US Navy Laser Weapons

That's nice. Now if they can only get the bad guys to stop so that the beam stays in the same position long enough they might have something.

I don't think that's much of problem.... If you put enough energy on a target it couldn't move fast enough for it matter. If they can blow missiles out of the sky, they can hit a boat even if the motion isn't totally predictable.

Or aim the damm laser at the bad guys and keep the motor for our use!

No need. The laser tracks the target like the main gun on an M1 tank.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsgkZjVAoHg


Have to wonder what it would do if they aimed it at the pirate at the wheel of a pirate boat rather than the engine.

"No need" "Not much problem"

C'mon guys, an off the shelf industrial laser can do what that video clip shows, and many of them can do it in much less time.

If a defense contractor had something worth a pile of our tax dollars they would have shown that boat going full speed trying to evade a beam that would neutralize it as quickly as a burst from a good old fashioned (and very low cost)gun.

Beware the poorly demonstrated GeeWhiz crap coming from people who want your tax money.

They demonstrated that they could do it from miles away. No industrial laser can do that, keeping the beam controlled and projecting that much energy that far and keeping it on target is actually quite impressive. And no gun is going to be able to hit a bobbing target at a range of a few hundred yards, let alone from a distance of miles away.

Ok, it isn't fully developed, but this demo is enough to get peoples attention. I think it's pretty impressive. I also don't think tracking is a problem, you could focus a pointer on it and it will go where you tell it too. Moving target isn't much of a problem.

Perhaps you are not old enough to remember HMS HOOD.

(Range approx 25,000 yards)

http://www.warship.org/no21987.htm

You sir, are very wrong. After years working with many types of industrial lasers, I can assure you, it is indeed possible. It is not so much the power, but the optics of the device.

What makes you think they can't accurately shoot a strong laser from a boat? Having a bit of knowledge about certain programs, I can tell you this: There is already an airborne laser system that is capable of tracking missiles, satellites, etc, and it is also capable of hitting these targets with remarkable accuracy. The amount of energy transferred is astounding, and often leads to near vaporization.

No body here has said a strong laser can't be accurately shot from a boat.

I implied that the laser shown in the video is so weak it required a very long time (on a weapon's time scale) for it to light up a fiberglass surface on a nearly stationary target.

As a demo it is really lame. As a weapon, if that is the best they can do, a single conventional gun could do a better job much faster against a rapidly maneuvering target in smoke, fog, and rain for a microscopic portion of what it cost just to make that silly gee whiz flick.

I think a couple of freshman engineering students could duplicate what we saw in the video. Just buy a used industrial laser on Ebay and set fire to an old outboard floating nearby.

Like I wrote before, show it stopping that same boat maneuvering to evade at a range of 400 meters or more and if it costs less than a machine gun you might have something. Until then it sure looks like just another scam to suck up defense money.

A battleship is not a small "bobbing target". It is moving up and down, but the amount of movement in the up and down direction isn't as great, relative to the size of the target. And yes large marine guns have been able to accurately hit other large ships for over 75 years. When the CEP (circular error probabilty) gets smaller than the target, you get a hit. What these guys are demonstrating is a CEP of a few inches so that they can hit a small target in a specific spot with a beam of energy and that is much more difficult than just hitting a battleship somewhere.

Sorry, I was not aware that industrial lasers could do that. The industrial lasers that I am familar with can burn a small hole in a target at a very specific distance. To burn an area the size of a softball (or larger) at a distance of two miles or more is a lot more power and optical capability than I am familiar with. We regularly burn through superalloys, but it takes multiple shots to burn a .020 inch diameter hole through .050 inches of material. To burn a much bigger hole through an outboard motor cover and light it off seems to me to be a lot of energy. The size of the hole you burn is directly related to the power applied to the target. Burning a pinhole or cutting metal is very different than burning a big area that is thousands of times larger. I don't know of any industrial lasers that that can burn that big a hole in a target. In some literature Northrup Grumman is building a 100kw laser, which is a lot more power than any industrial laser I've ever seen or heard of.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZPKJ9TEzDA

No atmospheric correction needed on the seas, so it won't be a problem. They can target the motors on a boat and disable the vessel easily.

Oh geez! Just because you sound like a lobbyist doesn't mean the rest of us here are as dumb as congressmen!

I see you need to do some minor league review of the literature on the effects of atmospheric instability and aerosols on high energy laser transmission.

The concept's been tried for what, 30 years? More?

The Tomahawk (and his buddies) still has the advantage of not being defeated by $1 smoke grenade. Not to mention old adage of "all-weather fire support not working in bad weather".

Besides, the EF of energy transfer through atmosphere via lasers is just appalling, which creates it's own set of practical problems (awkward power requirements, heat generation and so on). Weapons history knows countless multitudes of x-weapons that produced nice show but never quite made it to the line.

Maybe you should prove, beyond your opinion, that this technology is as unfeasible as you seem to believe it is.

Maybe you should prove your familiarity with scientific theory, specifically, the concept of "burden of proof". Kindly do it along with Marmot's proposed measures in self-education in laser physics. So far you are representing little more then just a real bad example of internet trolling based off Russel's Teapot.

Which is our case means the technology should be proven feasible, not the other way around. And it is not so far, for quite an amount of time, efforts, flashy shows and money spent.

Just wait until they're able to do this from space rather than a boat.

USAF has been testing laser tech for the best part of 20 years and more .. the platform used was a 747

http://youtu.be/h69TrQTseHA

The USAF has been playing with aircraft-mounted lasers for a lot more than 20 years. When I was stationed at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque in 1974-5 there was a testing program involving a laser equipped KC-135. It was shooting at airborne and ground targets.