Laser shoots down 4 drones

[Rii]

Wouldn't count on it.

Sure.. they can't fire over the horizon but pop a missile or plane past that and you are flying into a death zone if multiple lasers lock onto you.. you may see your target but then you will be shot down.

Sure, assuming the target cooperates.

And in any case that's merely point defence. And so far as I can gather from Raytheon's site, that is indeed all that this is intended to lead to: a replacement for Phalanx. Which is all well and good, but is not exactly going to revolutionise air defence. Phalanx is a system of last resort for a reason.

Indeed, I notice that of all Raytheon's suggested applications for the system (incl. 'defending airports from shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles!' - when 'counter-terrorism' is on your list of applications, you know you're not looking at a serious system ) none of them involve a coordinated attack on the platform itself. Presumably because they're aware that there are no prospects of the hardware being up to handling a maneuvering, multi-Mach inbound target and that in any case that the nature of the system makes it highly susceptible to saturation attacks.

The horizon problem can also be mitigated by the employment of self defence drones hovering past the horizon to give the vessel an advance warning system together with a defence system if the drone is equipped with a laser (assuming it will be developed to a point that it can fit and operate within a drone).

Or maybe we could do that with missiles and destroy the inbound targets from much further away.

The possibilities are there and as Rett said the logistics and costs are also far lower since you don't have to lug around so much ammunition (which can be an added danger given a hit on the munitions depot).

The possibilities are there for protecting relatively low-value targets from sustained low-intensity threats, yes. Unfortunately, it is precisely such craft (frigates operating alone, say) which will have the greatest difficulty in actually powering the bloody things. You sure as hell aren't going to want to trust a carrier to 'let's hope they don't throw more than three missiles at us at once, because that's all the generators are good for'.

 

[MANT!]

Actually LOS systems make a LOT of sense for Naval defence...as the horizon can be a LOT further away as visible from the deck of a ship..sometimes almost 100 ft above sea level..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:How_far_away_is_the_horizon.png

as Phalanx CIWS has an effective range of 3.6 Km and the laser obviously has a greater range (16 Km approx) it make a whole lot of sense as an additional layer
of quick response defence..giving the terminal defence cannon less targets to shoot at...

 

[Rii]

Actually LOS systems make a LOT of sense for Naval defence

As the final layer of defence, sure. I'm not saying this thing doesn't have a place, but rather that it's not going to replace the missile as the primary weapon in air warfare or air defence. Just because it vaguely resembles a sci-fi laser weapon doesn't mean that it's 'the future!!!!!1'.

as Phalanx CIWS has an effective range of 3.6 Km and the laser obviously has a greater range (16 Km approx) it make a whole lot of sense as an additional layer

Where are you getting this 16km figure from? I've found a bunch of figures ranging from 3-6km in various articles but nothing near that, or definitive.

of quick response defence..giving the terminal defence cannon less targets to shoot at...

So far as I can see this is designed to replace Phalanx. Whether it's also designed to augment (rather than replace) the RAM missile systems which have themselves replaced Phalanx on a lot of ships already, I don't know.

The odd thing is that this system appears to be a minor evolution of Raytheon's LADS and defending against inbound missiles is not on the list of applications for that system. Which doesn't exactly square with the notion that it's designed to replace Phalanx.

But then there's long been a cloud over the ability of Phalanx (and similar systems like Goalkeeper, etc.) to handle modern and future anti-ship missiles (i.e. supersonic/hypersonic, rapidly maneuvering, networked) anyway, so maybe fielding a replacement system which isn't even intended to is merely an acknowledgement of the facts as they stand: i.e. if it's that close, it's too late.

 

[MANT!]

Where are you getting this 16km figure from? I've found a bunch of figures ranging from 3-6km in various articles but nothing near that, or definitive

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/a-laser-phalanx-03783/

Kevin Peppe, Raytheon’s Phalanx program director..

a Laser Phalanx solution would offer an effective range about 3 times that of the existing M61A1 20mm gun, along with lower life-cycle costs.

 

[propita]

One of the things that causes problems is keeping the laser focused on the target long enough to cause damage. Targeting a missile (space-based lasers was his program) and maintaining the beam on an area the size of a refrigerator while the missile is moving that fast---very difficult. Or so the physicist working on the satellite ones told me years ago. He's long retired, moved away, and I think he passed away a year or two ago. He knew his stuff and knew that program.

