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Posted
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michael
from the also-useful-for-making-popcorn dept.
KeyShark writes: "An article on FoxNews describes how front-line troops soon will be protected by battlefield lasers designed to shoot down rockets, artillery shells and even mortars."
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Sounds like they put a fire-finder radar tracking station onto a laser. They've had the ability to plot trajectory and such of incoming shells for quite a while, but now they'll be able to do something about it other than leave.
Unfortunately, I have suspicions if this will ever make it to deployment. The U.S. also has an anti-satellite laser weapon that has been tested and confirmed to work by overloading the circuits -- and it was nixed because of the poltical tension it would create.
Actually, it's an amazingly difficult control systems problem, especially if you have no advanced warning, as in these cases. The rockets that they downed were Katyushas, which are really simple, THICK metal tubes full of explosives. I saw the video of the tests back in July--the thing is really impressive. The laser itself in invisible and the source looks like one of those World War II signaling lamps on ships. If you look at the video of the Katyushas, you just see it flying along, it gets red, then poof!
As far as deployment goes, Israel has been pressuring the US for the last several months to at least put up a few stations in northern Israel--it's that effective. The main problem right now is that it's just not mobile, and it's not battle hardened. In other words, taking it out would be easy. But, eventually given enough money and time, they'll get this on the back of a truck, and then you're in business.
Yep.. You're missing density variations and laser induced heating of the local atmosphere. Both of which will degrade the power of your beam, and complicate aiming the device. The Air Forces Airborne laser program attempted to solve these using a pair of low power lasers to sample the atmosphere and track the object. Given the information from the low power lasers, the optics for the primary laser could be corrected to hit the target. I'm not sure they ever got the system to work, but I seem to recall the power of the beam to be roughly equivilent to 30 ocyacetylin (sp?) torches focused on a single point.. There was a lot of speculation in the articles I read, suggesting that the laser power would be attenuated by some staggering amount by the atmosphere, and the chances for success were considered minimal by some of the scientists working on the project..
Hmm, very true... with a 20 second window for busting mortar attacks, the laser operators (well, really the laser software) better know ahead of time which shells belong to who. This is just another good application for the whole 'digital battlefield' concept that you hear about on the discovery channel all the time. Allied forces need to have detailed computer positioning on all their units and be warned ahead of time what's expected to come flying out of where.
Thanks for bringing a little sanity to this subject.
And dont forget:
10) Clouds. Laser light does NOT penetrate clouds. The water vapor
easily absorbs all the energy.
Also don't forget:
11) Friendly aircraft. On July 4, 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser
Vincennes, in the Persian Gulf, shot
down an Iran Air A300 Airbus [washingtonpost.com], killing 290 persons, after mistaking it for
an attacking jet fighter. "The U.S. government deeply regrets this
incident," Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.
The cruiser was "equipped with the most sophisticated radar and electronic
battle gear in the Navy's surface arsenal."
Organizations that sell weapons are often not honest about the shortcomings.
The U.S. also has an anti-satellite laser weapon that has been tested and confirmed to work by overloading the circuits -- and it was nixed because of the poltical tension it would create.
The coming space-weapons arms race with China will probably make political tensions irrelevant.
What they've been using it for mostly is for optics and antennae. A blind tank is pretty useless, and easy to sneak up on with more conventional (read: cheaper) weapons.
OK, so you may slag off some armour. Tanks move using low ground, scooting around treelines etc. They also move in pairs (fire teams), with one member of the team staying put while the other moves to his next fire position. This thing is line of sight (obviously). That means that the tank thats getting hit's fire team partner will take out the laser. As well, even if it does penetrate the armour, there will be no spalling on the inner armour. Pretty ineffective actually. BTW, I was a tanker for twenty years so I do have a little clue about this shit.
I *never* said space-based anywhere in my post. Your comments are well thought out and I wouldn't mod you down for that, but I certainly wouldn't mod you up because you didn't read the article.
The anti-satellite laser is on the *ground* somewhere in the desert, probably the testing grounds near White Sands National Monument, in the gypsum fields. It's less of a "laser" and more of an "electromagnetic radiation emmitter" and it fries the satellites less by heat and more by a super-concentrated burst of radio energy.
The 747-mounted laser is a theater-defense weapon designed to fly around "hot-spots" in the world and shoot down something that is launched, within minutes of the launch, by using heat. It's a prototype, not too effective, I don't even think it's had more than one real test. *shrug*
Hey, any laser powerful enough to damage or divert artillery shells is going to make *thunder* when it fires. It's the same effect as lightning -- superheated air shocks away from the beam, then slams back in when the beam cuts off. That's way more impressive than zzzzt-whoosh-bleem, far as I'm concerned.
I know the airborne laser (uses the same chemical type laser) was capable of shooting down rockets by weakening the metal skins, which the forces of flight would thus rupture and cause the thing to fly apart, but are artillery shells really that delicate?
For artillery shells without an explosive payload, I would imagine if you could melt the tip, it would throw off the aerodynamics to throw the shell off course. That is assuming, of course, that you didn't vaporize it.
And for ones with an explosive payload, the obvious would happen in flight.:)
As an ex artillery guy, I can speak from experience.
A standard 155mm HE round weighs in at 103lbs. The shell itself is nothing but steel with a grid-like pattern etched on the inside (for shrapnel). The thickness varies from about 1/2" to 3/4" thick (at the bottom next to the propellant). Other than that, they're just filled with gunpowder. At the tip is a fuse (there are too many types to list), and just below that is a small bag of quick burning powder to kick things off. If this laser is heating things up as hot as they say, that baby is going to blow pretty quick no matter where it's hit.
I have collection of shrapnel I picked up at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, that's where I got a look at the innards.
As a side note, by themselves they're not all that fragile. I dropped one on my foot (almost everyone does at some point), and apart from the two seconds of deafening silence following, we loaded it up and it was 12 miles away in a few seconds. Then I proceeded to scream like a bitch. Big toe was smashed something awful.
It's the armor that makes the explosion possible. If you've ever held a match to a pile of black powder, you'd know that it doesn't do a whole lot. BUT if that black powder is confined to a small space, the pressure of the gasses builds until the container bursts. Hence the explosion. Now an artillary shell contains a lot of explosive and need to make a big bang. Therefore it needs a very thick, strong shell to contain the immense pressure of the gasses until enough gas has been produced to create the desired crater. That thick shell will also make it difficult to destroy enroute.
Now an artillary shell contains a lot of explosive and need to make a big bang. Therefore it needs a very thick, strong shell to contain the immense pressure of the gasses until enough gas has been produced to create the desired crater.
Black powder is a low explosive and will burn in open space. Most modern artillery explosives are HE and can detonate in open air (think C4). I would expect that you only need enough casing to keep the shell together during firing and to shield the fuse.
You joke - but in WWII the Russians did some experiments with dogs, training them to associate the underside of a tank with food. Strap on a mine, and boom.
First field trial worked perfectly - dogs saw tanks and ran towards them. Only problem: they'd been trained to associate Russian tanks with food, not German, and forced the Russians into retreat.
(this may well be urban legend, but it's a great story)
Mirror coating, etc. doesn't make a difference. Try holding a match to the mirror, and you'll find to your surprise that the mirror gets warm. That's because oxidation is releasing lots of energy all over the place. A laser is a way of releasing lots of energy to a single spot. Tom Clancy said mirror coating or spinning a missile in front of a laser would be like having a ballerina pirrouete in front of a shotgun. Besides, in the battle between bigger armor and bigger guns, the guns always win eventually.
