100Kw laser plane [Archive] - The Explosives and Weapons Forum

Mick

September 28th, 2002, 12:39 PM

<a href="http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_military.jsp?view=story&id=news/masd0926.xml" target="_blank">http://www.aviationnow.com/avnow/news/channel_military.jsp?view=story&id=news/masd09 26.xml</a>
is it me or does this just sound way to "star trekish"? :D

after reading the topic <a href="http://www.roguesci.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000403" target="_blank">"Penetrating thick skinned targets"</a> which dealt with numerous hypothetical ways to defeat reactive armor. i figured this new theoretical weapon should be thrown into the "Think tank" to see what everyone comes up with.

so, people what are you thoughts on it?
how effective do you think something like this would be against certain targets?(ie. tanks, buildings, infantry, saddam etc etc etc) or more to the point, what would it do to the target?
and how do you suppose you would defend against something like this?

now, i know diddly sqaut about lasers and what the power ratings mean on them(a 100Kw laser is the same as a pen laser as far as i know).
the first idea that came into my head was just to reflect the beam with a mirror(obviously some kind of special mirror).
you could possibly improve on that idea by hooking this special mirror upto a computer of sorts which would calculate the location of the plane that fired it and tilt the mirror accordingly so it reflects back at the plane.(like i said, i know squat about lasers..so i'm really just pissing in the wind to see what happens)

sorry if this is in the wrong section - i just figured it could go here, cause the topic <a href="http://www.roguesci.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000403" target="_blank">"Penetrating thick skinned targets"</a> which dealt with defeating reactive armor etc did. anways, moved to the right section if its wrong.

[ September 28, 2002, 11:40 AM: Message edited by: Mick ]

vulture

September 28th, 2002, 01:18 PM

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> now, i know diddly sqaut about lasers and what the power ratings mean on them(a 100Kw laser is the same as a pen laser as far as i know).<hr /></blockquote>Err, a pen laser is 2mW = 0,002W. 100kW = 100000W! This kind of laser would vaporize a tank! It would be overkill to use it on a tank.

vir sapit qui pauca loquitur

September 28th, 2002, 02:21 PM

i believe that lasers would be a GREAT idea, IF we all had access to the common components of a laser (the higher power lasers rely on iodine/hydrogen peroxide combination i believe)

EDIT: I know that these chemicals are available but the precision machined mirrors and focusing lenses are hard to come by and hard to make well

basically, GOOD lasers are hard to make unless you have access to highly specialised machinery. If access to a friendly university campus could be arranged then i'm sure that a portable weapon with multiple shots could be made, but it would be a chemical laser rather then an electrical laser (higher energy/density charactoristics then batteries) but this would limit the weapon to being about 20/30 shots and it would be limited in range/limited to anti-personnel (a big-ass weapon that can only shoot 20/30 times and then needs to be reloaded with hazardous chemicals sounds really practical) .... all the usual things attributed to lasers (and by the way, it would be nigh-on impossible to make the adaptive mirror using easy to access components)

i suppose a one shot weapon COULD work, in a bazooka configuration with large chemical tanks (=heavy) then you might have a anti-APC vehicle but anti-tank i doubt.

lasers work on the idea of exciting atoms within a chamber, this excitation is then ceased and the atoms return to the previous energy state by emitting the laser light. this happens multiple times and each "wave packet" (over-simplification) joins with other packets which add together and form the laser beam as we see it. This laser beam causes the target to become hot, the beam is so intense infact that the beam practically only heats the local area (cross-section of beam) and so the transmitted energy heats only a small area (i.e. 1mm across) this means that a human would have a small spot that is for a brief instant BOILING (water in tissues would be boiling off) and then the solid mass become super-heated and it burns away.....

solid objects work on a similar principle, the moisture evaporates, and then the material burns away (in oxygen)... this requires a lot of heat to produce and if you are playing across the target then it becomes a LOT harder as the heat mus be sufficient to burn through the armour at the moment the laser plays across it.

