US Navy has laser that burns through 20 feet of steel per second. Laser weapons now to be an upgrade

A laser that can burn through 20 feet of steel a second... lasers mounted on warships... Enjoy.

The Navy, Army and other armed forces have been working to incorporate so called "directed energy" laser weapons in a range of new guns, from tank-mounted blasters to guns on planes or unmanned balloons. But this marks the first test of a laser weapon at sea -- and proof that laser rifles are no mere Buck Rogers daydream. “This is the first time a [high-energy-laser], at these power levels, has been put on a Navy ship, powered from that ship and used to defeat a target at-range in a maritime environment,” said Peter Morrison, program officer for the Office of Naval Research. "The Navy is moving strongly towards directed energy," Carr told FoxNews.com. The weapon, called the maritime laser demonstrator, was built in partnership with Northrop Grumman. It focused 15 kilowatts of energy by concentrating it through a solid medium -- hence the name. "We call them solid state because they use a medium, usually something like a crystal," explained Quentin Saulter, the research office's program officer. It was used in Wednesday's demonstration against a small boat, but Carr told FoxNews.com that this and other types of laser weaponry could be equally effective against planes and even targets on shore. "To begin to address a cruise missile threat, we'd need to get up to hundreds of kilowatts," Carr said. The Navy is working on just such a gun of course. Called the FEL -- for free-electron laser, which doesn't use a gain medium and is therefore more versatile -- it was tested in February consuming a blistering 500 kilovolts of energy, producing a supercharged electron beam that can burn through 20 feet of steel per second. The FEL will easily get into the kilowatt power range. It can also be easily tuned as well, to adjust to environmental conditions, another reason it is more flexible than the fixed wavelength of solid-state laser. But the Navy doesn't expect to release megawatt-class FEL weapons until the 2020s; among the obstacles yet to be overcome, the incredible power requirements of the FEL weapons require careful consideration. Also in the Navy's futuristic arsenal: a so-called "rail gun," which uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. Railguns are even further off in the distance, possibly by 2025, the Navy has said. But the demonstration of the maritime laser demonstrator this week proves that some laser weapons are just around the corner: Northrop Grumman experts aim to have the final product ready by June of 2014 Read more: www.foxnews.com...

More on FEL

Jefferson Lab operates a kilowatt-class, high-average-power, sub-picosecond free-electron laser, covering the mid-infrared spectral region. On July 21, 2004, 10 kilowatts of cw operation was achieved at a wavelength of 6 microns. This was extended on Oct. 30, 2006 to 14.2 kilowatts of cw light at 1.6 microns. Extensions of the FEL to 250nm in the UV are planned. The short pulses of electrons also produce hundreds of watts of broadband THz light, which is made available in a special user laboratory. The laboratory also operates an ultraviolet free-electron laser which on August 31, 2010 lased in the spectral region down to 363 nm with 100W average power levels. Harmonics around 10 eV photon energy are expected to be present at the 100 mW level. The program and this user facility derives from the primary mission of Jefferson Laboratory, namely, nuclear physics research and the world's first large superconducting accelerator for generating continuous multibillion-volt beams of electrons, called CEBAF. The FEL program is led by George Neil.

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reply to post by Volund


very interesting alyhough i still think a lazer rifle would be a kind of day dream in the buck rogers style as this thing is probably as big as that rail gun that the us and i think chinese navy's have.

they need to stick one of these things on a space shuttle and test it on some asteroids.

Dude, I was just on a thread claiming that Iran has a workable 'flying saucer'. And the tech involved is pretty mind blowing in terms of social evolution. If it pans out to be true, then your info and the info on the other thread really make you wonder why it is that UFO type, space-age tech is suddenly just popping up.


Here ya go: www.abovetopsecret.com...

These lasers may be the weapons of the future, but if we dont avoid using what weve got now in the next six months they may be moot indeed.
I find it bizare in the extreme that we spend pretty much most of our money in military research .
Dont we have sufficient firepower now?
How many ways to kill people do they need? 50?100? 1000s???
By the time we get to using those fancy lasers on each other, well be using robots to do most of the fighting on all fronts.
Pilots, soldiers,you name it they are gonna have a robot thall do it.
So if the robots run out of other robots to kill, what are they gonna do then?

reply to post by stirling


Maybe they will attach them to satellites and use gps technology on your phone to zap you with a Death Ray. They are probably already looking into this Death Ray laser.

Wasn't the US navy just off the coast of Japan before the earthquake?

I wonder if the laser can cut through rock?

reply to post by wcitizen


Yep, the US Navy must have used this technology to destabilize an entire tectonic plate just to kill thousands of Japanese people for.....





One thing about that, water refracts light. To get a laser to do that you'd have to compensate for the completely random refraction patterns of the ocean. Not to mention all the particulates, sea life and other things you'd have to adjust for on the fly in order for the laser to function properly at all.

reply to post by Volund


When you stop and consider how limited is any weapon fired from a ship at sea, because of the barrier of the horizon always out there at about 30 miles away, you can come away with a hint that much of this stuff here is disinformation. A laser firing a straight shot is not living up to its potential as a weapon fonboard ships at sea.

