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Boeing's Enormous Navy Laser Cannon
An anonymous reader writes "Boeing is working to build a huge, incredibly powerful, soon-to-be-seafaring laser for the US Navy. This free electron laser can produce light of any wavelength (ie, color) directly from an electron beam, and gets an energy boost from a superconducting particle accelerator. Once it's onboard ships, the laser could be used to shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells."
just get cancelled?
Does it make "pew pew pew" noises?
Imagine the size of those sharks required for such huge laser weapons.
will become the ultimate defence weapon.
And I'm sure the human race will find many unthinkable ways to use it on each other, animals and the landscape of the Earth.
Interesting times.
Indeed.
Why not, say, Forest Green, or Taupe?
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/
The Senate just drove a stake into the Navy’s high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated.
The Free Electron Laser and the Electromagnetic Rail Gun are experimental weapons that the Navy hope will one day burn missiles careening toward their ships out of the sky and fire bullets at hypersonic speeds at targets thousands of miles away. Neither will be ready until at least the 2020s, the Navy estimates. But the Senate Armed Services Committee has a better delivery date in mind: never.
The committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill on Friday, priced to move at $664.5 billion, some $6.4 billion less than what the Obama administration wanted. The bill “terminates” the Free Electron Laser and the rail gun, a summary released by the committee gleefully reports.
“The determination was that the Free Electron Laser has the highest technical risk in terms of being ultimately able to field on a ship, so we thought the Navy could better concentrate on other laser programs,” explains Rick DeBobes, the chief of staff for the committee. “With the Electromagnetic Rail Gun, the committee felt the technical challenges to developing and fielding the weapon would be daunting, particularly [related to] the power required and the barrel of the gun having limited life.”
This is why the Gerald R. Ford-class carriers were designed with way more generation and distribution capacity then they currently need, the Navy knew that directed energy weapons were the future of point defense systems. It may be free electron lasers or perhaps some kind of rail gun, or perhaps something else, but it seems unlikely that the chemical powder based system at the heart of CIWS will still be in use in 60+ years when the Ford is retired.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No worries. I'm sure the Chinese will be willing to buy/steal it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
If you look closely at the upper left in the 10th photo in the linked article, the one of the control room:
Is that a nixie tube display in the top slot of the third rack from the right?
Could you bounce the beam off a satellite and back down to earth targets? Or to air and space targets that are over the horizon? Could you do it with something flying lower, like a mirror mounted on a aircraft?
Come on, people, get a clue!
Indeed.
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Looks impressive, and though it may be a technical term or what the thing is universally called, lets rename the "wiggler" part. Doesn't exactly inspire fear.
President: "Look, North Korea, either you turn the giant kim-il-jong robot around, or we deploy the electron beam laser with wiggler attachment"
Clone of Kim-il Jong: "Bwahahah! We are not afraid of your wiggly little laser! KIMBOT! DEPLOY THE MIRROR SHIELD!"
Tbh, lasers like this are incredibly impractical for anything other than missile defense. For attacking, there are a million better ways. Such as missiles!
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Prepare to fire Wave Motion Gun.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
That was the Reflex Gun on Pluto, but it was the Gamilons' thing.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
I'm pretty sure technology has advanced to the point that aiming is no longer an issue.
But can it do something useful for business, like burn corporate logos into the surface of the moon?
As for patrolling borders, it might be viable as a game. Add web interfaces to the cameras and lasers and people would PAY to patrol the borders.
Making conflict of any kind profitable is a slippery slope. Next thing you know we'd have politicians advocating slavery, even sex slaves.
That isn't possible, is it???
http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/men-should-have-sex-slaves-says-female-kuwaiti-politician
This would awesome for presentations. Burning down the whole f"#€ building :O
Except for burning down incoming ordinance, what else could it do?
Could it burn holes on the surface of the moon? or astroids?
If so we could check for Helium 3 on the moon with out sending probes = cheap.
How about mining, burning holes for termal energy wells?
When I called my ship a boat, as in going back to the boat, that was acceptable because I was talking to my shipmates. You, a landlubber, are not the proper audience for that slang. The only boats in the navy are what any landlubber would buy, size-wise, and submarines.
Clueless landlubber. Go away. Take a short walk on a long pier, you'll stay dry that way.
Infuriate left and right
"Fire the wiggle motion gun!"
