41–50 of 79 posts
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Gas and smoke probably.
High powered lasers 15 to 30 years from now won't be powerful enough to burn through gas and smoke nearly instantly? Wouldn't the laser just destroy the smoke particulate?
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> The projectiles would only have the force of gravity/terminal velocity Horizontal velocity will, presumably, be reduced by drag. But it won't be zero for a long, long ways over the horizon.
Not sure I follow. You point the projectile too low and it just hits the ocean (due to the curvature of the earth), you point it higher than the horizon then the projectile will continue to travel upwards indefinitely until it runs out of energy and then will fall back to earth with the force of gravity. The only way what you're saying works is on a flat planet or against a target within your horizon.
Railgun projectiles, like cannon shells, travel on a parabolic curve - not a half-circle.
It 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.
Don't you mean sphere of effect?
It will be interesting to see what counter measures can be deployed against the lasers. Mirrors, heat shields?
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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.
According to a quick internet search, $25,000 a round. That sounds insanely expensive but cruise missiles are half a million dollars each, not sure what an LRAP costs or what 'traditional' artillery shells used on ships cost.
This 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…
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Not sure I follow. You point the projectile too low and it just hits the ocean (due to the curvature of the earth), you point it higher than the horizon then the projectile will continue to travel upwards indefinitely until it runs out of energy and then will fall back to earth with the force of gravity. The only way what you're saying works is on a flat planet or against a target within your horizon.
It will still be travelling sideways when it hits the target, and unless your target is a long, long way off it'll be travelling sideways with significant speed. Railgun projectiles, like cannon shells, travel on a parabolic curve - not a half-circle.
The only way to make this an effective weapon is to fill it with explosives (since then you've just created a mortar). But firing explosives from a railgun has its own issues.
Most weapons which depend on a steep parabolic curve to hit their targets also have explosives in them, like artillery, mortars, ICBMs, etc. You can use a less steep curve to deliver blunt force to a target (catapult, cannon, gun, etc) but these weapons have a finite range as the earth is curved, therefore you'd have to tilt them too far back to overcome that, which will cause all that lovely forward force you're depending on to do damage going up into the sky as it flies higher and higher.
This 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…
The challenge of Phalanx CIWS is not targeting, it is that you have to (1) predict bullet trajectory in a complex environment that continuously deviates from the "in a vacuum" trajectory and (2) predict the trajectory of the target while the bullet is on its way to the target. In the case of the original Phalanx gun, they compensated for the intrinsic difficulty of this with a high rate of fire.
However, today the CIWS guns are being replaced with small missiles, which solves the problem of hitting the target. Terminal guidance against hypersonic targets was a solved problem twenty years ago; a computer can react much quicker than materials science allows a real object to alter its trajectory in a material way.
The obvious problem with using small missiles for CIWS is that they are relatively expensive and more difficult to store and handle. This is where a laser CIWS system becomes a nice augmentation to both gun and missile CIWS. Tracking targets in real-time with high-precision is a problem solved many years ago so the real challenge is getting sufficient power on target in a practical laser package, which they apparently have figured out.
This 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…
Could it be possible to reflect the laser with a mirror? If so, maybe the navy could use UAVs with mirrors to guide the laser for over-the-horizon shots.
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>A laser weapon is not an over-the-horizon weapon I'd imagine the long term plan is to roll both lasers and rail guns. The combo seems ideal. Cheat laser shots to swat missiles and drones out of the surroundings whilst bombarding everything further away with the railgun. I bet with a bit of clever tech you can pull off some insane over-the-horizon railgun shots. >Phalanx CIWS which is also computer controlled, it is…
> I bet with a bit of clever tech you can pull off some insane over-the-horizon railgun shots. The projectiles would only have the force of gravity/terminal velocity behind them unless they have been able to create an explosive railgun projectile (that doesn't explode on the launchpad due to the extremely high temperatures and other shock railguns apply to their projectiles). > Laser having +- zero flight time should…