Lockheed Martin's laser weapon can sink a boat from a mile away

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

See my above post about a space lens

No. Several problems;
1) Focal length, you would need a very large lens.
2) 100 miles of atmosphere to penetrate, assuming you're directly overhead, more the closer to the horizon you are.
3) Clouds.
4) Things in orbit move quite quickly, horizon to horizon in about 6 minutes, unless it's in a very high orbit. Which makes problem #1 more of a problem.

How well does it track if the boats is moving. In one video, it takes a while to burn the outboard. Maybe put a metal can or mirror over it and move on.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Vasa Croe

A common misconception. Mirrors do not reflect 100% of the energy which strikes them. After a short exposure to a high energy beam, they lose their reflective abilities.

Ah...ok. Makes sense. Would it make it harder to track the object if it were mirrored? And what if it were just highly polished metal...would that make any difference?

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Silcone Synapse

See my above post about a space lens

No. Several problems;
1) Focal length, you would need a very large lens.
2) 100 miles of atmosphere to penetrate, assuming you're directly overhead, more the closer to the horizon you are.
3) Clouds.
4) Things in orbit move quite quickly, horizon to horizon in about 6 minutes, unless it's in a very high orbit. Which makes problem #1 more of a problem.

Fair enough-Although maybe an array of lenses all pointing at a central lens nearer to earth may give a decent focal length,but by that time the earth based lasers are looking cheaper.
Anyway,i shall leave that concept out of my novel.

originally posted by: Silcone Synapse
a reply to: andy06shake

Hmmm,you could sink a zodiac with a decent sniper rifle-which is cheaper?
Maybe when they suss out how to saw an aircraft carrier into slices I will be more impressed.

Still pretty awesome though,wouldn't like to look in the direction of the beam.

I completely agree with you. But the technology will only continue to improve, and at some point there will come a time when the laser weapon will surpass other weapons that could do the same thing. I suppose a laser could be more cost effective than a missile, but a missile will almost always get the job done as well.

IMMA FIRRING MAAAA LAAAZEEERRR!!


Sorry i could not resist.Yeah laser will only get stronger as time goes on.

originally posted by: andy06shake

We’ve known for some time now that the US military has been experimenting with lasers as a weapon on the battlefield. Such devices could be used to blast drones out of the sky but lately, defense contractor Lockheed Martin has turned their attention to the sea. The company recently tested a prototype laser system called the Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) in the waters off the California coast. The system relies primarily on infrared sensors to track vessels from a distance even as the target maneuvers about the water and hides behind waves.

Lockheed Martin's laser weapon can sink a boat from a mile away

Found this article rather interesting, it seems beam weapons are finally coming of age with Laser weapons systems such as this ADAM successfully disabling a boat at a distance of over 1km. Think they may need to scale up the power somewhat but I wonder how it would fair against incoming anti ship missiles or cruise missiles?

www.youtube.com...

Isn't it easier to temporarily blind the operators of whatever ship or weapon system is being used against you, better to gain a military asset that you can use in a false flag attack later? All you have to do is get a reasonably powered laser device, change it's dispersion characteristics to a wide flat beam, say 30 degrees horizontal and 2 degrees vertical, and aim it at them. As long as a sufficient amount of retinal heating occurs, they'll be blind for 5 to 30 minutes. Of course this can be defeated with brewster window glasses, but they have to be "tuned" for the specific frequency range of the laser. Changing the laser frequency from 850 nm to 1300 nm when people are wearing 850 nm brewster window glasses, does not protect them. Seems like a cheaper and simpler solution to 1 to 50Mw PRF lasers ;-)

Cheers - Dave

Yale Scientists Create the World's First Anti-Laser

But the development of a device that can absorb an incoming laser beam entirely does have some decidedly interesting implications, not least in optical computing systems.

The researchers were looking into theories to explain which materials might be used to create lasers, and their theory predicted that it should also be possible to create a medium capable of absorbing incoming light. The device they ended up with turns to lasers tuned to a specific frequency into a silicon optical cavity. The cavity traps the light, forcing it to bounce around until all of its energy is dissipated as heat.

Their demo device can absorb 99.4 percent of incoming light at a specific wavelength, a property that could be used as an optical switch in future computing schemes that use light rather than electrons to carry out operations. Such a computer could potentially turn certain wavelengths of light off without affecting others, allowing for high degree of control within a computing system

Link

This could prove to be a cost effective weapon system. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

No doubt the main goal. Missiles are expensive. As another said, if they are showing this, then they likely have much better. As some found, there are vids of ship-mounted and ground-based lasers from years ago doing far more impressive feats, so this seems more like a dog and pony show...while our real progress is likely still way under wraps.

originally posted by: PsychoEmperor
Meanwhile Russia has developed an Anti-Laser devise knows as Multiple Incoming Reflective Rays of Russia or

M.I.R.R.O.R

In other words a force multiplier

a reply to: andy06shake

Well... That is not very impressive.

So the US military can put a hole in a light weight, un-armoured vessel! Flipping wow!

I do not mean to be snarky, but if the best they can do is put a hole in what amounts to a heavy weapon carrying inflatable, then they have wasted an awful lot of time, since the very same thing could be achieved by churning it, and the surrounding ocean to foam with a phalanx gun, and done faster and more brutally too!

I think they should let everyone know when they can cut an enemy destroyer, or assaulting aircraft in half with one, but this has to be the most pathetic use for a militarised laser that I can imagine!

a reply to: andy06shake

They have been mounted on aircraft since 1996-18 years ago. So technically, this is not new at all. Some even believe Air Force One has a secret laser for defense of the Presidental aircraft on board. We know the bottom of A.F.1 is mirrored for the very reason of deflecting lasers targeting the Presidential Transport.

