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U.S. Air Force has shot down multiple air-launched missiles in a test
- rdiddly 7y agoAll the acronyms are over the top. Have they heard of my Project SCIMITAR? (Symbolically Capturing Information by Making Inane Trite Acronyms to Rememberstuff) Joking aside, if they can get this into a compact form that can be adequately supplied and cooled, it'll be a quantum leap in weaponry. You're talking about going from hurling chunks of matter that in turn impart kinetic and thermal energy, to being able to project energy directly.
- dba7dba 7y agoThe Scimitar? The name was already taken for a military project/equipment before you were even born. It is an armoured reconnaissance vehicle (sometimes classed as a light tank) used by the British Army, fielded starting in 1970s. It is both amazing and slightly terrifying... Imagine when this weapon can be hand carried by an individual soldier. Or even a crew served weapon like a 'Ma Deuce".
- rdiddly 7y agoHey I was born pre-moonwalk, and not just the Michael Jackson kind either. (Don't let my immaturity fool you.) Scimitar link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV107_Scimitar
- ARandomerDude 7y agoA. Some of us aren't British. B. Every so often the military hits the reset button on nomenclature. For example, the B-1 was not the first bomber ever built.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoI always liked, 'People Can't Memorise Computer Industry Acronyms'.
- thatoneuser 7y agoOh man the term "quantum leap" is wrought with irony ;)
- noobermin 7y agoLaser weapons might have their uses, just hope that the it isn't a cloudy day, or say, the enemy uses something like a mirror for that specific frequency, or even better, something that emits a dust cloud that eats the energy. Missiles, of course, can fly through dust clouds.
- wnkrshm 7y agoScattering by droplets/aerosols is an effect that drastically reduces the capability of an optical system to focus at range, it's like shining a flashlight through milk - not the same as variations in air density that you could maybe partially compensate for using adaptive optics. In rain, common LIDAR wavelengths, like 905nm and 1550nm lose about 0.1-1% of their power due to scattering per meter travelled and on top of that 0.1-1% due to absorption. Of course, this will not scale linearly with higher power but it's a lot even if it's ten times less. For laser weapons to be effective you need a clear line of sight in the respective wavelength.
- mnw21cam 7y agoIf this is on a fighter jet trying to shoot down a chasing missile, There is at least the possibility that the jet could go and find some clear air.
- asdff 7y agoWhy not build another missile with a camera on it and have someone on the ground with a joystick pilot it straight into the other missile?
- saneshark 7y agoWhile this seems promising it seems like it will be a short lived phenomenon. Missles will just become obsolete and then you have to come up with a deterrent for lasers. Is anyone actively working on laser deflector shields?
- mattmanser 7y agoI don't get your reasoning? Lasers need line of sight and hit a very small area, missiles can travel long distances and hit a massive area.
- saneshark 7y agoEven taking out a small area in today's modern combat fighters would do serious damage, and travelling at the speed of light there isn't much that maneuverability or current defensive countermeasure can do to deter a laser.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoGo high enough, and you can have LOS to anything within half the planet of you. Wait for the world to spin a bit, and you have LOS to the other half.
- arethuza 7y agoPerhaps the catch being that if you have LOS to half the planet then half the planet has LOS to you and presumably its a lot easier to build and operate a high energy laser on the ground rather than in high orbit.
- dredmorbius 7y agoMissile-launched laser platforms. You don't have to loiter for all time.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
- gingabriska 7y agoDon't we simply need a missile covered with mirrors to defy these lasers? It's just a light bean albeit concentrated one, how hard can it be to deflect it? Edit: don't understand the downvoting, please enlighten. Your wisdom is not obvious to me. Thanks
- tsbinz 7y ago"normal" mirrors don't really work for high-power lasers. If you try to reflect a high-power laser with your bathroom mirror, in the (very short) first moment it will reflect most of the beam, the part that's not reflected will burn the mirror and suddenly it's not a mirror anymore in the spot that the laser hits.
