Photons on target

[TreVader]

That's probably true for now. But will it always be true? Those same arguments were used against the airplane, for example.

I think the question we should ask ourselves is "is it worth it?". The thing is totally unproven and scientific progress would be better served by putting the money back into the economy.

I mean really what have they done? If you drove that onto any modern battlefield it would be destroyed long before it could contribute enough to justify it's existence.


I say this from extensive combat experience in almost every version of CS, CoD, and what I believe to be most relevant: Battlefield 3 and 4.

 

[bradly1101]

I can't wait for the civilian version!

 

[tynopik]

The problem with this device is it is massively impractical and expensive when compared to the combo of traditional artillery and air power.

traditional artillery and air power do nothing stop a mortar headed towards your base

 

[tynopik]

scientific progress would be better served by putting the money back into the economy

what?

 

[Markbnj]

I say this from extensive combat experience in almost every version of CS, CoD, and what I believe to be most relevant: Battlefield 3 and 4.

I see what you did there.

 

[jagec]

Another possible countermeasure: a heat shield. Such as a reinforced carbon-carbon (nose cones of intercontinental ballistic missiles, wing tips/edges of Space Shuttles) Though, they'd probably still be shot out of the sky, not as quickly. Add in rotation, not to mention - if targeting the lasers themselves, a wonderful signal to lock onto - they might just last long enough to hit target.

Of course, the vast majority of our enemies wouldn't have the sophistication to do so. So, it would simply make our fights just that much more one-sided; until it was occupation time and they killed us by the thousands using IEDs.

Or you can go the other way and just absorb the heat. A kilo of water would take the 10 kw laser in the article a full 4.3 MINUTES to boil off. I would assume that most military-grade explosives can handle 100C without cooking off, and take less time than that to strike their target.

Or, how about putting that mirror over a nice graphene layer to keep it intact for longer?

 

[TreVader]

The future is Kenetic energy weapons. Rail guns.



Lasers are actually more useful for communication and navigation.

 

[Markbnj]

Or you can go the other way and just absorb the heat. A kilo of water would take the 10 kw laser in the article a full 4.3 MINUTES to boil off. I would assume that most military-grade explosives can handle 100C without cooking off, and take less time than that to strike their target.

But a kilo of water is heavy, and it's mass shifts. I've no doubt there is some counter to this. Maybe some material like the heat tiles on the underside of the space shuttle.

 

[Phoenix86]

We just need to add some copper heat sinks to the projectile.

 

[Gunbuster]

Obviously a propaganda video to make the Russians waste money developing mirrored disco missiles with internal foamed copper afro and water jacket that fly in an Irregular wobbling trajectory.

 

[moonbogg]

C&C ion cannon. Its coming.

 

[Brian Stirling]

Only for the first little bit, that 20% is quickly going to heat it up and char/distort it so that continues to lose reflectivity, which allows it to heat up more, etc.

It's basically a 'virtuous cycle' from the laser's perspective in that the more it heats a spot, the more vulnerable that spot is

Let's say it takes 4 seconds to zap a target normally, it might now take 5 seconds instead, so only 25% harder

You are dreaming. The amount of power hitting the target will be less than the amount emitted, and by a good margin for small targets like mortar shells so were talking about a fraction of the 50kw, perhaps 10kw, probably less. Now if 80% is reflected harmlessly away the amount of energy absorbed is more like 2kw or less. A shell cased in steel weighing, say, 10 pounds, would take a long time to heat up very much. That amount of absorbed energy will do next to nothing to degrade the reflectivity of the mirror surface.


Brian

 

[BurnItDwn]

I bet they could have just borrowed Gary Laser eyes from Bubbles. Would have cost a lot less....

 

[tynopik]

You are dreaming. The amount of power hitting the target will be less than the amount emitted, and by a good margin for small targets like mortar shells so were talking about a fraction of the 50kw, perhaps 10kw, probably less. Now if 80% is reflected harmlessly away the amount of energy absorbed is more like 2kw or less. A shell cased in steel weighing, say, 10 pounds, would take a long time to heat up very much. That amount of absorbed energy will do next to nothing to degrade the reflectivity of the mirror surface.

If 100% power will quickly melt through, 20% power will quickly discolor

 

[DrPizza]

You are dreaming. The amount of power hitting the target will be less than the amount emitted, and by a good margin for small targets like mortar shells so were talking about a fraction of the 50kw, perhaps 10kw, probably less. Now if 80% is reflected harmlessly away the amount of energy absorbed is more like 2kw or less. A shell cased in steel weighing, say, 10 pounds, would take a long time to heat up very much. That amount of absorbed energy will do next to nothing to degrade the reflectivity of the mirror surface.


Brian

There's another question that has to be answered first: what's the diameter of the beam? Lasers are used for cutting metal; 50kw is a hell of a lot more powerful than industrial lasers.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

after about 30 years of faked test footage, i remain a wee bit skeptical.

 

[_Rick_]

Useless against railgun kinetic projectiles!

 

[z1ggy]

The future is Kenetic energy weapons. Rail guns.



Lasers are actually more useful for communication and navigation.

I haven't looked at the data from the latest BAE railgun, but I do know traditional ones create a huge amount of heat during the firing process. Such that, shots cannot be fired one right after the other. Additionally, they aren't really all that mobile. You need a huge energy storage device (such as super caps) to get projectiles up to the speeds/energies desired.

What will make this laser system very dangerous, is when it can be more compact and fit on planes or satellites.

 

[Kushina]

Xbox controller... expected better from Boeing.

 

[Phoenix86]

Xbox controller... expected better from Boeing.

Yeah, and this would be an engineering failure. It's quite brilliant using xbox controllers. They are durable, accurate (enough), have all the controls you need, and most importantly they are familiar to the controllers.