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I think this article conveniently forgets to mention nothing hypersonic of sort will outrun lasers. lasers can't track of course and range is limited by factor

I think this article conveniently forgets to mention nothing hypersonic of sort will outrun lasers. lasers can't track of course and range is limited by factor like atmosphere and earth curve, but still, thinking about an hypothetical future scenario hypersonic weapons would just get lasered down by automated point defences all the same as conventional speed ordinance.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago
To shoot down a missile with a laser, you need a segment of light about 30-50 cm long, so the target doesn't move too much whilst burning a hole in it. In that little segment has to be the energy of at least a .50 BMG, so 20k joules of energy. In a portable form that can fire repeately, reliably. That's doable, but not easily.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  That's about one nanosecond of light. E.g. travelling 1000mph is about a foot per millisecond. I think your light could be 1000 times that long and still hit essentially the same point on the target?
  - CapitalistCartr 10y ago
    Travelling 1000mph is about mach 1.3. Hypersonic is mach 5 to perhaps mach 15, if our space launch research goes well. The target has to travel less than about 5 mm in that time. A foot would schmear the light too far. [Edit] OK, I've done a bit of calculating, and I think you're right. The laser pulse could be a maximum of about 175 meters long.
    - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
      A foot of light is necessary if you focus on a millionth of a foot of target. A longer bolt is acceptable if tolerances are looser than that. And they probably are. 5mm is about 1000X larger than that.
- LoSboccacc 10y ago
  yeah it's hard to do now, I agree, but it's not like hypersonic weapons are readily available, so I'm gonna wager lasers would get viable defenses in time.
justavoice 10y ago
you don't even need lasers to shoot them down. They won't be able to jink very well, so a scatter-shot shotgun type of defense system would work very well. The real key will be to have a point-defense system with look-down shoot-down capability that can be deployed at enough distance from the protected asset to ensure that even a detonation of a nuclear hypersonic missile would cause minimal to no damage.
ufmace 10y ago
Yes, that's what the article made me think - wide deployment of these types of weapons might make laser countermeasures the only viable protection, and thus spur the development of laser weapons.
sliken 10y ago
Typical airplanes and missles have very thin skins, often of aluminum or titanium. Fairly easy to track, fairly easy to puncture. You also have time to carefully track, deploy, and fire. Problem with hypervelocity weapons is that they have to be heavily armored and cooled just to survive the onslaught of air at mach 5 and above. You also are surrounded by a hot dense plasma, so much so that radios can't get through it. So the power, tracking, accuracy, and compensation for radical differences in air pressure, air temperature, and related just to get to the surface which is radically stronger than your average airplane or missle. Also note that there doesn't even necessarily need to be a big easy to set of bomb on said missle. Even a pure kinetic weapon can be pretty effective at mach 5 and up. So certainly not impossible, but not going to be practical for awhile.

CapitalistCartr 10y ago

To shoot down a missile with a laser, you need a segment of light about 30-50 cm long, so the target doesn't move too much whilst burning a hole in it. In that little segment has to be the energy of at least a .50 BMG, so 20k joules of energy. In a portable form that can fire repeately, reliably. That's doable, but not easily.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
That's about one nanosecond of light. E.g. travelling 1000mph is about a foot per millisecond. I think your light could be 1000 times that long and still hit essentially the same point on the target?
- CapitalistCartr 10y ago
  Travelling 1000mph is about mach 1.3. Hypersonic is mach 5 to perhaps mach 15, if our space launch research goes well. The target has to travel less than about 5 mm in that time. A foot would schmear the light too far. [Edit] OK, I've done a bit of calculating, and I think you're right. The laser pulse could be a maximum of about 175 meters long.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    A foot of light is necessary if you focus on a millionth of a foot of target. A longer bolt is acceptable if tolerances are looser than that. And they probably are. 5mm is about 1000X larger than that.
LoSboccacc 10y ago
yeah it's hard to do now, I agree, but it's not like hypersonic weapons are readily available, so I'm gonna wager lasers would get viable defenses in time.

justavoice 10y ago

you don't even need lasers to shoot them down. They won't be able to jink very well, so a scatter-shot shotgun type of defense system would work very well. The real key will be to have a point-defense system with look-down shoot-down capability that can be deployed at enough distance from the protected asset to ensure that even a detonation of a nuclear hypersonic missile would cause minimal to no damage.

ufmace 10y ago

Yes, that's what the article made me think - wide deployment of these types of weapons might make laser countermeasures the only viable protection, and thus spur the development of laser weapons.

sliken 10y ago

Typical airplanes and missles have very thin skins, often of aluminum or titanium. Fairly easy to track, fairly easy to puncture. You also have time to carefully track, deploy, and fire. Problem with hypervelocity weapons is that they have to be heavily armored and cooled just to survive the onslaught of air at mach 5 and above. You also are surrounded by a hot dense plasma, so much so that radios can't get through it. So the power, tracking, accuracy, and compensation for radical differences in air pressure, air temperature, and related just to get to the surface which is radically stronger than your average airplane or missle. Also note that there doesn't even necessarily need to be a big easy to set of bomb on said missle. Even a pure kinetic weapon can be pretty effective at mach 5 and up. So certainly not impossible, but not going to be practical for awhile.