(please forgive me for vastly over-simplifying the process but it would be quite a few pages of high level chemistry/physics to get across the full extent of the problem)

p.s. mirrors would work but in reality they need to cover the target to work, and REALLY high power lasers would vapourise them after a short while.

[ September 28, 2002, 02:16 PM: Message edited by: vir sapit qui pauca loquitur ]

Boob Raider

September 29th, 2002, 09:45 PM

Well lasers are a really sexy choice but as most of you know .... a sexy chick with you :D isn't so healthy for the pocket either :( . Even a 100W CO2 laser is out of the reach of most enthusiasts (sp?), let alone excimer :( . The net doesn't have much info on them but there is shit load of info about the other kinds .... Samuel M. Goldwasser is really good <a href="http://www.repairfaq.org" target="_blank">http://www.repairfaq.org</a> but like I said ... it might hurt your wallet.

Anthony

September 29th, 2002, 10:01 PM

I'll believe it when I see it!

Not only is that laser going to be fecking huge and heavy... the biggest problem is going to be powering it! A 1MW generator is going to be seriously heavy! Even the cabling to carry is going to be high.

Say the plane has the room and more importantly can carry the wait *and* still be fast and maneouverable enough to be deemed a fighter, 1MW = approx 1250HP, plus loses in generator. It'll be interesting to see the effect drawing that power from the main engine has, and also how they intend to gear the jet engine's shaft speed down to a manageable speed to run the genny. Also how big and heavy this box will be to handle 1250+HP.

megalomania

September 29th, 2002, 10:13 PM

They were talking about this on CNN a few hours ago. The first test is in 2 years and it will be on a 747. That means it won't be small if they need an entire jumbo jet to haul it. They plan on the first prototype systems for fighter jets being available within 10 years. First it will be used as anti missile defence, then against enemy aircraft, then ground vehiches and troops. They said it would only damage electronic circuitry in its first iterations. That means by 2030 we might actually have such weapons to zap you from the sky.

12 years I bought a laser for $600 about the size of a loaf of bread, with an ac adapter the size of a brick. It had no more power than a pen laser does today. Last year I got a pen laser for 5 bucks smaller than a pen even. See the trend here?

NoltaiR

September 29th, 2002, 10:51 PM

Sounds like an adults version of 'laser tag'... I could just imagine the WWIII infantry running in with little laser guns and chemical photon packs on their backs... it would be exactly like a land version of star trek!

I know that the thought of this should probably make me a bit afraid, but for some reason I just can't stop smiling :D

Madog555

September 29th, 2002, 11:34 PM

i have a small He/Ne laser that my uncle obtained for me a couple years ago, he works for a german laser company, he has a T-laser and a CO2 laser in his basement, realy fun to play with. they are both infared, but if u focus the T-laser (need some weird material sience it doesnt go throguh glass to do this) it will turn the air to plasma at the focal point.

MrSamosa

September 29th, 2002, 11:44 PM

I can't really add much to this discussion, but if you all are interested in international regulations and the rules of war... Lasers are not allowed to be used against personnel; only vehicles. Similarly, you are not allowed to fire an anti-tank weapon at a person, but you are allowed to throw grenades at them. :confused:

Nika452

September 30th, 2002, 12:30 AM

Apparently using long-range UAV's bearing weapons for combat operations was also against the rules of war, due to the 1988 INF treaty. But this doesn't stop Bush.

vir sapit qui pauca loquitur

September 30th, 2002, 04:58 AM

Actually you can not use BLINDING lasers "laser-weapons whose sole purpose is to incapacitate via the blinding of opposition troops"

this is the f&*ked up thing about war,
you are allowed to shoot him, burn him,nuke him but not blind him :confused: what sort of screwed up idea is that....

it may interest you all that the chinks have made and sell blinding lasers, it blinded/dazzled a few american pilots in kosovo.