I used him as a source for what I considered a funny analogy. Surely you agree he can write a funny analogy? The quote actually was made by him in an interview with some MIT folks and pentagon folks durring which they tried to describe how Star Wars would work. He, just like slashdot readers, assumed he was smarter than the scientists employed to make the weapons, so he asked why not just cover sattelites and ICBMS with mirrors. They then explained that they were hoping to deliver at a minimum two sticks of dynamite, which would be able to burn through existing systems, and (here's the important part) completely destroy the delicate bits. That includes Sattelite solar panels and all the sensor systems on missiles. Again, Clancy was smart, and referenced the then emerging technology of GPS...could you mess that up if you had no sensors? No, the panel replied, but by the mid-nineties, their laser technology and computer control should let them deliver considerably more energy, and enable slagging (melting) missile bits far more robust than the sensors. To that, Clancy replied with the quote about a ballerina.
Also, I reccomend you read the book series Guided Tour of...(Carrier, Armored Cav, Fighter wing, Airborne, etc.) If Stephen King spent a big chunk of his life writing criminology texts, interviewing homicide detectives, and researching enough to write non-fiction analysis and case profiles, then sure, I would use him as a reference. However, in this case, despite what I consider Clancy's adequate qualification, I just used his color commentary.
To be blunt, this is wrong. I do agree, however, that just polishing up a stainless steel shell until you can shave in front of it probably won't make enough difference. Most mirrors don't reflect nearly enough light.
On the other hand, such powerful lasers are hard to make and very expensive. It would be tempting to make them just barely strong enough to work against existing designs which have no defense against such countermeasures. If a spinning (or randomly tumbling), mirrored shell, can cut down the rate of heating by something like 30%, and there's some extra heat-shielding inside, it might be enough to survive.
All kidding aside, you also can't rule out, as I said, revolutionary new developments in mirrored armor. I mean, if there was no way to deflect the beam, there would be no way to generate or aim it!
BTW, Tom Clancy is a novelist, not a physicist. His entire livelihood is sounding plausible about things he doesn't really understand.
Besides, in the battle between bigger armor and bigger guns, the guns always win eventually.
Ah, but which is which? This is an odd historical precedent to apply in favor of a defense mechanism.
"All kidding aside, you also can't rule out, as I said, revolutionary new developments in mirrored armour. I mean, if there was no way to deflect the beam, there would be no way to generate or aim it! "
Exactly. You don't polish steel, you give is a coating which does not absorb the wavelengths the other guys are using [make it the colour of the beam].
Or you make it so extreme heat doesn't generally cause a catastrophic failure [HE is already like this].
Or you start applying stealth technology to the projectiles so they can't be tracked.
Or you give your troops Rosco Model 4500 Foggers [rosco-ca.com] to disperse the defensive beams [plus, it'll make the war-time photography look so cool!]
that "These lasers also have a drawback--their energy comes from large tanks of industrial chemicals, which have to be mixed until they glow, like an outsize high-school science project. And they are so bulky that one weapon fills a large aircraft, or a small building. "
Yes, though foxnews says there's an experimental solid-state laser that looks promising. With that, it would cost 25 cents per shot, and fit on a Humvee.
"These lasers also have a drawback--their energy comes from large tanks of industrial chemicals, which have to be mixed until they glow, like an outsize high-school science project. And they are so bulky that one weapon fills a large aircraft, or a small building. "
Does this jive with the fox news article?
Yes. But it doesn't tell the whole story.
The lasers they're talking about are spinoffs of the Star Wars missile defense system. They had to get a LOT of energy into a beam quickly, to shoot down missiles while still in space, or to bounce off a mirror in space to get them on their way up. One shot, one dead nuke, so cost wasn't much of an object.
Neither was portability: You had either a fortified underground bunker as big as you wanted, or a satellite in zero-G.
So they did something very strong, effective, big, and expensive.
But lasers are EASY. Excluding superradiants (which are easier, if you've got the materials) all you need is a couple of well-alligned mirrors, one of 'em slightly leaky, with an "inverted population amplification light amplification medium" between them.
For "inverted population light amplification medium" read "smoke from a fire".
The medium must have the following characteristics:
It has a state transistion (an "excited state", a "ground state" or less-excited state, and an allowed transition between them) with an energy difference corresponding to a usefully energetic photon.
It must have significantly more of its atoms or molecules in the more-excited state than in the less-excited state. (This is the "inverted population" part.)
It must have ENOUGH of a surplus of more-excited particles to produce a usable amount of power if you extracted the energy difference by de-exciting enough that you're down to 50/50 (or de-exciting them all if there's a further transition that drains the less-excited state).
It must be transparent and reasonably uniform (i.e. non-distorting) at the light frequency corresponding to the state transition.
When you burn darn near ANYTHING the resulting molecules start out excited. If they meet the other criteria you've got a suitable medium for a chemically-pumped laser.
Burn a suitable fuel in a long, thin, rocket flame and run the exhaust at right angles between the pair of mirrors. You'll have a laser beam coming out as long as the flame lasts. Chose the right material and a large fraction of what would have been the heat of combustion ends up in the laser beam.
Now there are some fancy and deadly fuels (fluorine comes to mind) that make an exhaust where the bulk of the energy can be extracted by a single transition. This is nice and efficient. And you don't want to be ANYWHERE NEAR them when in use, due to the toxic nature of the exhaust. So if you're going to be shooting down a nuke from a fort in the desert they're fine.
But there are LOTS of others that are simpler, and might be more suitable for a battlefield.
I expect that eventually we'll see a chemically-pumped laser rifle or pistol, about the same size as a normal rifle or pistol, with an optical cavity where the barrel would be, powered by cartridges of solid fuel that are fed by a mechanism similar to the one that feeds cartridges consisting of case/primer/powder/bullet.
It was an automated system that aimed for the eyes, but got cancelled due to bad press. Oh my. That would certainly upset those people that imagine war can be made more humane... But the reality is, to fight a war you either kill people or wound them. Wounding is more effective, because then their buddies have to stop fighting and take care of them. A laser in the eyes would be very, very effective in this way. I think, unlike most non-fatal gunfire wounds, laser blindness would be quite permanent. If we deployed this system, the next country to get crossways of us would wind up with their streets full of blind beggars afterwards -- a hell of a drag on a third world economy, and assurance that what happens when you p*ss off America would be remembered for a century, at least. Is that good or bad???
Since like all technology this will disseminate to the other countries in the globe, this also means a major change in air power. Manuverablility means practically nill at the speed of light. Large aircraft equiped with lasers would in addition to destroying missles would also be able to destroy all aircraft, even if the enemy aircraft are super manuverable, stealthy, super expensive F-22 jets. In fact the developement of powerful lasers will strongly reduce the importance aircraft, all you need to do is see the aircraft and you can kill it.
What's to stop them from using these things on people? They have amazingly accurate targeting systems and they're cheap to fire (article says 25 cents (maybe dollars, I forget...) per shot.
So what's to keep the defense dept. from using these things for assassinations, or ground warfare?
Would that be cruel and unusual?
Here's a question: is there a "right of the people" to keep and bear these? The idea doesn't sound assuring, I must say: what kind of signature would it leave. Bullets can be tracked, but this -- would there even be a body left?
I'm not trying to complain or predict horrors, because I'm all about the advance of tech. I just want to know a little more about this kind of thing.
Also: it's eerie that the article only mentions uses of these for defense, and not for attack, covert (which I think is a promising potential use for this technology) or otherwise. Just considering it's a time of "war" and all.
There's an international treaty that the US has actually signed (wonder of wonders!) against using lasers on people. I tend to doubt it'll be followed in practice though, when "our" forces are involved.
