Boeing's new laser fits in a suitcase and can shoot down drones

[Jeff7]

HEL MD works by shooting a 10 kilowatt beam of focused light at light speed towards airborne targets.

A beam of light? At light speed? Who'da thunk it.

 

[Charmonium]

Now incoming missiles if you can track them is another story. Maybe if you chromed and polished the heck out of a missile but all some maintenance person at an launch control center (LCC) would have to do is touch the missile before launching and the resulting smudges from the oils one ones hands would negate hours of polishing; so would a flack of geese.

If you look at the article, there is video of it tracking a mortar round. All you really see is a white blob which eventually goes boom but it seems to have very good tracking.

The only real problem with this device is that you have to be able to hold it on target for many seconds before it destroys the target. For drones and mortars this isn't really a problem. Ramping it up for missiles is something else.

I did read about a technique where you fire 4 other lasers in a box around the central laser. That seems to make a corridor for the main laser so it has better range. Don't remember the details though.

 

[MongGrel]

Laser...wind...am I misunderstanding something here?

I'd guess if you were going to make a laser rifle you'd make it so the barrel is the sight and where you point it is where it will hit every time a laser is always going to shoot in a straight line assuming there is nothing to reflect it or a black hole near by.
There would be no need to adjust the sight for range if you can see the target you can hit the target.

My bad I was just thinking of a laser scope to begin with, what was I thinking.

Not the rifle.

Derp.

 

[IronWing]

A beam of light? At light speed? Who'da thunk it.

It's a gov'mint project; no telling how slow it might go.

 

[smackababy]

I always thought lightsabers should have been actually made of light. Luke could have destroyed the Death Star from Endor... Game over, bitches.

 

[mikeford]

Warfare is going to get weird in the next decades. Cheap, relatively anyway, powerful offensive weapons are game changers. Air superiority can't be assured, making expensive aircraft impractical to use.

 

[JoeBleed]

A beam of light? At light speed? Who'da thunk it.

Dark Helmet: No-no-no, light speed is too slow!
Colonel Sandurz: Light speed too slow?
Dark Helmet: Yes, we're gonna have to go right to... Ludicrous speed!
[The entire ATOT gasps in horror]

We need the next gen already! come on!! I want plaid laser beams damn it!

 

[Murloc]

blinding lasers would have been in use years ago but there's a treaty banning that kind of stuff thank god.
It also gets respected since only big rich countries can afford this stuff and the required platforms.

I guess the effect on warfare could be game-changing even more than the machine gun was in WW1.

Everyone thought about Blitzkrieg, and they ended up spending years in a trench. Then the british deployed tanks before the germans and won.

It could make attacking very difficult since planes and helicopters would be shot down very fast. Maybe artillery would still work if you spam anti-laser particle spreading shells and lots of shells. You can't protect aircraft for long this way though.

So it's back to tanks and fortifications maybe, heavily armored or smoke-shrouded.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Screw flying targets. It it is this small, put it on Apache helicopters and let them take out folks on the ground, one ant at a time.

 

[Squeetard]

~holds up mirror and kills person trying to kill me~

Also, if Storm Troopers are any indication, you can't hit shit with those things.

 

[cabri]

Two issues.
As implied/pointed out, on targeting for the 1-3 seconds it will take for the laser to have impact

The amount of power needed to support the laser for the burst and then to recharge the power banks.

However, the Boeing test is a nice second step.

It has been shown that a laser can be placed on an aircraft used for testing.
Now we have a compact unit that can mount in any aircraft (drone or combat)

Once the power source can be able to drive the laser effectively, then it can be used as an offensive as well as defensive weapon.

 

[K7SN]

If you look at the article, there is video of it tracking a mortar round. All you really see is a white blob which eventually goes boom but it seems to have very good tracking.

The only real problem with this device is that you have to be able to hold it on target for many seconds before it destroys the target. For drones and mortars this isn't really a problem. Ramping it up for missiles is something else.

I did read about a technique where you fire 4 other lasers in a box around the central laser. That seems to make a corridor for the main laser so it has better range. Don't remember the details though.

My response was mainly to those who had ideas about snipers and such and I was thinking how easy it would be to defend in a fire-fight but your laser box to blast a hole in the particulates might be a counter measure to my counter measures.