No, submarines are boats, large surface going vessels are ships. You could *maybe* refer to a frigate as a boat, but that would only be to piss off those stationed on a frigate. Nobody in the Navy would refer to a destroyer, cruiser, or carrier as a boat, at least not in serious conversation.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
We've been there already, many many times. This weapons is a future technology demonstrator for space wars. It has little to no room on planet surface with all the impurities of the air, nasty atmospheric conditions, and generally sucking in comparison to chemical propulsion mass drivers also known as firearms.
This was done to death even on slashdot.
Chinese prefer battle tested, actually functioning systems, meaning kinetic weapons. Not massively unreliable, energy hungry weapons designed mainly for application in vacuum and optimal for distances where kinetic weapons cease to be viable.
Standard arms race tactic says the new ultimate defense is a mirror.
I've gotten wooshed several times lately, so I'm going to assume you're joking.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I take a look at my enormous laser
And my troubles start a-meltin' away (ba-doom bop bop)
I take a look at my enormous laser
And the happy times are comin' to stay (be-doo)
Too bad they aren't working on it anymore! http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/06/power-down-senate-zaps-navys-superlaser-railgun/ "The Senate just drove a stake into the Navy’s high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated. The Free Electron Laser and the Electromagnetic Rail Gun are experimental weapons that the Navy hope will one day burn missiles careening toward their ships out of the sky and fire bullets at hypersonic speeds at targets thousands of miles away. Neither will be ready until at least the 2020s, the Navy estimates. But the Senate Armed Services Committee has a better delivery date in mind: never. The committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill on Friday, priced to move at $664.5 billion, some $6.4 billion less than what the Obama administration wanted. The bill “terminates” the Free Electron Laser and the rail gun, a summary released by the committee gleefully reports."
Unless the other guy also has laser missile defense.....
Friends had a father on tankers, and one day, driving him to the ship for his next trip, their small son asked if they were going back to grandpa's boat. No, *ship* said grandpa. *Shit* said the kid. *Ship* said grandpa. *Shit* said the kid. *Boat* said grandpa.
No one else gets to call them boats, unless they enjoy being outed as ignorant arrogant landlubbers.
Infuriate left and right
And what if missiles start using mirrored surfaces that reflect the light back at the source? Doh!
No, the ultimate defense is a retroreflector. That way, the laser beam will target exactly its source.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
The illustration in TFA shows the beam bouncing off something- I would guess it was a plane or satellite.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Weapons of this nature are only useful in proportion to their sensors and command-and-control systems.
The aircraft then just fly five miles up and saturate your defenses with carpet bombing. Or use stealth aircraft. Or use electronic warfare. Or use saturation level artillery from five miles away... Or any combination thereof.
All this is assuming that a (pretty expensive and sophisticated) sensor and command and control network is in place though - a network that's vulnerable in it's own right.
If you can bounce the beam then missiles would just need that same ability to divert the laser energy back at the source rendering the laser worse than useless because it could destroy the source of the beam.
Imagine an airborne laser that can shoot stuff on rooftops from 2 miles away. Oh dear, Baghdad gets bombed again.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Add web interfaces to the cameras and lasers and people would PAY to patrol the borders.
The ultimate spawn camping game...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Pew! Pew Pew! Pew Pew Pew Pew! ...sorry.
How will it handle rain, cloudy conditions, etc? Generally, battles are started during increment weather. The reason is to make it harder for an enemy to know what you are up to. Of course, with radar, etc. that is less of an issue. However, a laser should still be impacted by the amount of rain that it has to go through in a typical ocean storm.
In addition, it brings up the question of, how often can it fire? If it can do multiple shots than it might not be as useful as regular bullets. However, if it has the ability to go multiple rounds quickly, then combine that with the coming railgun and of course, something like a phalynx and you have a much better chance of protection.
The final question is, how soon can we expect to see this on Chinese equipment?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
You should leave the talk to the adults who served. We NEVER called the "Big E" a ship. She was always a boat.
CVN-65 U.S.S. Enterprise (1996-2000)
I'm sure they already have.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
The funding for this and the rail gun was recently cut by the Senate Armed Services committe.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8157653/senate_armed_services_votes_to_kill.html
Hopefully this sees the light of day... some day... but I don't think it'll be under the current project. Too bad too. The FEL and rail gun are probably the coolest weapons projects out there.
Satis clankiller.com
No, submarines are boats
All modern US hull classifications for submarines include "SS", which stands for "submersible ship".
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
And yet, that has been disproved. Lasers CAN fire for long distance in many conditions. More importantly, if it can fire RAPIDLY and uses ship power, this may be very useful.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I'm pretty sure technology has advanced to the point that aiming is no longer an issue.