There's a lot of treaties like this to minimize the "horrors" of war. For example, it's a war crime to use an anti-tank rocket or a.50 cal machine gun on infantry.
Weapons treaties are there to be ignored by a the parties signing them.
THink of it, you sign a treat to (say) not research biological weapons for offensive purposes, say, like Russia did. Then, you secretly violate the treaty, and now you have weapon the other side doesn't have. Its happened in the past, it'll happen in the future.
Weapons treaties only penalize the honest countries. Dishonest countries won't care. At least we actually do (for the most part) obey our treaties.
Yea, seriously. At least if you get shot with a.50cal you're pretty much dead and not in a lot of pain. Instead of, say, getting shot in the stomach with a 9mm. That would hurt like a bitch.
Hmm. Then the.50cal sniper rifles that the SEALS and other forces use are anti-equipment weapons? Pardon my cognitive dissonance here...
I thought the rule was anything larger than.50cal. 'Course, I'm sure that being strafed by 20mm is no picnic... (Hell, being attacked with anything would put a crimp in my day...)
As far as it being 'cruel'... if such lasers are powerful enough to destroy solid metal shells, they are probably powerful enough to kill instantaneously or fairly close to instantaneously. Compare to the rather gruesome and slowly fatal wounds gunshots produce... obviously, I'm no expert on these lasers but I'd think (offhand) they might be vastly more 'humane' than most current battlefield technologies. [Please take 'humane', in context, of course... nothing 'humane' about shooting anyone with anything more powerful than a Super Soaker.]
So what's to keep the defense dept. from using these things for assassinations, or ground warfare?
Simple... they don't work that well. The best they can do is heat up thin metal rocket skins and make them burst because of the pressurized fuel inside... most rockets are so weak structurally that they would collapse if you drained the fuel out of them.
These lasers are too weak to do much damage. The worst they can do to people is use laser light to blind people... which is pretty bad, but it ain't no death star.
Honestly, I'm not sure that on the battlefield per se this would be terribly effective. The thing is, bullets cause huge amounts of collateral damage, make organs bleed, bounce around, create big exit holes, etc. Bullets are very good at wounding and killing. Is a bulky, truck mounted laser any more effective against personnel than a 50 mm automatic cannon on a truck which can mow people down? I doubt it. And you can keep firing the cannon, you don't need a huge generator to keep it going. Just doesn't seem like a cost effective way to kill ground troops.
Against tanks and vehicles, perhaps this would be effective... though those are slow enough in general that a guided rocket or smart bomb is probably just as effective. And they are big and much better armored than a small incoming Katyusha rocket, so I don't know how well that would work at this point.
Planes are not that much unlike missiles and artillery shells in that they are big things flying through the sky at high speeds with lots of fuel in them. I would think that planes would be susceptible to this class of laser weapons too, as a result, and avoid the complexities of defeating chaff, ECM and jamming systems.
Also, if this actually works for shooting down these small projectiles, is there any fundamental reason a later iteration of this technology couldn't be used to defend from ICBMs - I suppose you would need a lot more range to get high enough to hit them while it still mattered. Perhaps better than the missile defense program missiles that don't seem to work really well in the real world.
The "plane-mounted assasination" might be effective though. If we can hit a rocket from the ground, we can probably hit a person from a plane with the same laser. And it might not be efficient against large numbers of ground troops, but if you want to knock out one guy with minimal or no collateral damage that would result from shooting missiles or rockets at him, this would possibly be effective. Although I may be wrong about the "no collateral damage" thing... refracted laser light all over the place could definitely at least blind a lot of people.
Unless you're referring to distant technology, virtually all of these are unlikely.
article says 25 cents (maybe dollars, I forget...) per shot.
It is cheaper to shoot a rifle. Plus these laser weapons are pathetically weak compared to a rifle. These weapons were designed for use on weak rockets and missiles travelling at high speeds in the air. The laser is only capable of heating and weakening the metal skin, which flight forces would tear a hole in, thus rupturing and destroying the missile. In an earlier post I questioned exactly how well these lasers would work on the much thicker and stronger skins of artillery shells.
To use one of these on a human is stupid and ineffective. Sure, it'll burn you..but why not just shoot the guy? More damaging and a quicker death.
As for the 'people' to get one, find me someone who can actually afford something like this. These weapons are enormous (they're TRYING to fit one on an 18 wheeler) and cost millions.
These lasers are useful city defenders against things like SCUDs. Not something Joe Q. Gunowner will own.
Considering these offensive possibilities is the only way I've found to make any sense of missile defense: why some people are trying so hard to make it, why others are so opposed to it.
In its proposed use, it's obviously stupid: it does a very poor job of defending against a very unlikely attack. Maybe its supporters are just trying to make more money for weapons producers -- actually, I'm sure they are -- but maybe there's more to it.
But then why do all these other countries get so bothered about it? If it's doomed to fail -- there seems to be concensus on that from all nonpartial observers -- then why not just let the US fail at it?
So here's where this theory comes in: missile defense provides a reason to do research and implementation of military systems in space, with high accuracy lasers and all that. It doesn't have to work, because it will never be tested in a realistic way, and the staged tests will just be faked (like all the tests so far).
Once you have high-precision and powerful lasers in space, you have a hell of a lot of power. Spy satellites already have impressive accuracy. It's entirely possible to create an offensive weapon that could kill anyone that's out in the open (given a certain amount of intelligence -- supposing biometrics don't get too good, so they could identify us from space).
Of course this would scare the hell out of all the other countries -- enemies and allies alike. It's no secret that the US is a fickle lover. One day you're our best friend -- Noriega, for example -- the next you're in jail. Or just dead.
Shell comes down, buries in dirt, explodes. Shrapnel flies everywhere, but mostly up. Maybe shell has an altitude based fuse, so it explodes in the air. Shrapnel flies everywhere.
New way:
Shell comes down, gets zapped by laser. Shrapnel flies everywhere.
Still, you have supersonic, ballistic shrapnel, and still, you have it landing full-speed on the target.
Still, you have supersonic, ballistic shrapnel, and still, you have it landing full-speed on the target.
If the shell is directed at an even marginally hardened target, you'd much rather have a bunch of tiny, dispersed bits of metal (burning off their momentum agaist air resistance with their much greater overall surface area) than a massive, explosively-armed charge burying itself into your position, then detonating.
"The Shortstop Electronic Protection System (SEPS) is an RF Proximity Fuze counter measure. The Shortstop battlefield electronic countermeasures system is capable of prematurely detonating incoming artillery and mortar rounds. It counters the threat of RF Proximity Fuzed munitions by causing them to prefunction, to protect friendly ground troops, vehicles, structures, and other equipment under fire."
Shortstop is already in service.
There are already radar systems to track rounds down to a 60mm mortar shell.
I can buy an automated projectile system to shoot down guided missiles, but a laser? To shoot down artillery shells? Can you imagine the engineering required to lock onto said shell and the laser power to detonate it? What about smoke or other haze?
And let's not even consider making this a "personal" means of defense.
Sounds like the old warbirds over at Fox are lobbying for a larger military budget.
The granddaddy of all the laser weapons is the Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, known as MIRACL, which fills a large building and its surroundings at the test site.
Nice acronym. Now every time I see a picture of someone standing in a beam of divine light from the sky I'm going to get a mental picture of him bursting into flames and melting.
It's pretty simple:
1) a chunk of your tax dollars goes to pork-barrel arms projects (that don't work).
2) Said arms dealer profits.
3) Arms dealer "lobbies" for more congressional pork.