It is an aircraft and/or space weapon when you are talking about the power given to them in this article. The US navy is heavy into the US Space Force, don't you know? So figure that is where those devices are destined to be stationed. Oceans only give you access to ocean-front properties so to speak. Space and air has no such limits.

As I've said many times, navies are sitting ducks for aircraft and space weapons (laser, rockets and kinetic). WWIII will not be fought with huge flatops or the remaining battlewagons because they will be vaporized in the early rounds. Subs have a better chance of surviviability. But that even those chances would be slim when nuke depth charges are sprinkled around their locations. No, people, today's navies are only moving targets and may well be used as decoys to start a full-fledged conflict. It has happened before.

reply to post by wcitizen


The U.S. Navy is -always- off the coast of Japan. And just about any other place anyone would ever choose to visit (and several places people would choose to avoid).

While such a laser could, at least in theory, cut through rock - trying to use one (or even a whole fleet's worth) of these devices to trigger an earthquake is just silly. It'd be easier to blow a nuke up along the undersea faults - and probably yield a higher success rate.

reply to post by Aliensun

When you stop and consider how limited is any weapon fired from a ship at sea, because of the barrier of the horizon always out there at about 30 miles away, you can come away with a hint that much of this stuff here is disinformation. A laser firing a straight shot is not living up to its potential as a weapon fonboard ships at sea.

Most engagements happen within visual range these days. While in a hypothetical "fleet engagement" - missiles and other BVR weapons would be dominant - standard Rules of Engagement require eyes-on just about everything before you can shoot it.

Lasers, with the right optics applied, can also become very accurate rapid-response point-defense weapons. Weapons like this can easily swat missiles out of the sky. Bombs, and even artillery rounds can be burned through and their warhead detonated prematurely. Even solid-core penetrators can have their surfaces ablated so quickly as to alter their trajectory or cause the round to tumble and become chaotic.

As I've said many times, navies are sitting ducks for aircraft and space weapons (laser, rockets and kinetic).

Not exactly. The costs of constructing a weapon in space are pretty high. Then you have the difficulty of shielding that weapon from attack.

What could possibly attack an object in orbit? Aircraft, for starters - or aerospace fighters, if we start thinking that far out in advance. More interestingly, however, the age-old battlewagon will see a new role as a mobile anti-satellite defense system.

They have the mass to mount a large rail-gun capable of achieving orbital velocities. They can also easily pack a battery of missiles with fragmentary warheads designed to intercept and shred a satellite.

The costs of building something in space capable of withstanding average weapons-fire (not to mention combat at relativistic velocities) are way beyond the costs of developing anti-orbital systems (which are getting within the range of hobby rocket builders - many could already build rockets capable of reaching orbit and have friends capable of turning that into a weapons system if need be).

No doubt - bombardment from orbit will be part of a strategy - but if you can put something like that in space - you may want to make it mobile and make it do its bombarding from farther away. Computers allow us to adjust for the physics.

There was a thread here a while back with an operational rail gun already on a battle ship.

Oook, It seems that it's time to other countries and mine to learn how to protect themselves from this weapon, and learn how to destroy it. Too bad that tech it's better used to kill than for peaceful purposes

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by wcitizen

 

Yep, the US Navy must have used this technology to destabilize an entire tectonic plate just to kill thousands of Japanese people for.....

Yep, because in 1945 we never created a top secret agency to make an atom bomb, something most people had never heard of, and used it to kill thousands of Japanese people for....

just saying.

s+f

in my mind, i see a straight beam like a regular sci-fi ray gun.

seems deadly enough.

i wonder if they can flash it so it is like a gatling gun to cover a larger area of target at once?

reply to post by aching_knuckles


Are we at war with the Japanese?

No.

What an asinine thing to say man. Really

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by aching_knuckles

 

Are we at war with the Japanese?

No.

What an asinine thing to say man. Really

edit on 8-4-2011 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)

Im just saying, there are parallels. And its not like we still have military bases in Japan or anything...But thats alright, I mean the Japanese have all those bases on our soil...oh right. And you cant prove either way whether HAARP caused anything, so why would you discount it immediately with no proof? In science, it is called
a "theory". Not every theory is true, but you dont discount or prove theories without evidence.

That would be asinine.

ETA: you are acting like such a thing would be unthinkable, in a thread where we are talking about putting frikking laser beams on ships.. Its the 21st century, do think there are possibly things out there that projectvxn might not know about, or are you omnipotent?

reply to post by aching_knuckles

Im just saying, there are parallels. And its not like we still have military bases in Japan or anything...But thats alright, I mean the Japanese have all those bases on our soil...oh right.

And this is relevant how?

And you cant prove either way whether HAARP caused anything, so why would you discount it immediately with no proof?

Another HAARPie great And secondly, what does this have to do with the ridiculous assertion that a laser can cause an earthquake?

In science, it is called a "theory". Not every theory is true, but you dont discount or prove theories without evidence.