Lasers can be re-directed with a clean reflective surface, that his how you amplify a laser inside the box. Those surfaces have to ne clean and a finger print is enough to FUBAR a laser; so I see little chance of a 'clean' surface redirecting or reflecting a locked-on laser. I was mostly talking about ground and lasers require a power source. You can get a short burst with a capacitor, or use a battery source but both those devices carry considerable weight. On-board power generation, whether a ship at sea of a Humvee or large sized vehicle would, or should be in the immediate future, a good way for a portable weaponry, a airplane can be outfitted with a power source; witness the AWACs but a stealthy low profile attack fighter would either require intense modification or have to be built from the ground up to fully take advantage of this new technology.

I am not completely aware of where the laser technology has progressed in the last 18 years but I'm sure it has evolved considerably more than when I wrote software to track an plume of Sulphur trioxide (acid rain) or ozene (a carcinogen down here on the surface) back to there source but the basics can have changed that much.

This is an interesting thread; thank you for adding to the thread..

 

[K7SN]

blinding lasers would have been in use years ago but there's a treaty banning that kind of stuff thank god.
It also gets respected since only big rich countries can afford this stuff and the required platforms.

I guess the effect on warfare could be game-changing even more than the machine gun was in WW1.

Everyone thought about Blitzkrieg, and they ended up spending years in a trench. Then the british deployed tanks before the germans and won.

It could make attacking very difficult since planes and helicopters would be shot down very fast. Maybe artillery would still work if you spam anti-laser particle spreading shells and lots of shells. You can't protect aircraft for long this way though.

So it's back to tanks and fortifications maybe, heavily armored or smoke-shrouded.

A good example of punctuated equilibria' we mass in columns and clash in an open field (actually goes back to well before gunpowder but was what our future-generals, up to the Civil War, were taught. The theory that every did that way was still entrenched in the minds of those who made war, those random successes ,both past and present of those who thought out of the box, were 'just luck' and to evolution in warfare maintained an equilibrium

As you pointed that evolution was punctuated in the Great War (After WWII called WWI) This 'game-changer' war got use out of the frontal attack mode that was countered by good defensive trench; the aerial reconnaissance allowed the enemy to know what you were doing before you did. The counter measure was to shoot down the enemies' reconnaissance aircraft before they got back to the generals and we began improving aerial warfare.

We have gone from trenches to lasers in less than a 100 years and wars of the future will be more wars of technology than the old 'men must fight' of the last few millenniums . This is a paradigmatic change.

Thank you for your insight and adding to this thread.

 

[DrPizza]

10 kilowatts?
Solutions: mirrored finish
ablative surface
Maybe something like an opaque water solution of something - that could absorb quite a bit of energy in the second or so that the laser would be operational.

 

[DesiPower]

When someone says somethings fits in a suitcase it just gives me so much hope... Remember when it was exiting to know that a PC could fit in a suitcase, a cell phone could fit in a suitcase... Well, this is a weapon so nothing to celebrate about but nice to see technology progressing, hopefully it will have some nice applications in every day life too...

 

[NAC4EV]

Hell, I want one of these on my car,
It could be fun to heat up a bicyclist's ass when he gets in my way...

 

[Red Squirrel]

Screw flying targets. It it is this small, put it on Apache helicopters and let them take out folks on the ground, one ant at a time.

Imagine the look on ISIS militant's faces when their shoes keep catching on fire. I would just keep aiming for the feet till they can't walk anymore. :biggrin:

Then aim for the beard for a finishing touch.

 

[Nebor]

Meanwhile Lockheed has announced a new drone that can fit in a laser and shoot down suitcases. Keep your luggage claim tickets.

 

[Bart*Simpson]

Do they have any ABM-capable laser systems yet?

If they did Obama wouldn't let us use them but he'd sell them to China.

 

[SKORPI0]

OP fail, article linked doesn't show a laser device that can "fit in a suitcase".

This one does (with video). :hmm:

Boeing's new Compact Laser Weapon System (LWS)

Boeing's Compact Laser Weapons System tracks and disables UAVs

 

[mikeford]

Laser isn't the only big game changer, cheap smart drones and missiles. Anything you can "touch" with a laser you potentially know its exact location and speed allowing a shared resource defense system of mixed arms.

Smart will be important, but so will cheap, and I see a bunch of weapons from missiles to drones etc that could be very effective at very low cost. Think about what decent DIYer could build for $1k or so, now have it mass produced in China.

 

[Imp]

Looks like a Total Station -- they also use lasers.