In the "old days" of the early 90's, #3 meant simply bribing the congressmen via his campaign "war chest". While that made effective lobbying, today we have Rupert Murdoch's lobbying group, "Fox" television. It's sad to have seen the name of a once-great US media company bought out by a "naturalized" foreigner whose intentions are simply to influence American politics.
In other words, this is a LOBBYING EFFORT to raise taxes for yet another military boondoggle. It's just pretend news.
Congress is already leery of "star wars" (the SDI kind), seeing how there is so much pressure to deploy the damn thing, when star wars misses 3 out of 6 targets in *lab* conditions.
Now they want the same unproven technology on the ground. Fox runs nothing but editorials against "government pork" and "big government" EXCEPT when it serves the war hawks or their stock portfolio.
Remember, these are the same maggots who ran "investigative reporting" how the USA supposedly never landed on the moon. Note this story ran JUST BEFORE renewed calls in Congress to both cut NASA funding (to make them less effective), AND to privatize NASA altogether.
George Orwell was wrong. In the future we will be controlled by mindless, hypnosis-inducing corporate-sponsored "information", news, etc.
Thank you thank you thank you for pointing that out.
I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.
Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting [fair.org] wrote a special report titled: [fair.org] The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).
Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either [fair.org], that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.
No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews [guerrillanews.com]
- mediachannel [mediachannel.org]
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC
The article focuses to its detriment on lasers as a defensive armament. They are more likely to be used offensively, if history is any judge.
If the article is right, and the energy supply for these lasers continue to be expensive, bulky chemicals, we may see a return to the battlefields of the 19th century, when artillery, and not air power, was most critical to warfare. Supply lines would become more important than they are today. Battlefield tactics would have to change.
Why wouldn't they mount lasers on aircraft? Maybe the chemicals are too heavy?
I've read most of the posts, and so far I haven't seen even one that both takes this seriously, and believes it will work. Maybe all weapons proposals should have to go through Slashdot first.
Ok, the system was reported to be able to melt down Katyushas. My bet would be that those were painted gray or olive green. What if one chrome-plates the damn thing? Would that make the rocket (or a shell, or a racing pigeon!) laser-proof? Would someone in the know tell me why this wouldnt be a protection?
Is anyone else wondering why we are spending so much money on the missile defense system? This seems to have solved the problem of missile defense much more elegantly (and more cost effectively?) Maybe I'm missing something.
Just a quick question... how much interference does our atmosphere create for these lasers? Now the reason I ask is that everyone is talking about how this is the basis of the starwars project and all. But what would the difference in intensity of the beam would a laser at sea level and a laser at geosynchronous orbit? eh, food for though...
If they use any wavelength that is well-focussed by eyeball optics you'll blind anybody without eye protection tuned to the laser that looks in the direction of anything the laser is shining on.
If they get hit in the face with a specular reflection they might have eye damage beyond merely going blind.
Such "dazzle" weapons were developed during the 80's, and were apparently used.
True. And there are moves to outlaw them (like poision gas and biological weapons) as inhumane (and counterproductive).
But what I'm talking about is accidental dazzle. When you're sending a light pulse that can vaporize metal in miliseconds, even a tiny splinter of that energy, focussed by an eye's lens, can wreak havoc on retinal cells.
Colloids, proteins, and DNA are a lot more fragile than metal.
This has really been how it is in any war. In Vietnam, Napalm would hit allies on the ground as well as the enemies. In World War II, bombs would fall astray and kill civilians and soldiers for the same side. If there's a situation involving dangerous equipment, and humans are involved, there *will* be human error. In this case, it's lives lost - but it was going to happen anyway.
The technology to shoot down aircraft was developed and during the 1970's--no big deal. I remember seeing great footage of the engine compartment being nicely sliced out of a flying drone.
Problem is: the dispersion/diffraction of a high-powered LASER being used outdoors has the side effect of permanently blinding most of the people in line-of-sight to the aircraft [which can be a lot and, of course, include one's own troops].
Question is: why not just attach a whatever-KV potential to a spark-plug in a mini-dish and knock out the target's electronics instead? Should be easier--of course, that'd have little effect upon an incoming shell/bomb once the fuse has been armed.
I believe in the Gulf War the British point blank refused to be the opposing arm of a US pincer movement, fearing that coming from the other direction in "funny looking tanks" they'd be blown to pieces by their allies.
Of course going back further my father was on board HMAS Hobart, in the US gunline off vietnam, when an american F4 mistook them for a helicopter(?) and put a missile into them, killing good men.
And not to get too bitter about it a large chunk of the RAN was sunk at guadalcanal by their american allies (funny looking british built ships).
These things happen but they seem to happen more when americans have their fingers on the trigger.
Trip and impale your buddy with your pike/sword...
And so forth.
Besides, this isn't a personnel carried device- it's a Humvee/Bradley mounted device. One's an eximer the other something solid-state. Both are going to be too large for people to carry.
> Besides, this isn't a personnel carried device- it's a Humvee/Bradley mounted device. One's an
eximer the other something solid-state. Both are going to be too large for people to carry.
How many of you, when reading this, started drooling and pounding on the table, screaming "I want one! On my car! I've been good, Santa! I WANT! I'll never get stuck in traffic again, and if I do, at least it'll be fun!"
A Humvee (or better yet, a giant winged robot that can fly on Mars!) with a battlefield laser! Fuck this traffic jam, d00dz! Check out my ride! [angryflower.com] I rule!
$3000 is only half of a toliet seat at government prices!!! I think they're using chemical lasers and they are real big and complex, so $3000 for anything the government gets involved in is a pretty good price and if you can use it to save a HUMMV or M1A1 tank the saving would be great, even if you save only a single soldier per $3000 you're way ahead of the game, helps moral, keeps soldiers out of hospitals, saves having to train new soldiers, saves having to knock on parents door to tell them that Johnie isn't comming home. $3000 seems like the deal of the centrury, getting it to work is the only problem I see.
A standard truck-mounted generator with a couple of little railguns on the roof would do the same job (by flinging a bucketful of ballbearings at the target in a second or so) for a lot less $$$ and would also make a really neat ripping noise when it fired.
Not as easy to steer as a laser but extremely difficult to defend against. Good for anti-aircraft as well, since colanders have poor aerodynamics. Anything not detonated by ball bearings doing many kilometers a second would be thrown well off course. Not that this is not necessarily an advantage, since certain nations are reknowned for just carpeting the target area with ordinance and knocking something off course might make it more accurate.
A rail gun vaporizes a thin conductive coating on the back of a shell and electrostatic repulsion of the vaporized coating thrusts the shell forward. This vapor is very hot so it wears away a good bit of the rails on it's way out.
A coil gun is a different sort of electropropellent. The "barrel" of the gun is a multitude of coils laid in a row. The coils are driven by banks of capacitors in rapid sequence. They work just like a solenoid except that a sequence of coils is employed for greater acceleration. A working coil gun can be fired many times as no hot plasma is involved in accelerating the shell.
The problem is that it is much harder to build an effective coil gun than it is a rail gun. The timing of the coil firings must be timed precisely. Fire a coil too soon and the shell is braked rather than accelerated. Fire it too late and little to no accelleration is imparted at all. Secondly, it takes a number of coils to do this. One big coil won't do much since it is pointless to increase power once the (ferrous) shell has been magnetically saturated. So multiple coils have to kick the shell up to speed. A lot of coils isn't the problem in and of itself. Each coil will need a large bank of capacitors to itself, this will serve to make the weapon very bulky. The capacitor banks also have to be recharged between firings. It will also take some doing to cool the system. Ever play with a home made electromagnet? It's going to get HOT.
