Navy's New Laser Weapon

[Two Thumbs]

http://news.yahoo.com/navys-laser-weapon-blasts-bad-215808231.html

No longer the fantasy weapon of tomorrow, the U.S. Navy is set to field a powerful laser that can protect its ships by blasting targets with high-intensity light beams.

Early next year the Navy will place a laser weapon aboard a ship in the Persian Gulf where it could be used to fend off approaching unmanned aerial vehicles or speedboats.

The Navy calls its futuristic weapon LAWS, which stands for the Laser Weapon System. What looks like a small telescope is actually a weapon that can track a moving target and fire a steady laser beam strong enough to burn a hole through steel.

A Navy video of testing conducted last summer off the coast of California shows how a laser beam fired from a Navy destroyer was able to set aflame an approaching UAV or drone, sending it crashing into the ocean.

"There was not a single miss" during the testing, said Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, chief of Naval Research. The laser was three for three in bringing down an approaching unmanned aerial vehicle and 12 for 12 when previous tests are factored in.


All I have to say is [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGQaH3-LK54]America Fuck Yeah! - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Mr. H.]

"Not a single miss."
I like that.

 

[Mr. H.]

Under a dollar per pulse. LOL

 

[JakeStarkey]

Wow! Bad guys everywhere in the world and our own sovereign citizen groups are wetting their pants.

Bad guys holed up somewhere: just sit behind the screen a mile away and burn a hole through their bunker.

Wow!

 

[Mr. H.]

Go sleep it off.

 

[Mr. H.]

Think about it. We could precision-cauterize the vas deferens of every Al Quaeda male from 10,000 feet above the earth.

 

[Mr. H.]

Strap this bad boy onna drone and fry bad guy brains from miles above.

With no collateral damage.

Hell, it could perform lasik surgery by remote control.

Light babes' cigarettes from orbit.

 

[Two Thumbs]

If we can really push out the range, we can destroy the electronics of our enemies w/o killing anyone.

like deep in an underground bunker, where they may be building nuclear weapons.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Wow, once this technology improves to take out missiles instantly, with better power supplies, we'll be returning the the age of heavily armored gunboats.

Battleship 2.0?

 

[Two Thumbs]

Wow, once this technology improves to take out missiles instantly, with better power supplies, we'll be returning the the age of heavily armored gunboats.

Battleship 2.0?

no

I'm thinking nuclear powered jets that have an array of these set up for precision laser racking of cities and enemy bases.

 

[Saigon]

It's interesting that no one on this thread questions the amount this toy just dumped on to your budget deficit.

 

[The2ndAmendment]

Wow, once this technology improves to take out missiles instantly, with better power supplies, we'll be returning the the age of heavily armored gunboats.

Battleship 2.0?

no

I'm thinking nuclear powered jets that have an array of these set up for precision laser racking of cities and enemy bases.

The jets would go down instantly to a single heavily armored cruiser, with proper "paint" or other "membrane layers" that reflect, refract and absorb lasers. I would imagine that in order to protect yourself against the entire electromagnetic spectrum, you would have to possess several layers of armor, much too heavy for any jet.

The jets would have to rely on stealth and decoy systems, at most they would only have enough armor to block the most common anti-air spectrum, most likely from enemy aircraft, where a warship will be able to change its spectrum, whilst being practically immune to the enemy jet.

Also, if I was a warship designer, I'd design an "intelligent" armor that could detect the location from which any enemy laser beam was coming from; allowing you to INSTANTLY spot aircraft the moment they fire upon you (even if you don't know the distance, you will know the exact angle). By the time the "intelligent" armor was destroyed, it would have already calculated the location of the enemy aircraft.

Being an engineer and physicist, I can see the potential for a deadly revival of heavily armored surface fleets. Equip those babies with rail turrets (whose projectiles can be guided via flaps with ultra precision and are mad cheap) and you'd have yourself a 21st Century horror, they wouldn't even need to be large ships, no larger than WWII Cruisers. Plus you don't need hundreds of crew members any more.

 

[Two Thumbs]

It's interesting that no one on this thread questions the amount this toy just dumped on to your budget deficit.

b/c it was made clear that it will save money on ammo and in lives not lost.

Only you weren't sharp enough to get that.


not surprising.

 

[Saigon]

T. Thumbs -

Possibly it will prove cost-effective, and thus prove a good investment. I wouldn't claim otherwise.

But I also wonder how much money the defense services spend on producing weapons like this, at a time when every other office of the government is cutting back and reducing spending.

 

[Godboy]

It's interesting that no one on this thread questions the amount this toy just dumped on to your budget deficit.

How about we stop developing new weapons systems and just nuke our enemies instead? Is that how you want to handle things? If not, shut your fucking mouth you retard. You cant ask to save civilian lives during wars, but not allow the funding required to do it.

 

[Saigon]

Godboy -

The US currently spends something like four times what ANY other nation on earth spends on arms.

If the US can not maintain its power with a budget $600 billion greater than that of China - then it needs to work more efficiently.

I suggest that if the US defence forces were a private business, they would have to slash spending by at least half in order to be considered a decent investment.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Government is about services, and private sector about profit.

Having said that: cost benefit analysis and efficiently are highly desirable in government.

 

[SanTropez]

If we can really push out the range, we can destroy the electronics of our enemies w/o killing anyone.

like deep in an underground bunker, where they may be building nuclear weapons.

Yeah, but since we're already deploying it --------------- that means the CHINESE have already stolen all of the design plans & stuff. So may as well forget about them and Iran and Pakistan; they'll have it too. Bad guys share everything.

 

[Saigon]

Government is about services, and private sector about profit.

Having said that: cost benefit analysis and efficiently are highly desirable in government.

Exactly.

Every day on this board I hear posters tell me that government needs to run more like a business, and be accountable for the money it spends.

For some reason, this does not seem to apply to defence.

 

[Two Thumbs]

T. Thumbs -

Possibly it will prove cost-effective, and thus prove a good investment. I wouldn't claim otherwise.

But I also wonder how much money the defense services spend on producing weapons like this, at a time when every other office of the government is cutting back and reducing spending.

Defense budget cuts - Yahoo! Search Results

have you ever heard of 'google'?

seriously, you're embarrassing yourself