US Laser and Rail Gun Development News

crobato

crobato

Colonel
VIP Professional
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

I picked this up from my RSS feed.

Talking about lasers, scientists are developing what they call a laser WMD.

As in Weapon of Mosquito Destruction.

Basically, its lasers that work with a CIWS principle, although instead of radar, they use sound waves to identify, then track the mosquito threat. Then the laser will zap it. With such a system, its possible to kill hundreds if not thousands, and using audio signatures, distinguish between Malaria carrying mosquitoes and harmless ones.

The benefits are immense especially in certain countries. Malaria kills millions every year.
 
W

williamhou

Junior Member
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

crobato said:
I picked this up from my RSS feed.

Talking about lasers, scientists are developing what they call a laser WMD.

As in Weapon of Mosquito Destruction.

Basically, its lasers that work with a CIWS principle, although instead of radar, they use sound waves to identify, then track the mosquito threat. Then the laser will zap it. With such a system, its possible to kill hundreds if not thousands, and using audio signatures, distinguish between Malaria carrying mosquitoes and harmless ones.

The benefits are immense especially in certain countries. Malaria kills millions every year.
Click to expand...

The laser could hit a person or ruin surrounding materials...
 
crobato

crobato

Colonel
VIP Professional
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

Its probably just strong enough to kill a mosquito but not people and the environment.
 
C

cmb=1968

Junior Member
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

crobato said:
I'm not sure if they had reached the point of taking account smoke and fog. All we are seeing are technological demonstration. Even if you take conditions into consideration, the only likely approach is to increase power but you can't do anything about reducing visibility. Its just sheer physics.

Ablative armor is not that hard to make. Not referring to missiles, but on tanks. It works similarly to the principle used on the tiles for the Space Shuttle. The substance is likely to be ceramic. Simply said, if the substance gets superheated, creates a lot of dirty opaque smoke when vaporized, then it is potentially ablative.

These laser systems are meant to supplement, not replace, current projectile based weapons.
Click to expand...

Would Areo gel work to defuse a LASER hit on a tank, or at lease increase the time it would take to kill the tank?
That stuff has a extremely high heat dissipation rate.
You can hold a piece in your hand while using a blowtorch on it.

LASERS can be tailored to emit light at a certain frequency that will allow it to move through the atmosphere with a limited amount of loss in strength.

Their is the free electron laser with can change the frequency with ease though it is still in the research phase. The government has a working prototype at the Sandia National laboratory.

The free electron laser will be very versatile allowing one unite to be mass produced instead of numerous types tailored to one environment.
 
A

Ambivalent

Junior Member
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

Not certain smoke or other atmospheric phenomena are an impediment. In Desert Storm the laser range finders of the M-1's did just fine penetrating the considerable smoke of battle. So did the thermal imagers. It might not be the impediment imagined.
What will limit this weapon's usefulness is the power available on the host ship. I don't see these being plopped on every ship using a CIWS today.
Aerogels feel a lot like some styrofoams. Not sure what protection it would offer if the surrounding metal structure is damaged by the laser. It would not be a structural surface of an aircraft or missile, it's too fragile for that.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Naval Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

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A US weapons lab on Friday pulled back the curtain on a super laser with the power to burn as hot as a star.

The National Ignition Facility's (NIF) main purpose is to serve as a tool for gauging the reliability and safety of the US nuclear weapons arsenal but scientists say it could deliver breakthroughs in safe fusion power.

...

NIF is touted as the world's highest-energy laser system. It is located inside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about an hour's drive from San Francisco.

Equipment connected to a house-sized sphere can focus 192 laser beams on a small point, generating temperatures and pressures that exist at cores of stars or giant planets.

NIF will be able to create conditions and conduct experiments never before possible on Earth, according to the laboratory.

A fusion reaction triggered by the super laser hitting hydrogen atoms will produce more energy than was required to prompt "ignition," according to NIF director Edward Moses.

"This is the long-sought goal of 'energy gain' that has been the goal of fusion researchers for more than half a century," Moses said.

