Maybe it'd be more cost-effective, even more suitable, to convert old F-15A/Bs and soon-to-be-replaced C/Ds into remote controlled target drones, like what they've been doing with the F-16s by turning them into QF-16s.
US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.
- Thread starter tphuang
- Start date
I saw it.
Americans are already designing lasers of 200-300 kW, as well as of the 500 kW class, because of the threat of cruise missiles, mainly sea-skimming. Just as there are other projects of lasers in the 1 MW class.
What is being developed, at least at first, is the use of high energy laser against nearby targets.
The functions that are most evident:
1- defense of ships against asymmetric threats (boats and drones);
2- defense of ground forces and high-value targets against drones and C-RAM function;
3- use in helicopters and airplanes (manned and unmanned) against vulnerable targets on land and at sea;
4- use in aircraft against air threats, including anti-missile capability, with the advantage that in the air-to-air function the atmosphere is thinner, which reduces beam dissipation.
As higher-powered lasers are developed they will test them against less collaborative threats, such as in the anti-ship missile or C-PGM function.
As there is a treaty that prohibits the installation of weapons in orbit, they will not be installed on satellites at first, but would be the ideal place to provide defense against ballistic missiles (acting in the missile impulse phase) and against HGVs. I think it's inevitable that this will happen one day.
It should be noted that only in the sup-sup function is there a greater amount of dense atmosphere to be traversed, but then the laser can be larger, as in the case of those installed on ships.
When the target is at a different level (sup-air or air-sup) in many cases the amount of denser atmosphere is less. Also in the air-to-air case.
For example, a laser installed on an AC-130 that typically approaches the target within 2 km or less could use a laser from 5 km away to destroy sensitive targets, such as a tanker. Of course it can't be without cannons, but against some targets the laser would be the ideal weapon and having it available increases the plane's flexibility.
All that remains is to explain how Americans, who come from a failed experiment since the 60s, managed to solve all the problems related to laser.
Is this for real? Have you checked the map of Afghanistan and India?
Maybe he got confused. @TerraN_EmpirE there is no land border between Afghanistan and India
Anyway lets go back to topic of the US military
But it's you who's making an "emotional play" and using the humanity canard that western propagandists like you and your like minded fellows love to trout whenever it suits your argument. But that Schick doesn't hold any candles anymore to most people that are not so easily blinded by the Hollywood sanitized version of western foreign policy misadventure and failures. The numbers of people alone that's been killed by U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan far exceed the number of casualties inflicted by the taliban. Even the drone attacks in Afghanistan were only 10 to 20% successful but the results were cooked to meet and push the western narrative of how accurate/humane the use of drones were against high value targets. It's also the sole reason why the whistle blower of this program has been sentenced or is facing a long ass jail time for breaking "national security" law.
Because they do work on projects pretty quietly like China does. There is no ppt show off or plastic model victory declarations like India. When things are ready they seem to come out of nowhere even though it's been funded and developed for decades behind the scenes.
In any case the Americans have solved all the problems since at least the airborne BMD laser project.
They have ship mounted laser DEW that have access to a lot more power. I think only the US and China have mounted >100KW ship borne laser weapons and demonstrated them bringing down cruise missile or various missile targets. I don't think either is revealing anything they are only just beginning to do. The evaluations would have been ongoing for some time no doubt and their delay in implementation (at least for the insanely powered up Type 055 class) seem to indicate their relative lack of effectiveness compared to missiles and guns, if nothing more than simply being less flexible and having lower effective range. A laser can only shoot at one target at a time as opposed to something like a group of HQ-16s being fires at an equal number of targets simultaneously. I would suspect neither have lasers powerful enough to be really effective beyond 50km - an easy range to achieve for ESSM and HQ-16.
The US laser project is not that secret. And the many failed experiments show us that we have to have doubts about these capabilities.
You mentioned the airborne laser. Lasers are impractical weapons. This is obvious to anyone who spends an hour reading about the limitations of lasers.
They are not useful weapons because of the enormous electrical energy required, because the atmosphere weakens and distorts the beam, because laser beams scatter, and because lasers must hold a precise spot on a moving target for several seconds for them to burn.
The airborne laser concept weighed tons, and that concept depended on dangerous chemical lasers, and so it was canceled, but as recent technological innovations allow solid-state lasers to increase in power, there is a rumor that they managed to eliminate the design's shortcomings laser.