 

[gturner]

Actually, blasting a maneuvering missile, even a tiny one like a Sidewinder, is old hat, being successfully and regularly done back in the 80's or 90's. No projectile can significantly maneuver against a laser defense due to the vast difference in flight time between a missile and the speed of light and microscopic adjustments made by an optical tracking system. Once an optical system has acquired a lock, there's really nothing the missile can do to survive.

It's like using a scoped rifle to shoot a turtle.

Even in the 80's the challenge wasn't aiming at the incoming missile, it was aiming at a point on the incoming missile.

As for range, the Air Force's airborne system could shoot down ICBM's at about 300 km.

For small, fast targets the Army has been blasting artillery shells out of the sky in Korea.

Our worry isn't that these systems will prove devastatingly effective against all airborne threats. Our worry is that they will and that we're the undisputed air power.

The invention of the submarine presented the British with a similar dilemma. The sub was a potentially devastating weapon against surface ships, and the British Navy ruled the seas with surface ships. Should they push the new submarine technology and potentially lose their strategic and tactical advantages, or should they risk falling behind a revolution in naval warfare?

Even the most advanced, highly maneuverable tactical aircraft can be destroyed in a few tens of seconds by a 100 KW class laser system. Currently those require about 500 horsepower because of inefficiencies, but that is dropping rapidly.

The US routinely, almost nonchalantly, establishes air supremacy against conventional SAM threats. Most halfway decent SAM's use Sidewinder type IR seekers for terminal guidance, and even weak (ten or hundred watt) laser defenses on an aircraft can scramble such seekers badly enough to cause the missile to violently oscillate, diverge, and even break up in flight just by hitting them with a variable pulse-repetition frequency.

If the missile does manage to get close, we can already prematurely detonate their proximity fuses, which is why we no longer use conventional proximity fuses.

Conventional missiles also give off a huge IR signature long before their arrival time, making early warning systems a trivial task.

In contrast, there is no limit to the laser power a ground station can deliver upwards and there is no possible warning before they impact the target.

Anyone betting that missiles will retain their supremacy should probably invest in some muskets while they're at it.

 

[B.J.]

YAY!! The shit I worked on over 10 years ago actually did its job!!!

I worked 16 years at Raytheon (formerly Hughes Aircraft/GM Hughes) in the Primary Standards Lab. Much of that time was in the Radiometric/Photometric Labs, where there were, at most, just two of us testing such equipment. We'd test meters and probes to make sure they were reading within spec, and sources to make sure they were outputting within spec.

I tested A LOT of laser power and energy meters and probes--many for this program and others like it. They were for shooting things with lasers, range-finding, and targeting. I never got to see the products, only the equipment used to make them and test them.

Nice to know the stuff worked. Most likely, it was working a few years ago and only now can be made public.

It's always nice when you can finally talk about something you did, isn't it? I know that feeling rather well myself.

 

[Mr Awe]

Nah, missiles will be around for quite awhile. If you want to blow up stuff on the ground, they're good. Most other countries won't have laser tech for quite awhile. And, the countermeasures to laser will get better and better as well. It's just that there hasn't been the pressure ot develop them yet.

Will, lasers, some day, be an integral part of our defense, you bet. Not for awhile though.

Mr Awe

 

[propita]

YAY!! The shit I worked on over 10 years ago actually did its job!!!

I worked 16 years at Raytheon (formerly Hughes Aircraft/GM Hughes) in the Primary Standards Lab. Much of that time was in the Radiometric/Photometric Labs, where there were, at most, just two of us testing such equipment. We'd test meters and probes to make sure they were reading within spec, and sources to make sure they were outputting within spec.

I tested A LOT of laser power and energy meters and probes--many for this program and others like it. They were for shooting things with lasers, range-finding, and targeting. I never got to see the products, only the equipment used to make them and test them.

Nice to know the stuff worked. Most likely, it was working a few years ago and only now can be made public.

It's always nice when you can finally talk about something you did, isn't it? I know that feeling rather well myself.

"Huntsville, AL"? I'll bet you've "worked on stuff" is right!