No in science it's called a hypothesis, and the burden of proof is on the person who creates a hypothesis. A THEORY has data backing it up. ACTUAL data. So where's your data that the US is using laser or HAARP to kill people?

That would be asinine.

Wouldn't it?

ETA: you are acting like such a thing would be unthinkable, in a thread where we are talking about putting frikking laser beams on ships.. Its the 21st century, do think there are possibly things out there that projectvxn might not know about, or are you omnipotent?

You're acting like anything is possible even though there is strong evidence pointing away from such ridiculous assertions. But you can believe what ever you want.

No, Im not a "HAARPie", I just dont know what HAARP is for, and how it used. And neither do you. So stop acting like youre an expert or have some sort of inside knowledge because you like the military channel and pop off a few rounds now and then.

i agree, evidence is paramount, but at the same time, Im not just swallowing everything hook line and sinker like you seem to be. Its called having an open mind.

But have fun throwing insults around, it seems youre so good at that other people have noticed its your MO.

reply to post by aching_knuckles


Actually I do know what HAARP is used for:

en.wikipedia.org...

I'll ignore the rest since you seem to be aching to insult someone.

i agree, evidence is paramount, but at the same time, Im not just swallowing everything hook line and sinker like you seem to be. Its called having an open mind.

Having an open mind is great but it's important not to believe everything you see or hear. Correlation does not equal causation. Just because HAARP is turned on and an Earthquake happens halfway across the world doesn't mean that HAARP was responsible.

Just because the Navy has a vessel in the waters off the coast of Japan(as it nearly always does) does not mean that it fired a high powered laser that somehow caused a 9.0 earth quake.

But have fun throwing insults around, it seems youre so good at that other people have noticed its your MO.

What insults? Poking holes in your arguments are not insults. It's called debate, get over it.

reply to post by aching_knuckles

No, Im not a "HAARPie", I just dont know what HAARP is for, and how it used. And neither do you. So stop acting like youre an expert or have some sort of inside knowledge because you like the military channel and pop off a few rounds now and then.

Of course, when you don't know what something is for, or how it is used - it makes perfect sense to jump to the conclusion that the human beings operating the damned thing are going to use it to cause earthquakes and put voices in random people's heads.

God Forbid we deny ignorance and learn a thing or two and then come back to look at what a facility may or may not be researching.

For the record - I'm an avionics technician (component-level diagnostics of radar, radio, and digital circuitry) in the Navy Reserve. I don't know everything, and certainly don't have "inside info" - but I'm not just some cammo wearing redneck who shoots and stumps and random critters, either. I'm fairly well educated on the physics of electromagnetic phenomena (part of HAARP's mission and purpose) and more privy to the strategic and political climate than your average enlisted man. Listening to what I have to say would generally be considered wise.

i agree, evidence is paramount, but at the same time, Im not just swallowing everything hook line and sinker like you seem to be. Its called having an open mind.

Having an open mind is giving credence to the idea that UFO phenomena over the Groom Lake facility could be the testing of some kind of particle projection system (the strange lights and their inexplicable behavior... makes sense when you think of it as the end to a sort of laser pointer being danced across a virtual wall). There are lights in the sky - and they do some pretty incredible things, if you consider them to be some kind of craft. Of course - the phenomena is not restricted to this one area - so the idea may hold some merit for describing some (but certainly not all) of the observed phenomena.

That's an open mind.

What you're doing is akin to coming across a car wreck in a town with many military people in it. You see a person in uniform standing near a local business, and conclude the military was testing some kind of new weapon that makes cars crash together.

Nevermind the fact it doesn't make sense to test such secret weapons in such an unethical manner in public. Or the fact we have a few dozen different places designed to crash cars together and analyze the data much better than field tests (that get no real follow-up inspection). Or the fact that field tests could be done in the millions of square miles of virtually uninhabited territory around the globe.

That's not just paranoia - that's selective thinking combined with paranoia.

But have fun throwing insults around, it seems youre so good at that other people have noticed its your MO.

Interesting how that was worded in the form of an insult.

As for lasers or HAARP making earthquakes - there really isn't any study or set of studies that have indicated the idea has any plausibility. The only link between earthquakes and electromagnetism that I have ever heard comes from animal reactions that precede earthquakes - with one of the suspected causes being increased tension on the quartz within the crust having a piezoelectric effect that the animals can pick up on.

I suppose a laser could theoretically trigger one through ablation of enough rock along a fault-line to trigger a pressured fault. Though, like I said - you'd have a much better success rate setting off kiloton-yield nuclear warheads (a series of smaller detonations would probably give you better results than one strategic yield).

Not to mention the laser described would -never- be able to ablate enough material to make it happen. These lasers accomplish what they do by focusing huge amounts of energy into a small area - the width of your hair (or maybe slightly larger - to the lead of a mechanical pencil). Sure - you could cut into the ground with such a laser... but thousands of feet into the ground, and vaporizing enough rock to trigger an entire plate to shift? ... The quake will trigger on its own before you even think of calling half-time.