New Video: Laser Gunship Blowtorches Truck

Now this is really cool!

"Back in August, Boeing announced that its Advanced Tactical Laser — a cargo aircraft retrofitted with a chemical laser — had successfully “defeated” a target vehicle parked on the ground. The test was a step toward the fielding of a laser gunship that, in theory, could blast targets with little or no collateral damage.

The company has now released a few seconds of video from the test, although footage is not yet available of the laser actually disabling the vehicle:

“I think you’ve made your point, Goldfinger, thank you for the demonstration.”

Pyrotechnics aside, there are a lot of reasons why this is significant. As our own David Hambling has explained previously, this has potential to bring a whole new level of precision to special-operations gunships, which traditionally rely on Gatling guns and howitzers to deal out pain. That’s not the route you want to go if you want to avoid collateral damage."

Rest of article and video.


www.wired.com...

Looks nice and accuate! for a prototype!

won't be anytime soon that its going to be blasting things into vapour.

Saying that, I Never knew they were this far ahead so you never know really!

looks really fun to use! but I wouldent let me have ago, I'd use it for evil.








[edit on 5-10-2009 by TrentReznor]

Did it say how far away the target was???

The thing is,
Lazers, chemical lazers , require an enormous amount of sustaind energy to operate on them levels lke you see in the video, for it to destroy a target quickly though I'm only guessing but I would imagine somthing along the lines of Nuclear powerd or Fusion or maybe more? chemical lazers are limited to chemical reactions and weight too.

Thats weight!! and putting weight in a flying machine is BAD.
But maybe an orbiting satalite? like in the film AKIRA !!!;-)

Or maybe they could build lots and lots of them in space and use 20 of them calibrated onto the same spot? or maybe I'm dreaming.

seems implausable for quite a long time yet.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by TrentReznor]

[edit on 5-10-2009 by TrentReznor]

i saw this but was surprised that you cannot actually see the laser that burns the car.

its possible that this is simply a demonstration of the lasers power, and accuracy. and was actually set up with pyrotecnics, and a normal laser for the nightvision bit.

I suspect it is still slightly classified, and is just to get more funding to advance the research more.

[edit on 5-10-2009 by MR BOB]

reply to post by ShadoMan

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Holy crap ! Needless to say every drug baron will have one within the month.

Does this now mean that US military can now barbecue Iraqis without leaving their bedroom ?

reply to post by ShadoMan

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What would be the power source for these things i wonder?

And where can i get one cheap!

reply to post by MR BOB

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You can't see the laser probably because it's not tuned to the visible spectrum. Afterall, you wouldn't want a potential target to see a big bright beam on his hood. The accuracy and power of this was amazing! Between this and MTHEL we are certainly moving in to the future of warfare.
I wonder if this would replace the armament on a future AC-class or if it would be in additon to? The chemical battery is probably to big to mount anthing other than the laser. Not sure where the solid-state laser tech is right now, but I imagine if it can be scaled to the appropriate size it would be devastating in concert with the current arsenal carried by the AC-130.

Bring the rain!

Chemical reaction between compounds carried on the plain as fuel for the laser.

reply to post by buddhasystem

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Thanks for that.

I think a study session is in order.

Pretty cool I have to admit, but if this is the stuff they are allowing us to see then I can only imagine what they have that is still top secret.

GREAT

Now they can kill us and we can't even see why our head goes on fire...

What?

It's Dick Cheney's Birthday? I could have just gotten him a puppy...

Man, everyoone's applauding this, but it worries the hell out of me for some reason.

Recently in Pittsburgh, there was a 19 million dollar effort to stifle any and all demonstrations, some people said there were more police and police-types, than there were protesters.
They used new and "cool" weapons that were invented, I assume, for war. But they deployed them against the peaceful crowds.

oh, and there's Ruby Ridge, Waco and all of the rights that have been taken away from us overthe past several years, and continue to be taken.

Many people on this site lean towards revolution, revolt or at LEAST, the ability to petition of their Government.

This ultra-cool laser weapon, "death from above", really is bad-ass for sure, but the Government buying up all these stealthy killing machines make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Next thing will be to have all of the Predator Drones outfitted with these things, and all civil disobedience, demonstrations, protests, and any disagreement with the Government will be dealt with quickly, precisely and from 30,000 feet.

-Scary

Absolutely agree 100%, this is nothing more than terror on the horizon for people not complying. It seemed to start the fire pretty fast, and even though it was a stationary object, so are buildings, located anywhere around the world, dry land, fuel depots, etc. "If" this is what we're allowed to see, imagine whats still locked away and being developed.
SoundGuns, Microwave Guns, Lasers, Chemicals, Biologicals, all nice and neat without the fallout that dirties the environment.
Sure glad all the money and research that went into this technology wasnt applied to irrigating fallow land to help feed the world, or into medical breakthroughs, no doubt this will be held by more than one country faster than we'd imagine, so fire from the sky from whomever whenever will be a world in which our grand children consider normal, just like we grew up with the never ending nuke threat, just disturbing and disgusting.The implications of use are endless.