Vehicle version also needs to counter cruise missiles.
PRC/PLAN Laser and Rail Gun Development Thread
- Thread starter SinoSoldier
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Vehicle version also needs to counter cruise missiles.
Well, not only the vehicle need to provide a few hundred kW up to over 1MW of power, it also need to have heat exchanger able to get rid of a few hundred kW of waste heat, all that and the laser itself. I really doubt the vehicle mounted laser is a complete weapon system, lean more towards it being a parade display mount
It is a complete system. 万年炎帝made some pretty convincing arguments. According to him the vehicle underwent significant modifications in order to house the turret. There is also speculation that since the vehicle is used for base defense, it can be hooked up to an external power source.
BYD's Yangwang U9 is capable of ~3000HP, or about 2MW, packed in a 2 door coupe, so I don't think power supply is an issue. The only question is if the laser itself can handle that much power.
Issue is the only way you are going to get that energy out fast enough to power a laser is by blowing it up. Batteries are not suited for fast discharge.
I don't understand, wattage is a measurement of power, not energy?
Hookup flywheels (they are tiny) or capacitors to the batteries.
I misread that, was mistaken
suppose the device is even 1 Megawatt (which is plausible). This is not its continuous power output. I imagine it operating at maximum for a few seconds(1-2) while engaging a high-flying target. Even if it operates for 1 hour, the total energy requirement would be 1 MWh. Using current battery technology, the battery would weigh a maximum of 5-6 tonnes. However, I believe it wouldn't even need this much energy. Even if it engages 300 subsonic cruise missiles in a saturation strike scenario, it would only need to operate at maximum power for about 10 minutes, consuming only one-sixth of the battery power.
I assume most of the bulk goes into cooling, as the power level in the fibers must be very high. On the other hand, a commercial Raycus fiber laser of 220 KW (a more common high-power industrial model), a continuous-wave laser with that much power coming from a fiber only a few hundred microns thick. Therefore, this military laser should be multiple times more powerful than commercially available ones. I think around 1 MW is feasible, and the aperture might have been increased to better deal with atmospheric attenuation and beam spreading.
Isn't it possible for China to combine 4-5 Raycus-type fiber lasers into one unit and add some adaptive optics and other components?