lasers and future air battles

I have seen things called dazzlers that are usually lasers that can be dialed up and down in brightness and they flash really fast to temporarily blind a person, or permanently.


I am sure the gold coating on our new jets have something to do with radar and stealth but when i was in collage i took an optics class and got to play with some pretty cool lasers(Rochester Institute of Technology/RIT). We would have to wear different goggles depending on the power level and wavelength of the laser being used.


Lasers have been used for MANY differnt things on aircraft from targeting to countermeasures.


lasers will over a good distance spread out from its normal pin point, or you can add adaptive optics and a laser surrounded by a MASER to blast the clouds and whatnot out of the way so the laser doesnt hit as much stuff in the air


with lasers now being on drones and normal ground forces, would it be possible that you could blind a piolet with some of these stronger lasers or even just temporarily blind them, making them an easy target. Lasers go until it is scattered or hits something so it seems like a mid range and closer weapon.

Maybe i missed it but why isn't anyone doing this?

i saw dazzlers used in Afghanistan on people that temporarily blinded people for minutes to hours and i did hear stories of blinding's, so why not use it against aircraft and they EOS? If you can take out the EOS of modern aircraft it would be a pretty significant role, add a powerful maser to that and you could cook the radar and even the man in the aircraft.


you wouldnt even have to destroy the aircraft if the man flying it cant see and the aircraft cant see, so why isn't this done?


and are those golden canopies more than just RAM? is laser protection build into the shades of the helmets?

seems like a giant and easily exploited weakness

originally posted by: penroc3
I have seen things called dazzlers that are usually lasers that can be dialed up and down in brightness and they flash really fast to temporarily blind a person, or permanently.


I am sure the gold coating on our new jets have something to do with radar and stealth but when i was in collage i took an optics class and got to play with some pretty cool lasers(Rochester Institute of Technology/RIT). We would have to wear different goggles depending on the power level and wavelength of the laser being used.


Lasers have been used for MANY differnt things on aircraft from targeting to countermeasures.


lasers will over a good distance spread out from its normal pin point, or you can add adaptive optics and a laser surrounded by a MASER to blast the clouds and whatnot out of the way so the laser doesnt hit as much stuff in the air


with lasers now being on drones and normal ground forces, would it be possible that you could blind a piolet with some of these stronger lasers or even just temporarily blind them, making them an easy target. Lasers go until it is scattered or hits something so it seems like a mid range and closer weapon.

Maybe i missed it but why isn't anyone doing this?

i saw dazzlers used in Afghanistan on people that temporarily blinded people for minutes to hours and i did hear stories of blinding's, so why not use it against aircraft and they EOS? If you can take out the EOS of modern aircraft it would be a pretty significant role, add a powerful maser to that and you could cook the radar and even the man in the aircraft.


you wouldnt even have to destroy the aircraft if the man flying it cant see and the aircraft cant see, so why isn't this done?


and are those golden canopies more than just RAM? is laser protection build into the shades of the helmets?

seems like a giant and easily exploited weakness

Dazzlers are being deployed.

For example, the Navy's ODIN system:


"The images shared by the Navy show the turreted ODIN system installed on the Stockdale’s forward close-in weapon system pedestal. ODIN is a lower-power laser system designed to blind adversarial electro-optical and infrared sensors by projecting a “dazzler” laser beam at them. The Navy intends for ODIN to be capable of disrupting and countering sensor systems aboard a wide range of threats including those aboard surface vessels, aircraft and UAVs, and even some anti-ship missiles."

www.thedrive.com...

a reply to: 1947boomer

its like they are mind readers, to bad its the Navy


the ones i saw in use were mounted on the ends of rifles and had 4 different modes and 2 colors, red and green and would flash SUPER fast between the two colors.

They were obviously laser driven but we were told the effective distance was less than 100 yards.

they definitely work at blinding people, and i had to care for a fellow medic who was messing with his and got a face full of light from like 10 inches. he had what looked like arc burns in the back of his eye and it took him over a month for his vision to come back to 100%.

when i saw them used offensively it was usually when they were trying not to kill the person or for blinding people and then shooting at them as they stumbled around.

Psssh I just ordered one advertised on a certain Social Media network that will blind someone 5 miles away...


/sarc

a reply to: penroc3

They definitely are being used all around the world - you can buy lasers that breach the legal restrictions on them if you know where to look (and it's pretty easy to find them). A lot of countries probably follow the US laws, which have a limit of 500 mW for "civilian" lasers.
People use them all the time to dazzle aircraft pilots and they often get prosecuted for it - which is a totally stupid thing to do in my opinion.
eg: www.independent.co.uk...

So if it's happening in a civilian context, you can bet your last dollar that militaries all around the world are equipping them and can and would use them in a conflict or hostile environment. I would also bet that intelligence agents would likely be using them in operations where it's probably not strictly "legal".
This stuff will only get more powerful over time as the electronics and power sources are reduced in size and increased in power.
eg: www.military.com...
...so if you increase the laser's power, you will decrease the time taken to burn through a target.
Things will get very "sci fi" in the near future.

Late last year (?) I did a thread about a new heat resistant ceramic stealth coating that had been developed for our stealth aircraft. The current stealth coat works but is fragile and a pain to maintain. Maybe this is the end result ? Mirrors and lasers ? youtu.be...

Interesting bit is the panels on the vertical stabilizer..Sensors,Lenses or aerial arrays?

a reply to: Blackfinger

or ablative heat shielding for laser/DEW


for a laser to destroy something it has to remove every atomic layer and if you cant get past the first couple layers the laser is useless in the time that the F22 of the B21 could strike back.

from my experience ray domes and other non optical windows are made of composites, look at the ray dome for the radar.

also the #e color could be a special paint like they used on BUFF's that dropped nukes, the white color would reflect a lot of the thermal radiation

We recently saw a F35 drop the new GPS B63

that being said i think it has to do more with lasers and other DE weapons, its neat getting to see the composite parts of the jet(not white).