US Laser and Rail Gun Development News

Re: US Airborne Laser (ABL) shoots down boosting ballistic missile

It is also possible that a few years following the ABL entering operational service, other advanced militaries may have ground-based anti-air lasers in service as well.
 

siegecrossbow

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Re: US Airborne Laser (ABL) shoots down boosting ballistic missile

Awesome news!! Does anyone know whether the sister project to ABL, the advanced tactical laser, has succeeded against ground targets?
 

Scratch

Captain
Re: US Airborne Laser (ABL) shoots down boosting ballistic missile

Apparently, the ATL has damaged a moving vehicle in a test last fall, and also already defeated other, stationary targets. How effective that system can be or how close it is to being operational I dont know.
 

Jeff Head

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Registered Member
US Successfully engages multiple UAVs over water with navalized Laser CIWS

Having talked about this on another site, someone made the mention of how particle beams would prove to be more effective than lasers, even with the focusing and power generation issues.
Charged particle weapons will follow the laser development.

Right now, the laser system continues to progress.

The official name now is the US Navy's Laser Weapons System or LaWS. Under contract, Raytheon has coupled a32-50 megawatt laser with the Phalynx CIWS and has been testing it for the last 2-3 years.

In 2010 they used it to shoot down several UAVs over water.

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I expect the LaWS to be coupled with stronger lasers (FEL) as time goes on and the power is available (ie. with the new Ford Class carriers and the Zumwalt class destroyers. Within ten years you will see the US mount effective laser CIWS capable of downing low flying, high speed crusie missiles, and ballistic missiles from US Navy vessels.
 

Jeff Head

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Registered Member
Naval Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

With the progress in naval weapons systems and the power to drive the more exotic forms of them, I thought it would be good to have a seperate thread to post and talk about the latest developments the US Navy is having in the area of Laser CIWS and Railgun Technology.

So here are a couple of the latest reports:

US Navy NAVSEA said:
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During the test, the Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS), guided by Raytheon’s Phalanx Close-In Weapon System sensors, engaged and destroyed four UAV targets flying over water near the Navy’s weapons and training facility. It is expected that a powerful enough system to engage the full spectrum of threats can be developed and initially deployed by 2016.

Here's a US Congress Brief from 2011 on US Navy Laser Considerations:

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A couple of pics:

Laws-01.jpg


Laws-02.jpg


And a video of the 2011 maritime test:

[video=youtube;gn0WqJL6GCI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn0WqJL6GCI[/video]

FoxNews said:
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Navy scientists with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) hit a new milestone, successfully firing their electromagnetic railgun for the 1,000th time as the state-of-the-art weapon edges closer to real world deployment.

A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And though still in testing, it's quite real, as the U.S. Navy proved in a record-setting test Monday, Oct. 31, in Dahlgren, Va.

Here's a picture of a test:

railgun-02.jpg


And here's a video:

[video=youtube;i1q_rRicAwI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1q_rRicAwI[/video]
 
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Blitzo

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Re: US Navy Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

Hmm I thought the railgun was cancelled by the senate last year

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But good to see it apparently isn't. Good thing too, cause we can be sure other countries, namely china and Russia are looking into this technology too
 

Jeff Head

General
Registered Member
Re: US Navy Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

Hmm I thought the railgun was cancelled by the senate last year

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But good to see it apparently isn't. Good thing too, cause we can be sure other countries, namely china and Russia are looking into this technology too
Well, as of November 2011, they had continued testing and fired the 1000th round. So unless it had been cancelled since, she's still going.

Here's a link on Fox News:

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Scratch

Captain
Re: US Navy Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

Interesting & inspiring stuff Jeff, thanks for posting.
As to railgun development, in April last year the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to end the programm, but in the new defense bill authorization act signed by the US President a month ago, he demanded a feasability update, so it still has a chance to go forward. (see FoxNews article below)
These guns obviously transfer a lot of energy to the projectile, I wonder how much of a problem recoil will present. There's hardly been any big guns installed on ships in the last decades. And even the Zunwalt has "only" two 155mm guns. So will they require a mounting so heavy that only really big vessels can carry those, or do you think they'll fit onto "regular" future destroyers as well?

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Incredible, sci-fi railgun takes step toward reality
Published January 30, 2012 | FoxNews.com

A theoretical dream for decades, the futuristic railgun -- which uses magnets to shoot bullets for hundreds of miles at speeds of up to Mach 7 -- just took another step toward reality.
Military supply company Raytheon announced Monday that it had been awarded a $10 million naval contract to develop a way to supply enough juice to power the whopping gun -- which could someday reshape naval warfare.