So to recap, the device will have sophisticated sensing and timing requrements for the coils; the generator and capacitor banks will be bulky; getting a high rate of fire is problimatical and it will require a large cooling system as well. I haven't mentioned any sort of targeting system or the engineering requirements that will be imposed on the shells either.
Basically, a battlefield practical electromagnetic mass driver is at least as hard as this laser system.
High-tech warfare is a game of rock-paper-scisors, but the enemy will win if you are missing one of the above, and he knows it. The Maginot line was unsuccessful because they were complacent once they had it. I don't think that will be the case in the US for a while, now that we've had both the 9-11 and the anthrax attacks.
Two arguments I've heard against missile defense are that it doesn't work, and that it wouldn't stop other attacks. For the former, the fact that it doesn't work hardly seems like an argument against research. As for the latter, if we put all our money into aircraft security and mail sanitization, we'd be unprepared for missile attacks.
Not a sermon, just a thought. (OK, maybe that phrase implies that it is a sermon. Oh, well.)
This would be true if it weren't for the fact that in what we sane people call "the real world", peace doesn't come from asking the enemy nicely. I'm sure in whatever world you live in all problems can be resolved by saying "Hey, if we talked about it we could live in peace and understanding." I'd love to live in that place, but that pesky little thing called reality doesn't seem to want me there.
When diplomacy fits, use it, but do I have to rape your wife and murder your your children before you decide maybe it would be a good idea to fight back?
They were only on 24/7 in the days following 9/11 reporting on every detail as it came out. Making assumptions is something I EXPECT the media to do, what the hell do you think reporters do all day? "Hm, let's gather some facts, but never actually suggest any possible conclusion, yes, this is news-worthy, HONEST."
Besides, I'd be willing to bet they were only reporting what government officials were telling them in private (the bin Laden connection). I think most people are used to seeing un-substantiated news on the TV, and most folk are smart enough to make their own decisions (what's the Fox News slogan-- "We report, you decide."-- this was more than true after 9/11; they presented a number of possibilities right after the attacks happened, and left it to you, THE VIEWER, to decide).
Personally, I think you're just some CNN-zealot who doesn't like Bill O'Reilly.
Don't forget, the owner of Fox News is Rupert Murdoch... You know, the guy who owns The National Enquirer, and numerous other tabloids... Hardly worth calling a reputable source (ironically his tabloids are the sort that would have paid well for pictures taken of Princess Di by the freelance French papparazi that chased her to her death, and even more ironic, that shortly thereafter her brother gave them an interview on teevee)...
Mind you, this was common knowlege over 10 years ago when Murdoch took over Fox, the NY Post, et al...
That could be said of ANY news agency... However, CNN researches it's stories far more often than Fox... They all screw up either way, so that's a moot point... I still trust a news agency that got it's "start" in covering the gulf war, far more than a news network that got it's start with 'Bigfoot could be your neighbor!!!', and 'Here's our big titted broad of the week!'...
Not too hard. (Score:3, Interesting)
Unfortunately, I have suspicions if this will ever make it to deployment. The U.S. also has an anti-satellite laser weapon that has been tested and confirmed to work by overloading the circuits -- and it was nixed because of the poltical tension it would create.
Re:Not too hard. (Score:3, Insightful)
As far as deployment goes, Israel has been pressuring the US for the last several months to at least put up a few stations in northern Israel--it's that effective. The main problem right now is that it's just not mobile, and it's not battle hardened. In other words, taking it out would be easy. But, eventually given enough money and time, they'll get this on the back of a truck, and then you're in business.
Re:Not too hard. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think it may be impossible. You're forgetting:
1) Decoys
2) More decoys
3) Even more decoys
4) Foliage
5) Line of sight
6) Rain
7) Fog
8) Snow
Am i forgetting something here?
Re:Not too hard. (Score:5, Informative)
Am i forgetting something here?
Yep.. You're missing density variations and laser induced heating of the local atmosphere. Both of which will degrade the power of your beam, and complicate aiming the device. The Air Forces Airborne laser program attempted to solve these using a pair of low power lasers to sample the atmosphere and track the object. Given the information from the low power lasers, the optics for the primary laser could be corrected to hit the target. I'm not sure they ever got the system to work, but I seem to recall the power of the beam to be roughly equivilent to 30 ocyacetylin (sp?) torches focused on a single point.. There was a lot of speculation in the articles I read, suggesting that the laser power would be attenuated by some staggering amount by the atmosphere, and the chances for success were considered minimal by some of the scientists working on the project..
Re:Not too hard. (Score:2)
10 and 11, Clouds and commercial aircraft (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for bringing a little sanity to this subject.
And dont forget:
10) Clouds. Laser light does NOT penetrate clouds. The water vapor easily absorbs all the energy.
Also don't forget:
11) Friendly aircraft. On July 4, 1988, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes, in the Persian Gulf, shot down an Iran Air A300 Airbus [washingtonpost.com], killing 290 persons, after mistaking it for an attacking jet fighter. "The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident," Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference.
The cruiser was "equipped with the most sophisticated radar and electronic battle gear in the Navy's surface arsenal."
Organizations that sell weapons are often not honest about the shortcomings.
--
Links to respected news sources show how U.S. government policy contributed to terrorism: What should be the Response to Violence? [hevanet.com]
X-rays are refracted. (Score:3, Informative)
X-rays are refracted and dispersed by the water vapor in clouds. Very short wavelengths might work, but I don't think they are feasible.
Re:Not too hard. (Score:2)
The coming space-weapons arms race with China will probably make political tensions irrelevant.
Re:Purely defensive??????? I dont think so.... (Score:2)
Re:Purely defensive??????? I dont think so.... (Score:2, Flamebait)
BTW, I was a tanker for twenty years so I do have a little clue about this shit.
Re:Not too hard. (Score:2)
The anti-satellite laser is on the *ground* somewhere in the desert, probably the testing grounds near White Sands National Monument, in the gypsum fields. It's less of a "laser" and more of an "electromagnetic radiation emmitter" and it fries the satellites less by heat and more by a super-concentrated burst of radio energy.
The 747-mounted laser is a theater-defense weapon designed to fly around "hot-spots" in the world and shoot down something that is launched, within minutes of the launch, by using heat. It's a prototype, not too effective, I don't even think it's had more than one real test. *shrug*
hard part (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hard part (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hard part (Score:2)
are artillery shells that delicate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:are artillery shells that delicate? (Score:3, Interesting)
And for ones with an explosive payload, the obvious would happen in flight.
Yes, the are that delicate - to a laser (Score:2, Interesting)
A standard 155mm HE round weighs in at 103lbs. The shell itself is nothing but steel with a grid-like pattern etched on the inside (for shrapnel).
The thickness varies from about 1/2" to 3/4" thick (at the bottom next to the propellant). Other than that, they're just filled with gunpowder.
At the tip is a fuse (there are too many types to list), and just below that is a small bag of quick burning powder to kick things off.
If this laser is heating things up as hot as they say, that baby is going to blow pretty quick no matter where it's hit.
I have collection of shrapnel I picked up at the National Training Center at Ft. Irwin, that's where I got a look at the innards.
As a side note, by themselves they're not all that fragile. I dropped one on my foot (almost everyone does at some point), and apart from the two seconds of deafening silence following, we loaded it up and it was 12 miles away in a few seconds. Then I proceeded to scream like a bitch. Big toe was smashed something awful.
Re:are artillery shells that delicate? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:are artillery shells that delicate? (Score:2)
Now an artillary shell contains a lot of explosive and need to make a big bang. Therefore it needs a very thick, strong shell to contain the immense pressure of the gasses until enough gas has been produced to create the desired crater.