Hey! We haven't quite manged to piss off the whole rest of the world yet.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I would like to see a laser shoot down a rail gun projectile ^__^
If you've been around the Horn in a 30' sloop, you can call it whatever the fuck you want.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
No, that's at the hospital.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I would not want to be the guy flying the giant-mirror-for-the-superlaser aircraft
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
The laser will become the ultimate defence weapon. Imagine have LASER mounted along your border. They will shoot down anything, instantly. Image roof top boxes in cities that can shoot stff down a mile away. Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,.
Imagine an enemy with a better laser than can knock out the defensive lasers from beyond their effective range. Imagine an enemy with a technology that can interfere with the defensive lasers target acquisition and aiming. Imagine an enemy with a delivery system (drone ?) that can use nap of the earth flight to avoid being targeted. Imagine more bombs/decoys coming into range than the defensive laser can track, target, fire on and repeat quickly enough.
Interesting times.
Actually more of the same most likely, same human decisions and actions, just different tools.
Sometimes I doubt Congress' commitment to project Sparkle Motion.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Could you do it with something flying lower, like a mirror mounted on a aircraft?
Think how much popcorn we could make with something like that!
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
An offensive use of space based focused solar energy or powerful earth based lasers could also be to cause chaos in an enemy country by starting fires in cities and drought affected regions.
Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,.
Interesting times.
Assuming the bombs are detectable. I imagine stealth munitions would be the next logical goal.
Perhaps you could convert old school drive-in movie theater screens into reflectors.
Or better yet, adapt them into some kind of capacitor to store the laser energy until needed.
But you would need to be very careful with your targeting. I seem to remember an experiment in the mid '80s using similar, albeit much less advanced, technology that caused untold damage to at least one network's television relay satellite. The same incident reportedly destroyed or severely damaged several consumer televisions throughout North America.
Do not sweat it. That will be returned by the house. More importantly, Gates, and I have heard Panneta, back this. So far, the only directed energy weapons that gates had issues with was the ALTB.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Worth pointing out: Even in space lasers aren't significantly better than projectiles. Projectiles use less fuel (hard to get in space), create less heat output (difficult to vent when you're floating in a vacuum) and come in a variety of different configurations for different purposes. Add the fact that in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines and don't slow down... There are the obvious issues of speed and distance (lasers travel really fast, so they are good for hitting a maneuvering ship several thousand miles away) but guided projectiles solve this problem pretty easily. I predict that the weapon of choice for space conflict will be guided missiles that carry a payload of several hundred depleted uranium flechettes, fired when the missile reaches an appropriate distance from the target.
"Bombing Baghdad would have been impossible,."
No, just more difficult. Lasers merely shoot, but they require radar to find targets.
A barrage of EMP weapons and anti-radiation missiles and small UAVs with transponders to mimic aircraft attack radar come to mind as ways to get a foot in the door. Very small UAVs could hide and "hedge hop" in ground clutter.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
mirrors only reflect specific frequencies! this laser can produce ANY wavelength, did you catch that? It means they dial-a-hole in what ever they'd like (it's why they even mentioned the ability!)
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
Hey! And the Navy is working on those, too.
If Mr. Edison had thought smarter he wouldn't sweat as much. --Nikola Tesla
you're wrong on all counts AC.
1) missiles aren't cheap
2) ordinance moves very slow compared to lasers, even given recharge
3) reflective surfaces are only reflective for a given RANGE of wavelength, definitely NOT all of them. That's why they mentioned it can fire at any wavelength, duh.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
The owner of a boat, or ship, or personal watercraft, or life vest, can call it whatever the owner wants. The crew can call it whatever they want. Landlubbers can call it whatever they want.
Fuckin' free speech, how does that work?
Infuriate left and right
Fire rapidly is key here. Time to first shot is pretty important, but time to second shot is even more important.
Too often in the prior generations of this device the time to subsequent shots was way too long. Because nobody attacks with only ONE anti-ship missile, and even gunnery sends more rounds down range than can be hit with a slow resetting laser. The power needed for this is enormous, it needs to be instantaneous and repeatable for long periods of time, especially if you intend to make good on your promise of shooting down artillery shells.
With a dispersed battery of HAND LOADED field artillery you can send down range on average 1.5 rounds per minute per gun or better. With 5 to 8 pieces to contend with, you better be prepared to absorb some hits while you skedaddle out of range.
Luckily, no navy has gun boats like those in the past:
From James Grace's "The Naval Battle of Guadalcanal", the Helena is described during its initial firing that night.
"Officially the Helena's fifteen six-inch guns fired at a rate of ten rounds per minute at rapid continuous fire, but the ship had reached seventeen. To Lieutenant Luehman, the shooting resembled fifteen fireflies converging on the same spot, or fifteen streams of liquid fire."
