difficult to make a video that bad with out significant digital intervention.
Tweet, tweet, all id10t's out of the gene pool, open swim is over.
Now we just need a forward-firing wave motion gun...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
If the missile is moving at mach 5, it really doesn't matter if the bullet is stationary or at mach 1, most of the KE is supplied by the missile itself.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
This laser is 32kW, and it's already pushing the limits of solid state laser tech. 32MW laser is nowhere in sight for several decades, unless we make major breakthroughs in materials needed, not to even talk about power draw, which for current laser at 20% efficiency would be around 160MW for your suggested 32MW laser. And with increased power, the efficiency of laser installation is likely to decrease significantly.
You're gonna have some pretty hardcore power cabling, cooling system and a nuclear reactor to power that kind of a thing, not to even mention the epic size of a weapon. Cooling system alone will probably be bigger then a modern missile silo.
This replacing a small, localized and largely autonomous system that performs better in most conditions? I think not.
Comparing this to Sea Sparrows or any other ship based medium range SAM in any way other then augmentation is just plain foolish anyway. This caps at a few kilometers, depending on weather. It's a potential kinetic CIWS replacement (i.e. phalanx). It's in no way even a contender for SAM CIWS replacement. Not even because the tech isn't ready, but because the tech is unsuitable by default. Weather and fact that Earth is a sphere will make sure of this.
"It was designed to use in space. However, if you feel we should learn to crawl before we walk that's okay too." - Prof Jerry Hathaway
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Excellent point - just like this?
Obi-Wan: "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were sudden
All you'd need is a big spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
This laser has 32 kW of power, not 32 MW. The beam just dissipates into nothingness (due to the atmosphere) at large ranges.
20 miles isn't far for a 32 megawatt laser I think. 32 megawatts is a lot.
But not quite as much as 1.21 GIGAWATTS!
I was going to make a Four Tops reference but thought better of if because the young people here never heard... oh shit.
Free Martian Whores!
wouldn't that be anti-missile offense?
Next, as a former soldier myself, I can tell you that we are very appreciative of the best equipment money can buy. You know, because it saves our lives and all. I figure that paying for that is very least I and the rest of the tax payers can do for those that are willing to lay down their lives so you can complain about it freely.
First of all, I'm not trying to denigrate anyone's service. I know many people feel that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are justified, and I blame myself as much as I blame the politicians and businessmen who exploit our armed forces for their own goals and benefits.
But what if you had been asked to perform your duty to your country by educating poor children (in foreign lands or at home), or to help build roads or work with communities to reduce drug problems, mentor troubled teens, or become a surgeon and work for a lower wage in a government hospital?
It seems odd to me that the same people who think using force and violence to impose our will on foreign nationals - and putting their own life at risk in the process - is patriotic, while any of the previous paragraph gets relabeled as communism or some other misnomer. A battlefield medic is a hero, while a government paid surgeon would be considered incompetent, even though they are the same thing. The whole thing seems nonsensical to me.
Why can't the pulse compression technology that's used for lasic lasers be used for military lasers?
If the problem is painting the same spot on a missile for a second or so, wouldn't it be a lot easier if a 0.1 second pulse is compressed down to a femtosecond so all the energy put into the laser over the course of 0.1 seconds is delivered in 0.000000000000001 seconds?
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Looked mroe like someone holding a magnifying glass on a model airplane. Where's the red flash of light? Where's the cool explosion in slow motion??
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First laser-beam to only go 88 mph.
"There ought to be limits to freedom." -George W. Bush
Actually, I was thinking that reason for deploying such a system would be the lack of down-range damage from falling 20mm shells. As all that lead needs to come down somewhere, coastal towns and nearby ships could easily be damaged by it.
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I guess they better hope its not raining when war breaks out...
...a phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range myself.
For the record, gatling CIWS systems like kashtan and phalanx have muzzle velocity at around mach3, which even with slowdown caused by drag, means that they will be at least at mach 2 at impact point.
And when two metallic objects collide at mach6-mach7, there isn't going to be much problem with lack of mass. Kinetic energy formula is still 1/2mv^2, and v is going to be pretty crazy.
Payload. Much of energy is wasted as such lasers have very low efficiency. You will have to dissipate around 4-5 times the energy you get on laser's focus around the laser itself as waste heat. When it's lasik, you have nice and low power ratings which can be cooled easily. When it comes to large powerful lasers, it is simply not doable with current materials. Your installation will simply melt down or even vaporise itself if you have to output the energy needed to burn through metal in that kind of a small time window.
Wasn't the Rolling Airframe Missle supposed to replace the Phalanx? It's sidewinder based, can work in the same physical constraints as Phalanx, has over twice the engagement range, has a much higher probability of first shot kill, and given the ammo limits of the phalanx system, the larger magazined RAM systems can engage more targets in sequence than Phalanx before needing to be reloaded. Reloading them is also, supposedly, a faster procedure.
At present, the typical USN cruiser/destroyer has a three ring defensive system
Long range) SM-3 multi-purpose SAMs capable of intercepting aircraft, missles and large drones
Medium range) Radar directed deck gun fire (inaccurate, but not useless), phalanx, or RAM
Short) Blooming chaff launchers and jamming systems
If this laser can cycle targets at least as fast as phalanx, and can kill a target at least as fast as phalanx, it's an improvement over what we've got already. I suspect that they'll increase the strength of the laser over time, at least doubling or quadrupling it before the final version is deployed. If they increase the efficiency over time as well, it won't be a huge power hog either.
Phalanx was great for it's day. It was the perfect answer to the large supersonic and regular subsonic ASMs that our enemies were deploying at the time. It had it's limitations as any CIWS will in that it consumed lots of ammo, and couldn't actively engage targets for very long before it needed to be reloaded. Then, ASMs became evasive and somewhat smart as well as picking up more speed. This neccessitated engaging them at a more distant range. That precipitated the develpment of the RAM. IT has about twice the effective range of Phalanx. It's payload is more lethal. It can correct it's course mid flight. This makes it much more likely to hit on the first shot.
to me, for this to be useful for this role, it needs to better the RAM in every way.
And what if it's a cloudy day?
Then they use different weapons?
