4 ms·

It’s also seriously impacted by bloom on the target, which is trivial to produce with even moderate shielding. There’s a reason some very smart people still str

It’s also seriously impacted by bloom on the target, which is trivial to produce with even moderate shielding. There’s a reason some very smart people still struggle with adaptive optics and phase arrays, instead of revealing comical sci-fi “weapons”.

anigbrowl 8y ago
That's great for tanks or whatever it is you have in mind but I'm not sure why you imagine this being deployed against hardened military targets. Obviously we have very different conceptions of how a weapon like this could be deployed.
gnat 8y ago
What is "bloom on the target"? Thanks!
- gotocake 8y ago
  My bad, I should have clarified. When a laser hits a target in this context, the target material ablates and burns. This kicks up “dust” and other fine particulates as well as water, and this causes more bloom. It’s also a good defense against lasers of a low enough energy to exploit this, and use ablative armor that is designed to produce clouds designed to be especially opaque to the laser. You can work around this by using phased arrays and other tricks to manipulate the wavelength of the laser light in response to feedback of the target conditions. Adaptive optics are another way of combatting this issue, as well as bloom and divergence through the atmosphere.
  - phonypc 8y ago
    I feel the need to point out, in light of you calling this actually existing prototype weapon "comical sci-fi", that when one googles ablative armor, one gets nothing but literal sci-fi. Don't these hypothetical countermeasures have to assume the weapon would be effective in the first place?
    - gotocake 8y ago
      Yes absolutely, the countermeasures aren’t produced because the only laser weapons deployed for the last two decades are either giant chemical lasers mounted on 747’s and designed to imtercept ICBM’s, smaller (but still quite large) ground based lasers designed to intercept rockets, or dazzling lasers that haven’t been deployed at all. The former two aren’t used against human targets and would be expensive and unwieldy if you tried. The latter don’t burn anything, they temporarily blind and disorient. So yes, why would optical countermeasure be produced and deployed against a threat that doesn’t exist? That isn’t to say such countermeasures would be difficult to produce or deploy against a laser in this power range though.

anigbrowl 8y ago

That's great for tanks or whatever it is you have in mind but I'm not sure why you imagine this being deployed against hardened military targets. Obviously we have very different conceptions of how a weapon like this could be deployed.

gnat 8y ago

What is "bloom on the target"? Thanks!

gotocake 8y ago
My bad, I should have clarified. When a laser hits a target in this context, the target material ablates and burns. This kicks up “dust” and other fine particulates as well as water, and this causes more bloom. It’s also a good defense against lasers of a low enough energy to exploit this, and use ablative armor that is designed to produce clouds designed to be especially opaque to the laser. You can work around this by using phased arrays and other tricks to manipulate the wavelength of the laser light in response to feedback of the target conditions. Adaptive optics are another way of combatting this issue, as well as bloom and divergence through the atmosphere.
- phonypc 8y ago
  I feel the need to point out, in light of you calling this actually existing prototype weapon "comical sci-fi", that when one googles ablative armor, one gets nothing but literal sci-fi. Don't these hypothetical countermeasures have to assume the weapon would be effective in the first place?
  - gotocake 8y ago
    Yes absolutely, the countermeasures aren’t produced because the only laser weapons deployed for the last two decades are either giant chemical lasers mounted on 747’s and designed to imtercept ICBM’s, smaller (but still quite large) ground based lasers designed to intercept rockets, or dazzling lasers that haven’t been deployed at all. The former two aren’t used against human targets and would be expensive and unwieldy if you tried. The latter don’t burn anything, they temporarily blind and disorient. So yes, why would optical countermeasure be produced and deployed against a threat that doesn’t exist? That isn’t to say such countermeasures would be difficult to produce or deploy against a laser in this power range though.