What about other directed energy weapons? Masers and the like?The US laser project is not that secret. And the many failed experiments show us that we have to have doubts about these capabilities.
You mentioned the airborne laser. Lasers are impractical weapons. This is obvious to anyone who spends an hour reading about the limitations of lasers.
They are not useful weapons because of the enormous electrical energy required, because the atmosphere weakens and distorts the beam, because laser beams scatter, and because lasers must hold a precise spot on a moving target for several seconds for them to burn.
The airborne laser concept weighed tons, and that concept depended on dangerous chemical lasers, and so it was canceled, but as recent technological innovations allow solid-state lasers to increase in power, there is a rumor that they managed to eliminate the design's shortcomings laser.
Proposals to put lasers in aircraft are ridiculous, given the electrical power needed and the simple fact that bouncing aircraft cannot keep a laser pointed at a point, because an aircraft is not a stable platform.
Embedded lasers are also difficult to implement. Lasers are line-of-sight weapons (direct fire) and the earth is round. This means that a laser cannot engage a low-altitude attack missile until it is detected coming from the horizon about 40 km away. It takes several seconds for the radar to track a missile and aim the laser, so it takes maybe a minute to bring the missile down, and it requires several seconds of precise laser to burn its thin coating.
This is not possible from more than a kilometer away because the ship and missile are moving. Missiles bounce up and down during their flight path. Computer software can predict ship movements and compensate, but not perfectly for a laser engagement solution, and cannot predict oncoming missile movements. An oncoming missile is always making small flight adjustments to compensate for air turbulence while tracking its moving target, so a laser is unable to keep the beam on the target more than 1.8 km away due to tracking delay /aim.
This means that if a dozen missiles are approaching, the system may be able to take out just one. And because these systems are the size of a 5-inch cannon mount and require most of the ship's electrical power to fire, a cruiser or destroyer may only carry a few systems and will need to remove other weaponry to make room.
The laser's range is also limited because particles in the air reflect, scatter and distort the laser beams, even on a clear day. This quickly depletes the beam's power and limits its effective range to less than a kilometer away.
Several physical processes affect and limit the amount of laser energy that can be delivered to a target. These effects are interrelated and include thermal flowering, turbulence and molecular/aerosol absorption and dispersion. These processes affect the laser's intensity profile by modifying the refractive index of the air, which causes the laser beam's wavefront to distort. Wavefront distortion results in improved transverse laser beam propagation and can severely limit the amount of energy that can be propagated. The marine environment is particularly challenging for high energy laser (HEL) propagation due to its relatively high water vapor and aerosol content. In the infrared regime, water molecules and aerosols are the dominant source of absorption.
Also, lasers are useless in rain, fog, as the beam energy is lost quickly. Therefore, even though laser power is greatly improved with magical discoveries, an enemy can attack during unfavorable weather, when lasers are useless. Some claim that lasers are the only defense against oncoming supersonic missiles; however, these missiles are designed with a hardened nose made of materials to serve as a heat shield needed to resist air friction. It is unlikely that a few seconds of laser heating up close before hitting a ship would burn out and would not prevent the missile from hitting the ship, even if it did.
A floating missile approaching the sea presents a much smaller and much faster target, and if lasers proliferate, missile makers will introduce shiny stainless steel nose cones to reflect most of the laser light and sailors will go blind . They can also program the missile to fly in a narrow spiral to the ship the last kilometer, like the Russian anti-tank missile Kornet.
Lasers look great in tests when the target and laser are close and stationary on the ground, but when both are bouncing, accuracy is poor. A large, ultra-expensive laser can detonate an oncoming missile after several seconds of accurate laser approaching a ship, but it would still result in damage as the impulse (kinetic energy) of the missile fragments penetrates. Increasing the power of the lasers does not solve this targeting problem, the bad weather problem, and it increases the "thermal bloom" problem when the heated air particles expand more rapidly and weaken the beam. Lasers can blind optical systems and pilots (as the British did in the Falklands), so lasers are useful in this role.