the ABM 747 mega, is actually made with a MUCH higher powered
laser then 1mw, its designed to knock theater ballistic missiles (TBM'S)and most inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM'S)out of the air. As such it requires vast amounts of energy, and so it utilises the chemical excitation that i mentioned :D the smaller laser (what we're talking about) would be solid state (ruby laser etc) and would most probably have a seperate generator built within the craft (or an attachable generator in the shape of payload i.e. "dumb" bomb) if you think about the abilities that this posseses (able to fire many times without reloading, able to use without compromising stealth charactoristics etc) then the laser is an attractive option, as the power will always go up after some new technological breakthrough, or a bit of R&D on this laser in combat...

we might get up to the point that sci-fi wanted us to be in about 50 years. I think that in the past people over-estimated what we were going to do (i.e. live on moon in the 80's) but at the moment we are underestimating what we'll be doing, as the technology coming through could allow us some serious weapons, cappable of winning a war if used at the right time. I'm not talking about a B-2, it's more likely a prototype that the american governement has in white-sands missle base. the aurora or its newer cousin
(i was about to describe it as "sexy new cousin" i'm a tad worried now that i have romantic notions on an airplane :D )

[ September 30, 2002, 03:59 AM: Message edited by: vir sapit qui pauca loquitur ]

imported_Crow

September 30th, 2002, 07:25 AM

I was watching a program the other night 'Future weapons' that had something similar. It is so large that it will have to be built into a boeing 747 and it is so far, only under development to bring down missiles. The lasser is only powerful enough to melt through the metal sheilding of the rocket, and use its own propellents to bring it down. The laser is far to large at this point, in my opinion, to ever be used in a fighter, since this one in a boesing747 is pretty weak itself(I forget the wattage). :rolleyes:

vir sapit qui pauca loquitur

September 30th, 2002, 12:21 PM

It's not actually weak, its because there is such a huge distance between the target and the laser plane, we're talking hundreds of miles
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> The oxygen-iodine laser fired from the nose of the aircraft will be capable of burning a hole the size of a basketball in a missile's skin at a distance of 200 miles, generating temperatures hotter than 10,000 100-watt light bulbs, officials say. The actual temperature of the laser is classified, said Kenneth Englade, a spokesman for the project.<hr /></blockquote>(taken from CNN.COM) I dont really understand how they consider the temperature to be classified, go figure the military swot that decided that :rolleyes:

after reading another website it said that the POWER was classified, makes a bit more sense that, they say it produces more then 1MW but that the exact figure is classified. i suppose that you could take the theoretical power given in the example and putting in a few presumptions you would have the power.

<blockquote>quote:<hr /> Developed by the U.S. Air Force in 1977, the laser relies on a chemical reaction between chlorine, hydrogen peroxide and iodine to create an actual explosion of light. That light is funneled down a long mirrored tube and exits the aircraft through a flexible lens in the nose cone.

Air Force engineers hope to create laser blasts capable of exceeding seven minutes, with planes able to fire off 20 to 30 shots before landing <hr /></blockquote>shit that's powerful, SEVEN MINUTES <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> and 20 to thirty shots. I would guess this is a large margin below the ACTUAL figure as to confuse anyone that would oppose this on the basis of being "against the spirit" of the ABM treaty.

and one last point that i read from the website that gave me a creepy feeling
<blockquote>quote:<hr /> No human finger will actually pull a trigger. Onboard computers will decide when to fire the beam. Machinery will be programmed to fire because human beings may not be fast enough to determine whether a situation warrants the laser's use, said Col. Lynn Wills of U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, who is to oversee the battle management suite.

The nose-cone turret is still under construction "This all has to happen much too fast," Wills said. "We will give the computer its rules of engagement before the mission, and it will have orders to fire when the conditions call for it."

