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US Military Stepping Up Use of Directed Energy Weapons
An anonymous reader writes: At a conference on Tuesday, U.S. officials explained that all branches of the military would be increasing their use of lasers and other directed energy weapons. Lieutenant General William Etter said, "Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense." The Navy's laser deployment test has gone well, and they're working on a new prototype laser in the 100-150 kilowatt range. "[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners, and the U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes to ensure that it stayed ahead of potential foes."
got that phase conjugate tracking mirror done.
Directed energy weapons are not that interesting. I'm more scared of undirected energy weapon and very curious about ballistic energy weapons.
"an entirely new era in invasion". When the U.S says things like "defense budget", they really mean "invasion budget", and so forth, as their track-record since the end of WW2 clearly shows.
The summary probably should have linked to this article:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/15/05/18/1553206/navys-new-laser-weapon-hype-or-reality
I've been wondering for the past few years when the new wave of laser-caused blindness will strike the world. There are already plenty of lasers that won't burn a hole through you, but they will irreparably damage your eyes in a few milliseconds. Still, the rash of blindings hasn't happened. I'm not talking about airline pilots being temporarily flashed by some asshole on the ground, I'm talking about people being permanently blinded by lasers, either in war or criminal activity.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
US military stepping up use of X because, like, why wouldn't we.
Star wars movie!
I like how the implication here is that a country with a GDP lower than that of Iraq is a potential threat. That's without even considering geological issues (11,000Km) or geopolitical (all western nations declaring instawar). Because Tehran is potentially going to be rolling up to the Whitehouse with tanks and "lasers" (Dr. Evil airquotes).
Is it my imagination or is the US government/society incapable of functioning without an imaginary boogeyman? Be it terrorists, communists, drugs, witches, rapists, etc. Although, admittedly, how else do you unite a society without common traditions or culture without constructing an external threat?
or, at least, that's how the saying goes.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
I seem to recall the 1993 movie "Demolition Man" showing handheld laser weapons in the future. Not only does the movie showcase handheld laser weapons in the future... but IMO shows lots of general valid downsides to laser weapons... old school projectile based weapons may have smaller form factor, may have order of magnitude faster reload, order of magnitude better clip size).
Now they just need to add the sound.
I am disappoint. I was told we'd be using jiggawatts by now.
Sorry, bad joke. In more than one way.
... their opponents would simply wear sunglasses. Or some sort of eye covering that would block the light sufficiently. As a non lethal anti personel weapon it would probably work poorly once on the battlefield, then never again. Now in civilian control situations, thats another matter...
"[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners"
Laser targeting != Laser weaponry. I'm surprised that SecNAV doesn't understand the difference although low energy lasers can be fun.
TFA:
"Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense," Lieutenant General William Etter, Commander, Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region, told a conference hosted by Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment.
which reminded me of:
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
- Dwight Eisenhower
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
"the U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes"
Ahem. Sounds like someone is getting tired of having to pay off so many officials to get those billion dollar military contracts.
She: Hey, are you a traitor? Me: No, I'm atheist.
... what do you people think accelerated these programs and why do you think the Navy is the first to deploy them?
Russia and China started saying "ha ha, your carrier groups are powerless before our anti ship missiles... Tee hee!"
And that got some Admirals worried so they went over to the various companies that build these things like Stark Labs and Luthor's Starlabs etc... and they said "I want something that kills hypersonic missiles so my carriers don't get scragged!"... and here you go.
Hypersonic missiles nullified. Potentially anyway... Maybe they cover the missiles in reflectors or space shuttle like heat tiles or something. Its going to go back and forth.
