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German Laser Destroys Targets More Than 1Km Away
kkleiner writes "A German company has brought us one step closer to the kinds of shootouts only seen in Sci-Fi films. Düsseldorf-based Rheinmetall Defense recently tested a 50kW, high-energy laser at their proving ground facility in Switzerland. First, the system sliced through a 15mm- (~0.6 inches) thick steel girder from a kilometer away. Then, from a distance of two kilometers, it shot down a handful of drones as they nose-dived toward the surface at 50 meters per second."
But can it wreck a college professor's house full of pop corn?
So how well does it make popcorn?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089886/
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
AWESOME!
Does anyone else think of the Bolo books when reading this.
phew-phew
Why do people use decimals on a non-metric system? sigh...
Pewpewpewpewpew!
Mirror mirror on my walls, send that light back and burn their balls!
Why did they test it in a country where there are no sharks?
Heck, it can't penetrate my Maginot Line
How many rods per hogshead were they diving?
How do you shoot down something that is already nosediving?
This sig washed every five years whether it needs it or not!
I predict a mirrored future for our military vehicles...
We should call it "The Alan Parsons Project"
how fast can the laser do all these tricks? slicing a stationary piece of steel isn't very impressive. What about a moving mirror, or something that can reflect the laser relatively effectively.
The system depends on radar to acquire and track a target. Therefore, it can be JAMMED by a determined opponent.
Laser weapon technolgy may seem advanced and impressive, but the underpinning old-style radar is the primary weakness.
What can possibly go wrong...?! :p
"Sum Ergo Cogito"
Shooting down drones. Sort of like one of them electric bug zappers, but for bigger bugs.
Be seeing you...
Do not look directly into beam.
What can possibly go wrong...?! :p
For starters you only get to watch a demo once.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'd guess not.
So what numbers of casualties due to blindness can we expect in future wars once laser systems become widely deployed?
Not only among combatants (they will probably have some appropriate glasses to protect themselves with) but also among civilians?
I have seen various comments about light scattered off of non-shiny surfaces being a problem even with lasers in the hundreds of watts.
Is there cause for concern here in this respect or are there mitigating factors? Range might be one I guess as the previously mentioned lasers were used in enclosed spaces for research or manufacturing (comparatively short "range").
It has already been done.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/05/wicked-lasers-shark/
I figured if a laser's very tight-column beam was so close to "perfect" that if it could destroy something at 10 meters, it could destroy or at least severely damage it at 1,000 meters, at least in a vacuum.
Perhaps I should be impressed that 1 km of atmosphere didn't disrupt the laser enough to disable its destructive power. Next time, try 1km of fog or 1km of Beijing smog.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I will live to see Star Wars like lasers in my life time!!!!!
Lastly, they’ll begin making these high-energy laser systems mobile by mounting a laser onto a TM170 armored vehicle.
Godzilla doesn't stand a chance now!
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Pew pew pew!
50 m/sec is 894.776 furlongs/sec for y'all in the US. :)
This kind of weapon would be an incredible boost for air defense, at least for close-in ground support and other low-level attacks. It wouldn't do much against artillery shells or naval gunfire. It would also likely allow the development of a laser-based missile defense system far superior to a patriot system. If these things come to pass, the balance of power would shift away from nations with a heavy emphasis on air power (i.e. the U.S. with its aircraft carriers and air force) towards nations with large and mobile ground forces.
Just remodulate the shields!
Until the nations with a heavy emphasis on air power just hit all of your frikin' lasers with cruise missiles, and then bomb the shit out of you with their superior air power...
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
with remaining head.
It wouldn't do much against artillery shells or naval gunfire.
It would be somewhat effective against artillery shells. Most large shells travel slowly and rely on explosives for their damage. Heat one up enough and you'll either bork the fuse or set off the explosives prematurely. Now you've got non-aerodynamic shrapnel with a relatively low terminal velocity raining down rather than a high explosive shell.
The other thing about slow moving artillery shells is that they're slow, so there's time to effect the flight path. Heat the metal enough and you'll have superheated metal gas ablating from the surface of the shell. The force from that will be enough to alter the course of the projectile. With enough tracking/accuracy, you could theoretically divert the shell to land somewhere harmless (or at least less damaging).