Vehicle fixed lasers are useful for taking down small, low-flying drones. But lasers can never overcome their range limitation or produce the power needed to damage missiles and aircraft on contact.
In 2016, American experts began to complain that laser weapons are obviously impractical.
I could talk about a lot more limitations of a laser application. And a 100kW laser is not capable of taking down cruise missiles, only class lasers above 300kW. There is already an American project of 500 kW to perform this function.
US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
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What about other directed energy weapons? Masers and the like?
I'm not doubting the military value of such technologies being applied, but for Directed Energy Weapons (DEW) to really exert what experts are calling a new revolution in military affairs (RMA), they will need to advance technologically even further. than the actual implementation of such uses currently or in the near future.
Let's see this, still talking about laser technology, the problems I described are not all, in reality there are many other factors, any work in PDF can be accessed for you to have the real science of the difficulty of applying DEW to the concept of meaning military. Therefore, talking about one more difficulty in the case applied to lasers, the energy required for the use of such systems.
The subject in question is the US Army's DE M-SHORAD, the laser is taken as an energy directed at 50 kW to be used mainly C-RAM and C-UAS. Associated with the previous difficulties that I have already mentioned, the energy used for the operation of the laser is also essential. The DE M-SHORAD's unique design leverages the Stryker's gas engine to power its batteries, cooling system and laser. The autonomous system has enough electricity to handle multiple threats at once before needing a recharge period. Well, knowing that the laser is in the 50 kW class, what many experts do not comment is that the energy efficiency of a laser is at best a percentage of only 10%. Well, that's at best. The minimum efficiency of a laser is 0.1%, and depending on the type of individual laser it can be as efficient as 10%, which is clearly not the reality today. Therefore, at best, which would be unrealistic today, a laser in the 50 kW class would demand an energy of 500 kW, in the case applied to DE M-SHORAD. In order to reduce the impact of the energy demand of the energy generation system, it must have an energy storage system. Now, let's go to the field of hypotheses, Americans are already developing DEW in the 1 MW class, which would require 10 MW of power generation. Some ships that need to use this 1 MW DEW will not be able to be shipped, this replicates in totally changing a ship's propulsion systems, the ship's electrical system, the ship's storage system, among others. This doesn't just apply to ships. But also to all vehicles that operate this type of technology.
Certainly, such technologies are amazing and will change many concepts and doctrines within an army, but the functionality requirements of this technology still do not allow it to be applied as many experts are saying.
Speaking of another DEW alternative, high power microwave.
Directed energy microwave weapons convert energy from an energy source—a wall outlet in a laboratory or the engine of a military vehicle—into radiated electromagnetic energy and focus it on a target. Directed high power microwaves damage equipment, especially electronics, without killing nearby people.
Technologies of this nature are already being employed, such as the USAF's THOR (Tactical High-power Operational Responder), capable of disabling electronics in drones and was specifically designed to combat various targets - such as a swarm of drones - with quick results.
Today, high-power microwave research continues in the United States and Russia, but it has exploded in China. The investment being made by China hinders the discernment of what is being carried out in the United States and Russia. Dozens of countries now have active high-power microwave research programs.
However, there are limitations to this technology. Although these high-powered microwave sources generate very high power levels, they tend to generate short, repeated pulses. For example, such a system produces an output pulse on the order of 10 nanoseconds, or billionths of a second. Therefore, even when generating 1 gigawatt of output power, a 10 nanosecond pulse has an energy content of only 10 joules. To put this in perspective, the average microwave oven in one second generates 1 kilojoule, or a thousand joules, of energy. It usually takes about 4 minutes to boil a glass of water, which corresponds to 240 kilojoules of energy. Imagine a drone supported by microwave shields, it would certainly increase the difficulty in deactivating.
That's why the microwaves generated by these high-powered microwave weapons don't generate a noticeable amount of heat, much less make people explode like baked potatoes in microwave ovens. High power is important in these weapons because generating very high instantaneous power produces very high instantaneous electric fields, which scale as the square root of power. It is these highly electrical fields that can disrupt electronics, which is why countries are interested in these devices.