Black powder is a low explosive and will burn in open space. Most modern artillery explosives are HE and can detonate in open air (think C4). I would expect that you only need enough casing to keep the shell together during firing and to shield the fuse.
the case is the deadly part of artillery (Score:2)
In essence, a very large grenade.
Or, just use pen lasers (Score:5, Funny)
Eash of our troups has a pen laser and two house cats.
1) Release cats between you and the enemy.
2) Direct cats toward enemy trenches with pen light. Watch enemy freak out.
Re:Or, just use pen lasers (Score:2, Funny)
He and the cat didn't think so; but, Damn, that was funny.
Sorry, it's patented (Score:2, Interesting)
-harry
Re:Or, just use pen lasers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Arm the cats (Score:2, Funny)
First field trial worked perfectly - dogs saw tanks and ran towards them. Only problem: they'd been trained to associate Russian tanks with food, not German, and forced the Russians into retreat.
(this may well be urban legend, but it's a great story)
Re:Arm the cats (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Arm the cats (Score:2)
Also under development: (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Also under development: (Score:2)
Re:Also under development: (Score:2, Funny)
Citing Tom Clancy as an authority on millitary affairs is like citing the late Stephen King as an expert in criminology.
Maj. Kong
Re:Also under development: (Score:2)
Also, I reccomend you read the book series Guided Tour of...(Carrier, Armored Cav, Fighter wing, Airborne, etc.) If Stephen King spent a big chunk of his life writing criminology texts, interviewing homicide detectives, and researching enough to write non-fiction analysis and case profiles, then sure, I would use him as a reference. However, in this case, despite what I consider Clancy's adequate qualification, I just used his color commentary.
Re:Also under development: (Score:4, Interesting)
To be blunt, this is wrong. I do agree, however, that just polishing up a stainless steel shell until you can shave in front of it probably won't make enough difference. Most mirrors don't reflect nearly enough light.
On the other hand, such powerful lasers are hard to make and very expensive. It would be tempting to make them just barely strong enough to work against existing designs which have no defense against such countermeasures. If a spinning (or randomly tumbling), mirrored shell, can cut down the rate of heating by something like 30%, and there's some extra heat-shielding inside, it might be enough to survive.
All kidding aside, you also can't rule out, as I said, revolutionary new developments in mirrored armor. I mean, if there was no way to deflect the beam, there would be no way to generate or aim it!
BTW, Tom Clancy is a novelist, not a physicist. His entire livelihood is sounding plausible about things he doesn't really understand.
Besides, in the battle between bigger armor and bigger guns, the guns always win eventually.
Ah, but which is which? This is an odd historical precedent to apply in favor of a defense mechanism.
Re:Also under development: (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly. You don't polish steel, you give is a coating which does not absorb the wavelengths the other guys are using [make it the colour of the beam].
Re:Also under development: (Score:2)
Don't forget smoke screens.
Is it really so difficult? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it really so difficult? (Score:2)
Here's a related piece (Score:3, Informative)
Battle lasers are rapidly moving from the realm of theory into operational reality
The Airforce Association
http://www.afa.org/magazine/0999lasers.html
Govexec.com says (Score:4, Insightful)
that "These lasers also have a drawback--their energy comes from large tanks of industrial chemicals, which have to be mixed until they glow, like an outsize high-school science project. And they are so bulky that one weapon fills a large aircraft, or a small building. "
Does this jive with the fox news article?
Re:Govexec.com says (Score:2)
There's LOTS of stuff you can burn... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this jive with the fox news article?
Yes. But it doesn't tell the whole story.
The lasers they're talking about are spinoffs of the Star Wars missile defense system. They had to get a LOT of energy into a beam quickly, to shoot down missiles while still in space, or to bounce off a mirror in space to get them on their way up. One shot, one dead nuke, so cost wasn't much of an object.
Neither was portability: You had either a fortified underground bunker as big as you wanted, or a satellite in zero-G.
So they did something very strong, effective, big, and expensive.
But lasers are EASY. Excluding superradiants (which are easier, if you've got the materials) all you need is a couple of well-alligned mirrors, one of 'em slightly leaky, with an "inverted population amplification light amplification medium" between them.
For "inverted population light amplification medium" read "smoke from a fire".
The medium must have the following characteristics:
It has a state transistion (an "excited state", a "ground state" or less-excited state, and an allowed transition between them) with an energy difference corresponding to a usefully energetic photon.
It must have significantly more of its atoms or molecules in the more-excited state than in the less-excited state. (This is the "inverted population" part.)
It must have ENOUGH of a surplus of more-excited particles to produce a usable amount of power if you extracted the energy difference by de-exciting enough that you're down to 50/50 (or de-exciting them all if there's a further transition that drains the less-excited state).
It must be transparent and reasonably uniform (i.e. non-distorting) at the light frequency corresponding to the state transition.
When you burn darn near ANYTHING the resulting molecules start out excited. If they meet the other criteria you've got a suitable medium for a chemically-pumped laser.
Burn a suitable fuel in a long, thin, rocket flame and run the exhaust at right angles between the pair of mirrors. You'll have a laser beam coming out as long as the flame lasts. Chose the right material and a large fraction of what would have been the heat of combustion ends up in the laser beam.
Now there are some fancy and deadly fuels (fluorine comes to mind) that make an exhaust where the bulk of the energy can be extracted by a single transition. This is nice and efficient. And you don't want to be ANYWHERE NEAR them when in use, due to the toxic nature of the exhaust. So if you're going to be shooting down a nuke from a fort in the desert they're fine.
But there are LOTS of others that are simpler, and might be more suitable for a battlefield.
I expect that eventually we'll see a chemically-pumped laser rifle or pistol, about the same size as a normal rifle or pistol, with an optical cavity where the barrel would be, powered by cartridges of solid fuel that are fed by a mechanism similar to the one that feeds cartridges consisting of case/primer/powder/bullet.
Re:They already had a design like this (Score:3, Interesting)
Just what we need on the battlefield (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, I fire it at your depleted uranium artillery shell. Vaporized uranium on the battlefield. Voila! How's that for environmental cleanup?
The end of air combat (Score:3, Insightful)
For a more technical overview... (Score:4, Informative)
http://lasers.llnl.gov/lst/helstf.html [llnl.gov]
More handy links (Score:4, Interesting)
The US Army's HEL sites:
http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/THEL.html [army.mil]
http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/HELSTF.html [army.mil]
TRW's contribution:
http://www.trw.com/thel [trw.com]
-Mark
This raises some frightening questions (Score:4, Interesting)
What's to stop them from using these things on people? They have amazingly accurate targeting systems and they're cheap to fire (article says 25 cents (maybe dollars, I forget...) per shot.
So what's to keep the defense dept. from using these things for assassinations, or ground warfare?
Would that be cruel and unusual?
Here's a question: is there a "right of the people" to keep and bear these? The idea doesn't sound assuring, I must say: what kind of signature would it leave. Bullets can be tracked, but this -- would there even be a body left?
I'm not trying to complain or predict horrors, because I'm all about the advance of tech. I just want to know a little more about this kind of thing.
Also: it's eerie that the article only mentions uses of these for defense, and not for attack, covert (which I think is a promising potential use for this technology) or otherwise. Just considering it's a time of "war" and all.
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:5, Informative)
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:3, Informative)
Treaties (Score:5, Interesting)
THink of it, you sign a treat to (say) not research biological weapons for offensive purposes, say, like Russia did. Then, you secretly violate the treaty, and now you have weapon the other side doesn't have. Its happened in the past, it'll happen in the future.
