Navy’s Superlaser Blasts Away a Record

[roo_ster]

A relatively small hole in the heat shield caused by some ecologically-friendly insulating foam coming off the fuel tank caused a space shuttle to disintegrate on re-entry; you don't have to slice a missle in half to effectively destroy it, just a certain level of trauma to the outer skin will cause it to break up.

And the faster the missile is traveling, the less you need to damage it to cause it to tear itself up against the atmo.

[Balog]

Missiles are made of relatively thin aluminum and such right? If a missile was 20 across and made of solid steel, the laser they hope to have would only need to be in contact with the projectile for 1/100 of a second to cut through it. Given that missiles are not made of solid steel nor generally 20 feet across, it seems entirely reasonable to assume that you could destroy a missile with it.

[roo_ster]

Ditto. Radar guidance and automated computerized fire control goes a long way. Here's a re-purposed Phalanx CIWS being used to shoot down mortar shells....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgpQBZF2sZQ

WSMR FTW.

[Brad Johnson]

Given the phenomenal aerodynamic stresses at mach 10+, a very small comprimise in structural integrity will suffice to kill the incoming.  You don't even have to punch a hole in it.  Something as minor as a few thousands of assymetric surface deformation will kill the stress distribution balance and result in almost instantaneous "dynamic disassembly".  In other words, cause the skin on one side to buckle enough and the rocket thingy go boom.

The only problem is the RV has a pretty good chance of surviving the breakup, continuing on it's ballistic arc and likely ending up near enough to where it was intended to make life very inconvenient for a couple million nice folks.  'Course that only applies to ballistics armed with nukes.  For more conventional battlefield rocketry the skin paint kill still applies given you can detect it quickly enough.

Brad

[AJ Dual]

OK, but how long will that beam stay in contact with the same spot?

I still don't see this thing slicing through a whole missle making two distinct parts that will then fall harmlessly to the ground.  At best I see a bunch of holes that might hit the missle's equivalent of a CNS, but moreso maybe not.

So the stoopid guy still needs this 'splained to him.

stay safe.

As others mentioned, just melting a single spot on a missile in flight will usually destabilize it almost instantly.

However, the targeting issues with the laser to keep it on one spot on the missile to really damage it have been solved for some time now too. The Airforce ABL mounted to a 747 can do it in theory, and has even solved the atmospheric distortion issues with adaptive optic mirrors. They're flexible, and have dozens (thousands?) of little actuators that ripple the mirror to exactly counteract the ripple in the atmosphere, as driven from the input of a lower powered test laser.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCufvG9TE8w

Astronomy has been using this tech to get near-Hubble quality issues from the ground for a decade or more now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxelYpoYpzA

And the THEL system, a chemical laser housed in a couple of conex-type shipping containers, with a steerable head the size of a spotlight has shot down Kayatusha rockets in Israel. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LThD0FMvTFU

The new Tactical Battlefield Laser fired from a C130 can pick out a spot on a pickup trucks hood and burn through it and disable the engine while orbiting in a circle at several thousand AGL. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaMQNgqT1iU

The technologies of targeting lasers and beam shaping are getting pretty mature.

The issue is getting away from the expensive, complex, and difficult chemical powered lasers that run various (and often corrosive/toxic) chemicals through what is essentially like a jet engine or wind tunnel to produce the beam.

There's also great advancements in diode and crystal based solid-state lasers, but they have upper limits on their power output because they still require physical media to lase. They're way easier to deal with than chemical lasers, but eventually you reach the limits of the lasing media, and the solution is to just stack more and more of them together, which gets bulky, and requires ever more complex optics to get all the disparate beams together into one.

The FEL just wiggles electrons past a series of magnets kind of like the teeth in a zipper, yanking the electrons back and forth so violently, they emit synchrotron radiation as photons, and modulating the "wiggle" by timing the electro magnets, you can tune the laser. So there's no gases or chemicals that need to be handled, and no crystals or diodes that will fry when you turn the power up past what they can handle. You can leave it running 24/7, the only limitation is the input power.

So as others mentioned, put a nuke reactor in for power, which means a ship, and you can see why the Navy's got a boner for this. 

[French G.]

I imagine the first candidates are the carriers due to power already there. Anyone want to un-mothball a CGN? They were on the waterfront when I first joined the boat fleet.

New thought. SSGNs are pretty clever and I always thought we should take a SSBN and convert it to carry a few F-35s and UAVs just for a pop up from nowhere and ruin your day plan. The japanese put airplanes on subs, why can't we? But this thing, wow. Stick it on a sub, surface, roast stupid dictator missile test, submerge, repeat. Say nothing, let them figure out why all their evil weapons go asplodey. Also time for reviving our early experiments with nuclear reactors in airplanes.

[kgbsquirrel]

New thought. SSGNs are pretty clever and I always thought we should take a SSBN and convert it to carry a few F-35s and UAVs just for a pop up from nowhere and ruin your day plan. The japanese put airplanes on subs, why can't we? But this thing, wow. Stick it on a sub, surface, roast stupid dictator missile test, submerge, repeat. Say nothing, let them figure out why all their evil weapons go asplodey. Also time for reviving our early experiments with nuclear reactors in airplanes.

Add a large periscope to channel and direct the beam while still submerged and install the beam systems and any additional necessary nuclear reactors in the unused ballistic missile space? That would be pretty darn slick.



BTW the SSGN's already have ruin-your-day capability, it's called 60 SEAL's and 154 Tomahawks (which may or may not be nuclear tipped).   

[French G.]

Add a large periscope to channel and direct the beam while still submerged and install the beam systems and any additional necessary nuclear reactors in the unused ballistic missile space? That would be pretty darn slick.