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
That was just the senate committee. The house will add it in, and then both will have to agree on this. It is all but certain that this money will be restored. Too much good science in this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yup. Strategy will usually trump tactics.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Not by those of us in the Navy, they aren't! Granted, my experience in the Navy is several decades old, but I can assure you, that's not changed.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
If you feel you're going to be wooshed just click on the score and see if the mods have picked it up. I don't see too many funny posts marked as insightful these days
If I was witty I'd put something funny here but, as it stands, I am not and have just wasted seconds of your life
Have you not heard of Samali pirates?
They have boats and we now have a huge laser cannon to deal with them. *evil grin*
China does.
And I was on the USS Ouellet, DE 1077, back in '72 and we always called her a ship.
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I predict that the weapon of choice for space conflict will be guided missiles that carry a payload of several hundred depleted uranium flechettes, fired when the missile reaches an appropriate distance from the target.
That's how modern anti-air missiles work (except for cheaper shrapnel material). Most people don't seem to realise it, instead thinking that movie-esque missiles that ram planes down are the reality.
Go google "Rods From God". Know you know that bombing Baghdad would not be impossibly at all, just a lot worse for Baghdad.
...THAT IMAGE is the best they can do depicting it? It looks like it was photoshopped by a 12 year old.
Let's see. That was in 2001. And it wasn't a laser.
Or maybe you're talking about the one way back in 1984 that convinced the Soviets we were much closer to a working capability than we were? That also wasn't a laser.
I seem to remember several full up tests that worked. (Admittedly not all of them.) Of course they were hit to kill vehicles.
If what you say is true, it's funny that the Navy also was able to hit a malfunctioning satellite last year with a ship launched missile from an Aegis ship.
They were also able to target a small boat at several miles with a laser earlier this year. (It was linked here on slashdot). Not a big blow up and boom, but still interesting.
Could it be that you just really don't know what you're talking about?
Erm. Both your claims cannot have been made by anyone who has had any real contact with ship based weapons. First, in measure of rapid fire, kinetic guns absolutely destroy everything else. One of the main advantages of the anti air gatling CIWS is that it puts up a wall of small projectiles, which can be tracked by radar, which can auto-correct direction of the stream based on target's relative location to the stream. Which can then retarget near-instantly as kinetic gun turret is also light.
Energy is another huge problem on modern ships. Zumwalt-class was long considered for a nuke to power it because gas-turbines are simple not powerful enough to feed a modern AEGIS destroyer/cruiser anymore. Modern fire control radar going on full power trying to burn through interference generated by the target consumes several tens of percent of total ship power output nowadays - this is something you can find on navy's own website (.mil), sourced to their generals. I linked one such source when this topic came on slashdot before. Energy is in EXTREMELY short supply on a non-nuclear powered ship in a combat situation.
And sure, laser can fire for long distance in many conditions. It just won't hit anything meaningful in heavy rain or fog, or even if it does, it will cause minor burns to biological unshielded targets at worst. Good thing it never rains and is never foggy above large masses or water. Even better that there are never large temperature changes over the ocean surfaces causing various optical distortions. Nosiree!
The assumption that the only enemy the US will be fighting until the end of time are "terrorists" is asinine. You may have heard of these "nation-state" things...
Being able to "shoot down cruise missiles and artillery shells" assumes that they can aim. We know from the Regan administration and their StarWars program that aiming is often the hardest part.
What can go wrong, would the laser shot miss it target?
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
What coporation(s) manufacture the largest amount of light reflective materials (a.k.a mirrors)?
I don't think there exist a mirror able to reflect (without being destroyed) in all the wave-lengths the wiggler is able to generate.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Yes, I'm glad that defence contractors and the military are still pumping tons of money and research into these ridiculously expensive, fragile, and unwieldy toys while American families are increasingly going homeless and dying from third-world diseases because they can't get healthcare.
Veni Sharks Vici.
Came for the Sharks. Left satisfied.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Then we do the Zerg rush equivalent of bombing. One 200 lb. bomb doesn't cut it? Oh well, throw ten 20 lb. bombs at them and hope for the best. Isn't that the basic idea behind the MIRV?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Does this mean there is still no answer to the Sunbeam/Brahmos?
While a rail gun has physical limits on the barrel, the lasers do not. The issue as you say, is the amount of energy INSTANTLY and prolonged available to it. For example, if a 5 second shot drains all energy and it will take 5 minutes to come back up, well, this would be worthless. OTH, if you have multiple ultra-caps capable of being charged and can take multiple shots while these are charging with say 1 second downtime, then you are in pretty good shape.