Skip the lasers. Hit the power plants.
.. and this happens just weeks after the USA Death Star petition came in the news.
...from where it was aimed.
Their they're doing there hair.
Put the power plants underground and add more lasers to protect them from cruise missiles.
A laser should be able to destroy an approaching missile within seconds. It probably does require cool-down times to avoid overheating, but overwhelming a laser-based missile shield would still take a fuckton of missiles arriving near simultaneously.
You must be new here.
Sharks.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
100 kW is considered to be militarily useful, 1 MW is considered to be a battle grade laser.
There are 100 kW solid state lasers available to the US military so this is not exactly leading edge military laser power. The interesting bit about this article is the revolver design they used.
You didnt think that one out very well, did you?
(Hint - what do you think a laser based system would be rather good at destroying? Would that be...... a cruise missle?)
Unless the missiles could be delivered by planes that had been designed to be very difficult to detect on radar. Maybe they could fire missiles that are also very difficult to detect.
Or, you could just design cruise missiles that make use of terrain to fly under radar coverage.
We should probably get working on those things, huh?
needs a beam splitter
AB HOC POSSUM VIDERE DOMUM TUUM
Inspector Dryfus has a grudge against the U.N.
You mean, like Scorched Earth's "lazy boy" which was a walking device? Or if there's no nasty terrain, an ordinary remotely controlled truck bomb.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
ya. missiles that ... cruise towards their target, very low. We could call them...uhhh...I suck at naming things. How about we just call them "ANGRY BIRDS".
"it shot down a handful of drones as they nose-dived toward the surface "
Wait until the drones have the lasers.
Then we're in trouble.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
ZEE? I zold dem it vould werk. Only a matter of time.
Fools I Vill destroy zem all!
"It's made in Germany. You know the Germans always make good stuff." - Vince Schlomi
For its finale, the laser’s ability to track a very small ballistic target was demonstrated. It honed in on and destroyed a steel ball 82mm in diameter traveling at 50 meters per second. The small ball was meant to simulate an incoming mortar round.
I imagine the cruise missile shell won't be that hard to perforate, especially that their trajectory is pretty much predictable. Besides:
And the company is already looking past the 60kW, saying in a press release that “nothing stands in the way of a future [high-energy laser] weapon system with a 100kW output.” Lastly, they’ll begin making these high-energy laser systems mobile by mounting a laser onto a TM170 armored vehicle. Their ultimate goal is to mount the lasers on vehicles operating in the open.
It's like attaching a light armoured vehicle with a cruise missile. You are welcome to try... even if you succeed, I suppose one is able to sustain the creation of new lasers longer than the other side is able to build cruise missiles.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Oh yea, it's so easy to put a power plant underground.
Fine then, you can just find the exhaust points and blow those up. Any significant power installation is going to put out a lot of heat, and blocking that heat from being removed is going to cause some serious issues for said installation.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
What power plants? Looks like the lasers are mobile and their plans include mounting them on trucks - to me, this indicate a certain degree of autonomy.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
We should probably get working on those things, huh?
I suppose one of these babies will be easier/cheaper to build than a high sophisticated stealth missile: at equally destructive power, the winner is the one that can keep building the weapons longer.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Just sayin'... Reflective armor vulnerable to varying wavelengths combined with a rail gun.
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
I would not be surprised if Israel was to purchase a laser system from Rheinmetall Defence. They have plenty of slowly moving targets available for practice shooting.
Everyone will be complaining as a threat. Even more ironic is, German army has a nasty history.
NT
In other words, "That thing's got to have a tail pipe."
John
I'm no physicist, but I'm quite certain that shells are spinning along their own axis many times a second and one side is not going to heat up significantly more than another.
How do you know if you shoot down a drone that is nosediving at 50 m/s?
Currently hooked on AMP
Laser systems effective against artillery shells and mortars have already been demonstrated years ago. The idea didn't pan out at the time because they were chemical lasers using a chemical reaction to power it, and the expensive chemicals needed to run it complicated the logistics of keeping it supplied too much.
Isn't this bad for the atmosphere to be shooting lasers at it (when it misses the target)?
