Israel rolls out laser defense system • Hacker News Board

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#41

Post by sandworm101 » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:30 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #30

opwieurposiu wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the current power level, this laser is mainly useful against drones. There is a limit to how much laser power you can shoot through the air. When the threshold for breakdown is exceeded, a high density plasma is produced which is opaque to visible and infrared wavelengths and thus absorbs the laser radiation. The moon does not have this laser power limit, but moving Tel Aviv to the moon would quite expensive and y…

Sounds like that could be gotten around by using multiple lasers.

Multiple beams creates a different problem. Say your beam is 1cm across and you are aiming at a 30cm target. All your energy is in that 1cm. You don't much care where in that 30cm it hits so long as it burns through. But with two lasers, to be effective, each beam needs to hit the same sport on the target. Instead of a 30cm target, laser #2 now has to hit the 1cm beam of the first laser.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#42

Post by morelish » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:31 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #35

pasabagi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD was a dumb idea in the first place. Everybody has known, since the first world war, that a major power confrontation is very likely to end your nation, even if you win . The French were so demographically destroyed they literally could not raise an army to fight in the second world war. The British were so broke their empire collapsed. The Russian empire, the Austrian empire, the Ottoman empires all collapsed int…

> he French were so demographically destroyed they literally could not raise an army to fight in the second world war. This isn't true at all. The French army at the start of WWII was over 5 million men, one of the largest in the world. It suffered from bad luck and being led by morons, but it certainly existed. Per your other point, WWII made the US and the USSR global superpowers for half a century, and the US espe…

I don't know about the demographic claim but definitely the French could not imagine _fighting_ another war and so their preparations were poor. They built the Maginot Line as a way of avoiding having to fight again. And I believe the political culture in the country and army all rotated around the idea that they never wanted to fight Germany again. This also extended to the Treat of Versailles were they tried to cripple Germany's ability to raise an army again. I don't know about the demographic claim, but he is sort of right that WW1 wrecked Frances fighting spirit.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#43

Post by hirundo » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

"If we can intercept a missile or rocket with an electrical pulse that costs a few dollars, we will essentially neutralize the ring of fire that Iran has set up"

This sets up a steampunk scenario where the missile must be controlled by a mechanical gyroscopic guidance system, immune from electrical pulses.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#44

Post by propesh » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:32 PM UTC

propesh wrote: post #38

sandworm101 wrote: post #21

I will believe it when I see it. Focusing that much light on a small moving object, through layered and moving air, with an intensity to burn through metal would be an achievement. Burning through enough of that metal to degrade a falling rocket (as opposed to during boost phase of flight) is even harder. For all the talk about cost reduction, have a look at what realworld laser armor costs. Painting the nosecone of…

Ill never forget when the Iron Dome was first rolling out, this rocket researcher on the internet said it couldn't be done. He explained it pretty well, and I was convinced. Search google for Iron dome doesn't work (looking back to 2010-14) And yet, it does work (mostly). So basically what I'm saying, this stuff is hard, and few people in the world can even verify your claim, never mind have access to the tech or AI…

Here is the article: https://www.technologyreview.com/2014/07/15/172055/an-explan...

Again, not sure if this turned out to be correct; but from reading reports on the ground and the lives Israel claimed it saved (and building more of them,) it seems evident he was in fact wrong.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#45

Post by morelish » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

Miraste wrote: post #35

pasabagi wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MAD was a dumb idea in the first place. Everybody has known, since the first world war, that a major power confrontation is very likely to end your nation, even if you win . The French were so demographically destroyed they literally could not raise an army to fight in the second world war. The British were so broke their empire collapsed. The Russian empire, the Austrian empire, the Ottoman empires all collapsed int…

> he French were so demographically destroyed they literally could not raise an army to fight in the second world war. This isn't true at all. The French army at the start of WWII was over 5 million men, one of the largest in the world. It suffered from bad luck and being led by morons, but it certainly existed. Per your other point, WWII made the US and the USSR global superpowers for half a century, and the US espe…

Oh, I actually totally disagree with the original commenter's statement "The cold war didn't go hot because we were lucky, not because MAD changed the basic dynamics of total war." Erm. No. MAD definitely did change the basic dynamics.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#46

Post by zokier » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

sandworm101 wrote: post #21

I will believe it when I see it. Focusing that much light on a small moving object, through layered and moving air, with an intensity to burn through metal would be an achievement. Burning through enough of that metal to degrade a falling rocket (as opposed to during boost phase of flight) is even harder. For all the talk about cost reduction, have a look at what realworld laser armor costs. Painting the nosecone of…

This article has a video of similar system from Lockheed Martin in 2013 demonstrating successful destruction of missile https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/iron-beam-iron-dome-and-lase...

The capability for lasers to counter rockets has been demonstrated over and over in the past 20-25 years. The problem has always been making the systems practical, but I guess they are getting there now.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#47

Post by josefresco » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

gremlinsinc wrote: post #12

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as EMPs are viable MAD is still in effect.

An emp would knock out electrical grids.... sure... But that isn't annihilation... Say russia installed this in major cities (rural is acceptable loss), then manufactured super sonic nukes that could deliver a strike in under 5 mins... or even a minute... they could strike many of our nuke sites (not all because of subs) but our major military operation bases, then we strike back from subs, but these take them all ou…

Nerd Alert: Thanos's motivations in the comics were definitely not "good". However, in the softened MCU version his motivations while hilariously dumb, could be considered "good".

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#48

Post by cobookman » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #34

sandworm101 wrote: post #21

I will believe it when I see it. Focusing that much light on a small moving object, through layered and moving air, with an intensity to burn through metal would be an achievement. Burning through enough of that metal to degrade a falling rocket (as opposed to during boost phase of flight) is even harder. For all the talk about cost reduction, have a look at what realworld laser armor costs. Painting the nosecone of…

It would need to pack the energy of a stick of dynamite (1 lb explosive weight) into a short burst of light.

Would it? If the laser is able to focus on the rocket for multiple seconds. Then it'd just need to pack a fraction of that energy over a sustained duration. Which sounds reasonable.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#49

Post by RobRivera » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #39

...and then what. What will they do when the rockets get faster, shinier, more erratic in flight...or any of the other things mentioned on this thread? I'm not going to pretend I have the solutions to the Arab Isreali conflict, but this is at best temporary. My best guess is the long term solution (if there is ever one attempted) will be more related to why people are motivated to launch rockets at their neighbours.

welcome to the concept of Escalation Dominance in the field of arms tech.

Re: Israel rolls out laser defense system

#50

Post by fuzzy2 » Tue, Feb 01, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

dexwiz wrote: post #4

This tech will be the end of MAD and the start of WW3. The only thing holding back current super powers from direct confrontation are ICBMs and MAD. Once they can be reliably shot down via lasers, then full scale war is much more likely. I understand the current tech is for much slower, much lower rockets and cruise missiles. But the tech will evolve and get better. Israel is the current test bed for high tech defens…

I very much doubt this is effective against ICBMs. It'll be a ground-based system. ICBMs are just too far away, too much air in between. It's not a question of technology. It simply cannot be done from the ground.