chinese laser weapon development

Preux said:

You are confusing what agenda the officer might have compared to what a blog which quotes said quote might have.

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I thought by "he" you were referring to the blog poster rather than the unnamed US military science official.

But even then,y ou'd be hard pressed to argue that a single anecdotal statement that the chinese might get out a maritime laser before US is a scheme to get more funding for the US's own DEW projects.

Bltizo said:

I thought by "he" you were referring to the blog poster rather than the unnamed US military science official.

But even then,y ou'd be hard pressed to argue that a single anecdotal statement that the chinese might get out a maritime laser before US is a scheme to get more funding for the US's own DEW projects.

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Funny thing. You'd know I know that if you actually quoted my ENTIRE post.

And what's more he doesn't even have to be consciously spreading misinformation, all of us have our biases and military officers are not immune from them. The officer who has a clear-sighted ability to evaluate a potential foe's capabilities and intentions is the exception rather than the rule. And the officer quoted wasn't even named and it is telling that he/ she works with R&D rather than intelligence. It is quite possible that he/she has no real information in the area.

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Oh, and yeah, off hand statements with ALL CAPS does not suggest to the average reader a serious desire to argue a point. That's just my understanding of the English language and its employment on a web-based environment.

Preux said:

Funny thing. You'd know I know that if you actually quoted my ENTIRE post.

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That's not exactly my fault. Only the first line of your post showed up when I was reading it and the same when I clicked the "reply with quote" button, the forum does that sometimes.

But back to your point which I missed.
"And what's more he doesn't even have to be consciously spreading misinformation, all of us have our biases and military officers are not immune from them. The officer who has a clear-sighted ability to evaluate a potential foe's capabilities and intentions is the exception rather than the rule. And the officer quoted wasn't even named and it is telling that he/ she works with R&D rather than intelligence. It is quite possible that he/she has no real information in the area."

It's not that I disagree with you, but under what circumstances are we assuming this unnamed official could have "no real information in the area"? Because the default position when reading a post from a well known person of a well respected naval blog who is quoting an individual said to be in the military science industry, would be that that individual must be fairly reputable, unless bryan mcgrath either A, doesn't know people as well as he thought, or B, is just trolling us with that statement for some obscure reason.
by the way it wasn't an "officer" it was a "former official," in the industry, so, civilian. No one in intelligence would give out information like that. And what the unnamed official said wasn't exactly unexpected either, being high ranked in the industry, they would have fairly intimate knowledge of the US's own progress and the progress of competitors, whether through espionage, or much more likely and much more easily, through scientific publications and looking at chinese production of technologies relevant to DEW

Oh, and yeah, off hand statements with ALL CAPS does not suggest to the average reader a serious desire to argue a point. That's just my understanding of the English language and its employment on a web-based environment.

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I don't understand, what off hand statement in all caps are you talking about. Do you mean the "laser gap"?? If you didn't have a serious desire to argue the point then why post it in the first place? or you could at least clarify that you didn't really believe in such an idea once we did start critiquing it.

Bltizo said:

That's not exactly my fault. Only the first line of your post showed up when I was reading it and the same when I clicked the "reply with quote" button, the forum does that sometimes.

But back to your point which I missed.
"And what's more he doesn't even have to be consciously spreading misinformation, all of us have our biases and military officers are not immune from them. The officer who has a clear-sighted ability to evaluate a potential foe's capabilities and intentions is the exception rather than the rule. And the officer quoted wasn't even named and it is telling that he/ she works with R&D rather than intelligence. It is quite possible that he/she has no real information in the area."

It's not that I disagree with you, but under what circumstances are we assuming this unnamed official could have "no real information in the area"? Because the default position when reading a post from a well known person of a well respected naval blog who is quoting an individual said to be in the military science industry, would be that that individual must be fairly reputable, unless bryan mcgrath either A, doesn't know people as well as he thought, or B, is just trolling us with that statement for some obscure reason.
by the way it wasn't an "officer" it was a "former official," in the industry, so, civilian. No one in intelligence would give out information like that. And what the unnamed official said wasn't exactly unexpected either, being high ranked in the industry, they would have fairly intimate knowledge of the US's own progress and the progress of competitors, whether through espionage, or much more likely and much more easily, through scientific publications and looking at chinese production of technologies relevant to DEW

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No, the default assumption in this case is nothing. When you quote an unnamed source and that source isn't even in intel or staff, the relevance of that statement is necessarily in question.

The point is the officer is explicitly stated to be in R&D and if we take that at face value, there is no reason to assume that he has any sort of intel on Chinese R&D beyond what he gets from open sources and conferences, which is an extremely unreliable gauge at productisation of the theoretical work.

I don't understand, what off hand statement in all caps are you talking about. Do you mean the "laser gap"?? If you didn't have a serious desire to argue the point then why post it in the first place? or you could at least clarify that you didn't really believe in such an idea once we did start critiquing it.

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A one-line flippant reply is often regarded as an 'off-hand statement'.

And people do talk - and yes, even make posts on internet web-boards - without 100% seriousness at all times. That's the way humans work. Funny old humans.

Preux said:

No, the default assumption in this case is nothing. When you quote an unnamed source and that source isn't even in intel or staff, the relevance of that statement is necessarily in question.