"NIF's success will be a scientific breakthrough of historic significance; the first demonstration of fusion ignition in a laboratory setting, duplicating on Earth the processes that power the stars."

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If this is successfully reserched and funded, the implications, far beyond any military applications...are astounding. I'm not saying it will turn out this way, but it has the potential of being something our grandkids and great grandkids look back on as one of the most magnificent occurances of this cnetury, or our or their life times.
 
Finn McCool

Finn McCool

Captain
Registered Member
Re: Us Lab Debuts Super Laser

Jeff Head said:
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A US weapons lab on Friday pulled back the curtain on a super laser with the power to burn as hot as a star.

The National Ignition Facility's (NIF) main purpose is to serve as a tool for gauging the reliability and safety of the US nuclear weapons arsenal but scientists say it could deliver breakthroughs in safe fusion power.

...

NIF is touted as the world's highest-energy laser system. It is located inside the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about an hour's drive from San Francisco.

Equipment connected to a house-sized sphere can focus 192 laser beams on a small point, generating temperatures and pressures that exist at cores of stars or giant planets.

NIF will be able to create conditions and conduct experiments never before possible on Earth, according to the laboratory.

A fusion reaction triggered by the super laser hitting hydrogen atoms will produce more energy than was required to prompt "ignition," according to NIF director Edward Moses.

"This is the long-sought goal of 'energy gain' that has been the goal of fusion researchers for more than half a century," Moses said.

"NIF's success will be a scientific breakthrough of historic significance; the first demonstration of fusion ignition in a laboratory setting, duplicating on Earth the processes that power the stars."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is successfully reserched and funded, the implications, far beyond any military applications...are astounding. I'm not saying it will turn out this way, but it has the potential of being something our grandkids and great grandkids look back on as one of the most magnificent occurances of this cnetury, or our or their life times.
Click to expand...

If these scientists can make fusion energy gathering a reality than almost any sum would be worth spending. Militarily, large lasers will be game-changing in so many areas. The consequences are most obvious right now in the area of missile defence.
 
Jeff Head

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: Us Lab Debuts Super Laser

Finn McCool said:
If these scientists can make fusion energy gathering a reality than almost any sum would be worth spending. Militarily, large lasers will be game-changing in so many areas. The consequences are most obvious right now in the area of missile defence.
Click to expand...
Yes...but also in power applications the impacts would be enormous.

Cold fusion is still an avenue for exploration and I say full speed ahead there too...but this application at Livermore is producing results that are difficult to refute. It just needs to be made practical now.
 
S

Scratch

Captain
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

And yet another advancement in laser-weapon development. Not a CIWS related thing, but probably close enough to be posted here.
This time an "offensive" employment and not a rather "defensive" one like a CIWS. Brings a lot of precision and, being an airborne platform, flexibility.
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USAF Tests Anti-Ground C-130 Laser

By kris osborn
Published: 29 Jul 2009 16:13

A U.S. Air Force C-130 incinerated a dummy ground target by firing a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser at White Sands Missile Range, N.M, during a June 13 test of the service's Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL), Boeing officials said.

"We fired the laser in-flight. We hit a target board on the ground," said Gary Fitzmire, vice president of Boeing's directed energy systems.

The test flight originated from nearby Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M.

The ATL - configured to deploy on a C-130 - is designed to destroy ground targets while moving with little or no collateral damage, Fitzmire said.

"We were able to conduct many ground tests to build confidence of the system and the laser itself. Last summer, we conducted an integrated ground test. Our targets are ground-based tactical targets such as a fuel tank, vehicle or communications node," Fitzmire said.

The roughly $200 million ATL program began in late 2002. Several more flight tests are planned for this summer, Fitzmere said.
 
M

montyp165

Senior Member
Re: US Testing Laser CIWS at White Sands

Having talked about this on another site, someone made the mention of how particle beams would prove to be more effective than lasers, even with the focusing and power generation issues.
 
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