The G
Stupidly simple
Did anyone else see the headline and immediately wonder if it was that bald dude with the firecracker slingshot that got posted a few days ago. He did mention something about being ready to unveil a "witch beheader" in the last video, after all...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
What I want to know is: if they deploy this as an air-to-ground weapon, will the drone be in the form of a flying pig named "Algie", and will they be blasting "Animals" or "The Wall" while on missions?
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
I wouldn't say the U.S. has a heavy emphasis on air power so much as we have a heavy emphasis on anything that blows shit up. Haven't you been keeping up with the Navy's railgun tests?
So are they planning on using it to make enormous Swiss cheese?
End of line..
Are the exhaust ports wider than two meters? Harder to hit than a womprat?
No sig for the moment.
Pipe the heat into the sea then. It just so happens to be an excellent heat sink.
Not necessarily. There are quite a few modern shells that use stabilizers instead of rotation to improve accuracy.
NEXT STOP : DEATHSTAR !
The lasers would not work in the U.S., since they are calibrated in kilometers, not miles.
You just made my night.
Germany... lulling Europe into a false sense of peace since 1945
When can I mount an anti-drone laser on my roof?
http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Prism_Tank
OMG! If this keeps up the Germans will have a Death Star before we do!
That;s why nuclear submarines are popular. But underground nukes are better, because its easy to pipe cooling effluent to a safe distance.
I'm sure that I have read this sometime in Dec 2012. they combine a 20kW and a 30kW laser to get 50kW, making the system scaleable, to some degree.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
k = kilo 1000 !!
K = K 1024 !!
M-K !!
From a R&D perspective this laser weapon is not great of achievement since they are using 2 lasers. But this laser weapon is innovative. It will be very useful for defensive purposes however. This weapon would make a good phalanx missile defense replacement. The US is a bit behind because they are focused on perfecting 100kw solid state laser. The great thing is that this seems close to production ready.
...balance of power would shift away from nations with a heavy emphasis on air power (i.e. the U.S. with its aircraft carriers and air force) towards nations with large and mobile ground forces...
I.e., the US?
eh?
Waiting for you by the bridge
My underground power plant dumps all its excess heat into an underground river.
The same phenomena is why earth-bound telescopes don't hold a candle to space telescopes such as the Hubble.
Thanks to technological advancements, your assertion must—at the very least—be qualified.
Cf. "Adaptive optics ushers in a new era in ground-based astronomy"
It would be somewhat effective against artillery shells. Most large shells travel slowly and rely on explosives for their damage. Heat one up enough and you'll either bork the fuse or set off the explosives prematurely. Now you've got non-aerodynamic shrapnel with a relatively low terminal velocity raining down rather than a high explosive shell.
The other thing about slow moving artillery shells is that they're slow, so there's time to effect the flight path. Heat the metal enough and you'll have superheated metal gas ablating from the surface of the shell. The force from that will be enough to alter the course of the projectile. With enough tracking/accuracy, you could theoretically divert the shell to land somewhere harmless (or at least less damaging).
Yes, but there's also hypervelocity rail guns under development that get the projectile going rather faster (many times the speed of sound) where the time to heat up the incoming shell would be a lot less. Admittedly, the main target use for them is probably going to be making the range extreme, but at close quarters the sheer kinetic energy would be devastating and a laser would make next to no difference at all.
"Little does he know, but there is no 'I' in 'Idiot'!"
What if you don't have a sea anywhere close?
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Sigh. Americans really are a bunch of arrogant, near fatally stupid dickwavers. Please keep going in that direction, eventually you'll end up forgetting how to breathe and thus make the world a better place!
Heinz Doofenshmirtz. (spelling?)
Those rail guns are going to be nearly direct fire weapons. That means the defender with a laser probably can get line of sight with the shooter. Doesn't mean that the defender can do much (say to a heavily armored against laser target 200 miles away), but it does limit the options.
And indirect fire weapons are quite susceptible to this sort of thing.
That's why I specified large shells. Railgun is more along the lines of a 5" deck gun than a 12" battleship turret. In all cases it relies on kinetic energy for the kill. The projectiles vary wildly in design, but there are plans for a steerable one with internal guidance, and the general purpose one that breaks open near the end of its flight path to spread the impact out with multiple fragments rather than punching a clean hole in the target. In the case of both of those shells, a laser could either screw up the guidance/fusing, or break the shell open prematurely and cause the fragments to be spilled over a large area and/or lose enough energy (air resistance at mach8 is quite high) to lessen the damage.
