Laser Takes Out Truck Engine From a Mile Away

MutualFun (1730480) writes Aerospace company Lockheed Martin has used a laser to obliterate the engine of a small truck from more than a mile away. (Finally, Star Wars is making a comeback!) The company says, "The demonstration marked the first field testing of an integrated 30-kilowatt, single-mode fiber laser weapon system prototype. Through a technique called spectral beam combining, multiple fiber laser modules form a single, powerful, high-quality beam that provides greater efficiency and lethality than multiple individual 10-kilowatt lasers used in other systems."

Comments

One million dollars

[danbert8]

But can they be mounted on sharks? That is the real question...

Re:One million dollars

[Megane]

Sharks, hell, where's the popcorn?

Re:One million dollars

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

This is Jesus.

Stop playing with yourself.

how much it took

[cachimaster]

Maybe it took a week to make a small hole, that's an important detail.

Re:how much it took

[pr0fessor]

The article said "The ground-based laser prototype burned through the engine manifold of a mounted truck in mere seconds." so at least two seconds and less than a minute, but you are correct the longer it takes the less practical it would be to use it against a moving target.

Re:how much it took

[meta-monkey]

They should do some tests to see how many seconds a 120mm shell fired from an M1A1 at ~1700m/s needs to be in contact with the truck to disable it.

Re:how much it took

[Entropius]

It took "mere seconds" to burn through the engine manifold.

Paint it white (specifically, something with high albedo in whatever frequency range the attacker favors) and you can probably increase that time by a factor of ten. Paint it with that retroreflective paint that they make street markings out of and you've blinded anyone near the firing station.

Laser weapons look effective now because nobody's taking rudimentary countermeasures against them (because they don't need to). But if these things start appearing on battlefields, there are some simple countermeasures that will make their life a lot more difficult.

Re:how much it took

[amicusNYCL]

Paint it white (specifically, something with high albedo in whatever frequency range the attacker favors) and you can probably increase that time by a factor of ten.

Well won't you be embarrassed when you actually click on the article and note the color of the target vehicle.

Re:how much it took

[afidel]

Even near perfect mirroring makes damn near zero difference to a cutting laser so I doubt this attack laser would be any different.

Re:how much it took

[Rich0]

0.1% of the kill rate of an A10 Warthog, for only 1000 times the cost. But hey, somebody's making a lot of money here, so we can't complain.

Speed-of-light weapons that have virtually linear trajectories certainly have the potential to change warfare though.

Put it this way - if you pointed that A10 cannon upwards at an aircraft at 70k feet, you'd be hard-pressed to hit it at all. On the other hand, a laser would have relatively little difficulty hitting the aircraft even if it were in geosync orbit, or even on the surface of the moon.

Stick something like this on a plane and you could use it to shoot down incoming missiles, shoot artillery shells in mid-flight, shoot aircraft, and so on.

Sure, the technology is immature, but it certainly is a capability that is valuable for a military to posses.

Re:how much it took

[nehumanuscrede]

You're limiting your thinking to the short term. Expand it out a decade or two and try to picture what the tech can evolve into.

Imagine a satellite ( or something like the ISS ) based weapon that will fire an invisible high-kilowatt ( or even megawatt ) beam on any target it can see from orbit. Maybe combine a few of these satellites onto the same target for even more power output.

Then realize you can pretty much incinerate any human target on the planet, instantly. From orbit. Crank the power output up enough and you can do the same with aircraft, other satellites, light vehicles, ICBM's, etc. The puppet you installed during your regime change a decade ago giving you shit ? No problem. Hope they remember to wear their SPF-10000 today . . . . :| Those pesky whistleblowers taking refuge in a non-extradition country ? Pffft. No problem. Start some wildfires, disable power grids, use your imagination.

On the ground, the target will just heat up, catch fire and die horribly. No collateral damage, nor explanation as to wtf just happened.

Is the tech clumsy today ? Sure it is. All tech starts that way. Compare computers from 20-30 years ago with what is common today if you want to see tech evolution in action.

Re:how much it took

[Ralph Wiggam]

Keeping the 300 A-10s operational costs over $800M per year. That's a lot of money for a plane that can only do one thing under specific circumstances. Newer, more flexible systems can take over those missions at little additional cost. The Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years, but Congress won't let them.

Yes, the A-10 appeals to the inner 12 year old in all of us. But the days of a pilot flying slowly in a straight line directly towards its target are behind us.

Re:how much it took

[Ralph Wiggam]

The reality is that the Air Force, Army, and Marines want the A-10 kept alive

You should talk to the Secretary of the Air Force. They're saying otherwise.

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/213844-ayotte-rips-air-force-for-defending-a-10-retirement

Vid or STFU

[richy freeway]

Words are cheap, we wanna see shit BURN!

Terminator at gun shop...

[tekrat]

Terminator: Phased plasma rifle in the 50-watt range.
Owner: Hey, just what you see here pal!
Terminator : Uzi 9 millimeter
Owner: You really know your guns, this baby is perfect for home defense....

Re:NOT a joking matter: Moths in your pocketbook.

[jellomizer]

But there are other governments/organizations paying other corporations a lot of currency to come up with weapons to kill us.
The nice thing about Lasers is that it is a directed weapon so you can hit your target, and not hurt what is around it.