The Pentagon's biggest, baddest - and costliest - piece of hardware ever

I'm pretty sure if the FEL has been implemented on the ships by then, a weapon that fires at the speed of light is capable of taking out anything going Mach 21, I'm no brain, but I'm pretty sure anything kind of energy based weapon could outrun anything at Mach 21...
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By the way, wasn't FEL supposed to be on these ships pretty soon?
"On March 18, 2010 Boeing Directed Energy Systems announced the completion of an initial design for U.S. Naval use.[21] A prototype FEL system has since been demonstrated with a full-power prototype scheduled by 2018"
source:
en.wikipedia.org...

These things are getting freaken LAZORS. They are safer than you are.

reply to post by Arnie123


They're testing a laser on an LPD that was in the Gulf a few months ago. Its having a few issues with reliability and range.

reply to post by Zaphod58


Salt water, sea spray, salt mist, rolling around, torquing and jolts makes a laser a sad panda.

reply to post by Bedlam


That's what I had heard from other places too. Pretty much everyone agrees that a laser on a ship is a great idea, but implementation is an issue.

Yeah I figure that, but I'm pretty sure these issues can be worked out, if these projects have been showing promise, I'm sure EVENTUALLY something will come to light. literally.
A small beans laser seemed to work well with disabling a small boats engine, now if it were bigger and more powered, I'm sure the same concept would work, just in a larger scale.

I honestly think this hurdle can and will be solved and the expected date of 2018 could be reached.

This is a huge game changer, as not only do you have a huge platform in the oceans to project power, but a system capable of taking out anything other then another laser, would be a very imposing beast, as tough as this mammoth is already.

reply to post by Arnie123


Given enough time and money and a lot of problems can be overcome. The problem here is the money.

reply to post by Zaphod58

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I totally agree, but if their spending 13 billion on an aircraft carrier, not to mention a contract that was awarded and paid in full for Raytheon and Boeing, I'm pretty sure its really only a matter of time.

The potential is not only economical, but returns on the investment are huge, sure it'll cost for the upstart, but once completed, the cost wouldn't be as much, lets say like a million dollar missile or a million dollar drum of rounds for a phalanx. As long as the reactor holds out and the output is good, they can have a continues stream of steady fire on anything that's incoming. Their would be nothing that china has that could pose a risk.

I'd bet a months check that we make the 2018 deadline with an already working model, that I'm sure has already been testing over water, specifically the oceans.

reply to post by Arnie123


Yeah, but $13B buys a hell of a lot. Right now the Navy is hurting in a huge way due to Sequestration. They're looking at a years long backlog for aircraft maintenance if it goes past FY14. They're going to have to cut a bunch of programs, and this might be one of them.

reply to post by Zaphod58

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Ugh, now that would be a scary thing. Sequestration is like mom buying the cheap toilet paper...an cheap toilet paper falls apart....

reply to post by Bedlam


Actually was stationed on the USS Independence for years up until it was decomissioned, was the oldest ship in the Navy at the time. It was smaller than the new nuclear carriers and believe me "rolling around, torquing and jolts" were never really an issue.

I felt some slight movement one time when caught on the edge of a hurricane. Regarding pollution, it did happen but I didn't see it as common as the other former sailor. Also contrary to one of the comments we never just stayed out at sea sailing in steady circles. There is something called a home port that we would pull into fairly regularly. Anything that needed to get offloaded and dumped easily got done when we pulled in.

Biigs

Vasa Croe
That got me thinking though. Doesn't this make this ship a VERY large target for any other force in the world?

Yup, thats why china is developing a mach 21, anti carrier ballistic missile.

link to souce

You do know that that weapon system still cannot hit a moving evasive target right? and if we atacked china they would lose their sattelites first killing their guidance of said missile.

yuppa

Biigs

Vasa Croe
That got me thinking though. Doesn't this make this ship a VERY large target for any other force in the world?

Yup, thats why china is developing a mach 21, anti carrier ballistic missile.

link to souce

You do know that that weapon system still cannot hit a moving evasive target right? and if we atacked china they would lose their sattelites first killing their guidance of said missile.

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Yeah I was going to say something in relation to that, I'm pretty sure if something went down, china's SATs would be the first thing to go, take out CC and let them run wild without any direction, we've been doing the space thing for a lot longer then any other nation, I'm pretty sure we have SAT killers up there.