"This new system will dramatically change how our Navy defends itself and engages enemies while at sea," said Joe Biondi, vice president of advanced technology for Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business.
Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the railgun uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7.
But it takes a heck of a lot of electricity to achieve such a velocity.
To supply it, Raytheon’s building a “Pulse Forming Network” or PFN. That's a large power system that stores up electrical power and then converts it to a pulse that is directed into the gun's barrel, John Cochran, the railgun program manager in Raytheon's Advanced Technology Group, told CNET’s News.com.
Navy scientists with the Office of Naval Research (ONR) have been hard at work on the railgun itself for years, even as the agency admits it could take a decade or more to become practical. The ONR hit a new milestone last fall, successfully firing the railgun for the 1,000th time on Mon., Oct. 31, in Dahlgren, Va., -- edging the state-of-the-art weapon toward real-world deployment.
The next step: turning the test versions of the railgun into an actual gun. Current firings have been limited to Naval test facilities on dry land.

The future of the railgun looked in doubt last summer. The Senate Armed Services Committee voted in April of 2011 to eliminate funding for two of the Navy’s most futuristic (and by the same token least concrete) weapons: the free electron laser, essentially a super-powered death ray, and the railgun.
That changed on Dec. 31, 2011, when President Obama finally signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, or H.R. 1540. A section in that bill demands an update on the feasibility of the electromagnetic railgun, but doesn't kill the weapon outright.
Instead it delays the end, requiring the Secretary of Defense to submit a report this summer on the feasibility of developing and deploying the electromagnetic rail gun system to be used for either land- or ship-based force protection.

And another one, same topic ...

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Navy railgun with 220 mile range closer to reality
January 30, 2012 10:02 AM - By Daniel Terdiman

Imagine a Naval gun so powerful it can shoot a 5-inch projectile up to 220 miles, yet requires no explosives to fire.
That's the Navy's futuristic electromagnetic railgun, a project that could be deployed on the service's ships by 2025, and which is now a little bit closer to reality with the signing of a deal with Raytheon for the development of what's known as the pulse-forming network.
Rather than using explosives to fire projectiles as do conventional naval weapons, the railgun depends on an electromagnetic system that uses the ship's onboard electrical power grid to fire the gun. The pulse-forming network is a system that stores up electrical power and then converts it to a pulse that is directed into the gun's barrel, explained John Cochran, the railgun program manager in Raytheon's Advanced Technology Group.
Essentially, Cochran continued, the process is akin to that of a car's starter, and how turning the ignition sends a jolt of electricity into the solonoid, which then creates a magnetic field in the solonoid/starter system. With the railgun, he said, current is sent into the barrel, forming a magnetic field, and that, in combination with the current, exerts force on a projectile, firing it out of the barrel. At Mach 0.75.
While Raytheon has scored the $10 million project to develop the pulse-forming network, it isn't the only contractor working on such a system. According to Roger Ellis, the program manager for the Railgun program at the Office of Naval Research, the Navy has awarded similar contracts to BAE Systems and General Atomics in a risk-reduction strategy that counts on having multiple contractors attacking a problem in order to arrive at the best possible technology.

One of the main reasons behind the Navy's railgun program is that being able to power the gun electromagnetically is seen as much safer than having to use conventional explosives.
At the same time, because the power for the railgun will come from ships' standard battery banks, the Navy shouldn't have to maintain large amounts of space on board for storage of the explosives traditionally used to fire big guns. Still, that's an issue that hasn't entirely been solved yet, Cochran said. "The main challenge is to get large amounts of energy being stored into smaller and smaller packages," Cochran said, "such that they can be used in a modular and versatile way for multiple platforms."
At the same time, Raytheon and its competitors have to convince the Navy that they've solved all the potential safety problems that can come from having high voltage and high current in close proximity.

The Navy began pursuing the railgun in 2005, and for now, there are only lab prototypes of the weapon. But already the Navy has set a world record (see video below) for muzzle energy used in a weapon--33 megajoules. According to Defense Market, a shot of that magnitude could potentially reach "extended ranges with Mach 5 velocity."
However, Ellis said, the Navy has awarded contracts to BAE and General Atomics to build prototypes that "are more tactical in nature."
And when the railgun is finally deployed, it is likely to be used--or at least be ready for action--in several different kinds of missions. First, Ellis explained, it could be used from a ship to fire inland in support of marines as they come ashore.
At the same time, because the weapon's range is so long, it could allow a Naval ship that features the railgun to defend itself from sea-borne threats long before it can itself be attacked, or from missiles fired from land or sea.
Now it's on to the next phase of the project. According to Ellis, that phase includes demonstrating that it's possible to fire a railgun at a rate of 10 rounds per minute, as well as doing new kinds of thermal and cooling tests. Ellis also said that while the Office of Naval Research has said that the railgun could be ready by 2025, that timing is when the work on the science and technology side of things could be done. Actual deployment could take longer owing to financial and political considerations.
 

Equation

Lieutenant General
Re: US Navy Laser CIWS and Rail Gun Technology and Development News

Awww sweet! Thank you Jeff!
 
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