Weapons treaties only penalize the honest countries. Dishonest countries won't care. At least we actually do (for the most part) obey our treaties.
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:2)
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:3, Informative)
I thought the rule was anything larger than
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:2)
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:2)
Simple... they don't work that well. The best they can do is heat up thin metal rocket skins and make them burst because of the pressurized fuel inside... most rockets are so weak structurally that they would collapse if you drained the fuel out of them.
These lasers are too weak to do much damage. The worst they can do to people is use laser light to blind people... which is pretty bad, but it ain't no death star.
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:2)
Against tanks and vehicles, perhaps this would be effective... though those are slow enough in general that a guided rocket or smart bomb is probably just as effective. And they are big and much better armored than a small incoming Katyusha rocket, so I don't know how well that would work at this point.
Planes are not that much unlike missiles and artillery shells in that they are big things flying through the sky at high speeds with lots of fuel in them. I would think that planes would be susceptible to this class of laser weapons too, as a result, and avoid the complexities of defeating chaff, ECM and jamming systems.
Also, if this actually works for shooting down these small projectiles, is there any fundamental reason a later iteration of this technology couldn't be used to defend from ICBMs - I suppose you would need a lot more range to get high enough to hit them while it still mattered. Perhaps better than the missile defense program missiles that don't seem to work really well in the real world.
The "plane-mounted assasination" might be effective though. If we can hit a rocket from the ground, we can probably hit a person from a plane with the same laser. And it might not be efficient against large numbers of ground troops, but if you want to knock out one guy with minimal or no collateral damage that would result from shooting missiles or rockets at him, this would possibly be effective. Although I may be wrong about the "no collateral damage" thing... refracted laser light all over the place could definitely at least blind a lot of people.
Several points. (Score:2)
article says 25 cents (maybe dollars, I forget...) per shot.
It is cheaper to shoot a rifle. Plus these laser weapons are pathetically weak compared to a rifle. These weapons were designed for use on weak rockets and missiles travelling at high speeds in the air. The laser is only capable of heating and weakening the metal skin, which flight forces would tear a hole in, thus rupturing and destroying the missile. In an earlier post I questioned exactly how well these lasers would work on the much thicker and stronger skins of artillery shells.
To use one of these on a human is stupid and ineffective. Sure, it'll burn you..but why not just shoot the guy? More damaging and a quicker death.
As for the 'people' to get one, find me someone who can actually afford something like this. These weapons are enormous (they're TRYING to fit one on an 18 wheeler) and cost millions.
These lasers are useful city defenders against things like SCUDs. Not something Joe Q. Gunowner will own.
Re:This raises some frightening questions (Score:3, Insightful)
Considering these offensive possibilities is the only way I've found to make any sense of missile defense: why some people are trying so hard to make it, why others are so opposed to it.
In its proposed use, it's obviously stupid: it does a very poor job of defending against a very unlikely attack. Maybe its supporters are just trying to make more money for weapons producers -- actually, I'm sure they are -- but maybe there's more to it.
But then why do all these other countries get so bothered about it? If it's doomed to fail -- there seems to be concensus on that from all nonpartial observers -- then why not just let the US fail at it?
So here's where this theory comes in: missile defense provides a reason to do research and implementation of military systems in space, with high accuracy lasers and all that. It doesn't have to work, because it will never be tested in a realistic way, and the staged tests will just be faked (like all the tests so far).
Once you have high-precision and powerful lasers in space, you have a hell of a lot of power. Spy satellites already have impressive accuracy. It's entirely possible to create an offensive weapon that could kill anyone that's out in the open (given a certain amount of intelligence -- supposing biometrics don't get too good, so they could identify us from space).
Of course this would scare the hell out of all the other countries -- enemies and allies alike. It's no secret that the US is a fickle lover. One day you're our best friend -- Noriega, for example -- the next you're in jail. Or just dead.
Not gonna work. (Score:2)
Shell comes down, buries in dirt, explodes. Shrapnel flies everywhere, but mostly up. Maybe shell has an altitude based fuse, so it explodes in the air. Shrapnel flies everywhere.
New way:
Shell comes down, gets zapped by laser. Shrapnel flies everywhere.
Still, you have supersonic, ballistic shrapnel, and still, you have it landing full-speed on the target.
--Blair
Re:Not gonna work. (Score:2)
If the shell is directed at an even marginally hardened target, you'd much rather have a bunch of tiny, dispersed bits of metal (burning off their momentum agaist air resistance with their much greater overall surface area) than a massive, explosively-armed charge burying itself into your position, then detonating.
Re:Not gonna work. (Score:2)
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/an-vlq-
"The Shortstop Electronic Protection System (SEPS) is an RF Proximity Fuze counter measure. The Shortstop battlefield electronic countermeasures system is capable of prematurely detonating incoming artillery and mortar rounds. It counters the threat of RF Proximity Fuzed munitions by causing them to prefunction, to protect friendly ground troops, vehicles, structures, and other equipment under fire."
Shortstop is already in service.
There are already radar systems to track rounds down to a 60mm mortar shell.
Get real (Score:2, Interesting)
And let's not even consider making this a "personal" means of defense.
Sounds like the old warbirds over at Fox are lobbying for a larger military budget.
MIRACL (Score:5, Funny)
Nice acronym. Now every time I see a picture of someone standing in a beam of divine light from the sky I'm going to get a mental picture of him bursting into flames and melting.
Now all they need (Score:2)
the goddamn hippies (Score:3, Funny)
More bias/social engineering from the hawks at FOX (Score:4, Troll)
It's pretty simple:
1) a chunk of your tax dollars goes to pork-barrel arms projects (that don't work).
2) Said arms dealer profits.
3) Arms dealer "lobbies" for more congressional pork.
In the "old days" of the early 90's, #3 meant simply bribing the congressmen via his campaign "war chest". While that made effective lobbying, today we have Rupert Murdoch's lobbying group, "Fox" television. It's sad to have seen the name of a once-great US media company bought out by a "naturalized" foreigner whose intentions are simply to influence American politics.
In other words, this is a LOBBYING EFFORT to raise taxes for yet another military boondoggle. It's just pretend news.
Congress is already leery of "star wars" (the SDI kind), seeing how there is so much pressure to deploy the damn thing, when star wars misses 3 out of 6 targets in *lab* conditions.
Now they want the same unproven technology on the ground. Fox runs nothing but editorials against "government pork" and "big government" EXCEPT when it serves the war hawks or their stock portfolio.
Remember, these are the same maggots who ran "investigative reporting" how the USA supposedly never landed on the moon. Note this story ran JUST BEFORE renewed calls in Congress to both cut NASA funding (to make them less effective), AND to privatize NASA altogether.
George Orwell was wrong. In the future we will be controlled by mindless, hypnosis-inducing corporate-sponsored "information", news, etc.
"FoxNews, The Most Biased Name in News" - FAIR.org (Score:4, Troll)
I have a grudge with Fox, and this article didn't help either. I totally avoid it for any "War on Terror" news.
Recently Fair And Accuracy in Reporting [fair.org] wrote a special report titled: [fair.org]
The Most Biased Name in News: Fox News Channel's extraordinary right-wing tilt (note that's it's written before sep.11).
Now that I am at it, CNN is no saint either [fair.org], that's for sure. I feel like screaming BIASED! at the TV when I see Lou Dobbs et.al. wearing Stars and Stripes on their suit. All reporting is "WE need to fight this enemy...", "Protect OUR country...". So much for International.