What happens if the bad guys happen to drop depth charges on that outlet?
these things are being designed to kill cruise missiles and rockets. If it was put into a satellite, it could even kill an ICBM. kind of hard to do missile strikes and bombing runs when it will just be burned out of the sky. The only way to do death from above would be kill sats with tungsten impactors. the downside to that is that orbital profiles are easy to chart, and while space is big, it's kind of hard to hide a kill sat, and they are themselves easier to kill. This wouldn't stop a hypersonic railgun slug, and in theory those could have a nuclear tip.
so we go back to first world war esque force designs, with artillery and ground forces, with navies using dreadnoughts.
It wouldn't do much against artillery shells or naval gunfire.
Actually, it's already been done....
Tactical High Energy Laser
On November 4, 2002, THEL shot down an incoming artillery shell. A mobile version completed successful testing. During a test conducted on August 24, 2004 the system successfully shot down multiple mortar rounds. The test represented actual mortar threat scenarios. Targets were intercepted by the THEL testbed and destroyed. Both single mortar rounds and salvo were tested.
Stay on target... stay on target...
I was actually thinking of slapping some stealth coating onto some GBU-38s and letting the B-2 Spirit deliver them. Even if the stealth coating isn't perfect, I imagine that this laser is still going to have a little trouble knocking 80 of them out of the sky at the same time. (I don't believe most tracking radars can discriminate 80 closely-spaced targets at the same time.)
Current cruise missiles also are pretty good at flying below radar coverage. Hug the ground into the target and the radar/laser system may never achieve line-of-sight.
And you didn't think this one out very well either. What do cruise missiles do very well that causes them to be classified as CRUISE MISSILES? Perhaps flying low among terrain where you can't get line of sight on it, which any weapon based on FUCKING LIGHT would require?
They demostrated being able to take out a fairly slow traveling mortar round on a purely ballistic flight path, but say nothing about a 1970's designed Tomahawk flying 5x as fast, and able to change it's flight path, much less any newer weapon design.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
A high-powered laser will not be cheaper than a simple cruise missile. You don't even necessarily need a stealth missile. Cruise missiles fly below radar coverage. If the radar can't pick it up, the laser can't hit it.
I'm afraid there's a massive technical difference between hitting a chunk of metal flying in a purely ballistic path at 50 m/sec, and a cruise missile that is flying low to the terrain (line of sight issues that completely fuck a weapon based on focused light), and able to change heading and altitude while flying at 250 m/sec.
Also, just like previous ABM systems, they can be overwhelmed with quantity. So you can shoot down 100 incoming warheads per minute? We'll just build a launcher that can throw 150 per minute and you're still fucked 50 times over.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
The Metre Convention was a treaty about how to define the meter and how to coordinate measurement. Individual nations adopted the metric system both before and after the Metre Convention.
I know European jingoists like the idea of a sensible and rational transition of Europe to the metric system, but that's just now what happened. Continental Europe in the 19th century was in disarray, and the adoption of the metric system just happened piecemeal as each nation transitioned into something resembling its modern form.
Belgium and the Netherlands adopted the metric system in 1820, under the influence of France. Many German states did the same thing and prepared the way for metrication in 1872, a year after the founding of the German Empire. Italy adopted the metric system in the 1860's, again in political turmoil and under French influence. Go check the Wikipedia page on metrication to see the wide range of dates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_propulsion
With laser launch systems, we would all have Cheap Access to Space. And then we could develop self-replicating space habitats to make lots of new land and collects lots of solar energy for use in space. So, we could then support quadrillions of people in style in the solar system.
Instead, it sounds like most of the money is going to make technology to do ourselves in fighting over land and oil.
This is just another example of the dangerous deep ironies of people steeped in 19th century "security" strategy holding 21st century technology in their hands:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. "
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
The MIRCL there can shoot basketball sized targets at 200km at 2mW... and that was well over a decade ago... keep trying Germans!
Wouldn't drilling wells as heat sinks work? When I was looking into geothermal heat sinks as a supplement to air conditioning, I recall a fairly small surface area underground resulted in some pretty good returns. Or drill horizontally and have the exhaust exit far away from the actual power plant.