Did you think they were going to scrap all existing weapons and replace them with this thing?
Actually, TFA says it's 6x32kW lasers that all focus on the target at once.
Another thing to consider is that there IS a virtually unlimited pollution free (sort-of) power source on some of the Navy's larger vessels. It is of course the nuclear reactors on the big carriers (and maybe some of the cruisers?). I can't imagine that the power source capable of pushing a close to 100,000 ton ship through the ocean at 40 knots is going to have trouble powering a few measly lasers (either Kw or Mw). Even if it causes the ship to slow down a bit, that would hardly seem to make a difference to a missile coming in at Mach 5.
I believe that this is one of the justifications the Navy has used to making more "electric" ships where even in smaller vessels the propeller is not driven directly by the engine. Instead there is a gas turbine that runs a generator which then powers electric motors. In addition to thus being able to use the propulsive power to run electrically powered weapons (not just lasers, think rail guns), the power is also storable in batteries allowing for surges and the ability to run more quietly. There is even the possibility of more exotic propulsion systems being used (magnetohydrodynamics? the "crawler" in the movie "The Hunt for Red October"). Another benefit is that this power train, like a hybrid car, is more energy efficient (although it might be more picky about fuel). There are other applications made possible if boats are electrically powered (such as being possible electric generators for temporary onshore encampments much as like you can use a hybrid to light your house during a black-out) but you get the picture.
So, if in fact, the Navy will be using electrically powered lasers (free-electron?) the infrastructure should already be in place. In fact, one other intriguing possibly is the placement of such weapons on the (nuclear powered) fast attack submarines defending each carrier group. Not only could they provide another "picket line" defense that the enemy could not observe; they might be able to fire their lasers while remaining largely submerged by using the optics already present in the periscope. Finally, if these are free-electron lasers and thus tunable to blue-green wavelengths; they could conceivably be used as u
nderwater defensive weapons eithe-r by directly detonating $@incoming torpedos (or even Russia's rumored underwater supercavitating "rockets") or -(,by "jamming" the hom
ing sonar by $@/disrupting the acoustic environment through cavitation (boiling) and other effects. Of course if any of these more spec:@"'vulative ideas had an
y credence to them, it is highly unli!?.kely that this information would be allowe:);d to be posted on the Inter...
It's a potential kinetic CIWS replacement (i.e. phalanx)
Isn't Phalanx already slated to be replaced by the rolling airframe missile?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
An advance in missile technology that takes missiles well out of the targeting ability of phalanx guns could do the same for aircraft carriers, which would sort of demote the US navy from "scary" to "eh" in a few hours
You still have to find the carrier before you can engage it. Once you've found it you have to get close enough to launch your missiles without being destroyed by the defensive fighters and/or SAMs from the escorting ships. Neither one of these are easy tasks.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You got the Mirror Shield! You can now deflect enemy projectiles and LASERS. Link wins.
In North Korea at least, it would likely be US on their shores, supporting a South Korean army. At that point, North Korea has however many planes they have on land vs our 90-planes-per-carrier. If they can throw enough crop dusters at the ships, the could exhaust their defenses.
In China, there is really no doubt that our 10 supercarriers would not be able to hold off a ground-based air assault. We'd need to establish solid restocking lines across the pacific, which kind of defeats the purpose of aircraft carriers that self-power for 20 years.
So in that way, used offensively (or in support of an ally), a naval attack on land is asymmetric. The volume of land-based weaponry helps counter the effectiveness of our 4.5 billion dollar carriers.
Also, I have to wonder if a laser system like this might be effective at shooting down enemies that have things like Phalanx systems. We don't have conventional defenses yet for lasers (at least, not that we're talking about), and the nimblist Nimitz moves slower than my electric bicycle. If you can get effective range beyond a traditional uranium shell-based system, you could get within range to take out those defenses, then pound with traditional missile projectiles.
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By coincidence, this is the same as the food energy in two Big Macs.
The McPhalanx Happy Meal?
Would you like the target fried with that? *arms LASER*
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
32kW is well within the capability of relatively small diesel generators. Any reasonably sized military vessel could mount several of these if desired.
They are STILL using sea sparrows? omg. Back in 1982 we fired 5 sea sparrows and of the 5 2 did not launch, 2 want completely off course and the other one missed. NOT exactly a working tech. Plus in 82 we were firing missles from the 60's. Well they do not work. We were then fitted with a Phalanx system which is a R2D2 looking thing that is totally awesome. But this was what, 28 years ago and they are STILL using sea sparrows? Wow I feel sorry for the squids on those boats if they ever need them.
But, the REAL question is, am I immature enough to deploy the technology as part of my cubicle's short range coworker defenses?
Why yes, yes I am.
Isn't this laser going to produce lots of instant retina frying reflections from the target that are going to play randomly over anything nearby? If a 250mw laser is a serious blinding hazard a 32kw laser must be a much more serious problem even after the reflections have bounced off several reflective surfaces.
Input error. Replace user and press any key to continue.
ahahah.. 'the guts and sense of honor'
Most of the governments and NGO's around the world that the US strangles for resources are not capable of this normal nation to nation warfare and fighting the US military head on makes about as much sense as regimental soldiers standing around waiting for the order to shoot, while getting shot.
mediocrity rules, man
While energy weapons are gosh-wow sexy, their effects depend on maintaining the beam on the incoming missile for some undetermined length of time, until it either ignites the fuel or destroys the guidance systems. As modern ship-killer missiles tend to be supersonic, keeping the beam focused on a particular spot on an incoming missile is far from trivial, and of course will vary from missie to missile, so the defensive sytems have even more variables to account for. Phalanx and other gun systems use radar to track the incoming missile as well as the stream of outgoing rounds, and adjusts the aim until the tracks intersect.
Another problem is that destroying the missile's guidance system alone won't cut it. If it's already locked in the terminal phase chances are it will be blind, but still hit the target. This is the major reason that CIWS tend to use multi-barrel cannon with extremely high rates of fire (20mm/6,000 rounds per minute in the case of Phalanx, 30mm/4,000 rpm in the Dutch Goalkeeper system, which is built around the gun used in the A-10 aircraft). The intention is to cause as much structural damage to the incoming missile as possible, either destroying it or rendering it incapable of remaining on course, and with a missile like the SS-N-19 Shipwreck, which masses 7,000 kg and travels at Mach 2.5, even if the guidance systems and warhead are nullified, impact, even from large fragments, can still cause catastrophic damage to the defending vessel.