Yeah I know, we got Laws about weapons in space, but come on...seriously, come on...

Arnie123

yuppa

Biigs

Vasa Croe
That got me thinking though. Doesn't this make this ship a VERY large target for any other force in the world?

Yup, thats why china is developing a mach 21, anti carrier ballistic missile.

link to souce

You do know that that weapon system still cannot hit a moving evasive target right? and if we atacked china they would lose their sattelites first killing their guidance of said missile.

--
Yeah I was going to say something in relation to that, I'm pretty sure if something went down, china's SATs would be the first thing to go, take out CC and let them run wild without any direction, we've been doing the space thing for a lot longer then any other nation, I'm pretty sure we have SAT killers up there.

Yeah I know, we got Laws about weapons in space, but come on...seriously, come on...

Blowing up a satellite results in the Chinese blowing up 10 of the US's satellites who is more dependent on sats. Not necessarily a winning move.

Degrading the communication reliabilty, OTOH.... "Keeps on going to safe mode, just when we try to re-task it!" Works both ways, but space doesn't end up a 100 year shooting gallery. Suppose you attached a wee little hydrazine thruster....

mbkennel

Arnie123

yuppa

Biigs

Vasa Croe
That got me thinking though. Doesn't this make this ship a VERY large target for any other force in the world?

Yup, thats why china is developing a mach 21, anti carrier ballistic missile.

link to souce

You do know that that weapon system still cannot hit a moving evasive target right? and if we atacked china they would lose their sattelites first killing their guidance of said missile.

--
Yeah I was going to say something in relation to that, I'm pretty sure if something went down, china's SATs would be the first thing to go, take out CC and let them run wild without any direction, we've been doing the space thing for a lot longer then any other nation, I'm pretty sure we have SAT killers up there.

Yeah I know, we got Laws about weapons in space, but come on...seriously, come on...

Blowing up a satellite results in the Chinese blowing up 10 of the US's satellites who is more dependent on sats. Not necessarily a winning move.

Degrading the communication reliabilty, OTOH.... "Keeps on going to safe mode, just when we try to re-task it!" Works both ways, but space doesn't end up a 100 year shooting gallery. Suppose you attached a wee little hydrazine thruster....

edit on 4-10-2013 by mbkennel because: (no reason given)

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I respectfully disagree.
Your words, "Blowing up a satellite results in the Chinese blowing up 10 of the US's satellites who is more dependent on sats."
Its actually the other way around, but that's just my opinion, your right about one thing though, we are more heavily dependent on Sats, which would mean we also must have defense mechanisms in place to deter said attacks.
I'm sure you would say, "Well I'm sure china too would have defenses too"
My response would be, Yes I'm sure they do. But as I stated earlier, we have been doing the space thing for a long while and I'm willingly to bet that we got a few of those private contracts too in regards to that.

Plus we can just knock them out the sky from an aegis destroyer anyways, which is part of the strike fleet.

mbkennel
Suppose you attached a wee little hydrazine thruster....

Why do you think we were looking into conductive tethers and loops? If you attach a helpful conductive loop with a nice resistive load to someone else's satellite, it'll deorbit in a mysterious, prompt, military fashion.

If/When this aircraft carrier is finished, is there any idea on how long it is suggested to be operate able?/how long is it projected before it becomes obsolete?

reply to post by ImaFungi


Same as a Nimitz, fifty plus years.

Vasa Croe
reply to post by Wide-Eyes

 

I am sure it will have plenty of escorts with it but still...1106 feet is almost a quarter mile long...that makes a massive target in my opinion.

Todays missiles can target a few feet. But the Aegis Cruisers, as well as the FEL system that will be on this bad boy will make it near impervious to anything but the most determined assault.

In the laboratory, FELs have operated continuously and reliably 24 hours a day—for months. FEL technology allows destruction of multiple targets at the speed of light, all day and all night.

www.lanl.gov...

OccamsRazor04

Vasa Croe
reply to post by Wide-Eyes

 

I am sure it will have plenty of escorts with it but still...1106 feet is almost a quarter mile long...that makes a massive target in my opinion.

Todays missiles can target a few feet. But the Aegis Cruisers, as well as the FEL system that will be on this bad boy will make it near impervious to anything but the most determined assault.

Or one ordinary submarine with standard-technology torpedos.