:)
Part of the reason why I support this is that it will require the ships to have loads of ultra-caps. That will mean that they will buy LOADS of them and drive the tech. In doing that, it will lower the prices for cars. Basically, I see this as a win-win all around.
Oddly, I have been writing my congress man pushing for us to do x-prizes for beaming and storing energy. The idea is that we can beam it into Afghanistan (or other bases), but also can help a ship that is in a prolonged battle. In fact, one idea would be to have an Aircraft Carrier able to beam energy to nearby destroyers so that they can quickly fire. Win-win-destroy all around
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Nice reference. That took me way, way back...
Corporations are holding out for ability to cause stars to go supernova. There's nothing like seeing "COKE ADDS LIFE" when you look to the night sky.
At this point, it's still a research and development project.
On the other hand, CIWS and the like are pretty effective. I'm guessing they are looking for something that doesn't have the flight time delay and can engage more targets in a given time. (Of course, just putting more CIWS and ammunition for them on the ship mitigates that last.)
I'm not sure the horizon limitation really matters for defending against incoming threats.
"Will we be blowing the dust off of the Iowa class yet again?"
Actually, that'd be kinda cool. The big problem is they were very expensive ships to maintain and man.
I asked on an earlier posting how far and under what conditions can a laser fire in. And yeah, my issue is that most battles are planned in heavy weather (surprise). My understanding is that FEL can fire in rain with little issues.In addition, according to Navy officials, the FEL laser can perform at different wavelengths, meaning it can operate at lower and more powerful levels so that it can be used for different applications, which other laser technology cannot. It is also not vulnerable to atmospheric conditions, as solid-state lasers are, making them wane in power depending on the weather.
Energy is the key. And more importantly, the ability to deliver instant and prolonged energy or in multiple burst is important. I was suprised that we are not making DDX nuke powered. It seemed like it was the smart thing to do. However, I have suggested many times and have written my senators multiple times to suggest that we create an X-prize on beaming and storing energy. That would solve a lot of issues.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
the barrel of the gun having limited life
I suspect the railgun barrel will have quite a long life, at least compared to whatever it's pointed at.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Do lasers have any effectiveness vs inertial bombs? there are no combustibles to detonate.
Microsoft. But I don't think they sell them unbundled from the smoke.
(Ducking and running from the inevitable Troll mods.)
Have gnu, will travel.
This lost funding on Friday 6-17-11
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/06/20/railgun-laser-weapon-lose-senate-funding-face-uncertain-future/
Foxnews sourced claim contradicts laws of physics. Laser is essentially a homogenous stream of photons fired at certain wavelength. As with all light, it's extremely vulnerable to conditions that either absorb light or refract/reflect light.
I suspect reporter messed something up when sourcing it. Perhaps folks at NAVY were trying to say that FEL laser doesn't lose power OUTPUT in bad weather (due to lens issues and diode issues in high humidity conditions?)
... about all the program cancellations. The FEL is an interesting technology in search of a suitable application.
So far, the only thing it manages to burn through reliably is funds.
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm sorry, but Sim City has caused me to harbor an irrational fear of "beaming" energy.
An old-school rail-fed guided missile cruiser can launch around 5 missiles per second until the magazine runs dry (you can find videos of Chinese missile cruisers showing off). The modern vertical-launch missiles are presumably faster. The Navy builds missile defense plans around groups of such cruisers launching in parallel, which is why the Aegis system needs to be able too track hundreds of targets and so on. As you point out, this is a tall order for any electrically powered device to be used for missile defense: as much power as these lasers must use, just preventing the power busbars from melting would be impressive.
Currently we seem to like using missiles to shoot down missiles. That makes sense to me: we ought to be able to launch in defense at least as fast as in offense (the defensive missiles are about 1/4 the footprint as the offensive).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
yes because a conventional war will never be fought again ever.
Perhaps you've heard of the Aegis defense system the Navy uses? It's pretty neat. And in naval warfare these days, it's not expected that surface opponents will ever be within line of sight of one another - the battle should be over before they get that close.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Fucking mirrors. I win for pennies on the dollar.
High power lasers are hard to reflect (or refract). For example if your mirror/lens is 99.9% efficient (much higher than real-world optics), it absorbs a thousandth of the beam's energy. In other words if you want to reflect a megawatt laser beam, the mirror has to dissipate a kilowatt.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
The radar system that will track the incoming missiles isn't new here: your decoys and radar signature ideas are presumably already being done to whatever extenbt they work, and current defense systems would be affected by them the same as laser defenses.
