| Author | Message | ||
     Oldog |
A directed energy weapon http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/04/08/future-is-n ow-navy-to-deploys-lasers-on-ships-in-2014/ a long way from portable though | ||
| Hootowl |
I hope it's deployed in time to stop a North Korean missile in boost phase. Oh, and that the Navy has enough money to operate ships at sea in support of such efforts. Seems our politicians are keen to cut spending on constitutionally mandated activities in order to fund ones that are nowhere to be found in that document. | ||
| Oldog |
Seems our politicians are keen to cut spending on constitutionally mandated activities in order to fund ones that are nowhere to be found in that document. Well Said Hoot, The Weapon is proof that we are getting some thing for our defense dollar} | ||
| Hootowl |
I posted before I read the article. This is a short range system, not the big one they've been developing to shoot down ICBMs in boost phase over the country (or near the country) where they are launched. Too bad. I'd like to see that system deployed. I had high hopes for the Air Force's version. | ||
| Hughlysses |
In 1978 I went for a job interview at Pratt & Whitney in Florida. During my tour, they showed me a full-size mock-up of an actual prototype air-to-air laser that they said they'd built and turned over to the Air Force a few months earlier. The laser was designed to be mounted in a 4-engine jet, something like a C-137. One of the guys conducting the interview told me he'd seen "gun camera" footage from the working prototype laser after it was successfully tested on the ground at a range out west. He said it showed the laser locking onto a hypersonic air-to-air missile in flight and vaporizing it. If they could do THAT in 1978, there's no telling what they can do now. | ||
| Teeps |
from the article: Officials who briefed the press on the laser gun -- say it has non-lethal functions too, and may be used to send warning signals to other vessels. Nothing like a hole in the hull of a boat as a warning signal. | ||
| Aesquire |
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/04/08/nav y-unveils-drone-killing-laser-video Probably not up to an Exocet, but this is at least being tested in a real world environment. I'm interested that they have hopes for a Free Electron Laser. Earlier experiments were abandoned and I thought the idea was as well. The word was that they didn't scale up as nicely as hoped. I speculate that the SDI security needs made them dry up on public enthusiasm. You also need to make & handle a LOT of power, since in essence, you are lasing a lightning bolt. Quite a lot of very good work was done in the SDI program on energy handling. If you want to throw 100 megawatts at a target, you have to handle far more than that from generator to laser. A lot of the research has bearing on Fusion and other high energy events. I don't think the early fusion pumped lasers did as good as they hoped, and that research dried up with the Test Ban Treaty. When you are simulating well understood phenomena, models, computer models, are great. You can build your thing in CAD and "test" it in cyberspace without problems. When you are pushing the limits of the well known, such as hypersonic combustion, or pumped x-ray lasers, ( or climate change ) there is no way to program an accurate model since too many assumptions have to be made. If you think x + Y = Z and it's actually Q, wildly wrong results can come from models. At the edges of the known, you have to actually experiment. Example, it was well known that the Earth was round, that it was about 25,000 miles around the equator, and that Columbus didn't have enough food or water to survive to reach China. That's what all the models said. ( they hadn't talked to the Norse ) If the America's hadn't been there, Chris would have died, either of dehydration or mutiny. Experiments reveal new truths. Models illuminate old ones. | ||
| Kenm123t |
Hugh wish I could say what I have seen there at PW Its called a wonderland for engineers. Most of my buddies here in the hood work there or at the Nuke Plant | ||
| Blake |
Lasers are neat, but way too easily defeated. Mirror finish or even just some good white paint reflects the laser light rather than absorbing it. High intensity RF beams though are another matter. | ||
| Mr_grumpy |
I'll settle for photon torpedoes for the heavy work & a pocket phaser (set to stun of course). Beam me up Scotty. | ||
| Reepicheep |
I was at GE when they developed the new GE-90. It was the first all digital design... where they pretty much worked through the entire design virtually before building parts and mockups. Once the prototypes were built, the running joke around the design groups was they had constructed a poor analog simulator of a perfect digital engine.  (They worked it out though... I personally pulled data showing more than 100,000 pounds of thrust even on the prototype. Dang.) | ||
| Cityxslicker |
The Boeing 'Guppy' was in hush hush mode back in the 80's - all 'black' project.... except the idiots parked it at Boeing Field for tech inspections and fuel analysis ..... anybody in the Aviation biz knew there was something not right with the hunch back - many of us in the squadrons knew all to well it was Ronny's legacy. Open source - seek and ye shall find. the microwave and ultrasonic directed energy beams that the Marines used for crowd dispersal have shrunken - in Somalia they were Humvee mounted.... it is my understanding they are down to a 'man pac' system the size of an anti tank weapon I am betting we some of those domestically soon. | ||
| Oldog |
in Somalia they were Humvee mounted.... it is my understanding they are down to a 'man pac' system the size of an anti tank weapon I am betting we some of those domestically soon. I'm waiting for my laser pistol / rifle } | ||
| Hootowl |
in the 40 watt range? | ||
| Blake |
The Guppy was just a cargo plane, for some interesting cargo.  | ||
| Cityxslicker |
4o Watt Range indeed, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1 there are some very interesting inconsistencies in that 'wiki' that don't bare out to how that thing circulated in and out of Seattle for 'service' |