Then there's the energy requirements of a powerful laser, along with the transmission and control systems, massive cabling, fire-suppression, safety etc., versus self-contained units like Phalanx or Goalkeeper which basically just plug into a hole in the deck (oversimplification of course, but not by much). I am not a weapons expert, but personally I don't see the advantage of energy weapons over traditional gun systems for close-in defense.
I'd assume that they're looking into this as a better solution for near-shore engagements. In blue water, the Phalanx, as a close-in weapons system (CIWS,) is a last resort: SM-2 or SM-3 missiles are the first line of defense, followed by Sea Sparrow, followed by Rolling Airframe Missiles and/or the Phalanx. Sea skimming missiles aren't that much of a problem, since a carrier strike group will have a modern AWACS and patrol fighters, all with look-down capability, airborne at all times during a crisis. In littoral waters, however, there often isn't enough time for SM-2 and SM-3 to engage, so the ships are forced to rely more on their Sea Sparrows and RAM/Phalanx. This laser is most likely a large improvement over Phalanx; even discounting projectile flight times, it takes gun-based close-in weapons systems a while to "walk" their rounds to the target, and if this laser system is anything like THEL/MTHEL, it's engagement times, even for multiple targets, will be very impressive.
Current state of the art solid state lasers for defense purposes (still in testing phase) have 100 kW power. The military is doing R&D to push the power to 1 MW.
32 MW is still a long time away. This particular laser is 32 kW which is 1/1000th the power.
Higher power lasers have two issues to be worked on. One is how to store enough power to do such a pulse. Presently this is done with a generator trickle charging a capacitor bank for doing a pulsed blast. These systems are very heavy (which is one reason why the Navy is further away in this research: a ship can carry a heavier load than a truck or even a jumbo plane). The other main problem is how to dissipate the heat. Lasers at this power category presently are very inefficient at converting the input power to laser light. You can easily waste 2/3 or more of the input power as heat. This means you need beefy cooling requirements, which again increases weight and decreases reliability. One advantage the Navy has is that they can use the ocean to cool the laser.
Yeah because America's enemies are just bristling with 20-million-dollar ballistic missiles.
Oh but what if they get planes within range to fire air-to-surface missiles at us? That's something to worry about, what with the formidable 2-plane Cold War-era surplus air force that Iran can field, and the United States' woefully underfunded (to the tune of a mere $170 billion per year) air force with its underpowered fleet of just 2,132 fighters.
I fully support the ongoing upgrades of our increasingly-relevant naval fleet to meet the real threat of, uh, ships too heavily armored to be damaged by aircraft. Since all of our allies have strongly scaled back their naval operations, I guess it's up to us to keep the seas safe from untouchable submarines and giant squid.
I for one worship our new warship overlords.
If you can hit a mortar round in mid-flight, you can hit just about anything.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Can it be controlled by a linux OS?
Doubtful. Russians who are undisputed masters of Surface-to-Air weapon systems have essentially mated their two close range fleet AA defense systems together in Kashtan. RAM seems more of an US attempt to copy the concept of short range missile part of the system to augment weaknesses of Phalanx CIWS. If you place both systems on the ship + standard Sea Sparrow, you theoretically get to where Russian fleet medium ship AA defense is - medium range missile, short range missile and kinetic high volume of fire weapon.
West is still lacking a proper long range strategic SAM that has a quality comparable of S-300 and S-400 systems, but that will likely be rectified in time with massive investments in Standard Missile, this is bound to be caught up at some point given the lack of development funds that Russians military has suffered from for last two decades.
Say like a land based exocet launcher? The british found that out 30 years ago.
http://www.rna-10-area.net/images/land_exocet.jpg
http://www.rna-10-area.net/glamorgan.html
A few points:
The fiber lasers used in the demonstration can approach 80% efficiency.
A more realistic 500KW would shoot just about anything down and would easily be powered by ship or grid.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Defense against what? The oceans aren't exactly teeming with enemy navies. This sounds like an attempt for the navy to try to seem relevant.
ordnance is completely different than ordinance.. just saying
Your post is informative but consider the following:
A defensive system at the discussed 32MW is going to be expensive and is most likely going to be found on the largest boats in the USN...aircraft carriers.
A Nimitz class carrier has 2 x 104 MegaWatt nuclear reactors. Requiring 160MW for a shipboard 32MW laser cannon may be inconvenient but that kind of power is available if needed.
Also consider that a Nimitz class carrier is a truly gigantic heat sink...sitting in the middle of a literal ocean of liquid cooling. I don't forsee any cooling problems that cannot be solved with engineering.
Epic size? Have you seen the size of a Nimitz class carrier? They'll find a place to park the thing.
As for the rest of your post comparing this to existing CIWS systems, well, are you arguing that we shouldn't try because the first generation may have some problems? I seem to recall Phalanx based CIWS having gone through a few teething problems and revisions.
Bullets and lasers deliver this energy differently
Completely true but there are other factors to consider, the most important of which is actually hitting the target. The most important advantage lasers have is target tracking. With bullets you have to consider two trajectories (the bullet and the target) neither of which is likely to be perfectly straight. With lasers you simply aim directly at the target which is a much simpler tracking problem to solve, especially with modern sensors and vision systems. No need to consider the effects of wind, gravity, aerodynamics, bullet speed, etc. This doesn't make it a trivial problem to solve but it does have advantages.
I think the speed of targeting will be especially interesting and important against hypersonic cruise missiles. I'm curious how long it would take to destroy a missile approaching at 2000 m/s (mach 6). From the time the missile appears on the horizon a close in defense system would have 3-8 seconds to destroy a missile traveling at those speeds depending on how high it was mounted.
Not to say that bullets/shells don't have advantages too. Tricks like proximity fuses obviously aren't possible with lasers.
