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posted by mrpg on Monday April 09 2018, @03:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the death-from-below dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow8317

[...] 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


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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:19AM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:19AM (#664748) Journal

    That depends on the frequency of the laser. Aluminum is good against some frequencies, but not so good against others. E.g., I don't think it works very well against infrared.

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