BTW the SSGN's already have ruin-your-day capability, it's called 60 SEAL's and 154 Tomahawks (which may or may not be nuclear tipped).   

Oh I know, when elected president SSGNs are the centerpiece for my diplomatic solution to the Korean crisis as well as pretty much any other crisis that is remotely close to a coastline. Too bad we're too scared to use the cool stuff we have.

[roo_ster]

Add a large periscope to channel and direct the beam while still submerged and install the beam systems and any additional necessary nuclear reactors in the unused ballistic missile space? That would be pretty darn slick.



BTW the SSGN's already have ruin-your-day capability, it's called 60 SEAL's and 154 Tomahawks (which may or may not be nuclear tipped).   

Hmm, I suspect that such a beam directed against a surface ship might be a fun way to tear into some enemy boats.  If that beam cuts through any magazines or fuel compartments, ship go "boom!"  I suspect any aluminum ship will catch fire.

Catch a ship from the stern and shoot it down the length of the ship...

[RoadKingLarry]

Add a large periscope to channel and direct the beam while still submerged and install the beam systems and any additional necessary nuclear reactors in the unused ballistic missile space? That would be pretty darn slick.



BTW the SSGN's already have ruin-your-day capability, it's called 60 SEAL's and 154 Tomahawks (which may or may not be nuclear tipped).   

It is the policy of the United States Navy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard an ship or station of the United States Navy.
 

I always wondered why subs didn't have some kind of anti-aircraft defenses considering our one of our  biggest threats was from ASW aircraft.

[French G.]

Hmm, giant laser vs. dipping helo. Who will win?

[AJ Dual]

I always wondered why subs didn't have some kind of anti-aircraft defenses considering our one of our  biggest threats was from ASW aircraft.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

[RoadKingLarry]

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

While I aknowledge I have no knowledge of what may have been added since July '92, I am intimately familiar with what was there up to and prior to that time.

[280plus]

So what, you're going to keep it a secret?  

 

I recall offloading a few in Seal Beach under the watch of a bunch of armed Marines. Don't know if any of them was the real thing, I have to assume there was at least one. I was on the fire detail. I watched as an ASROC broke the pawl on the loading crane and came crashing back to the stop. Yea, that'll pucker you a bit.

The whole fire party had just been to nuke accident cleanup school. If you dropped a missle and it broke open you were supposed to take your chalk and circle any material that spilled onto the deck. Thinking back I guess they were talking about fuel. I'm under the assumption that the nuke part is like a chunk of metal and not able to crumble up and fall out? I was just supposed to put them out if they went off. They never let me in on the design aspects.  

[RoadKingLarry]

I was refering to anti-aircraft capability, or rather lack there of.
As to weapons carried on the boats I was on, I was in the PRP and qualified as a "Nuclear weapons armed security guard". On "special" occasions I had the pleasure of being armed with an M14, posted topside aft. No freaking cover back there, if we had actually had an attempt on a weapon from the water I was the first guy in line. I was told it was because I was the only guy outside of the weapons dept. that could actually shoot the darned thing. I think it was really because they didn't like me.

[280plus]

Different but the same, whenever we loaded in the 5" WP rounds I was always "volunteered" to be one of the carriers. All the other ammo we handed down a line, the WP had to be carried from the quarterdeck all the way to tne magazine by one person. They had barrels of water along the way. If you dropped the round you were supposed to pick it up and drop it in the nearest barrel. Much like yourself, I didn't know if they volunteered me because they trusted me so much or they didn't like me. A lot of guys wouldn't even touch the things. All other work stopped and everybody got lost when WP was coming on. 

[HeroHog]

Sounds like me always being the one to test the over-speed trip on the governors for the 12-278A diesel main engines! Nothing like standing next to 12 278 cubic inch cylinders at red-line as you keep giving it more throttle till the thing trips the fuel shut-off! I was the ONLY one in main engineering when this was done. The Chief watched from the top hatch of the ladder well cause it scared the heck outta him! (he had seen a fellow crewman killed when one "ran away" and launched the blower right into him)

[drewtam]

im pretty sure vertical missile tubes can/do carry the occasional modified stinger.

[seeker_two]

Any way we could get a few of these placed along the border?.....they'd certainly be more ecologically-friendly than the fence..... 

[280plus]

yea, I'd heard stories of diesels taking off and running wild on their own lubricating oil. Never actually wanted to see that happen. I had an E-6 EN who had gotten pinned under a big oil pan or something and was claustrophobic over it. The guy NEVER slept in a rack because it was too confining for him. He slept on the deck behind the generator board in after diesel the whole time he was on board.

[Pharmacology]

Any way we could get a few of these placed along the border?.....they'd certainly be more ecologically-friendly than the fence..... 

I think Canadians might be laser proof.

[MechAg94]

im pretty sure vertical missile tubes can/do carry the occasional modified stinger.

For someone reason I thought I saw something a long time ago on some sort of torpedo launched anti-aircraft missile, but it may have been an anti-ship missile.

[MillCreek]

I was told, by someone who served on the USS Parche, that it was not unknown for them to carry a couple of hand-held Stingers on board.  The Parche used to be based up here at Naval Base Kitsap, and it had a long and storied career in intelligence-gathering.  Perhaps this was a function of so many of their activities being done in very close proximity to a shoreline.

[41magsnub]

The Russians had periscope mounted SA-7 and newer handheld type SAMS on some of their subs I've heard.

[French G.]

Being in Norfolk I didn't often see SSBNs, saw the Florida in the yards getting chopped to SSGN. One, can't remember which, was moored on our pier for a week or two. They were giving tours too and my dumb ass didn't go. Their topside security for entering and leaving port was pretty handy for a bunch of squids. It involved belt fed thingies and AT-4s.