Of course, the Phalanx shoots 50-75 rounds a second , for a total muzzle energy/second of firing of a whopping 2269kJ.
Only relevant if all the bullets all hit, which they pretty much never do.
The Chinese have got very close to US carrier groups with submarines--well within 20 miles--apparently without being detected. Submarines can be hard to find.
Also, the Russians have "supersonic" underwater torpedo/missiles, too.
Carriers seem like big fat targets....
--PM
can't afford an HD color camera.
...are woefully uninformed about the status of the Iranian armed forces. For one, they have the super-sunburn anti ship missile, designed primarily to kill aircraft carriers or other large ships, like tankers, etc. A lesser version near sunk an Israeli warship with the best protection Israel has during the Lebanon war. got right through state of the art defenses. The "super" version (technically unverified but believed to exist) is a full generation better quality. It's considered one of the best in the world by *any* defense analyst. Mach 3 or better, 15 feet off the waves. Good luck with that, phalanx or no phalanx. They have numerous more advanced fighters than "two old cold war era" fighters, have intermediate range ballistic missiles, and so on. They are not even close to being as unprepared or unarmed as Iraq was. Iraq was bombed almost daily for more than ten freaking years, after being half wiped out in the first iraq war, before the invasion in 2003, they had not much left to counter airpower. Iran has been building up for a long time now, unmolested but *pissed off* because saddam was the US patsy for an invasion he tried against the Iranians (or do you remember when we armed Iraq?). They have a bona fide legit beef against the US now, they suffered one million troops lost in that US sponsored proxy war. They might not triumph in an all out non nuclear match against the US, but the US WILL suffer a lot more damage from the Iranians than from the Iraqis, plus, the Iranian backed militias in Iraq, who have been held back, will be turned completely loose simultaneously with the first notice of an attack on Iran. Iraq and Iran is like an annoying fly as opposed to a hornet nest, just no comparison. And if the US and zionist forces hammer Iran real hard, and it compromises the oil supply out of the straits of hormuz, then they will have seriously annoyed both china and japan, who receive a lot of oil through there.
Feeling lucky? Now you want to go nuke? Think russia and china will stand back while the US and Israel start popping off nukes? You think Turkey would appreciate all sorts of radioactive nonsense on their borders, plus loss of all that trade with their number one trading partner?
Only a coked up drunk hallucinating steroid hopped complete redneck drooling moron, like the typical rah rah rah war is just like football! cretin would attack Iran today, the ramifications of a large scale attack are off the charts geopolitically.
Many things have been called asymmetric warfare. One example was Germany's strategy in WWII of using highly coordinated submarine wolfpacks against allied Navy. Or the Japanese's use of submarine carriers and midget submarines to counter the US Navy. Neither of those worked very well since either successful counter measures were developed in due course, or the technology was too immature. However asymmetric warfare has worked on occasion. One example was the use of British Longbowmen in the Hundred Years War. Another example is the use of attrition tactics by Fabius in the First Punic War, or the Russian Empire in the Napoleonic Wars.
The Soviet Navy during the Cold War had a higher emphasis in their submarine fleet than a blue water navy. They also invested more on long range surface-to-sea missiles and high speed torpedoes as a way of denying US sea power. This is because they did not have the resources to develop a large blue water navy with carrier groups and associated paraphernalia. In addition their areas of control were different. The Soviet Union was more of a continental power while the US was a sea power.
In China's case they have done heavy investments in all areas of military power. However I think their most significant advances are in the areas of air and (increasingly) sea power. Their technology base in these areas has increased significantly. Even if they do not seem to have quite digested it all yet. I compare them to the Soviet Union in the 1930s. While in the past China's main strength was in the land forces, their armor and other land based technology has degraded immensely. My suspicion is that the Chinese Army lost power after the Sino-Vietnamese war and lack of investment. I think even South Korea has a better land based army by now. In fact I do not get why the South Koreans are investing so much in their military.
Asymmetric warfare is when two opposing forces with highly dissimilar military power, tactics, or strategy fight. What you are referring to is more precisely called unconventional warfare. It is used by those without substantial conventional forces, who must find other means of fighting back because they lack the military organization or funding to do otherwise. I agree with you that using aircraft and missiles to attack carriers is not asymmetric at a first glance, but without knowing the precise tactics or strategy being employed (e.g. is this a strategy of sea denial?) I cannot give a final opinion.
Sorry, it took like 5 minutes for my previous comment to appear.
You're missing the point:
First of all, at 32MW output, this would RAPE ship's energy supply. Even if carrier's reactor and electric network can handle bursts of 160MW throughput (current tech cannot even on land without massive sacrifices to efficiency and cost, look at wind farm connectivity to grid struggle), it is NOT a fleet defense ship. It needs to be able to utilize its weapons while actually handling all of its main tasks, which draw quite a lot of power themselves. Additionally you need multiple close range AAA systems to cover various approach directions, and when swarmed, ALL of them need to be firing a once.
Phalanx, Kashtan, Goalkeepeer et al already allow for this, while providing minimal stress to hull and electric network and a very low cost solution for the same problem.
Finally, it's one thing to dump a little heat into the sea. It's another when heat output is so tremendous that there few if any materials in existence that could conduct heat away from the system at speed necessary before system melts or even vaporises itself. The ocean around doesn't help any here, the problem is the heat conductivity at heat-generating parts of the mechanism. Problem would likely be on similar level to fusion reactor cooling as over 100MW converted to heat every second in small space builds up REALLY fast. You still need to have the system as a one package, and it still needs to be mounted on a relatively mobile turret. Finally it needs to be light enough to be able to turn fast to track targets, which even if modern heat sinks could handle the heat output of a 32MW laser, the weight and size factor alone would make this more of a "this is the only thing a ship can carry" kind of a system. Considering the smallness of space which will generate the heat, it's pretty much given that you will need materials that can handle heat transference better then anything we have, as laser's heat generating components need to stay operational during firing and not melt themselves.
Finally in spite of the huge size there is little to no free room on a deck of aircraft carrier. Most AAA systems are located on the sides, in very limited spaces. Carrier's main job is functioning as an airport, not shooting down incoming missiles. The huge size is actually tiny when you consider its main task, and just how much real estate that requires - on carrier's deck, every square meter typically has a purpose and is one of the most expensive real estate in the world.