Depending on the power used, the electronic devices would not be interrupted during the attacks, suggesting that the energy levels needed for the Frey effect are lower than would be necessary for an attack on the electronics. This would be consistent with a high powered microwave weapon located some distance from the targets. The power drastically decreases with distance through the inverse square law, which means that one of these devices could produce a power level at the target that would be too low to affect the electronics, but could induce the Frey effect, as in the case of the Americans at the embassy in Havana, Cuba.
Therefore, the USAF THOR system would probably only be useful against small UAVs, as this depends on the microwave power level. Not to mention that they still suffer from some difficulties with laser as well.
We will monitor how these technologies will be developed. Until then, we'll just be speculating.
Theoretically, a significant advantage lasers may have over missiles is engaging targets at extreme ranges. Unlike a missile that needs to fly to a target, a laser begins effecting the target almost instantly. At extreme ranges, this would easily make up for their lack of concurrent firepower.
Unfortunately, firing a terrestrial laser through the atmosphere severely degrades its range, unless aimed at very high elevations against targets like BM warheads or satellites.
This is a data/analysis post:
Quotations are for notification only. I started this comment as a reply in the LCS thread but decided that it fits here better but the original recipients might find it useful as well.
Some time ago I made a map that could be useful for any discussions about naval logistics and any protracted conflict between the US and China regardless of intensity and form.
It is a simplified diagram displaying transit lines between US bases and associated transit times at speeds of 14, 21 and 28 knots. Times are displayed for distances measured with lines between bases. Resolution is poor but it still legible at full size (1600x738)
As you can see even at 28 knots - which is only achievable as march speed to nuclear-powered ships and large conventional warships at maximum power - transit from Guam to Okinawa takes 38 hours (~1,5 days). From Darwin to the travel takes over 2,5 days at 28 knots if it crosses internal waters of Indonesia. At 28 kts it takes 8,5 days from San Diego to Okinawa. At 21 kts it's over 11 days and at 14 kts it's 17 days.
Logistical ships have maximum speeds of around 21 knots and cargo ships have even lower speeds - use 14kts for reference. Size of the vessel also corresponds with its seaworthiness and its ability to travel at greater speeds in higher (rougher) sea states.
The next map is a simplified illustration of ranges of air defenses - maximum range of missiles and maximum combat radius of fighter aircraft.
For China I included also a tentative radius of JH-7A and extended it by 400km (maximum range of YJ-12). You can use those ranges to imagine other systems. Remember that maximum range of missiles is theoretical - it is calculated against non-maneuvering targets flying at low altitude, at the end of the ballistic curve. The small circle with a cross for US & allied forces is the radius of 50km - approximately indicative of the range of ESSM or HQ-16 systems.
On the second map I also included limits of territorial waters of Philippines and Indonesia (grey line) which helps to explain why Australian influence is active in provinces of Papua and West Papua - which would allow direct transit north. The US will want to leverage destabilization of those provinces against Indonesian cooperation against China.
Last is the table listing ship numbers in categories included in the 30-year shipbuilding plan published in December 2020 which is indicative of the natural and inertial trend of USN fleet change. Large Surface Combatatns includes cruisers and destroyers. Small Surface Combatant includes LCS and frigates. Amphibious warfare ships includes proposed Light Amphibious Warship (LAW). The table includes only crewed ships.
Additional important information based on plans current on Dec '20:
Quotations are for notification only. I started this comment as a reply in the LCS thread but decided that it fits here better but the original recipients might find it useful as well.
Some time ago I made a map that could be useful for any discussions about naval logistics and any protracted conflict between the US and China regardless of intensity and form.