While I did do equipment for some secret programs, it's hard to tell when you're just testing something. It's like using a pen--was it used to write an English paper or a secret document? It's a pen, regardless of its use. And I usually didn't bother to wonder what the program acronyms were unless they implied "priority."

Though, sometimes..... Well, there were the tests where I wasn't allowed in the actual room. They couldn't send the unit to the lab and I couldn't be in the room the unit was in. They had to insert the probe into the unit and run the 20ft cable to where I could be. Escorted, of course.

And I often wasn't told the laser wavelength or energy level. Which didn't always matter, because we only had a few different lasers, so the units were tested at our wavelengths. High energy, though, with pulsed lasers. Low power (~10mW) and REALLY short pulses (nanoseconds) give REALLY REALLY high energy levels (kilojoule range) per pulse. My math may be off, its been 10 yrs, but I know the unattenuated pulse energies were pretty high. We had to attenuate them or damage our stuff.

 

[Mr Awe]

^^ Did you find that to be annoying, or just part of the job? Personally, I couldn't work in an environment like that. I require hands on work with some measure of control for how it's carried out. So, that sounds like an alien environment. The type of work does sound interesting though.

Mr Awe

 

[propita]

^^ Did you find that to be annoying, or just part of the job? Personally, I couldn't work in an environment like that. I require hands on work with some measure of control for how it's carried out. So, that sounds like an alien environment. The type of work does sound interesting though.

Mr Awe

I didn't care. I just wanted to do my work and go home. The job had good points (not management, for the most part), but only certain people could actually work in our lab. These are the REAL "detail-oriented" people--people who will do the same test on 50 items, one after another, as if each was the only one in for testing. Most people get bored out of their minds. The key was accuracy, consistency, speed--in that order.

"Alien environment"? My laser rooms were black ceilings, walls, floors, and anything else that could be matte black, including a 25K pound block of granite being used as a surface plate for the work--no vibrations.

I worked in other rooms, too. I was very cross-trained as I tended to work fast.

 

[Rett Mikhal]

Actually LOS systems make a LOT of sense for Naval defense

As the final layer of defense, sure. I'm not saying this thing doesn't have a place, but rather that it's not going to replace the missile as the primary weapon in air warfare or air defense. Just because it vaguely resembles a sci-fi laser weapon doesn't mean that it's 'the future!!!!!1'.

Eventually you have to change the medium of the weapon. There's a limit to what physical matter can do accurately versus contained energy. You can always make a plane that goes faster and faster using better engines and materials, but after a while propelling a solid object weapon such as a bullet or, especially, a missile becomes impractical. Scramjets can go over Mach 10, you know how much energy it would take to get a bullet going Mach 10 over a distance of 100 nautical miles? Not to mention since that target is going that fast while that far away you'd have to get the bullet going Mach 30 to get an accurate shot, even then chaos theory dictates there's no sure shots. With radar systems detecting the plane and calculating its trajectory a laser weapon would hit it 100% of the time, in theory. Again, it would do it for pennies compared to what a Mach 20 anti-fighter missile would cost, especially when you have to launch 10 of them to defeat chaff and counter-measure systems.

Trust me, I'm a BIG fan of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' but eventually progress has to progress. Perhaps a hybrid system between the two would be more ideal, such as a coilgun.

 

[Mr Awe]

^^ Did you find that to be annoying, or just part of the job? Personally, I couldn't work in an environment like that. I require hands on work with some measure of control for how it's carried out. So, that sounds like an alien environment. The type of work does sound interesting though.

Mr Awe

I didn't care. I just wanted to do my work and go home. The job had good points (not management, for the most part), but only certain people could actually work in our lab. These are the REAL "detail-oriented" people--people who will do the same test on 50 items, one after another, as if each was the only one in for testing. Most people get bored out of their minds. The key was accuracy, consistency, speed--in that order.

"Alien environment"? My laser rooms were black ceilings, walls, floors, and anything else that could be matte black, including a 25K pound block of granite being used as a surface plate for the work--no vibrations.

I worked in other rooms, too. I was very cross-trained as I tended to work fast.

Definitely sounds like it had some cool aspects! But, perhaps some not so cool ones too. Thanks for the insight, very interesting!

Mr Awe