A few points:
The fiber lasers used in the demonstration can approach 80% efficiency.
I believe the catch here is "when total output is low".
The higher the output, the more waste heat you generate. It is possible of course that military has succeeded in developing new revolutionary technology that indeed allows for 80% efficiency.
So we should just scrap everything and wait until someone attacks us before we start working on our military?
All very true, but the one thing people seem to be missing is they are just bolting this on to the gatling gun to give them another tool in the tool box and expand the life of a very old weapon system they already have deployed.
I can see them mounting 100 of these things in version 2.0 at twice the output and half the size, each in it's own dedicated weapon point. Then they'd be able to bring many to bear on one big/hard target (an aircraft, mortar, fast moving bomb/missle) for a quick kill or fire them singlely at many smaller targets (bomblets, pirates, protesters)
Ignoring the theoretical issues, which have been addressed above, I'd like to point out that US warships have defense-in-depth. Anything with a chrome, or other reflective coating is going to be extremely easy to detect and track using radar at long range, and therefore be engaged by the warship's surface to air missiles long before point-defense lasers like this are going to be useful.
Now they just need to add fusion reactors and make them hover so they can move 16 hexes in a turn! If you do that you can also use your maglev rails and move them across the continent in one turn! How cool is that?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Highly reflective planes
Surely it must be cheaper to make aircraft and missiles reflect the energy ?
What if the missile is really shiny?
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
The problem you're describing is not without an existing answer. Aircraft carriers are indeed poorly suited for all-out ground assault war. They are huge, vulnerable to even minor damage disabling their launch and land capability, and generally make for big, fat targets for small nimble ships and attack subs. In event of all out non-nuclear war with opponent that can hit them, like Russia or China, they are highly unlikely to be operation beyond the first few days if even that. I believe even US Navy has openly admitted that, but isn't exactly advertising the issue for obvious reasons. Thing with carriers, they're uniquely well suited for current style of warfare where opponent has no way of reaching the carrier, which is why they seem to powerful now.
The far better answer for pressure are battleships. They deliver constant pressure across the range, are far less vulnerable to damage disabling them and most importantly, they are a hell of a lot cheaper and US has several mothballed. They suck at current form of "accurate" warfare, but when you need to level a fortress or support a long full out assault near the beach, battleship is far more efficient tool for the task then aircraft carrier.
I watched the video. To me, it isn't completely clear what is being shot down. The craft could be made of wood or paper (or something even more flammable) for all I know. On the one hand it looks impressive and powerful. On the other hand, it's very unclear what we are actually watching.
It's called liquid helium cooling. Not new.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"First of all, at 32MW output, this would RAPE ship's energy supply."
Only if the ship was moving. At a standstill, the ship only needs about 2 megawatts of power for full operations. All that other power goes to movement.
You just proved you know nothing about which energy requirements a ship has for any given mode of operation. Additionally, optoelectronics is my job, specifically research applications of solid-state light generating devices.
Be quiet, son, men are talking.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Will it blend?
Have a look at actual military spending figures world wide. If anyone is going to be using any swarming tactics, it's the US, not Korea or China. Land war, of course China is going to have more boots on the ground - but not more drones/missiles etc. at their current spending levels.
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
You ever wonder why the US is having economic problems? Here's a hint: Have a look at what happened to the USSR. Perhaps if less money was actually spend on weapons and technology to blow shit up, and more was spend on capital infrastructure that is actually useful for production, the US wouldn't be in as big an economic the hole it is these days.
Dynamite has 7.5 MJ/kg of energy. (7.5 million Joules per kilogram)
A megawatt rings in at 1 million joules per second.
A 32 megawatt laser has the power output then, compared to four kilograms of dynamite.
Even assuming spherical energy dispersal, and a very short beam burst, the target is still taking on a significant portion if not more than a kilogram of dynamite.
Which, will significantly increase the engineering requirements for survival the incoming warhead.
Sure, there may be counter measures, however, who do you think the US Navy will be up against that has a couple billion to throw at this _ONE_ method of attacking ships every couple years.
These things will be very effective at keeping the tin-pot-dictator of the week from getting a hit on one of our ships.
Also, I find your assumptions about efficiency and such laughable. The laser weapon consists of six beams (6 kilowatts each) which is well within the output of deployed weapon systems for more than a decade.
Theres a typo in the summary. Phasers is spelled with a "ph", not an "L," and these are pointless until the ships also are equipped with photon torpedoes.
This laser is 32kW, and it's already pushing the limits of solid state laser tech. 32MW laser is nowhere in sight for several decades, unless we make major breakthroughs in materials needed, not to even talk about power draw, which for current laser at 20% efficiency would be around 160MW for your suggested 32MW laser. And with increased power, the efficiency of laser installation is likely to decrease significantly.
You're gonna have some pretty hardcore power cabling, cooling system and a nuclear reactor to power that kind of a thing, not to even mention the epic size of a weapon. Cooling system alone will probably be bigger then a modern missile silo.
This replacing a small, localized and largely autonomous system that performs better in most conditions? I think not.
Comparing this to Sea Sparrows or any other ship based medium range SAM in any way other then augmentation is just plain foolish anyway. This caps at a few kilometers, depending on weather. It's a potential kinetic CIWS replacement (i.e. phalanx). It's in no way even a contender for SAM CIWS replacement. Not even because the tech isn't ready, but because the tech is unsuitable by default. Weather and fact that Earth is a sphere will make sure of this.
You are correct that there are issues, but they aren't as bad as you say.
1. This system is for a large ship eg aircraft carrier which already has nuclear reactors for power, if the engines aren't going max speed power is not an issue at all.
2. These ships are huuuge, so again size is not much of an issue. If the advantages are so great then room can be made.
3. As for the cooling system, it happens that ships usually sit in the ocean... an unlimited* supply of cold water.
*compared to any amount of possible usage by a ship.
They have numerous more advanced fighters than "two old cold war era" fighters, have intermediate range ballistic missiles, and so on.