Laser power source again just needs to offer as many kills as current systems: racks of defensive missiles on deck, or the quite sustained limited firing time the gun-nased CIWS has. Solid state lasers should offer a much higher limit, if they can run off ship power without charging beteen shots. The old DDX designs had many MW of power available for this, but IIRC that design was abandonded a couple years ago, so I'm not sure how this would work. Perhaps on the nuclear ships, but you really want your missile defenses on the screening DDGs, not just the target. Dissipating system heat is trivial for a ship, though component heat is a real engineering challange I'm sure.
Making the incoming missile reflective just isn't practical - as the energy densities we're talking about there, the only surface the laser interacts with is exploding plasma.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hm, so what enemies would the Navy be facing that would be able to rapidly adapt to the laser, requiring the ability to quickly alter the frequency of their weapon's beam? Dear god... that must be it. They're preparing for a Borg invasion.
Incorrect. The marvel of the electron laser is that it does not require any gain medium, and thus it is not fixed to any specific frequency. Electrons are fed in from a particle beam, and run through an electromagnetic conduit called an undulator or 'wriggler', where the electrons bounce side to side. In this process, the electrons give off syncrotron radiation, the frequency of which is infinitely variable, based off the magnetic field strength in the undulator. Since the electron path is parallel to the emitted light, the photons remain in phase.
Behind Enemy Lines actually got that right, sort of. They went with the flechette model, because a hundred projectiles being fired out a hundred individual tubes like a shotgun, followed by the rest of the missile body following through the aircraft, looks cooler than just the front half exploding. Of course that's where reality ended. The entire rest of the missile behavior was flat wrong.
Now they just need to give the ship a shark mouth paint job
Strategy trumps tactics, what are you talking about? They are two different concepts. Strategy applies over the entire theater of combat, multiple battles in multiple areas over multiple times. Tactics apply to a specific battle or skirmish.
The basic idea behind the MIRV is that nuclear weapons got small and light, while rocketry works on economies of scale. Why destroy one city with a lethal radius of 20 miles, when you can use the same rocket to take out a dozen cities with a lethal radius of 5 miles?
It's also worth noting that this isn't really a new invention. Delivery method is the only innovation. Flak guns used to shoot down planes in WW2 were based on the very same principle - shell was filled with small shrapnel and gunner only had to hit close enough to score a kill.
Retroreflector is only going to be 'good enough' in a limited range of frequencies. FEL laser can be tuned to frequencies where the reflectance is poor. (this does make it very useful to know in advance what the reflector(s) are made of)
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Hold on here. The problem with using laser as a naval weapon lies in the beam being affected by reflection/refraction/absorption/distortion by water particles/droplets and atmospheric impurities in the air it travels through.
In what way does FEL defeat this problem? I understand that you can widely change frequency of emitted photon stream due to the nature of the free-electron laser, but the beam it outputs is still just as vulnerable once it leaves the device as that of a typical fixed-frequency laser.
In other worlds, I'm right, as in FEL defeats some weather-related issues with the actual emission process. It doesn't defeat the problems that affect the resultant beam. Or am I understanding something wrong here?
Agreed. Also, approximately the biggest logistic hassle for the Navy is getting sufficient ammunition, missiles, etc. delivered to a combat ship. The FEL laser, combined with a nuke power plant, essentially provides a nearly unlimited 'ammunition' quantity - and (just like in Star Trek) the nuke power can be divided easily between motive power and fire power, as needed (up to some limit). The logistics is really the big factor. IIRC a big Tomahawk destroyer only carries less than 100 missiles. When those are gone, the destroyer is a lot closer to defenseless than any captain would want to be.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
'Nuff said!
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
I haven't kept up, but from my previous reading a while back, the big FEL lasers are intended for the nuke aircraft carriers. But I could see them being built into a new nuke-powered task force escort destroyer. Put one or two of those on each side of the carrier, and you'd have a pretty strong defensive posture. This would leave the carrier open to send out ground attack and counterforce flights, and the missile destroyers could concentrate on shipping Tomahawks to their delivery point.
The interesting thing for a naval confrontation would be that since lasers are line-of-sight, two such equipped forces could not easily use the lasers directly against each other, at least until one or both sides have used or lost all their planes and missiles (and maybe supercavitating torpedoes), so their opponent could close in for the final burn. So the initial part of an actual naval engagement would still be more-or-less old school projectile warfare.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
The barrel has a lifetime of one shot _now_. That is expected to change, in contrast to the target lifespan. :)
I was just thinking - what if the surface of the barrel was actually a liquid of sorts? Obviously there are issues with keeping it in place for any shot that isn't dead level, but there might be a way - like using a thixotropic material that is viscous until moved (like mayonnaise). Then it could be reformed quickly, or new material might just flow down from a series of spray nozzles. Like that stuff with the iron particles in it, that can be held in place magnetically (which raises other issues, but it's just a hypothetical example).