Proposals to put lasers in aircraft are ridiculous, given the electrical power needed and the simple fact that bouncing aircraft cannot keep a laser pointed at a point, because an aircraft is not a stable platform.
Embedded lasers are also difficult to implement. Lasers are line-of-sight weapons (direct fire) and the earth is round. This means that a laser cannot engage a low-altitude attack missile until it is detected coming from the horizon about 40 km away. It takes several seconds for the radar to track a missile and aim the laser, so it takes maybe a minute to bring the missile down, and it requires several seconds of precise laser to burn its thin coating.
This is not possible from more than a kilometer away because the ship and missile are moving. Missiles bounce up and down during their flight path. Computer software can predict ship movements and compensate, but not perfectly for a laser engagement solution, and cannot predict oncoming missile movements. An oncoming missile is always making small flight adjustments to compensate for air turbulence while tracking its moving target, so a laser is unable to keep the beam on the target more than 1.8 km away due to tracking delay /aim.
This means that if a dozen missiles are approaching, the system may be able to take out just one. And because these systems are the size of a 5-inch cannon mount and require most of the ship's electrical power to fire, a cruiser or destroyer may only carry a few systems and will need to remove other weaponry to make room.
The laser's range is also limited because particles in the air reflect, scatter and distort the laser beams, even on a clear day. This quickly depletes the beam's power and limits its effective range to less than a kilometer away.
Several physical processes affect and limit the amount of laser energy that can be delivered to a target. These effects are interrelated and include thermal flowering, turbulence and molecular/aerosol absorption and dispersion. These processes affect the laser's intensity profile by modifying the refractive index of the air, which causes the laser beam's wavefront to distort. Wavefront distortion results in improved transverse laser beam propagation and can severely limit the amount of energy that can be propagated. The marine environment is particularly challenging for high energy laser (HEL) propagation due to its relatively high water vapor and aerosol content. In the infrared regime, water molecules and aerosols are the dominant source of absorption.
Also, lasers are useless in rain, fog, as the beam energy is lost quickly. Therefore, even though laser power is greatly improved with magical discoveries, an enemy can attack during unfavorable weather, when lasers are useless. Some claim that lasers are the only defense against oncoming supersonic missiles; however, these missiles are designed with a hardened nose made of materials to serve as a heat shield needed to resist air friction. It is unlikely that a few seconds of laser heating up close before hitting a ship would burn out and would not prevent the missile from hitting the ship, even if it did.
A floating missile approaching the sea presents a much smaller and much faster target, and if lasers proliferate, missile makers will introduce shiny stainless steel nose cones to reflect most of the laser light and sailors will go blind . They can also program the missile to fly in a narrow spiral to the ship the last kilometer, like the Russian anti-tank missile Kornet.
Lasers look great in tests when the target and laser are close and stationary on the ground, but when both are bouncing, accuracy is poor. A large, ultra-expensive laser can detonate an oncoming missile after several seconds of accurate laser approaching a ship, but it would still result in damage as the impulse (kinetic energy) of the missile fragments penetrates. Increasing the power of the lasers does not solve this targeting problem, the bad weather problem, and it increases the "thermal bloom" problem when the heated air particles expand more rapidly and weaken the beam. Lasers can blind optical systems and pilots (as the British did in the Falklands), so lasers are useful in this role.
Vehicle fixed lasers are useful for taking down small, low-flying drones. But lasers can never overcome their range limitation or produce the power needed to damage missiles and aircraft on contact.
In 2016, American experts began to complain that laser weapons are obviously impractical.
I could talk about a lot more limitations of a laser application. And a 100kW laser is not capable of taking down cruise missiles, only class lasers above 300kW. There is already an American project of 500 kW to perform this function.
I agree that lasers currently are next to worthless in intercepting missiles and especially missiles that turn. But for larger, slow moving targets, they can do a pretty good job from quite a distance.
Both China and US trial these things not because they are useful now, but because they may be useful a long time in the future. Certainly no navy is going to be really fielding laser DEW in replacement of guns and missiles. At least not now. They are developing the technology and keeping it going until it can become useful in some meaningful way and not just burning through a high flying, slow and simple trajectory targets.
Both China and US trial these things not because they are useful now, but because they may be useful a long time in the future. Certainly no navy is going to be really fielding laser DEW in replacement of guns and missiles. At least not now. They are developing the technology and keeping it going until it can become useful in some meaningful way and not just burning through a high flying, slow and simple trajectory targets.