- baq 7y agoMirrors aren’t 100% efficient which means they can be overwhelmed thermally and if you want your missile to be stealthy, you don’t want it reflective.
- pauljurczak 7y agoReflectivity and stealth are not mutually exclusive. As long as you don't reflect back to the radar antenna(s), you are invisible. In this case a cylindrical missile with 100% reflective conical front and ceramic fins would be very stealthy head-on.
- naval-gazer 7y agoReflective mirror surface is good for stealth if the angle is right.
- thaumaturgy 7y agoNo, it doesn't work like that. The military is of course tight-lipped about exactly how powerful SHiELD is, but at least one site claims that the goal is 50kw [1]. That's a lot of power. A few years ago, a 30kw laser test made the rounds in news outlets for destroying a few targets during testing. [2] Mirrors don't perfectly reflect light in all frequencies. Mirrors are designed to reflect mostly visible light, lasers at this power level are infrared. Any imperfections in the reflective surface would immediately heat up, damaging the reflective surface, which would then heat up even more. And even if it were perfect, and were designed to reflect whatever frequency of radiation the laser's putting out, it's still not going to reflect 100% of the laser's output, and you've probably got yourself a material that's pretty impractical for a rocket. [1]: https://phys.org/news/2018-03-air-fighter-mounted-laser-summer.html https://phys.org/news/2018-03-air-fighter-mounted-laser-summ... [2]: https://newatlas.com/lockheed-martin-laser-truck/36377/ https://newatlas.com/lockheed-martin-laser-truck/36377/
- klausjensen 7y ago"...In a test"
- Paraesthetic 7y agoSo its just like the iron dome?
- azernik 7y agoVery different systems. Iron Dome uses ground-launched interceptor missiles, tied in to a theater-level control net, to intercept short-to-medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. This uses a self-contained, at-some-point-aircraft-mounted laser, to shoot down guided, powered, maneuvering air-to-air or surface-to-air missiles.
- Causality1 7y agoI wonder if there's any chance this could spur development of effective anti-ICBM laser systems. Considering that nuclear ICBMs are the only real existential threat to the United States, I'm often surprised they don't spend a huge chunk of their defense budget neutralizing that threat.
- azernik 7y agoThat was the focus of an enormous effort back in the 80s (SDI), but the solutions were not at the time technically feasible. Lots of these technologies for defeating shorter-range missiles are spinoffs of the different approaches explored in the SDI program, but these systems still don't have the performance or cost required to intercept hundreds or thousands of multi-km/s incoming ICBMs and SLBMs within, say, a half-hour window.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI worry if a single nation would be first to develop effective ICBM countermeasures, the whole MAD doctrine would collapse on the spot and we'd have a next world war on our hands.
- arethuza 7y agoFrom what I remember of the difficulties of the Star Wars program - ICBMs are most vulnerable and easiest to spot during their boost phase - which tends to happen, rather inconveniently, over your enemies territory. The RVs themselves are small, hardened and move incredibly quickly and are also surrounded by a plasma shield during reentry which may interfere with targetting with a directed energy weapon.
- js8 7y agoThe MAD doctrine actually collapsed at the end of the Cold War, that's why they decided to sign the INF treaty (and also reduce nuclear arsenals): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For...
- danmaz74 7y ago> A directed energy weapon also has an effectively bottomless magazine. Is this true for a laser mounted on an airplane? How is the energy stored?
- onion2k 7y agoHow is the energy stored? Presumably as jet fuel, and the laser is charged by the plane's engines.
- consp 7y agoMost extreme high power lasers are chemical in nature, but these are probably somewhat similar to the setup in [1] by the laser power mentioned. I would guess using an APU to control conditions but it does not rule out your guess of using the onboard systems. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System
- Aeolun 7y agoI imagine there is a bunch of capacitors that make sustained fire rather hard.