<hr /></blockquote>Isn't that a bit worrying, if your passenger aircraft happened to get caught in the way of the (possibly windows :D ) OS having a bit of a crash then you could be BBQ'd in an instant <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

how long before that 747 is given full A.I. and starts deciding who to zap, it'll probably be called "skyweb" :rolleyes:

[ September 30, 2002, 12:14 PM: Message edited by: vir sapit qui pauca loquitur ]

Mr Cool

September 30th, 2002, 05:24 PM

I've seen (on TV, obviously) a demonstration of a ground-based system shoot down a little plane/rocket thingy. I was quite impressed by the accuracy of the thing. IIRC it used a computer controlled array of mirrors to direct the beam and counteract the "twinkling" effect caused by variations in the density of the Earth's atmosphere. Must've been a pretty hardcore set of mirrors to direct that kind of energy!

But the main point of this post is:

"...the laser relies on a chemical reaction ... to create an actual explosion of light. That light is funneled down a long mirrored tube..."

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! ROFLMAO!

"you can not use ... 'laser-weapons whose sole purpose is to incapacitate via the blinding of opposition troops'"

Lol, you can aim anywhere except the eyes. That's stupid.

Soldier: "Sorry mate, I would just blind you but there's a treaty saying that I can't, so I'm afraid I'll have to burn you to death with it instead."
Some poor old Arab on a camel with an AK: "Fair enough, I suppose. After all, you wouldn't want to be inhumane, would you?"

:rolleyes:

vulture

September 30th, 2002, 05:45 PM

The thing's chemically powered...Much more interesting than needing a power supply, this means it could actually refuel inflight maybe! Or did I just gave away a good idea to the defence guys? :confused:

[ September 30, 2002, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: vulture ]

Anthony

September 30th, 2002, 06:29 PM

The original article states:

"Lockheed Martin anticipates the JSF using lasers against both air and ground targets, at a typical range of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles)"

Which is a bit different to the mention of 200 miles - but then we know the accuracy of mass media reporting from their coverage of explosives!

"generating temperatures hotter than 10,000 100-watt light bulbs"

WTF? That really makes very little sense... But I can see where it's come from: 10 000 x 100 watt bulbs = the aforementioned 1MW power rating of the laser, they've just equated it to lightbulbs! But to *deliver* 1MW is going to require an input of about 10MW plus loses through anywhere up to 200 miles of atmosphere!

I think that even if they can build this thing, hitting the target is going to be darn difficult. In 30 years when this laser might be feasible, ICBMs will probably travelling at hypervelocity and hitting one from 200 miles is going to take some doing!

I think this is just another pet project/fantasy of some official, like the starwars project.

sparkchaser

November 9th, 2006, 09:39 AM

The plane does exist, and it does work. The 747 had to be extensively modified, using a large quantity of titanium. The actual laser is shielded from the cockpit completely by a thick titanium bulkhead. The engines have been greatly upgraded to handle the extra take off weight. The nose turret is a gymballed mirror that can fire in most directions in front of the plane, and is able to track targets real time.

The fuel is kept in a dozen or so canisters that eject from the belly of the plane after being used, and blow out a burst disk in doing so, so no refuelling in flight. The main object of the laser is not so much to burn through the missile per se, but instead to weaken the exterior enough that the force of the missile's engine or atmospheric conditions will actually fold it in half.

The first iteration of the plane was so heavy, and the standard engines so weak that the pilot was barely able to get it off the ground. The damage amounted to a scraped up runway, and the bottom part of the tail section was turned into shredded aluminum.

I bet that was a nail biter of a take off!

Ygarl

December 29th, 2006, 12:11 PM

Err, a pen laser is 2mW = 0,002W. 100kW = 100000W! This kind of laser would vaporize a tank! It would be overkill to use it on a tank.

Only at low-altitude ranges. Depending on the wavelength, clarity of the air, clouds etc. a 100kW laser could be considered just the ticket for tank-killing.

An unmanned plane (Remotely-operated obviously) circling at 70k+ to 90k+ feet up above a battlefield would be a reasonably cheap and very effective strategic weapon against tanks and APCs.

+++++++++++++

Destroying tanks and APC's on a battlefield would make it a tactical weapon, not a strategic weapon, which are used to destroy enemy infrastructure (and civilians), war material, and production capacity.

NBK