how does that help against torpedoes again?
US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
11–20 of 79 posts
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#12It will be interesting to see what counter measures can be deployed against the lasers. Mirrors, heat shields?
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#13I can't decide which I'm more excited about, railguns or lasers. Do the Navy's railgun prototypes take a special type of ammunition or are they just launching precision machined blanks of common metal?
According to the internet the slugs are mostly aluminum and/or copper. I'm sure it's more complex than that, but that's the ELI5 answer I guess.
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#14It will be interesting to see what counter measures can be deployed against the lasers. Mirrors, heat shields?
Gas and smoke probably.
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#15With a laser operating on about 30 kilowatts of electricity - and possibly three times that in the future - the cost amounts to a few dollars per shot, Thompson said. The important part. Power is plentiful on a ship. No need to pay for and carry ammunition. The cost for a single rocket or cannon volley is usually in the thousands of dollars.
Indeed, and although the US Navy has plenty of power already, I'm interested to know how the polywell prototype fusor that they've been sponsoring is coming along.
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#16I know this is completely off topic, reddit-ish, and I will get downvoted into the oblivion, but... Frau: Fire the laSER!
At the NYC Resistor hackspace, one is required to yell "Fire the laser!" before starting up the laser cutter. https://secure.flickr.com/photos/65613494@N00/2932584280
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#17This seems misleading:
> Both costs pennies on the dollar compared with missiles and smart bombs
A laser weapon is not an over-the-horizon weapon, so its spear of effect is quite a bit smaller than a "missile and smart bomb." It might be able to displace a Mark 45 gun or the Phalanx CIWS point defence system, but neither of which are missiles or smart bombs, and both fire relatively inexpensive (but heavy) ammunition.
It could not replace weapon systems like the Harpoon, Tomahawk, or Trident.
You could, in theory, get rid of SAMs and replace them with this laser system. But you better be damn confident in the laser system's ability to automatically target and destroy incoming projectiles as the laser has to wait a lot longer to fire than a SAM system does just due to line of sight (which is damn scary if the attackers are in supersonic aircraft, as it is reasonable to expect them to be).
Now you might say: "It is computer controlled! It will be like Robocop!"
But if you look at the Phalanx CIWS which is also computer controlled, it is damn terrible at targeting pretty much anything unless it is someone approaching in a trawler going 8 knots (and maybe even then you might miss a few times).
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#18I can't decide which I'm more excited about, railguns or lasers. Do the Navy's railgun prototypes take a special type of ammunition or are they just launching precision machined blanks of common metal?
I am excited about future weapons, but I lament the existence of the military industrial complex and the military innovations that goes with them.
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#19With a laser operating on about 30 kilowatts of electricity - and possibly three times that in the future - the cost amounts to a few dollars per shot, Thompson said. The important part. Power is plentiful on a ship. No need to pay for and carry ammunition. The cost for a single rocket or cannon volley is usually in the thousands of dollars.
Indeed, and although the US Navy has plenty of power already, I'm interested to know how the polywell prototype fusor that they've been sponsoring is coming along. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
I'm having trouble finding any more documents than are listed in that article, but I did find more grants for development https://www.fpds.gov/ezsearch/search.do?desc=Y&sortBy=SIGNED... so it's probably still going strong. It would be nice if someone could update their website with something more recent than 2006. http://www.emc2fusion.org/
Re: US Navy ready to deploy laser for first time
#20It will be interesting to see what counter measures can be deployed against the lasers. Mirrors, heat shields?
Simply don't move into direct line of sight of an American ship and fire over-the-horizon weapons at it? Or torpedos. Or supersonic aircraft firing supersonic anti-ship weapons (e.g. the Indian BrahMos).
Lasers, unlike SAMs, have a very limited spear of effect.