Ship-Mounted Laser Weapon Torches Enemies a Mile Away

Scott Bullock

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Nov 11, 2010
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Ship-Mounted Laser Weapon Torches Enemies a Mile Away

U.S. Navy research has paid off with a shipboard solid-state laser powerful and accurate enough to set fire to a boat over a mile away in choppy waters.

How do you improve a massive steel titan that prowls the seas teeming with immense, powerful, and accurate cannon weaponry? Well, the Navy thought long and hard, and determined that you improve them the same way you improve anything else: just add lasers.

In a demonstration of a powerful ship-mounted solid-state laser, crews managed to deal "catastrophic damage" to a target vessel bobbing over a mile away. While plenty of tests have taken place on still, steady land, this is the first test that proves the laser can work in less then ideal conditions, as would most often be the case.

Due to energy and coolant restraints on current ships, the current generation of naval vessels will have to make due with 15 kilowatt lasers, like the one that was just successfully demonstrated, but future ships could have directed energy weapons up in the 100 kilowatt range, enough to burn missiles out of the sky.

The next steps will be to "develop the tactics, the techniques, the procedures, and the safety procedures that sailors are going need to develop" when using laser weapons, said Rear Admiral Nevin Carr.

But the Navy's not done with its laser research; far from it. Work is being done on weaponizing free electron lasers (different from solid-state ones), which can blast through 2000 feet of steel per second with about a megawatt of power. You heard me right. 2000 feet. Of steel. Per second.

It was then that Admiral Carr said perhaps the greatest thing ever said by a living Admiral: "This is an important data point, but I still want the Megawatt death ray."

So say we all, Admiral.

Source: Wired [http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/04/video-navy-laser-sets-ship-on-fire/]


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Lawnmooer

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Apr 15, 2009
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Now all they have to do is train some sharks and then fit them with lasers...

Also working on a laser than can get through 2000 feet of steel per second? Isn't that a bit excessive? and dangerous? (Due to light traveling quite long distances)
 

ryai458

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Oct 20, 2008
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A mile isn't that far away for normal ship to ship combat, besides lasers won't do that much damage to a several thousand ton ship of the line.
 

Owlslayer

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Nov 26, 2009
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Every day, bit by bit, I'm feeling more and more like I'm living in the future. Lasers mounted on ships? hoooly shit.
Even though this isn't very strong, it's still really awesome. It set the engine on fire from a mile away. A mile. That's quite a long way. Sure, most of the torpedoes or cannons or whatnot could most likely do the job better, but I'm pretty sure this isn't meant to be killing off enemies. Yet.

Still, the whole premise of it reeks of awesomeness.
 

CrystalShadow

don't upset the insane catgirl
Apr 11, 2009
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ryai458 said:
A mile isn't that far away for normal ship to ship combat, besides lasers won't do that much damage to a several thousand ton ship of the line.
Probably not. But one that can burn through 2000 feet of steel a second on the other hand...

This is still just early proof of concept kind of stuff really.

It has neither the range, nor firepower to replace existing naval weapons just yet.
 

Zechnophobe

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ryai458 said:
A mile isn't that far away for normal ship to ship combat, besides lasers won't do that much damage to a several thousand ton ship of the line.
It very much depends on the type of ship. If they are mounting this on a little PT boat, and using it to torch small pirate skiffs, it'll probably work fine, since few ships that small have guns with much better effective ranges (or at least, from what I've heard).

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the laser can be used a lot more accurately than a conventional weapon. It doesn't have the same kind of blast radius, and is easier for a computer to target.

I admit a lot of this is my own projections from what little I know, but I think it is sound.
 

Zechnophobe

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Anyhow, what I really want to know is if the megawatt version can be that strong at 1000 times the distance. Could I throw a Megawatt laser in low earth orbit, and have it strategically take out my foes?
 

s0m3th1ng

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Wouldn't it be much easier/cheaper to just shoot projectiles at that short of a distance? It's nice as a proof of concept but totally inadequate as a combat weapon. The other mega death ray mentioned however, scares the crap out of me. It's only downside would be the line of sight requirement, and even then they will probably be able to bounce it off satellites to hit targets over the horizon.
Oh and the massive power consumption...but you can always just add another reactor. I wonder what weapon system would weigh less...A 10 inch gun, its ammo, and systems...or that laser and its extra reactor.
 

Scorched_Cascade

Innocence proves nothing
Sep 26, 2008
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We don't need no water let that motherf****r burn!

I guess I'd better go sacrifice a mobius shape to the Lord of Physics in thanks for this invention actually working.

Do people just look at Sci-Fi and say to themselves "You know what? F*** it, that looks like it might work and I've got nothing better to do, let's go round up the tech boys and have at it".
 

YouEatLard

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Jun 20, 2010
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The laser's tracking capability is impressive. I'm thinking projectiles are still the answer right now though.... atleast for a while.
 

lvl9000_woot

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"Were it me, I'd deck out my troops in armor crafted from lightweight porous refractory ceramic and fiberglass, or other high-R flexible insulation material, with a coating of paint with high reflectivity in the laser energy ranges and high emissivity at longer wavelengths, to reject most of the laser's beam and emit a large fraction of the energy as blackbody radiation."
Quote from: Finite Fourier Alchemy of http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=39;t=000947;p=0

Would that work on the ships laser?
 

FalloutJack

Bah weep grah nah neep ninny bom
Nov 20, 2008
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Welp, we got our laser weapons. You know what's gotta come next...


I'll go practice my evil laughter.
 

RicoADF

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Jun 2, 2009
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s0m3th1ng said:
Wouldn't it be much easier/cheaper to just shoot projectiles at that short of a distance? It's nice as a proof of concept but totally inadequate as a combat weapon. The other mega death ray mentioned however, scares the crap out of me. It's only downside would be the line of sight requirement, and even then they will probably be able to bounce it off satellites to hit targets over the horizon.
Oh and the massive power consumption...but you can always just add another reactor. I wonder what weapon system would weigh less...A 10 inch gun, its ammo, and systems...or that laser and its extra reactor.
One very important difference, that 10 inch gun has limited ammo, a laser with a nuclear reactor powering it is virtually limitless shots.
 

s0m3th1ng

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Aug 29, 2010
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RicoADF said:
s0m3th1ng said:
Wouldn't it be much easier/cheaper to just shoot projectiles at that short of a distance? It's nice as a proof of concept but totally inadequate as a combat weapon. The other mega death ray mentioned however, scares the crap out of me. It's only downside would be the line of sight requirement, and even then they will probably be able to bounce it off satellites to hit targets over the horizon.
Oh and the massive power consumption...but you can always just add another reactor. I wonder what weapon system would weigh less...A 10 inch gun, its ammo, and systems...or that laser and its extra reactor.
One very important difference, that 10 inch gun has limited ammo, a laser with a nuclear reactor powering it is virtually limitless shots.
Running out of ammo is unheard of in the Navy.