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
It was at least 20 years ago that researchers had systems that could track flies around a room and zap them out of the air (without hurting anything else). Sorry, don't recall where I learned that - it was a long time ago.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
And do have a serious flaw nobody seems to address.
They are totally ineffective against a target with a mirrored surface.
This isn't primary defense (at least not in the Navy's eyes) it's point defense for whatever makes it through the rest of the fleet defense curtain. It's to make sure a rogue Exocet or two doesn't take out your multibillion dollar one of eleven carrier.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well these aren't the only projects of this type. What about BAE System's Railgun?
With a prototype delivered to the Navy back in 2009.
"What's the use of a good quotation if you can't change it?" - Doctor Who
Different atmospheric conditions will affect different frequency light in different ways. Certain frequencies might cause cause excessive dispersion or thermal blooming, while other frequencies will operate in a window of relatively little interference. While a traditional laser would perform just as well as an FEL were it in the proper window, the fact that the FEL is tunable means you can hit that window regardless of the conditions.
A simple laser is no good for this. We all know that the Nova 5 (owned by The Coca-Cola Company) was sent on a mission to induce the supernova of 128 supergiant stars in order to create a five-week-long message in the sky visible even in daylight, reading "COKE ADDS LIFE!".
Cheers, Chris
Seemed like an easier and cheaper system to build. Accelerate a large enough mass fast enough and it will travel as far and a conventional warhead or farther, and the shells themselves are dirt cheap, being nothing but shaped hunks of metal.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I don't think there exist a mirror able to reflect (without being destroyed) in all the wave-lengths the wiggler is able to generate.
Indeed, that's part of the point of using a free-electron (and thus continuously tunable) laser., Anything but a diffraction coating will have that tiny bit of loss that will cause it to vaporize, and the vapor be blasted away, long before the laser is done firing. And a diffraction coating only works at a set of very narrow frequency spikes.
Retune the laser a couple percent off the magic frequency and BANG! goes the mirror.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Why would that be a problem?
This reminds me of this Mass Effect 2 bit.
How about bouncing it off incoming missiles? Now instead of painting they grey everyone will be chrome plating and polishing their warheads.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Superheated, Supersonic Projectiles, what could go wrong!
I came sharks on Vici
No, actually. I have heard of the Somali pirates. Maybe you have too?
Thinking about this... Aren't there inherent disadvantages to laser tech? However advanced your weapon, you will never be able to fire over the horizon, and though you can detonate explosive shells, a hot piece of metal heading your way is going to do just as much damage as a cold one. Also, does the navy have any defences planned against torpedos?
You don't need to fight them until the end of time. Just up to the inevitable obsolescence of this tech, or the appearance of countermeasures is enough.
What if the other side uses a mix of two types of retroreflectors? Then this laser will be frying itself half the time, which is pretty good because retroreflectors are a crapload less expensive than this laser.
There is absolutely no advantage in being first to whatever technology, if that technology isn't being used. The faster the US Navy develops this technology, the longer the time any future enemy will have to develop countermeasures to it, the cheaper it is for them to copy it, and the costlier it's going to be maintaining this capability over the decades and decades it will be entirely useless. Given that history suggests that technologies can be developed pretty quickly in time of military need, keeping superiority in certain set fields and hoping that foes blunder into your entirely obvious traps is a fool's game.
History is full of examples of nations pioneering certain military technology in peacetime, only to see it used against them with much greater effectiveness when the war eventually comes. (Aircraft carriers is the prime example) Unless there's gonna be a war tomorrow, maintaining technological parity, instead of superiority, is the smart choice.
This TED talk is about shooting Malaria mosquito's (with a DVD burner laser: CHEAP). Is that what you were looking for?
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
How the heck do you tune laser to weather conditions that are constantly changing (moving droplets in the air)? Also what wave length can actually defeat a fog?
The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future:
Terminated.
The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future is Terminated.
Or ideally:
The Senate terminated the the directed energy...
No passive voice, no misused question mark. Much better.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
It's hard enough to deliver a beam with enough power to do something once, doing it twice in one shot would be very tough. It would be easier to strap a laser on a plane. Easier still to send a missile or bomb to the target.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
"in space projectiles fly in perfectly straight lines"
eh? gravity doesn't exist in space, then?
only a *continuously powered* object can travel in a straight line in space.
don't people read hard SF any more?
