Killer laser deployed

I'll rip cnn for sucking as bad as they do. this is OLD news, re-posted as "new"s. the other day they had an article about a guy who got paralyzed his first shift of his college hockey debut. this happened in 1995 (travis roy). and the article was just above a cat video. nice job, cnn.



EDIT: for reference, here is a video (the same video) from 2014. suck it, cnn.

 
More than kind of, it's very cool! Thanks for posting. I knew a guy who worked on one type of military laser but he was pretty not-forthcoming about details for some reason.
 
I like it but it's like any weapon system, you stay outside its range (earth's curvature). Just like avoiding radar.

I'm curious as to how well it performs in thick cloud cover.
 
eman1200 said:
I'll rip cnn for sucking as bad as they do. this is OLD news, re-posted as "new"s. the other day they had an article about a guy who got paralyzed his first shift of his college hockey debut. this happened in 1995 (travis roy). and the article was just above a cat video. nice job, cnn.



EDIT: for reference, here is a video (the same video) from 2014. suck it, cnn.
Click to expand...
I agree that CNN sucks. And I wasn't aware this had been deployed for a while now.

But it is still cool. The Chinese will soon be deploying sea-skipping "Carrier Killer" missiles that are too fast to be shot down with projectiles. But I doubt they are too fast for this.
 
Velocity173 said:
I like it but it's like any weapon system, you stay outside its range (earth's curvature). Just like avoiding radar.

I'm curious as to how well it performs in thick cloud cover.
Click to expand...
An incoming missile that beyond the curvature of the earth is not a problem, as long as we can detect it in time.

But I also wonder about how it performs in thick cloud cover or heavy fog. I have seen fog so think you can't see your hand. But I suspect this will burn through it as long as it can get a radar lock.
 
I want one.

Any idea on how long the beam has to hit the target before it burns a hole in it? It looked like some of the targets used in that video had an explosive on them.

I read a sci-fi novel and it had some interesting notes in it about spaceship "dogfights" using lasers. Probably closer to sci-fact, the author noted that a laser has to hit something long enough to burn through. If the target has a good heat sink capability, that time is extended.
 
I want that, and the anti-everything gun, the Phalanx CIWS:

(shooting starts at 1:15)

 
Matthew said:
I want one.

Any idea on how long the beam has to hit the target before it burns a hole in it? It looked like some of the targets used in that video had an explosive on them.

I read a sci-fi novel and it had some interesting notes in it about spaceship "dogfights" using lasers. Probably closer to sci-fact, the author noted that a laser has to hit something long enough to burn through. If the target has a good heat sink capability, that time is extended.
Click to expand...

It takes about 2 secs on a drone. With only a mile range and limitations with obscurations, it's a good weather, close in defensive weapon that supplements its other defensive weapons.
 
Last edited:
Matthew said:
I want that, and the anti-everything gun, the Phalanx CIWS:

(shooting starts at 1:15)

Click to expand...
That thing looked like it was spitting out bullets pretty quickly. How much does each shell cost and how many do you think they expended in that video?
 
Sweet, lets deploy that on the federal funded drones spying contrary to the 4th amendment on American citizens.
 
CNN is way behind the times. Military laser has been around at least since '85.

real-genius-laser.jpg
 
Fearless Tower said:
Exactly. The ship in that video has already been decommissioned/de-activated.
Click to expand...
Again, I will never defend CNN. But the content of the article was still cool. In fact, that it was old makes it even more impressive as the navy hasn't stopped development of battle lasers. The article pointed out that even more powerful lasers were already being developed.
I'd like to see an article on those. But I'd just as soon that our enemies don't.
 
JOhnH said:
Again, I will never defend CNN. But the content of the article was still cool. In fact, that it was old makes it even more impressive as the navy hasn't stopped development of battle lasers. The article pointed out that even more powerful lasers were already being developed.
I'd like to see an article on those. But I'd just as soon that our enemies don't.
Click to expand...
Our enemies probably have guys on the development teams...
 
Interesting idea: post a handful of those lasers off the NK coast, and pop their rockets as soon as they leave the launch pad, or as soon as they are clear of NK airspace (if able). An alternative would be to shoot an anti-missile missile, but then you run the risk of a miss ending up inside NK or their airspace and maybe starting some unpleasantries. A laser doesn't have that problem with collateral damage when its background is the sky.

Someone upstream said the range on those lasers is about a mile, and that's not really a long enough reach to do something like that.
 