Before the first gulf war, Iraq had an army of over half a million, 4500 tanks, over 600 jet fighters and among those was a fair amount of pretty modern weaponry. On paper Iraq was pretty tough. In reality not so much. Iran would be a more dangerous foe I think but if the US military decided to attack Iran I think I know which side I'd bet on. Yes Iran has a few (emphasis FEW) state of the art weapons systems. If I was the commander of CENTCOM I wouldn't exactly be shaking in my boots. I have no confidence of the US policy AFTER the US military finishes wiping the floor with Iran's military but I wouldn't doubt the outcome of the fight.
Iran has been building up for a long time now, unmolested but *pissed off* because saddam was the US patsy for an invasion he tried against the Iranians (or do you remember when we armed Iraq?).
Yeah, do you remember why we armed Iraq? Iran wasn't our friend before the Iran Iraq war. I'm old enough to remember it happening and why it happened and why we supported Iraq. Our problems with Iran go back further than that. Iran has legitimate disputes with the US but it's not just that the US attacked the innocent Iranians.
They have a bona fide legit beef against the US now, they suffered one million troops lost in that US sponsored proxy war.
They had a beef long before that. The Islamic revolution occurred before the Iran/Iraq war and prior to that the US sponsored the government of Iran which achieved power courtesy a coup supported by the US in the 1950s. That government abused its power which lead to the islamic revolution. You might recall some hostages during the Carter administration courtesy of that little carnival.
Only a coked up drunk hallucinating steroid hopped complete redneck drooling moron, like the typical rah rah rah war is just like football! cretin would attack Iran today...
I would have said the same thing prior to the US invasion of Iraq. We elected a "redneck drooling moron". Twice.
Yes attacking Iran would be stupid. Hopefully it will never become necessary as well.
Assuming you were thinking about having sunshine on a cloudy day, you may want to listen to a little more of The Temptations.
;-)
As for the "young people" comment, I'll just sign this as:
--A 27-year-old Motown fan
You're going to have a pretty hard time doing any targeting at all in heavy rain/fog so that cuts down on the differences between a laser and a shell under those conditions.
You know that goes for the missile targeting the ship as well right? Radar doesn't magically work better for the attacker than for the defender. Granted the ship is an easier target being bigger and slower but missile can and have missed ships before.
Since the only Naval ships which are, currently, nuclear powered are aircraft carriers and submarines
Close but not correct. There have been nuclear powered cruisers in the US navy (since retired) and the Russian navy still operates them. There also are nuclear powered icebreakers operated by the Russians and there also is one nuclear powered merchant ship in operation as well.
Looked at the drone shootdown video. A considerable dwell time (seconds) was required between the first beam impingement and the first apparent indication of damage. During this time, the drone was flying straight and level, no maneuvering. This isn't a realistic test, IMHO. In a combat environment, with laser fire being an anticipated threat, there will be sensors aboard the target that will note impinging energy and either tell the pilot to jink or will execute an autonomous jink routine that will prevent the laser from getting a long enough dwell time to damage the target. As I understand it, this tech is CW, which means the beam really does have to sit on an aim point for a considerable time (in a combat event perspective) to do damage. Against a maneuvering target, it's not going to do much good. Two ways forward include brute force power scaleup (to first order will reduce the required dwell time in proportion to the power scaleup ratio) or go to pulsed mode, in which extremely high pulse power triggers nonlinear absorption of energy in the target material. For now, this is a demo of superb optical tracking of a nonmaneuvering target and slaving a scaled up laser pointer to the tracker. Real (i.e., intelligent) enemies won't be so easy to splash.
The nice thing about a laser is that you don't have to turn the whole laser to aim it - a prism or mirror is all that needs to move. Of course, that will need to be cooled as well, since there's always some inefficiency. Still, 32MW was from TFS (I guess I should know better than to believe that), but IIRC the AEGIS system is a 6MW radar, and we power and cool it on conventional destroyers.
The AEGIS system itself can apparantly "zorch" incoming missiles at a pretty good rate just by turning up the dwell. I'd expect a 6MW weapon system to be just as practical to build a destroyer around, and to have quite a rapid kill rate when on data-link to a neaby AEGIS system. Or you could build the two of them together if we ever get a DDX or CGX ship with the massive electrical power originally proposed (the engineering seemed practical, but those programs are a political mess).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The West operates under the assumption of having air superiority, if not supremacy. No need for S-400s guarding your country when you have F-22s and E-3s. Or so the thinking goes anyway.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
This is very important. As you said, aircraft carriers and big surface ships are where Battleships were during the inter-World War years. They are still here because there are no large naval battles to test them. The biggest threat to such large surface sips are the true capital ships of today, the nuclear submarines. Generally, an underwater hit is more fatal than a hit to the superstructure by "breaking the back" of the surface vessel. North Korea just sunk a South Korea vessel using a dinky outdated submarine. This is the writing on the wall for aircraft carriers.
Exactly. Russians on the other hand have to play the opposite scenario where they have to go against enemy heavily reliant on stealth bombers for its initial strike. Hence the SAM superiority.
Militaries drop gravity bombs all the time, even the United States and UK drop "dumb" gravity bombs.
A JDAM is a gravity bomb with fins and guidance, small-diameter bomb is a gravity bomb with fins, wings and guidance so it can be lobbed from a distance, but it is still a gravity bomb.
You do know that Iran and DPRK have large navies don't you? With alot of cruise missile carrying ships and ground based cruise missiles?
You are correct that there are issues, but they aren't as bad as you say.
1. This system is for a large ship eg aircraft carrier which already has nuclear reactors for power, if the engines aren't going max speed power is not an issue at all.
2. These ships are huuuge, so again size is not much of an issue. If the advantages are so great then room can be made.
3. As for the cooling system, it happens that ships usually sit in the ocean... an unlimited* supply of cold water.
*compared to any amount of possible usage by a ship.
I think you misunderstand the purpose of CIWS weapons. They are not a weapon of choice to engage targets - they are the last line of defense, and generally VERY inefficient in comparison to the previous lines. CIWS firing on incoming missiles is similar to commanding officer having to draw a firearm and starting to shoot in self defense in ground forces - it means that everything has gone to hell.