- dexen 7y agoJet & turbine engines provide abundant horsepower at the tailpipe[1]. A cursory search suggests typical jet fighter has one or two electric generators in 70...90kVA range that tap power off of the turbines' shaft - mostly meant to run the internal systems and any electronic payload [2]. While a 50kW laser needs much more electrical power than the 50kW optical output, you can conceivably recharge a bank of its (super)capacitors pretty fast from the 1x or 2x 70...90kVA source. I presume much higher power electric generators are a perfectly feasible upgrade, and just not installed presently for sake of space & weight savings. [1] there's no direct conversion as it depends on speed, but 266000 HP = 198 MegaWatt figure for a slow-flying Boeing 747 gives rough idea, as per https://www.quora.com/How-many-horsepower-is-a-Boeing-747-Jet https://www.quora.com/How-many-horsepower-is-a-Boeing-747-Je... [2] some fighters and most larger planes are also equipped with an independent APU - a self-contained power generator, also feeding off of the jet fuel
- dba7dba 7y agoEveryone thought a huge laser taking up a dedicated 747 (Boeing YAL-1) was a stupid idea but looks like it was a good starting point.
- pngai 7y agoBut note that chemical lasers appears to have been a deadend.
- dingaling 7y agoThe YAL-1 ( horribly nonstandard designation ) was addressing a different and much harder problem; destroying ballistic missiles in the ascent phase at considerable range. However destroying magnitude-smaller, nearby air-to-air missiles is much more achievable and was demonstrated by the NKC-135 / Airborne Laser Lab project back in 1979-85. Yes, 40 years ago.
- sdrothrock 7y agoI imagine Israel would be at the top of the list of interested parties for this technology -- it sounds much cheaper than the Iron Dome since I assume there isn't a real per-shot charge other than the energy required. It would also be much faster than their current interceptors. I just wonder how well it would work against low-tech targets.
- azernik 7y agoIt also would be well-suited to shorter-range attackers - Iron Dome can only intercept missiles with a minimum range of about 2.5km. Israel is pursuing its own high-energy laser defense program, Iron Beam (yes, not so creative). From public sources, it's not clear if the thing is 1-2 years from deployment, or if it's in development hell; the US is uniquely public about these high-budget prestige projects for internal political reasons.
- blattimwind 7y ago> Israel is pursuing its own high-energy laser defense program, Iron Beam (yes, not so creative). Clearly should have been called God Ray or Finger of God.
- nullwasamistake 7y agoThe official that named "iron dome" purposelly did so because most suggestions sounded quite regal. Seems like Isreal has decided to stick with the naming scheme, and I'm glad. Naming your weapons after religious artifacts reminds of Monty Python's holy hand grenade. Probably not a great idea to connect your religion to something that explodes and kills people.
- acct1771 7y agoYou realize this thread is about Israel?
- azernik 7y agoIsrael's generally quite comfortable with making religious allusions in its weapons systems - for example, the next step up in range/speed from Iron Dome is called David's Sling, and there have been military operations named e.g. Pillar of Cloud and Nachshon. Usually when they do that, though, they're direct Biblical quotes.
- gandutraveler 7y agoI am thinking what if enemies just shoot fake projectiles and wait for the defense system runs out of missiles.
- dukoid 7y agoHow much cheaper / lighter are they -- compared to a real projectile? If they are too "dumb", won't they get recognized as not threatening?
- Rebelgecko 7y agoThere may be other issues with running a laser continuously, but a plane should be able to generate enough power to keep it firing.
- whynotminot 7y ago.... this is precisely one of the reasons the laser system mentioned in the article is being developed.
- Symmetry 7y agoI'm not really sure what the point would be? Getting a hunk of metal moving quickly towards the target is most of what a missile does. In a conflict where airframes are a limited resource I don't see why it would make sense to waste payload on decoys when you could just load up more missiles.
- hedora 7y agoYou only need to get one nuke through. Also, compared to building additional missiles, having your missile split into a bunch of decoys and a few warheads is fairly inexpensive.
