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[...] This weapon, cobbled together from a half-dozen industrial cutting and welding lasers to produce a total power of only 30 kilowatts, was hardly the megawatt monster military scientists dreamed of decades ago to shoot down ICBMs. But it's a major milestone, advocates say, toward a future in which directed-energy weapons are deployed in real military engagements.
[...] Pentagon officials think the technology for high-energy lasers, like the one tested on the now-decommissioned Ponce, can serve a variety of roles on land and at sea: zapping the cheap rockets, artillery, drones, and small boats loaded with weapons that insurgents have deployed in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, destroying an insurgent rocket costing around a thousand dollars can require a tech-laden Patriot interceptor costing $2 million to $3 million. By comparison, a laser shot from a fiber-laser weapon would cost only $1 in diesel fuel, officials claim.
[...] "The Defense Department has wanted a laser weapon system ever since the laser was invented," says Robert Afzal, senior fellow for laser and sensor systems at the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, in Bothell, Wash. "The key element has been to build this high-power electric laser small enough and powerful enough that we can put it on Army trucks, Air Force planes, and Navy ships, and not take everything [else] off" to make room for it.
Source: Fiber Lasers Mean Ray Guns Are Coming
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Monday April 09 2018, @05:17PM (5 children)
What is that even supposed to mean? Naively - obviously not: a watt is a unit of power and has no physical dimensions to miniaturize.
But if you're instead talking about miniaturizing a device that uses a watt - then obviously you CAN. Pretty much the only general limit is avoiding melting your device before its job is done. The easy way is to add more powerful cooling, but that's the antithesis of miniaturization. The alternative is to make your device and/or its cooling systems more efficient, so that less waste power is converted to heat in the first place. There are limits to how far you can push that - but those are limits of the specific technology being used, nothing inherent in the job being done.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Arik on Monday April 09 2018, @10:36PM (4 children)
And while both generators and batteries have experienced some miniaturization over early designs, there are some basic laws of physics that dictate these remain fairly bulky items. Especially if you want one that's going to power a megawatt laser and be able to fire multiple times, there's actually a lot of bulk implied there, no matter how small you might get the device itself, it still requires power.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:29AM (3 children)
> You need a generator
The engine of a tank/battleship/jet plane is quite capable of generating a lot of power. Generator is not an issue in this context.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:39AM (2 children)
That's nowhere near enough power. Ships powered by nuclear reactors, there are a few of those, and yes they have the generator capacity, but not a tank, no way. Not unless you're talking about Hammer's Slammers.
It's not just the generator either, these things need massive bursts of power - so several tons of capacitors above and beyond the generator capacity as well.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: -1, Troll) by fakefuck39 on Tuesday April 10 2018, @05:18AM
A tank with a bunch of capacitors, generating powering from its turbine to dump a megawatt over 30 seconds? Yeah, that's just silly. Seriously, you think you need a nuclear reactor for that? How about a gas turbine that fits into a minivan producing a continuous megawatt? We have those, but with capacitors you don't really need one - it would be silly to put one in something like a tank.
got any more bright thoughts for us Arik? You're name's spelled w/ an E by the way foreign retard. Arik is just silly. Silly silly silly. Everything is so silly. God damn if I was 25 years younger and you were in my physics class, you would be enjoying the inside of a locker right now silly faggot.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:11PM
1 Megawatt is only 1341 horsepower - I'd venture a guess that most tank engines output a lot more power than that.