They're going to pitch the weapon as a panacea because they always do that. But you have to consider why they specifically got interested in this... Its ICBMs and hyper sonic missiles that are worrying them. ... I can't think of anything the Iranians actually have right now that would take a laser to stop. The most threatening concept I've seen out of Iran was their swarm of small speed boats attacking a destroyer going through the gulf. But... first off the destroy can kill one of those little boats with anything. I mean, the close support phalanx cannons could kill the entire wave. And even if they were able to kill a destroyer that way... so what? I mean... congrats... you got a destroyer... now you're going to get a full strategic response... so... that was the last thing you ever did.
The US actually likes to start a war with someone else blowing up one of our ships. Remember the Maine and all that. I mean... read a book.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
This sounds an awful lot like the scaremongering that was put out surrounding Iraq and its WMDs. We all know how that turned out.
Laser targeting and guidance systems have been about for decades. These days a simple laser pointer can be considered a laser targeting system. It is a massive technological leap to go from milliwatt laser pointers to 150kW directed energy weapons: a technical leap that Iran, and countries like it, simply are not capable of.
The Navy are clearly banking on the fact that Politicians simply will not know the difference and will just allocate more money to Defence Budgets out of misguided fear. Nevermind that the Navy's own Laser Weapon System's performance has actually been rather lacklustre.
Maybe the Directed Energy Weapons program is yet another area of US Military spending that is deemed 'too big to fail'... just like the F35.
Seriously, isn't it an arms race between government(s) (many now), and the people that roam the planet that know what they are up to ? I am sure there are real threats but these are more likely to be used against your own than a known, identifiable, foreign enemy.
>> U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes to ensure that it stayed ahead of potential foes
Yes, yes! Open your wallets and support the complex! We cannot afford a LASER GAP to materialize so we must create that gap ourselves!
Aside from some WMDs, most weapons are directed energy. A bullet fired from a gun is energy directed at the target. Ditto for missiles, knives, and high-yield nuclear bombs. Exceptions are chemical and biological weapons and dirty nuclear weapons such as the neutron bomb.
"...the military would be increasing their use of lasers..." It sounds like my childhood cartoons are becoming a reality!
Why do we announce things of this nature? Wouldn't it be more in our interest to just keep this sorta thing like in an "Area 51" type logic. Sure we have the capability, sure we may or may not use it. I don't think we should just say, we are going to do more of it, so you other countries that may be our enemy now or in the future, get your shit together and raise your defense against energy weaponry.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
Prior art, bitches!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
All to make the world a safer place for our unelected 'masters', the Jew...
Who runs the Fed? Who runs the banks? Who is allowed to print almost ALL the money in the world, out of thin air? Who runs almost the entire media, and decides what you can and can't say, or else you lose your job? Why, the eternal Jew...
Rate me -1 troll, but I think it's hilarious that "the science fiction future" for which everyone is optimistically hoping is being brought to us by something so prosaic and "dirty" and anti-utopian as murdering people. (Well, I guess it has been through much of the last 100+ years, as in the internet and aircraft.)
Kind of like the 'brave new world' of the internet and tech being driven by the porn industry.
-Styopa
I will get excited when I can get a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range. Until then I'll stick with my full metal jacket ammo.
Wasn't there a big hubbub a while back where massive amounts of money had been spent on directed energy weapons with little to show for it? The Airborne Laser is the most pointed example, after $5 Billion spent it was found that it would cost tens of billions to build a fleet vulnerable 747 aircraft to patrol a single small country at over a billion a year in operations costs. The issue with all of these systems appears to be power, most struggle to burn through a car hood at a few hundred feet. Railguns (more of a modified projectile weapon than a directed energy weapon) are far more likely to be effective weapons, while I am sure lasers have their uses with current technology defensive uses (blinding targeting systems) are for more likely then offensive ones.
The Iranians have Sunburn missiles. They're quite deadly. It might take a laser.
scaremongering - 9/11 was an inside job
Only because photons of light travel many, many, many orders of magnitude faster than cannonballs and bullets. They both have the same radial accelleration though.
I don't foresee the most obvious way to circumvent these weapons as permanently clouding the atmosphere.