Lasers

[Lord Soth]

How much longer does everyone here think it will be before we see lasers in the form of small arms on the battlefield or the civilian market? Will they come about soon? Also did anyone see that Discovery Channel show where they showed that airplane mounted laser that if I remember correclty was going to be used to shoot down missles?

 

[Jim Watson]

On the battlefield as a crew served weapon, the Airborne Laser is supposed to zap its first missile the year after next. The Army has a demonstrator anti missile, anti aircraft projector that has already shot down a drone. But it takes up three truckloads of equipment. They hope to get it down to one. Deployment, I'd say a decade.
Small arms; not nearly that soon. I read of a conceptual design for a laser rifle with a projected 20-25 year development horizon. Somebody converted the units to terms that make sense to shooters. It would have the energy on target of a .45ACP+P and the recoil of an elephant gun.
Civilian; never. A beam weapon is inherently full auto or the equivalent.

 

[Mal H]

".. recoil of an elephant gun."
What?? I wonder why that would be. Photons must be getting heavier these days.

 

[Jim Watson]

It is a gasdynamic laser; which generates the energy state for lasing by flowing hot, high pressure gas (heated by a radioactive charge in the gas reservoir, woo, woo) through a venturi nozzle into the mirrored laser tube. Like a rocket.

 

[KC]

Hmmm, I thought that various nations had already put blinding lasers into the field. (US, China, Israel, and others.) As far as man-portable lasers, at least ones that will do physical damage and not simply dazzle instrumentation or personel, the storage density of the batteries needs to increase dramatically.

The anti-missile laser on the jetliner has been around for a couple of decades. An old chemical laser testbed has been rotting at Davis Monthan for at least 13 years now. There a few newer ones being played with by NASA and Co. The older one(s) were a constant explosion hazard; the chem tanks were pressurized well over their safety tolerances for the experiment, and there was grossly inadequate shielding on them. One pinhole leak and it would have been over...and spread out over several acres of desert.

So far as the ground based mobile anti-missile laser system goes, I had thought that the Israelis had been, or soon were to receive, a couple on loan from the US.


KC

 

[SquirrelNuts]

As far as man-portable lasers, at least ones that will do physical damage and not simply dazzle instrumentation or personel, the storage density of the batteries needs to increase dramatically.

I did see an interesting program on less than lethal technologies that demonstrated a green laser that disorients you and might make you sick. Sounds like a very useful tool to me.

-SquirrelNuts

 

[Feanaro]

I think small arms lasers are quite a bit away. We need a building to generate the power for a laser, if I remember correctly. That is a LOT of power.

 

[resmeth]

Just as a guess I would say 30 years. The anti-ICBM laser project is well known (a big laser in a 747), In the last 6 months Lockeed-Martin was given a contract to work on directed energy weapons in a fighter.
Couple that with the comercial attempts to pack more energy into less space for consumer fuel-cells, it shouldn't be too long until an affective heavy-weight squad based laser system is developed. Then it is just a hop skip and jump until the laser pistol.
If it takes 40 to 50 years I will probably still be alive, if I could fire one of those it would be too cool.

 

[SquirrelNuts]

The show I watched had a small laser mounted in a Hummer. The only problem with generating the entergy required to do any damage was that it drained the diesel fuel tanks in 30 seconds.

-SquirrelNuts