- Symmetry 7y agoWait, where are nukes entering into this? The article was about tactical defenses for warplanes, I don't think anybody still has nukes in their air-to-air arsenals after the 70s. When you're talking about ICBMs with MIRVed warheads decoys can make a lot of sense because in space a 10 kg balloon looks a lot like a 500 kg warhead. But in the atmosphere they're very easy to tell apart and nobody talks about decoy missiles.
- amelius 7y agoWondering what kind of recoil force this laser gun generates. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/does-a-laser-have-a-recoil.379922/ https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/does-a-laser-have-a-re...
- wnkrshm 7y agoYou get about 1 Newton per 300MW of photon flux, it's not dependent on wavelength. So here with 50kW of continuous photon flux, the magnitude is about 166mN, the gravitic force of about 50 grains of rice, less than a paperclip.
- GistNoesis 7y agoHow wide is the beam ? How long does it need to stay focus on roughly the same point ? Wouldn't spinning your missile prevent a beam to being focused always on the same point ? Does adding random jitter to your missile trajectory prevent focusing ?
- asdff 7y agoAt what point do we have a pilot match speed with the missile and cast a net?
- baybal2 7y agoR73 missile was credited with shooting down other A2A missile back in eighties. So it is not the first time it was done somehow
- Haga 7y agoMake love not war on rainy days
- naval-gazer 7y agoPower efficiency makes lasers in fighters problematic. The current cutting edge lasers have 35 percent efficiency. If you heat the target with 100 kW power, the fighter absorbs 300 kW of heat. You can use fuel to absorb the heat but heat exchangers adds lots of weight and extra complications.
- Symmetry 7y agoI'd tend to assume that the airflow a fighter has to work with would help a lot with managing the heat it deals with.
- nradov 7y agoHeat exchangers are problematic due to increased drag and radar observability.
- hindsightbias 7y agoThe F-35 cools avionics by running lines through the fuel tanks and already has had thermal issues. Removing the heat of a ~50-100kw laser via a heat exchanger onto surface airflow is going to make a nice heat signature/target.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoI feel like blinding sensors or pilots might be easier?
- jws 7y agoEasier, but prohibited by treaty. See “The Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons, Protocol IV of the 1980 Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_W... It’s quite short and to the point. No weapons designed to permanently blind people are allowed. Incidental blindness is ok, also if you get blinded while looking through binoculars that’s fine. Blinding sensors is also fine.
- iheartpotatoes 7y agoThe US seems to sometimes honor treaties, and sometimes not. Unless they get caught. Snowden and countless other whistleblowers have taught us that.
- b_tterc_p 7y agoThis one seems odd. If this weren’t explicitly allowed, it could rather easily stop most aerial operations. While it is nice for pilots, it seems to cancel out the potential to just make sending pilots on military runs in feasible in the first place.
- hindsightbias 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Blinding_Laser_Wea...
- S_A_P 7y agoQuestion: say one of these planes is flying above me and someone shoots a surface to air in the general direction of this plane, and in the process of destroying said missile an errant laser beam strikes me as I watch from the ground. What happens to me? Mainly curious as to the power of the beam as a thought experiment.
- hurtle_shurtle 7y ago> Question: We can tell it’s a question, from the question mark at the end.
- mr_overalls 7y agoThis scenario has been carefully explored since the mid-1980s. For clarification, are you made of popcorn? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rthHSISkM7A&t=16s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rthHSISkM7A&t=16s
- S_A_P 7y agoThat was one of my first thoughts too. I am curious if/how deadly the lasers are, and I have resisted the Dr Evil quote fingers until now.
