Marvel's "Shield" is REAL!

eclipsenow

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Hi all,
I was nearly going to put this in the sci-fi forum as a joke, but then I realised that military lasers would actually be an awesome topic to ask some questions about. (Below).

But first, my Marvel observation.
combatlaserjet.jpeg


These baby's LOOK X-Men or Marvel, like something from "Agents of SHIELD". And guess what? The government's trying to disguise the leak of their secret program name by disguising it as something about *lasers*. But we know what they're *really* doing, don't we! "The US air force research laboratory started gathering market information under an advanced technology demonstration program known as SHiELD, or self-protect high-energy laser demonstrator."
Pah! "self-protect high-energy laser demonstrator" = as if! Pull the other one! :oldthumbsup:

p9975635_b_v8_aa.jpg


But seriously...

I thought lasers were only in the battlefield range, like 1.5km or something, and could fire through a truck engine? I didn't realise we were expecting to head into the megawatt range so soon? Does anyone have anything more concrete on greater distance weapons?
 
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Warden_of_the_Storm

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Railguns are a very promising endeavour.
And also a damn sight more manageable, and practical, than laser based technology. Granted, it's only really manageable with modern large bore weapons, like the cannons on battleships and tanks, but it means you only have to convert the guns rather than make completely new weapon.
 
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eclipsenow

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Yeah! Railguns, I hear you! They can be fired 170km inland from a battleship and destroy a compound for just $25,000 per shot! That's 66 targets for the price of 1 cruise missile! WOW! That's frighteningly cheap destruction. AND some rail gun rounds can be a bit more expensive, and timed / triggered to explode shrapnel just before a missile just like a giant claymore going off, disintegrating any incoming missile.

But they're also working on lasers. This baby burned through the engine manifold from 1.6km (1 mile) away!

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/03/lockheed-30kw-combat-blasts-truck-from.html

laseredtruck.png
 
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Warden_of_the_Storm

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I'd rather stick with the railguns. As you said, it's cheaper per shot, you only need to convert existing weapons to railguns rather than create entirely new weapons, plus they still do have the ability to shoot down incoming ICBMs and other missiles.
Plus, they are just that little bit cooler.

Also, I feel the need to say this, but I do hate you for bringing up this topic while I was planning on what to write.
 
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timewerx

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I thought lasers were only in the battlefield range, like 1.5km or something, and could fire through a truck engine? I didn't realise we were expecting to head into the megawatt range so soon? Does anyone have anything more concrete on greater distance weapons?

They have already tested it onboard a Boeing 747. The effective range was something like 200 km -- on a clear day.

The HUGE problem with lasers is when visibility is low, the range is dramatically reduced. Also, your target could easily hide behind a cloud and avoid your lasers. So effectiveness is dramatically reduced when clouds are present.

Lasers could not cut a hole into clouds and it would be quite useless over major cities in China due to smog....



Even the best weapons-grade lasers currently in research could only be fired a limited number of times - given these current limitations, they are no better than conventional weaponry and even if clouds or visibility wasn't a problem, the only thing they can bring down are aircraft.... Lasers would still be largely ineffective if employed against tanks.

Not to mention, it is rather quite easy to develop an effective defense against lasers. A highly reflective surface would deflect most of a laser's energy. Even if that is not sufficient, ablative paints could be developed to be applied to aircraft that ablates upon absorption of laser energy, carrying with it most of the damaging effects of the laser.

I think the last weapons testing of such systems was back in early 2000..... Even Israel had their own laser program for defense against rockets.

But instead, we saw that Israel ultimately came out with "conventional" CIWS using chemical explosives aimed and fired by a computer automatically to neutralize a threat such as RPGs


I guess they also figured out my dilemma.... Of course, lasers would be more effective in space, there are no clouds, no smog, not even air.... But again, if your enemy figures out to apply ablative paint on their satellites, lasers would become pointless.
 
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eclipsenow

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Thanks Timewerx, that was a great post!

Now here's a new one. The discovery of a star that has gradually decreased visibility seems to indicate, to Sci-Fi people anyway, the gradual formation of a Dyson sphere. Either a terrible catastrophe has hit this star system and 2 planets have collided, gradually drifting junk into the way of our direction of light, or something even more amazing could be happening. But a Dyson sphere? The idea triggered a physicist to start thinking what else a Dyson sphere made of mirrors would do. Here's the result, and it's nasty!
A Death Star like heat ray that could be projected 1500 light years (but would take that long to get there) all done with giant mirrors! http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/02/physics-phd-reader-of-nextbigfuture.html

latest
 
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