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What does being "intel or staff" even mean?
When an unnamed source claimed to be a "former high-ranking official of the U.S. military science and technology establishment" is mentioned by a well seasoned commentator of US naval affairs on one of the most visited naval commentary blogs around, the relevance of the statement is not in question.

The point is the officer is explicitly stated to be in R&D and if we take that at face value, there is no reason to assume that he has any sort of intel on Chinese R&D beyond what he gets from open sources and conferences, which is an extremely unreliable gauge at productisation of the theoretical work.

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Actually the former high ranking official was said to be in the "US military science and technology establishment". there is a difference between that, and some random lackey in "R&D". And why can we not believe he does not have any information (not intelligence -- this isn't stuff which you need spies or hacking to access) about developments relevant to chinese efforts for DEW? How are scientific publications unreliable? They are direct publications of R&D. With industrial output statistics, you can gauge how far they are along in the specific field that you are interested in, whether it be DEW or green energy.

I see nothing which would make me, or other logical people, to believe that his statement is unbelieveable or something which should be doubted.

A one-line flippant reply is often regarded as an 'off-hand statement'.

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Yes, but when that statement is challenged and one moves to back it up without clarifying that it was an off hand statement of little substance, the other usually assumes one is serious about the statement.

And people do talk - and yes, even make posts on internet web-boards - without 100% seriousness at all times. That's the way humans work. Funny old humans.

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Because of the lack of a or j/k or other obvious indicators of non seriousness, I hope you could forgive me for thinking you were actually contributing with that original statement.

Bltizo said:

What does being "intel or staff" even mean?
When an unnamed source claimed to be a "former high-ranking official of the U.S. military science and technology establishment" is mentioned by a well seasoned commentator of US naval affairs on one of the most visited naval commentary blogs around, the relevance of the statement is not in question.

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Intel = Military Intelligence. The whole 35s and 98s. Staff - HQ. General Staff. Officers and men who deal with information, liaise, make plans etc. Both fields can be expected to know more about potential enemy's future capabilities.

And all sources, no matter how well-respected must be questioned. Especially when there are ipso-facto reasons to doubt the usefulness of the information.

Bltizo said:

Actually the former high ranking official was said to be in the "US military science and technology establishment". there is a difference between that, and some random lackey in "R&D". And why can we not believe he does not have any information (not intelligence -- this isn't stuff which you need spies or hacking to access) about developments relevant to chinese efforts for DEW? How are scientific publications unreliable? They are direct publications of R&D. With industrial output statistics, you can gauge how far they are along in the specific field that you are interested in, whether it be DEW or green energy.

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Read what I wrote carefully. It is not a reliable means to determine productisation. And no, you can't. The entire field of industrial intelligence is devoted to monitoring such developments and it still isn't an exact science by any means. Published papers especially in sensitive fields are not done willy-nilly - c.f. Chinese papers on hypersonics - there are clearances, political purposes, disinformation, etc. What you are allowed to see and what you can derive from same is a hugely complex field and it's never as simple as 'gauge how far they are along'.

What you CAN determine is the general level of interest and the theoretical framework, and that's more of a negative than a positive.

All of this is in any case a strawman, since analysing the above literature wouldn't be a R&D job anyway. You said yourself that 'industrial output statistics' would be required (as if they'd publish that. We don't even know turbine blade manufacture numbers and that's not even secret).

Bltizo said:

I see nothing which would make me, or other logical people, to believe that his statement is unbelieveable or something which should be doubted.

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You want to accept authority without questioning it, that's your call.

Bltizo said:

Yes, but when that statement is challenged and one moves to back it up without clarifying that it was an off hand statement of little substance, the other usually assumes one is serious about the statement.

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Look at the posting history again. First time you 'critique'd my post you didn't even get the subject correct. So I clarified that.

Bltizo said:

Because of the lack of a or j/k or other obvious indicators of non seriousness, I hope you could forgive me for thinking you were actually contributing with that original statement.

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Save us the passive-aggressive courtesy, and forgive me for assuming that you could understand plain English without visual aids.

EDIT:
Actually, never mind, I think arguing over that single statement is not worth anyone's time to either write or read.

You seem like quite someone who can make interesting and insightful contributions, but out of your forty or so posts so far, you've already made some quite personal remarks to a few people. Maybe you've had a bad day, whatever. But please don't be so confrontational, it's no fun for anyone.

It would have been in better taste to leave out the last paragraph, but I take your meaning, so let's stop this pointless wrangling.

However, I still disagree with you on your attitude towards even respected commentators, I think you are a little too sanguine there, they have been repeatedly proven to be... oh... not infallible. I think you would be well-advised to question them sometimes.

Not about laser weapons per se, but interesting developments nonetheless.



The official media mentioned that China is officially pursuing laser propulsion research. The news mentioned that aside from powering rockets in exo-atmospheric flights, the device could also be used as a laser broom to disintegrate orbital debris.

The same tracking technology could potentially be utilized for hard-kill anti-satellite warfare. Did this occur to anyone else?

嗯，最新的信息

舰载激光武器已经在做远场光强测试了。测试功率2KW（太高了不行，漫射靶和激光感应头都受不了）。
光强测试距离是500m（最远会测10km）.

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According to an avid CJDBY PLA laser watcher the ship-based point-defense laser already began preliminary testing onboard in Shanghai. Right now the laser only outputs 2KW because a higher wattage might interfere with the detection sensor on the receiving end. Intensity tests will range from 500m to 10 km.

Watch this space!