It is a simplified diagram displaying transit lines between US bases and associated transit times at speeds of 14, 21 and 28 knots. Times are displayed for distances measured with lines between bases. Resolution is poor but it still legible at full size (1600x738)
As you can see even at 28 knots - which is only achievable as march speed to nuclear-powered ships and large conventional warships at maximum power - transit from Guam to Okinawa takes 38 hours (~1,5 days). From Darwin to the travel takes over 2,5 days at 28 knots if it crosses internal waters of Indonesia. At 28 kts it takes 8,5 days from San Diego to Okinawa. At 21 kts it's over 11 days and at 14 kts it's 17 days.
Logistical ships have maximum speeds of around 21 knots and cargo ships have even lower speeds - use 14kts for reference. Size of the vessel also corresponds with its seaworthiness and its ability to travel at greater speeds in higher (rougher) sea states.
The next map is a simplified illustration of ranges of air defenses - maximum range of missiles and maximum combat radius of fighter aircraft.
For China I included also a tentative radius of JH-7A and extended it by 400km (maximum range of YJ-12). You can use those ranges to imagine other systems. Remember that maximum range of missiles is theoretical - it is calculated against non-maneuvering targets flying at low altitude, at the end of the ballistic curve. The small circle with a cross for US & allied forces is the radius of 50km - approximately indicative of the range of ESSM or HQ-16 systems.
On the second map I also included limits of territorial waters of Philippines and Indonesia (grey line) which helps to explain why Australian influence is active in provinces of Papua and West Papua - which would allow direct transit north. The US will want to leverage destabilization of those provinces against Indonesian cooperation against China.
Last is the table listing ship numbers in categories included in the 30-year shipbuilding plan published in December 2020 which is indicative of the natural and inertial trend of USN fleet change. Large Surface Combatatns includes cruisers and destroyers. Small Surface Combatant includes LCS and frigates. Amphibious warfare ships includes proposed Light Amphibious Warship (LAW). The table includes only crewed ships.
Additional important information based on plans current on Dec '20:
- half of USN Ticonderoga-class cruisers (11 of 22) will be put in reserve by 2026 restricting the availability of command ships for task force escorts (CVN and LHA/LHD) since no Arleigh Burke-class variant has room for command facilities. The ships will be returned to service after 10 years to extend CG availability by 10 years without costly refits
- first USN Constellation-class frigate will enter service in 2026
- first RAN Hunter-class frigate (Type 26) will enter service in 2031
- only the 8 AEGIS destroyers of JMSDF have Standard missiles, the other 34 surface combatants are currently not able to use them and are primarily ASW ships
- new JMSDF Mogami-class frigate of which 4 are to enter service by 2023 has 2 Mk.41 with 16 cells and uses Type 03 SAM as medium-range missile.
Nice post! Will there be a follow up to this?
I am curious: Did you base your selection of fleet transit speeds on real world data?
Regarding JMSDF. Akizuki class are quite decent air-defense ships. Apparently they perform as anti-missile screens for the AEGIS destroyers so that they can devote more of their cells to longe range SAMs.
Wow apparently the Arleigh Burke design is not really as impressive as I thought
Just found out that 27 out of 68 of them (Flight I and II) cannot carry helicopters, while the later ones (IIA) that can carry helos don't have harpoons or towed array sonar
Meanwhile the Flight III looks decent but not really ideal considering a stretched 30 yo non-stealth hull is going to be the backbone of the US navy for the next 30 years (and also replacing Tico-cruisers)
Just found out that 27 out of 68 of them (Flight I and II) cannot carry helicopters, while the later ones (IIA) that can carry helos don't have harpoons or towed array sonar
Meanwhile the Flight III looks decent but not really ideal considering a stretched 30 yo non-stealth hull is going to be the backbone of the US navy for the next 30 years (and also replacing Tico-cruisers)
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That design is a product of 70s. It's really unfair to critic it.
We all know what was the state of Chinese Navy back in the 70s. What is surprising to me is how and why the US has never considered a destroyer design apart from Zumwalt. Seems very shortsighted.
Burkes are components of a carrier strike group. Since the primary purpose of helos is to provide situational awareness for the ships it isn’t much of a problem since the carriers could handle that easily.