Actually, from the article(crazy I know)"the Obama administration nixed plans to develop the experiment into a battle-ready weapon.", that same funding bill also cut funding for the rail gun project as well. But hey ADM's still getting those ethanol subsidies so all well that ends well.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Who says it has to be visible light? Water droplets are no opaque in all regions of the spectrum.
The benefits of a tunable laser mean you can reduce the absorption and dispersion effects, but obviously not eliminate them.
Don't worry, nothing is so bad that humans can't make it worse. That's why the movie Sphere was so sadly true.
I never said it had to be "visible" frequency. Not a single time.
The point is that if you cannot (nearly fully) eliminate them, you have world's most expensive floodlight. Laser needs a few seconds of FOCUSED fire on target to cause damage. Even minor distortion on the way destroys its ability to focus on target, which is the entire point of it being useless a few meters above surface of the ocean, where such distortions are norm.
Can you mount it on a sea bass?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Just uncheck "disasters" until you get bored with the game.
Wow, 20 years went by fast. What will the next 20 bring?
the ultimate defence weapon.
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
You sound almost sad for not seeing the green light on new ways of killing people.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Railgun projectiles don't need explosives or propulsion systems. They're just shaped pieces of (conductive?) mass that have extremely high velocity and thus really high kinetic energy.
From my understanding these lasers tend to work by heating up and weakening the thin metal around missile/artillery shells and causing failure or detonation. Assuming the laser could even track the much faster rail gun projectile the most I think it could do would be to score the outside and throw off the aerodynamics some.
Though it does look like the Senate Armed Services Committee cut funding for both of these technologies a few days ago so we'll have to see how that pans out on the Senate floor later and in the years to come. Hopefully they're more informed and maybe they're right that the techs aren't currently feasible given the costs.
Do not look at laser cannon with remaining eye!
No brain, no pain.
Is this serious or a subtle Real Genius joke?
Or, make really cheap decoys in large numbers and mix your real missiles in with them.
It's a standard way of defeating defenses, and it applies to all other systems like CIWS (AKA Phalanx) or missile based systems as well.
Send in targets faster than the system can respond to them, or send in so many that it runs out of ammunition.
Light moves faster then sound. That's why some AC's seem informed until you hear them speak. Down boy!
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
and a giant laser would stop that how?
have you actually seen actual Somali Pirates? You don't need a giant laser to stop them.
It seems unlikely that any weapon requiring line-of-sight will ever be used directly in surface action (excepting asymmetric threats). The battle would be long over, with one or both sides destroyed, before the fleets ever got that close.
Realistically, I doubt we'd see a fleet-vs-fleet aciton in my lifetime - someone would start throwing nukes first (using nukes against fleets on the open ocean won't carry nearly the same sort of reprocussions that accompany land targets - no civilians, no fallout), and it's quite hard to defend against a large nuke coming down from orbit and targeting random ocean 5-10 miles away from your carrier.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
On the power source, a laser defense weapon would only be interesting if it used ship power - as you point out. chemical lasers are just too bulky.
Just a note on reflective missiles, since someone seems to bring that up on every laser thread. That whole apporach just can't work (at least, not in the atmosphere). The laser turns the air next to the missile surface into exploding plasma, which means even if the missile surface were magically perfectly reflective, that surface is destroyed almost instantly.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Among conservatives too...
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
[citation needed] (for your citation needed)
Well, it's their own fault. If they just worked harder and got a job with a defense contractor, they'd have excellent healthcare !
I'd assume that if a laser is being used to defend against railgun projectiles, the projectiles are coming directly towards it and wouldn't be hard to track with the sort of fancy adaptive optics that any atmospheric laser weapon is probably going to have to include. If the projectile is coming at you so fast that you can't track it with mm-wave radar and keep the beam locked on it, you may have bigger problems, such as an enemy who has figured out a way around c.
But yeah, a laser designed to defend against railgun projectiles would probably have to do substantially different things than one that was meant to take out cruise missiles. Lasers are actually pretty crappy weapons in the best of conditions.
Oh please, I served too, and always called subs boats and surface vessels ships. You could call your own ship a boat if you wanted to, but if a visitor came on board your Enterprise and called her a 'boat', I'm pretty damn sure they would be corrected.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain
I'm thinking what if they will build a laser mounted on an orbiting satellite. That's an instant ION Cannon from Space that can fire any target around the Globe.
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