- hguant 7y agoOff the cuff? Probably nothing fatal. Lets assume the laser works by dumping a lot of thermal energy into the missile. It's safe to assume for two reasons - primarily because I think that the power requirements for anything other than that would be ridiculous, and because they specifically talked about 'destroying' the missiles in question, rather than simply burning out the sensor package. Also...that's pretty much how laser/directed energy weapons work - you dump energy into a point until it catches fire. People are mostly water (citation needed). Missiles are mostly meta (ibid)l. Water takes a lot of energy to heat up, while metal heats up quite easily - we know this because we know that a Calorie {kilo-calorie for those at home} is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 kilogram of water 1 degree C, and is equal to ~4500 joules. To do the same thing to copper and steel, you need something like 350 and 500 joules, respectively (this is a property called specific heat, and is really cool and I wish I wasn't bad at thermo so I could talk about it more accurately). Anyway, it takes a very large amount of energy to hurt a person, and a smaller amount to destroy a missile. There are two ways of getting that energy out of a laser - in one big ass pulse, or in a longer stream. Looking at the mount, and the platform the laser is to be deployed on, I believe this works with a 'stream' of energy. Fighter jets are not power plants (citation needed) and have a lot of high powered electrical equipment on them already (radar(s), communications devices, whatever sensor packages they have, flight avionics, cooling, and the computer(s) that co-ordinate all this). You don't want your displays going dark because you're charging the laser. Additionally, high energy pulses tend to be destructive to their components. Having only one anti missile shot before you have to under go maintenance to replaced a bunch of fused emitters and whatnot doesn't' seem like the best idea. With a lower energy continuous beam, you don't have that destructive flow, and while the total power draw is probably similar to a pulse, you're pulling that over a longer period, which is much easier to plan for. Pulling it all together - the laser's target has different thermal properties than a human does, and probably takes a few seconds 'on target' to work. Depending on how long you stayed in the beam, I'd expect anything from first to second degree burns, probably from the water in your cells turning to steam and bursting, but nothing catastrophically bad unless you were lasered continuously the entire time, and even then I don't think it would kill you, just burn you quite badly. Unless you looked into it. That would probably go poorly for everyone.
- Symmetry 7y agoNow that off-boresight missiles are coming into service I wonder how long it'll be before fighters can use missiles to shoot down missiles like you see in modern naval engagements. Also, I know the F-35 has the power plant to run one of these but could one be mounted on an F-22?
- Circuits 7y agoSo have we rounded up enough sharks so we can mount all these lasers or what??
- sandworm101 7y agoTake this all with some massive grains of salt. The language is very vague. When it comes to "shooting down" a missile much depends on definitions and locations. An inbound air-to-air missile is a very tricky target. It is face-on. Your laser cannot target the explosive bits of the missile (the rocket motor that is active for the first few seconds of flight). But that doesn't matter. "Shooting down" can mean jamming the missile's IR sensor or damaging its radar dome, both of which would stop it as a threat. The real problem imho is the size of the emitting aperture. Focusing a laser tightly at any distance requires a device probably too large for a fighter aircraft. Shooting down a missile from the side, from the ground or form an escort aircraft is another matter. Get it during the boost phase (the first few seconds after launch) and even a pinprick through the side of the rocket motor will cause it to explode. But in that scenario why wait for the missile to be launched? If you can burn through the rocket motor after launch, you can do so before launch. My point: any weapon capable of explosively shooting down misses in flight is also capable of shooting down the launching aircraft before it gets a chance to fire. Oh, and don't forget that such weapons are probably illegal under various treaties. If it can shoot down a missile a one mile it can blind a pilot at ten. Pointed at the ground it could blind scores of troops. Some legal hoops would need to be jumped before one could ever deploy such a laser.
- DuskStar 7y ago> The real problem imho is the size of the emitting aperture. Focusing a laser tightly at any distance requires a device probably too large for a fighter aircraft. Focusing a laser onto a 100mm point at 5km does not seem like it would take that large of an aperture, and that should be all you need to kill the seeker. > Get it during the boost phase (the first few seconds after launch) and even a pinprick through the side of the rocket motor will cause it to explode in a true "shoot down". IIRC most air to air missiles have a boost phase far longer than that - I think most will still be burning at intercept for shots inside the killbox. That's part of the selling point of the Meteor [0] - it can throttle, so it'll almost always be burning at intercept. > But in that scenario why wait for the missile to be launched? If you can burn through the rocket motor after launch, you can do so before launch. It's a lot easier to argue that the other side shot first when you blow up the missile AFTER it leaves their plane. Not to mention the case where the responsible aircraft wasn't detected until after launch... 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_(missile)
- tomphoolery 7y agoAnyone else getting a "Real Genius" vibe from this turret? I feel like Val Kilmer is about to make an epic bowl of popcorn with this thing.