There are photos of tanks and naval vessels with laser mounted weapons out there that have been around for at least the 18 years since 1996.

I see its main use as a sort of non lethal way of keeping small fast moving craft away and being able to pick up the crew from the water to have a quiet chat with afterwards as its pretty hard to find out what was going on when theres 30,000 rounds in each of them from a vulcan cannon

a reply to: TrueBrit

Its obviously still in the development stage, granted its hardly blowing a hole straight through that Zodiac, but think what can be achieved in the future. It's silent and does not require conventional ammunition, dirt cheap per shot if it's anything like other systems being deployed. I'm just wondering what advantages this ADAM system has over the recent LaWS system that the U.S Navy deployed a few months back?

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Something worth consideration, the first firearms(flintlock muskets and there like) invented did not exactly deliver anywhere near the devastation that our current versions can. Same with our beam weaponry i imagine.

a reply to: mysterioustranger

The weight of the equipment required to generate the beam has always been a limiting factor where aircraft are concerned, same with there vehicle mounted counterparts. I imagine payload weight is slightly less of an problem where Ships are concerned. Then there's the issue of secrecy and security, the fact that these devices are being trialed at sea helps there.

a reply to: andy06shake

Interesting but you know this is old technology, they have had laser's using pulsed emission for some time that can do this, other projected energy weapons they have developed are far superior and they tend to radio frequency devices based on sympathetic resonance, the advantage of a laser though is there is no real need to identify hull composition so it has a minor use in this state.
Very powerful laser devices are alway's limited due to atmospheric thermal plasma feedback which would cause a potential damage to the emitter in dense atmospheric or particularly water vapor rich environment's but so far no lasers have acheived the level of energy output to put that theory to the test (that we know of).
The other advantage is the narrow beam and concealed focus of a laser leave very little that could be used to trace back to it's source but as you know a climate scientist and physicist in tokyo was working on a laser based method of dissipating lightning to prevent lighting strikes to large buildings and thuse reduce costs as well as trying to find a way to harvest the energy of the lighting,. This was done by firing a high energy laser beam at the energy laden cloud layer and this in turn would ionise a stream of atmospheric particle's creating a conductive pathway through the atmosphere with the potential to provide a lower resistance path to earth and allow the pent up energy to discharge.
This means that a laser with that capability can be detected back to it's source using ion emission detection and thus the apparent advantage is not really there except when used against third world somalie pirate's in there skiff's as any technologized nation could adapt rather quickly to develop countermeasures.
Also the test craft is a nice target soft hulled and dark energy absorbant material which paint's a positive picture of the that white elephant, someone is being robbed and it is the taxpayers.
Lasers have a potential to be clean weapons in that they do not leave spent round's or chemical pollutants (Except at there energy source) but they are currently inferior to less expensive and more easily deployed weapon systems offering little or no advantage over them.
Now the rail gun that they developed on the other hand is another kettle of fish entirely.
Crystal ceramic tiles on a warhead to protect against laser based weapons at the expense of higher radar signature.
Angled deflective panels on ships and boats to bounce or deflect the majority of the laser energy.
Sympathetic resonance generators to created electromagnetic reinforcement of material's to prevent the usual atomic excitation that is resultant form high energy absorbption such as laser or heat can also extend the life of standard metals though as far as I know no on is working on these openly but it should theoretically be possible with known types of excitation and the resultant radio thermal emissions to rig up a device with could apply an inverse energy to dampen that excitation using low energy small compact emitters which could be built with extant technology's.

Back in the 1970's to the 1980's the russians were successfully developing a radar based anti missile, anti aircraft technology based on a high energy radar array which would output a broad radio combined spectrum pulse and then they would analyze the returned signal to identify radio saturation and absorbption.
The absorbption would be used to identify the material's the object was made from and then the inverse complex conjugate of that absorbption waveform was amplified with the entire output of a nuclear powerstation (Chernobyl - was that sabotage) and the extremely powerful array was used to transmit a narrow beam emission back at the aircraft/missile(s) (it could handle entire formations) and litterally disolve them in flight by causing there atom's to vibrate and heat up in a matter of mere second's, it could also be used on satellites.

Now you have to ask yourself this, the states knew all about that, so they must have superior technology's at least in the upper black wing of the secret governmental department's and of course they only reveal such technology's as this toy to melt a boat when they are no longer top secret or for public relations.

S+F for an interesting thread.

a reply to: andy06shake

I have to point out, that flintlocks fired balls of shot, which were DEVASTATING to people they hit, and were so dangerous to persons in the armour of the day, that the use of full body plate armour was bought to a crashing halt. In terms of changing the game, they were an absolute revolution, as has been every major advance in weapons design since.

This laser however, is less effective than many weapons which have been in existence for decades, so I fail entirely to see the appeal. As I said, when they develop a laser which can be as effective as a significantly sized bullet, and as fast acting too, then it will be worth all the time spent. This however, is a glorified laser pointer. Hell, there are blue lasers out there which can be purchased for a couple of hundred dollars, which could burn through an inflatable boat given time enough.

originally posted by: roadgravel
How well does it track if the boats is moving. In one video, it takes a while to burn the outboard. Maybe put a metal can or mirror over it and move on.

I don't know how effective that would be.
Most manufacturing facilities that work with metal sheets cut their parts with lasers. They have been doing that for years. Once the metal is heated at the point where the laser touches it, it loses most of its reflectivity.

a reply to: TrueBrit

Yes we do seem to be rather adept at creating new ways of destroying ourselves. One has to wonder how we would fair as a species if we applied ourself in the same manner regarding other areas of advancement. Shame really!

Im betting at only works well on dark colors as that boat is uncharacteristically black.