Lockheed Martin fires most powerful portable LASER weapon it has ever created in hi-tech race to rep
Source: Daily Mail
Lockheed Martin fires most powerful portable LASER weapon it has ever created in hi-tech race to replace missiles
It is a weapon that could mean the end of traditional missiles.
Lockheed Martin revealed is has tested the a 30-kilowatt electric fiber laser, the highest power ever fired.
The firm says the weapon could eventually be mounted on jets, tanks and fighter planes - and will more than triple in strength before being used in combat.
The record-breaking power output was achieved by combining many fiber lasers into a single, near-perfect quality beam of light.
The process, called Spectral Beam Combining, sends beams from multiple fiber laser modules, each with a unique wavelength, into a combiner that forms a single, powerful, high quality beam.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2551219/Lockheed-Martin-reveals-portable-LASER-weapon-used-the.html
FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)FiveGoodMen
(20,018 posts)Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)C_U_L8R
(45,035 posts)Dustlawyer
(10,499 posts)mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)W.J. McCabe
(74 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Don't think they haven't thought about it.
penultimate
(1,110 posts)Auggie
(31,230 posts)kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)unhappycamper
(60,364 posts)Deuce
(959 posts)James48
(4,444 posts)Even after spending $5 BILLION dollars developing it over the last 16 years, the Pentagon completely defunded the R&D program in 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YAL-1
Why??
Because they learned it can easily be defeated....with a $500 or less MIRROR.
You just can't make this stuff up.....
mindwalker_i
(4,407 posts)They'll be tanks with a bunch of articulated arms like you see on lamps, holding mirrors like this around them on all sides. Then some clown will come by with a brick of mass destruction.
quakerboy
(13,923 posts)Aw yeah!
valerief
(53,235 posts)another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Only terrorists will have mirrors.
valerief
(53,235 posts)and you should be ashamed of yourself, young lady!
adirondacker
(2,921 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Very good!
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)Checkmate!
paleotn
(18,012 posts)re-reflect off the original target's mirror. Heck, just make the surfaces of all your assets nice and shiny. Problem solved.
I wonder if you can get chrome in cammo?
frwrfpos
(517 posts)and less time on feeding people
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
JCMach1
(27,590 posts)and will drop reflective chaff, and thick chemical smoke
For every measure there is a counter-measure...
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)Wire grid -- for micro waves
metallic -- for tasers
back to chain mail.
Ligyron
(7,645 posts)paleotn
(18,012 posts)packman
(16,296 posts)the Pentagon has just announced a multi-billion project that will throw rocks at the mirrors, breaking them so the lasers can do their job.
PFunk
(876 posts)i.e guns and cannons.
'nuff said.
jmowreader
(50,589 posts)The anti-mirror tank will be armed with the LockheedMartin laser plus a 120mm smoothbore cannon. First the gun will fire an armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot round (labeled APFSDS) and once it's penetrated the mirrors, the laser will ignite and engage the vehicle.
And like the little boy in The Emperor's New Clothes who announced to one and all that the emperor was walking down the street with his dick hanging out, the sergeant major of the first battalion to be issued this wonder weapon will ask, "if we have to shoot the target with an antitank cannon before we shoot it with the antitank laser, what the fuck do we need the laser for?"
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Downwinder
(12,869 posts)only to lesser people.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)As one rather militaristic Evangelist not too long ago suggested, "If Jesus were alive today, he would be a Navy Seal!"
Ed Suspicious
(8,879 posts)another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Though I remember seeing the quote maybe a couple of years ago, I do not remember the source.
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)OK, this has got to be the creepiest Jesus drawing ever.
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The beginning of an anime pornography
NBachers
(17,186 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)Crowman1979
(3,844 posts)valerief
(53,235 posts)ManiacJoe
(10,136 posts)Given the size of that truck trailer, they still have some work to do for those airborne options.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)As more nations get nukes, especially unstable ones, this will become a necessity.
penultimate
(1,110 posts)got them. I also say it's safe to say that NK is by far the most unstable nation on the planet (or at least tied with Canada), and they have yet to launch any nukes toward anyone. Even they know that doing so would just mean their demise.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)It's inevitable. Since we can't stop them, we need the means to swat nukes out if the sky.
Even if a country were to invite it's own destruction, they may irrationally launch anyways to either get the first shot in or because they believe that they're unstoppable. Irrational leaders like Kim Jung-Un are unpredictable, and may suddenly launch their nukes on a crazy whim.
There's also the possibility of rogue generals, terrorist coups, etc. It never hurts to be overly cautious, especially when millions could die.
7962
(11,841 posts)Like it or not thats the world today. The Chinese have already written about using the moon as a military base. Projecting their navy outward, claiming islands from other countries, etc. The Russians? Well, what ARENT they doing?
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)I mean certainly we can afford at least 75% of the yearly national budget for this.
jmowreader
(50,589 posts)"Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?"
ut oh
(905 posts)if someone had posted this yet... If not I was gonna do it... dam you!!!
sakabatou
(42,202 posts)JCMach1
(27,590 posts)sofa king
(10,857 posts)The Defense Department was backing laser/MASER research in the 1950s, and some early success in the 1960s led to a flying laser platform, the Airborne Laser Laboratory, by the mid-1970s.
One of the more interesting and annoying things about airborne lasers is that they generate the massive amounts of power needed through chemical reactions very similar to those used by hypergolic rockets. But in this case, venting the massive amounts of high-temperature gas in just one direction would instantly destabilize the laser and possibly damage the aircraft and crew. So the ALL and its more shadowy brethren have always had the problem of how to vent a rocket's worth of corrosive hot gas in all directions at once. I have no idea how that works.
Most of Reagan's Star Wars horse-poop was simply a cash handout to contractors for them to re-write the proposals they had already written in the 1960s and '70s. The reason why there is such a thing as the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty is because the U.S. was preparing to deploy an ABM system in the early 1970s, long before Saint Ronnie ballooned the federal deficit to re-build it in his own Hollywood image.
The bottom line is that unless some truly dramatic advance has come about, a laser-toting aircraft has to drag tons and tons of propellant--or reactant--with it, it fires with an infrared signature large enough to be seen from space, it has to keep itself precisely trained on a ridiculously fast target, it requires a direct line of sight to the target and, oh yes, rain and clouds are a problem, but who needs to worry about that in the sky?
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)boondoggle.
They will persuade Pentagon to buy this crap for billions, then keep selling them missiles since it won't work outside the lab.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)of eventually getting their hands on these.
SamKnause
(13,114 posts)We're number one USA, USA, USA, USA.
We're number one in invasions, warmongering, death, destruction, spying, incarcerations, and spreading worldwide terror.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)We do that and we'll be set.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)Prisoner_Number_Six
(15,676 posts)That would be bad.