No thank you, I will stick with:
- guerrillanews [guerrillanews.com]
- mediachannel [mediachannel.org]
- and for TV, EuroNews or even BBC
futurism (Score:2, Interesting)
If the article is right, and the energy supply for these lasers continue to be expensive, bulky chemicals, we may see a return to the battlefields of the 19th century, when artillery, and not air power, was most critical to warfare. Supply lines would become more important than they are today. Battlefield tactics would have to change.
Why wouldn't they mount lasers on aircraft? Maybe the chemicals are too heavy?
real genius (Score:2)
now I'm hungry for some popcorn.... yum.
Slashdot sees the error immediately. (Score:2)
A thought occurs to me (Score:2)
God: Think about it, Kent. What use is a phase conjugate tracking mirror? A big mirror needs a big beam.
Kent: I... I overheard Dr. Hathaway talking about a test out in the desert.
God: Good. Now, I want you to think about what you've done. And for the last time, stop touching yourself!
What about good old reflection? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is anyone else wondering.....? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is anyone else wondering why we are spending so much money on the missile defense system? This seems to have solved the problem of missile defense much more elegantly (and more cost effectively?) Maybe I'm missing something.
Mecha plans under way... (Score:2)
Water cooling [slashdot.org], check...
Meth Fuel cell [slashdot.org], check...
Ginger platform [slashdot.org], check...
Power Glove [slashdot.org], check...
Now I need an autocannon, more legos, and I'm set
Basis for Future Weapons... (Score:2, Interesting)
NO! To make jiffy pop! (Score:2, Funny)
You mean jiffy popped eyeballs? (Score:2)
If they get hit in the face with a specular reflection they might have eye damage beyond merely going blind.
War is about to beome H.E.L.
Re:You mean jiffy popped eyeballs? (Score:2)
True. And there are moves to outlaw them (like poision gas and biological weapons) as inhumane (and counterproductive).
But what I'm talking about is accidental dazzle. When you're sending a light pulse that can vaporize metal in miliseconds, even a tiny splinter of that energy, focussed by an eye's lens, can wreak havoc on retinal cells.
Colloids, proteins, and DNA are a lot more fragile than metal.
Re:a flame but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Funny)
You'd have to have a pretty big laser to shoot down a B52.
Re:Bad timing (Score:2, Interesting)
Problem is: the dispersion/diffraction of a high-powered LASER being used outdoors has the side effect of permanently blinding most of the people in line-of-sight to the aircraft [which can be a lot and, of course, include one's own troops].
Question is: why not just attach a whatever-KV potential to a spark-plug in a mini-dish and knock out the target's electronics instead? Should be easier--of course, that'd have little effect upon an incoming shell/bomb once the fuse has been armed.
Re:Bad timing (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course going back further my father was on board HMAS Hobart, in the US gunline off vietnam, when an american F4 mistook them for a helicopter(?) and put a missile into them, killing good men.
And not to get too bitter about it a large chunk of the RAN was sunk at guadalcanal by their american allies (funny looking british built ships).
These things happen but they seem to happen more when americans have their fingers on the trigger.
Any weapon has this problem... (Score:2)
Trip and impale your buddy with your pike/sword...
And so forth.
Besides, this isn't a personnel carried device- it's a Humvee/Bradley mounted device. One's an eximer the other something solid-state. Both are going to be too large for people to carry.
Re:Any weapon has this problem... (Score:2)
How many of you, when reading this, started drooling and pounding on the table, screaming "I want one! On my car! I've been good, Santa! I WANT! I'll never get stuck in traffic again, and if I do, at least it'll be fun!"
A Humvee (or better yet, a giant winged robot that can fly on Mars!) with a battlefield laser! Fuck this traffic jam, d00dz! Check out my ride! [angryflower.com] I rule!
Re:Friendly Fire (Score:2)
Re:Heh (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Heh (Score:2)
Gotta fund those ultra-black projects somehow.
Re:Heh (Score:2)
If you're one of the guys sitting under the incoming artillery shell, it's simultaneously "cheap" and "priceless".
Throw ball bearings very, very fast (Score:3, Interesting)
Not as easy to steer as a laser but extremely difficult to defend against. Good for anti-aircraft as well, since colanders have poor aerodynamics. Anything not detonated by ball bearings doing many kilometers a second would be thrown well off course. Not that this is not necessarily an advantage, since certain nations are reknowned for just carpeting the target area with ordinance and knocking something off course might make it more accurate.
Coil Guns don't (Score:3, Informative)
A coil gun is a different sort of electropropellent. The "barrel" of the gun is a multitude of coils laid in a row. The coils are driven by banks of capacitors in rapid sequence. They work just like a solenoid except that a sequence of coils is employed for greater acceleration. A working coil gun can be fired many times as no hot plasma is involved in accelerating the shell.
The problem is that it is much harder to build an effective coil gun than it is a rail gun. The timing of the coil firings must be timed precisely. Fire a coil too soon and the shell is braked rather than accelerated. Fire it too late and little to no accelleration is imparted at all. Secondly, it takes a number of coils to do this. One big coil won't do much since it is pointless to increase power once the (ferrous) shell has been magnetically saturated. So multiple coils have to kick the shell up to speed. A lot of coils isn't the problem in and of itself. Each coil will need a large bank of capacitors to itself, this will serve to make the weapon very bulky. The capacitor banks also have to be recharged between firings. It will also take some doing to cool the system. Ever play with a home made electromagnet? It's going to get HOT.
So to recap, the device will have sophisticated sensing and timing requrements for the coils; the generator and capacitor banks will be bulky; getting a high rate of fire is problimatical and it will require a large cooling system as well. I haven't mentioned any sort of targeting system or the engineering requirements that will be imposed on the shells either.
Basically, a battlefield practical electromagnetic mass driver is at least as hard as this laser system.
Re:A step up for laser pointers (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Missile Defense? (Score:2)
Two arguments I've heard against missile defense are that it doesn't work, and that it wouldn't stop other attacks. For the former, the fact that it doesn't work hardly seems like an argument against research. As for the latter, if we put all our money into aircraft security and mail sanitization, we'd be unprepared for missile attacks.
Not a sermon, just a thought. (OK, maybe that phrase implies that it is a sermon. Oh, well.)
Re:Uh huh (Score:2)
Fox News: News for idiots.
Took it off my channel line-up ages ago.
Re:This just in! (Score:2, Interesting)
When diplomacy fits, use it, but do I have to rape your wife and murder your your children before you decide maybe it would be a good idea to fight back?
Re:Expen$ive (Score:2)
What's the cost of a 105mm shell landing on your command and control center?
Re:"Fox News" != "News" (Score:3)
They were only on 24/7 in the days following 9/11 reporting on every detail as it came out. Making assumptions is something I EXPECT the media to do, what the hell do you think reporters do all day? "Hm, let's gather some facts, but never actually suggest any possible conclusion, yes, this is news-worthy, HONEST."
Besides, I'd be willing to bet they were only reporting what government officials were telling them in private (the bin Laden connection). I think most people are used to seeing un-substantiated news on the TV, and most folk are smart enough to make their own decisions (what's the Fox News slogan-- "We report, you decide."-- this was more than true after 9/11; they presented a number of possibilities right after the attacks happened, and left it to you, THE VIEWER, to decide).
Personally, I think you're just some CNN-zealot who doesn't like Bill O'Reilly.
Re:"Fox News" != "News" (Score:3, Informative)
Mind you, this was common knowlege over 10 years ago when Murdoch took over Fox, the NY Post, et al...
Re:"Fox News" != "News" (Score:2)
Re:FoxNews? (Score:2)
Yeah. (Score:2)
Easy to preach from the armchair, eh?