Standard missile or bomber threat is typically hit at maximum range, either via fighter planes or Standard Missile. If that fails, you hit it with Sea Sparrow. If that fails, you throw in the kitchen sink (RAM CIWS, kinetic CIWS) in desperate hope that it will hit in the two-three seconds you have left before the missile hits you CIWS will be able to hit it first and at least disable it.
It's never a weapon of choice, never something that a ship will be focused around, and as a result one of the main requirements for the system is that it has to be compact, as autonomous as possible (it's own guidance and fire control radar, etc). Good rule is that if you can't fit it on a large truck trailer, it isn't suitable to be a naval CIWS.
Final problem is fire control. All current kinetic CIWS systems are centered around the fact that they can put out massive volumes of kinetic energy over a wide cone in hope that it will hit the fast moving missile in its terminal guidance phase. Tracking and getting a good fire control solution for such a missile is extremely difficult, which is why laser just wouldn't cut it without a major power up where laser could splash the missile if it lights it even for a small fraction of a second.
This eliminates laser weapon as a CIWS replacement for foreseeable future, until it's minituarised to current system's size as well as it gets far more efficient in kill time.
Bullshit. A decent naval radar alone will eat more then 2MW. When engaged by aerial threat in terminal phase you'll have all radars and jammers going on full power, all relevant weapon systems powered up and ready to fire/firing and you will most likely be moving to make yourself a harder target in case there's more weapons coming your way and you're jamming their sat guidance forcing them to rely on intertial guidance instead.
Honestly, do you even understand that this is a WEAPON OF WAR, and not a shooting range toy?
No, just astronomically expensive, hard to contain in portable conditions and generally unsuitable for outdoor use like this.
We're talking task force use here. If you have to have scientific-grade cooling system with multiple easy points of failure and no meaningful way of repair without massive expenditure, it's not viable. This isn't a lab toy.
Not to even mention the accident potential of helium cooling system failure in field conditions.
they decided to attack during a fog or heavy precipitation?
I'd assume that our enthusiasm for aerial refueling is, in part(it certainly has other advantages), a contingency plan as well.
The ability to fly from the continental US to just about anywhere without landing is close to being an expensive stunt when you have allies much closer by, and enemies with virtually no ranged strike capability; but it could be downright essential if your carriers have recently been involuntarily downgraded from "operational" to "artificial reef habitat"...
I thought they canceled the F22.
where someone has the guts and sense of honor to fight in compliance with the rules of the Geneva Convention.
It doesn't seem to me that fighting to win with the lmited resources you have at your disposal implies a lack of guts or honour.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
So what you're referring to is a long range close in weapon system? No doubt it has a manual automatic control system.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Call me old fashioned, but I was under the impression that coming to a dead stop in the middle of a sea battle isn't considered good tactics.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
By dissecting the phrase "asymmetric warfare" into its component words and analyzing their meanings individually you'd be right.
However I've never, ever, heard it used by any serious historian to refer to WW2 U-boats or the battle of Agincourt. Sometimes the whole does not equal the sum of the parts.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The NIF(National Ignition Facility) does this. Its a lot bigger than a battle ship and can only fire 3-4 times a day due to cooling issues and the power draw is plain silly. Also you can't focus these kind of beams easily through the air due to nonlinear effects and ionization.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
And all movement power goes directly into shafts, not electricity generation. Cooling lasers so they still work is a huge problem at kW power levels. Its a unsolved problem for MW class if you want to do more than a few firings an hour.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
Iran, China, and N. Korea. All have ideas about conquering nations the U.S. has treaties to defend. Without those treaties, the Gulf States, Taiwan, and S. Korea would be looking to develop nukes to counter their nuclear armed or soon to be nuclear armed adversaries. The more nukes in the world, the larger the chance those totally well-adjusted Islamic nutjobs fighting for the death of all non-believers since 632 will get their hands on them and the fewer non-believers there will be to non-believe. You are a believer, aren't you?
They only canceled some further purchases, the U.S. will still have a fleet of those. Impressive plane, impressive budget.
Only if they blew it up before it was launched. Once it is launched, any steps taken to avoid it are by definition defensive.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
So if the best defense is a good offense, we should simply strike first and not worry about defense.
After the first offensive, is every action by both sides thereafter defensive?
Just asking, don't get defensive or anything.
You must be joking; this is Slashdot. :)
Obviously I didn't, and your explanation makes a great deal more sense than my mistaken conclusion that this was meant as a replacement for, rather than a complement to, existing systems. My one concern would be that attacking missiles could use some sort of ablative coating, like the tiles on the Space Shuttle, to mitigate the effects of energy weapons.
Thanks for your reply, by the way.
90% of carriers would be destroyed in hour. They would of course use stealth missiles
After the first offensive, is every action by both sides thereafter defensive?
No, but the ones formerly considered "offensive" are just modded -1 Troll or Flamebait.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
No, I'm referring to a short range missile system like RAM, or Kashtan that will first attempt to engage target at range well outside gunnery range, and will most likely be able to attempt a second engagement before impact if first one fails.
Missile CIWS is designed to augment kinetic CIWS with its effective range, which is often at least 2-3 times that of kinetic CIWS. This is why russians mated the two onto one platform in Kastan, and this is why US Navy likes RAM CIWS added to the tool list next to Phalanx CIWS.
Stealth didn't have much to do with it. The Russians always had to worry about being attacked by bombers -- they watched what we did to the Germans and Japanese after all -- they've consequently invested a lot more R&D into building defenses against those bombers. They didn't limit themselves to SAMs either -- the MiG-25 and MiG-31 are purpose built interceptors that aren't real useful for anything other than shooting down bombers and cruise missiles. They don't have any real counterparts in the West. The F-14 might have had the same mission (albeit in a maritime role) but it was equally effective at taking on fighters should the need arise.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
... but I think spitting out so much lead that nothing can survive is much more badass.
"Bullshit. A decent naval radar alone will eat more then 2MW."
The radars for airports are about half a megawatt, and they're the same ones used on battleships. Try again.
"When engaged by aerial threat in terminal phase you'll have all radars and jammers going on full power"
You only need at most a kilowatt of good interference to jam most any signal for a fair distance. This is some basic EM theory.