Matthew said:
Interesting idea: post a handful of those lasers off the NK coast, and pop their rockets as soon as they leave the launch pad, or as soon as they are clear of NK airspace (if able). An alternative would be to shoot an anti-missile missile, but then you run the risk of a miss ending up inside NK or their airspace and maybe starting some unpleasantries. A laser doesn't have that problem with collateral damage when its background is the sky.

Someone upstream said the range on those lasers is about a mile, and that's not really a long enough reach to do something like that.
Click to expand...
THAAD is already deployed in S Korea and I'm thinkin' the navy might keep an Aegis or two around.
 
Matthew said:
Interesting idea: post a handful of those lasers off the NK coast, and pop their rockets as soon as they leave the launch pad, or as soon as they are clear of NK airspace (if able). An alternative would be to shoot an anti-missile missile, but then you run the risk of a miss ending up inside NK or their airspace and maybe starting some unpleasantries. A laser doesn't have that problem with collateral damage when its background is the sky.

Someone upstream said the range on those lasers is about a mile, and that's not really a long enough reach to do something like that.
Click to expand...

Not on the 747 airborne system. Those are long range chemical lasers. The shipboard system is a fiber optic laser with a much reduced range. Future variants might get a few miles range with further power upgrades though.

Every defensive weapon system can be overcome just as every offensive weapon system can. Both the Russians and the Chinese claim to have anti-ship missiles that are able to defeat anti-ship countermeasures. You inundate a ship with enough of these systems and at least one is bound to get through.
 
Clark1961 said:
THAAD is already deployed in S Korea and I'm thinkin' the navy might keep an Aegis or two around.
Click to expand...
Yeah.

There was that whole series of "blown up right after launch" episodes that always made me wonder if someone was pushing a button on a ship or sub somewhere.
 
I still think the rail guns are even more cool. Plus if you can electromagnetically launch a shell, you can electromagnetically launch anything, including a space ship.
 
Bill Jennings said:
Unmanned, maybe.
Click to expand...
We're already electromagnetically launching airplanes with soft pink bodies in them. EMALS, whether you think it's a good program or not, is already doing it.

Nauga,
not with a bang but a whimper
 
nauga said:
We're already electromagnetically launching airplanes with soft pink bodies in them. EMALS, whether you think it's a good program or not, is already doing it.
Click to expand...

True, but we're not launching them to escape velocity.
 
Meh - just shoot manhole covers at them:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-fastest-speed-of-any-object-on-the-earth/answer/Talon-Torres

>>>
The shaft had, in effect, become a enormous 500-foot long, four-foot wide gun barrel with the energy of billions of pounds of TNT released at one end and, at the other end, the now insignificantly small metal cap, about the equivalent of a bottle cap on the end of a naval gun.

...

Later calculations showed that the heretofore mundane four-foot metal disk had been launched at six times Earth’s escape velocity. That’s one hundred fifty thousand miles per hour. Forty-five miles per second.

...

So somewhere in the New Mexico desert, unknown and unmourned, lies an American relic, a piece of history like no other: the fastest man-made object ever.
<<<
 
Matthew said:
Meh - just shoot manhole covers at them:

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-fastest-speed-of-any-object-on-the-earth/answer/Talon-Torres

>>>
The shaft had, in effect, become a enormous 500-foot long, four-foot wide gun barrel with the energy of billions of pounds of TNT released at one end and, at the other end, the now insignificantly small metal cap, about the equivalent of a bottle cap on the end of a naval gun.

...

Later calculations showed that the heretofore mundane four-foot metal disk had been launched at six times Earth’s escape velocity. That’s one hundred fifty thousand miles per hour. Forty-five miles per second.

...

So somewhere in the New Mexico desert, unknown and unmourned, lies an American relic, a piece of history like no other: the fastest man-made object ever.
<<<
Click to expand...

This wasn't a test of a nuclear bomb, it was just a slow day at the bomb test site.... A couple of guys sitting around looking at the collection of nuclear bombs when one of them says, "Lets see if we can launch a man hole cover in space"...
 
Zeldman said:
This wasn't a test of a nuclear bomb, it was just a slow day at the bomb test site.... A couple of guys sitting around looking at the collection of nuclear bombs when one of them says, "Lets see if we can launch a man hole cover in space"...
Click to expand...
Hold my beer...
 
orange said:
I don't think this is IFR, VFR only. LOL

It'll probably be on ebay (from China) in a couple of years.
Click to expand...

It has the same limitations as other laser range finder / target designators. Clouds and other obscurations block the laser's ability to reach the target.
 
Velocity173 said:
Every defensive weapon system can be overcome just as every offensive weapon system can.
Click to expand...
Not only that, but every weapon we deploy, the enemy will soon steal and use against us.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top