- jeffrogers 7y agoThe whole thing has Real Genius written all over it. I can only hope the Lockheed test engineers put a large JiffyPop out for target practice.
- gnode 7y agoIt seems pertinent to mention "laser" in the title. My initial thought was "so what? Missile defence is nothing new."
- credit_guy 7y agoSo, here's who WW3 will unfold, about 20 years from now. Once the USAF can mount laser weapons on a plane, not long after they'll be able to put them in missiles. And more precisely in those missiles that perform the anti-ballistic missile defense function. Currently the equation governing the ABM defense is that you need about 2 kinetic vehicles to destroy one warhead launched at you. If you replace this with one laser-equipped missile can zap 10 incoming targets, that's a complete different ballgame. The MAD concept can become very unstable. Instead of needing a many, many thousands of missiles to obtain impenetrable defense, two hundred missiles-mounted lasers could do the job (a single Ohio class submarine can carry up to 24 Trident-II SLBM's with up to 288 multiple independent re-entry vehicles; if you replace each such nuke with a laser, you are all set). When will the US have this capability? I would ball-park this at about 15 years for now. What options does Russia have. By my cont 3 options (hardware-based; I'm not counting cyber-warfare and psychological and subversive warfare). 1. Deterrence in numbers. Currently Russia deploys 1600 warheads, and has a total of 6500 (deployed+stockpiled+retired). If they go to 20-30k warheads, in an all out war a few dozens might still find their way to some large urban areas in the US, and so even a 99.9% ABM capability might still leave a few tens of millions of Americans dead. 2. Laser-equipped anti-anti-missiles. If you can zap a nuke out of the sky, you can zap the missile carrying the laser too. Provided you have the technology. I expect Russia to have a delay in implementing this technology, maybe 5 to 10 years 3. Alternate threats that are immune to this defense. This is exactly what Russia demonstrated one year ago: a hypersonic nuclear-capable, nuclear-powered missile that can travel in the lower atmosphere (where the effective range of a laser is reduced, due to light absorption) plus a mega-nuke delivered by an autonomous submarine that purportedly can create a 500-foot tsunami that would wipe NYC from the map. Where does that leave us? The US will enjoy the maximum military gap about 20 years from now and this will provide a huge incentive to perform a decapitation strike. Would this be palatable to the US population? Only if it can be demonstrated that the collateral damage would be insignificant. Is that possible? What do you need to do? You need to take out the missile silos, the strategic nuclear submarines, and the strategic bombers (the nuclear triad). The silos are traditionally the targets of some nukes; in the past these nukes had about one megaton yield, but with the increase in missile accuracy the current US yield is about 100kt; this is still 5 times larger than Nagasaki. Is it possible to use a smaller nuke with an increased accuracy? A rule of thumb is that a 10-fold increase in accuracy can reduce the necessary effective yield by 100. Starting this year (2019) the US Navy will have a 5-7 kt nuke in its arsenal (W76-2 [1]). This type of nuke could ensure essentially zero civilian casualties, while still being able to destroy most missile silos. Oh, and it would also be a good anti-strategic-submarine weapon too. So, about 20 years from now, the US will have a once-in-a-century opportunity to break the mutually-assured-destruction stalemate, and potentially rid the world of nuclear weapons. All with minimal loss of life (especially civilian life). But the window of opportunity will be very short, Russia will be able to close the MAD gap in a few years. Which will make this opportunity a very difficult one to pass on. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-weapons-first-low-yield-warheads-roll-off-the-production-line https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/28/us-nuclear-wea...