Honestly, do you even understand that with a weapon like this, YOU DON'T NEED TO MOVE?
I wish my grandfather were still alive. Retired Lt. Colonel, he'd set you straight, because your tactics, and knowledge of military power, is very, VERY lacking.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
With a good laser like this, if it were in the megawatt range, you wouldn't need to move, you could obliterate most any target before it ever reached you.
New weapons call for new tactics. Failure to change with the times means you get overtaken by the times.
Snipers don't move very much at all yet they manage to do loads of killing without ever being in too much danger.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
The radars for airports are civilian single beam type that are designed with efficiency in mind. Iirc a single AEGIS radar system rates around 6MW when in full combat mode.
Correct, you need minimal power to jammer when you're jamming a single beam single frequency civilian radar. When jamming a military grade phased array fire control radar jumping frequencies trying to find one to get a clear firing solution, you're gonna have to burn a whole lot more juice across the entire spectrum to keep it from simply burning though your interference with simple overpowering.
I don't know who your grandfather is or was, but either he or you have no clue how military radar systems, and specifically AA radar installations work, nor the theory or practice on how radar is jammed and counterjamming solutions or you're lying about him.
In fact, don't take it from me - US NAVY officially states that power requirements on AEGIS radar systems are so high, that they are forced to design new hulls with more powerful electric generators and new radars that are focused on reducing power consumption per installation.
The AMDR will enable future warships such as the Navy’s CG (X) cruiser to track and engage a variety of targets from very low altitudes to the edge of space.
The AMDR program also will address some of the design and operational challenges facing the current generation of search radars. Power remains a major issue for naval radar systems, creating design and scalability challenges for integrating some systems into ships. The captain explains that modern search radars present a significant power drain on a ship’s systems and can consume up to a quarter or half the power output of some older warships, such as the Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. He adds that power and space issues arose during the design of the dual-band radar currently being installed on the Navy’s new DDG 1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers. Capt. Creevy explains that part of the Navy’s challenge to AMDR contracting firms is to provide solutions that keep efficiency and cooling needs at a minimum.
Source: U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command: www.navsea.navy.mil
Emphasis mine.
But your granddad is more awesome then mine, as far as military goes. Mine just spent his time fixing T-34s in blocaded Leningrad in WW2 - place known as "hell on earth that made some concentration camps look like retirement communities".
Yep, I was wrong; it was indeed the Temptations. And there are a lot of younger Motown fans, but most younger folks aren't.
Free Martian Whores!
Actually, there are currently no battleships in active service in any navy. The US Navy removed the last two battleships out of the mothball fleet in 2006. The last time any battleship saw any action was the Gulf War. Several are still preserved as museum ships and in theory could still be pressed into service but that's pretty unlikely. The last time the US Navy built a battleship was in WW2.
Snipers don't move very much at all yet they manage to do loads of killing without ever being in too much danger.
Seriously, give up. This is your third or fourth troll post into the thread that shows that you literally have no clue whatsoever what you're talking about. Snipers don't move much? Do you even know what snipers do on the field of combat? Or is your knowledge here as deep as one about radars mr. "military naval radar is same as civilian one".
He'll probably claim that not moving is a tactical innovation to defend against static torpedoes.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
You do know what the CI in CIWS stands for? How can that be a decent range?
The system the Royal Navy uses is called "Goalkeeper". You might not be familiar with the word, but it refers to the last defender in football[1]. If you're relying on your goalkeeper, you're in the shit. Especially if it's this one.
[1] The type where you mostly hit a ball with your foot, i.e. not handegg.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I may have been unclear in the last post, but yes, I do understand it. The point I was trying to make that while in close in range, russians, and in their wake americans understood that it's worth it to layer that defense into essentially two layers, SRM layer that can engage some 10km+ out and kinetic gun that can engage 3km out.
Your comparison is very good, so I'll use it. Goalkeeper is the kinetic gun. RAM missile is the last defender before the goalkeeper. Both of them are CIWS, and presense of the RAM allows for much greater (but still very low) increase in chance of successful interception.
That is not true
http://www.optics.rochester.edu/~gweihua/hflaser.pdf
love is just extroverted narcissism
If you read the paper you linked, you'll notice that it actually confirms my above post. Total energy transferred to target is
E(target)=E(effective energy at laser)* t(emission).
Problem is that time of emission is so short, that total energy they transfer to target is extremely low. It's not anywhere near enough to burn through metal.
Unless I missed something? I only leafed through it and read the conclusion which states that:
Techniques for achieving high-power, high-beam-quality, fiber lasers have been explored. The doublecladding
pump structure, large-mode-area fibers, helical-coiled fibers, mode-selection tapers, photonic crystal
fibers have been investigated for high power fiber lasers with a high beam quality. The current results show
that 1.36 kW CW fiber laser, 5 W average power pulsed fiber laser and 153 kW peak power pulsed laser with
good beam qualities have been achieved.
That's not much energy at all.
Look on page 9 where they discuss another paper.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The referenced paper....
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/view_article.cfm?gotourl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.opticsinfobase.org%2FDirectPDFAccess%2F00C41BDB-BDB9-137E-C3ACE3702B713646_81942.pdf%3Fda%3D1%26id%3D81942%26seq%3D0%26mobile%3Dno&org=
love is just extroverted narcissism
I still don't understand how this disagrees with conclusions drawn above.
Quoting the paper you linked:
We have demonstrated a highly efficient (83%), high Yb3+-concentration (~6000 ppm by
weight), double-clad Yb3+-doped large-core fiber laser with a cw output power of 1.36 kW at
1.1 m in a near single-mode beam (M2 = 1.4). The laser used on 12 m long single fiber and
showed no evidence of roll-over in laser output power even at the highest launched pump
powers (~1.6 kW). We expect to achieve diffraction-limited beam quality with a comparable
or higher output power in the near future through more advanced fiber design, combined with
more powerful pump sources. Power-scaling beyond 10 kW in a single-fiber configuration
looks entirely feasible with our fiber laser design.
They are stating that they developed a laser that can output an extremely thin beam with 1.6kW payload. The achievement is that beam stays so thin, not the power rating.
Or am I missing something?