Navy to deploy laser to destroy drones, small boats
By Chris Lawrence and Lindy Royce-Bartlett
The U.S. Navy plans to deploy a laser weapon aboard a warship for the first time, Navy leaders said on Monday.
The laser will be deployed on the USS Ponce in early 2014.
"The weapon's quick-reaction capability matches what we see as potential targets" in the Persian Gulf, a Defense Department official said.
The laser has been tested against and destroyed drones and fast-moving small boats, the official said.
A second defense official said the laser is fully capable of being used against threats even though it is its first deployment.
"The system has been tested and proven. So while it's going on the Ponce as a demonstration, it is a system that can be used in real-world scenarios."
The first official estimated the cost at roughly $31 million.
"That could go down in the future, accounting for an actual procurement order," that official said.
In announcing the laser on Monday, Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder touted the technology.
He said the "solid-state laser is a big step forward to revolutionizing modern warfare with directed energy, just as gunpowder did in the era of knives and swords."
He also said it's expected to ultimately save the Navy money.
"Our conservative data tells us a shot of directed energy costs under $1," Klunder explained. "Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of dollars it costs to fire a missile, and you can begin to see the merits of this capability."
The laser does not require "unique platforms" and could potentially be deployed on a variety of ships, one of the officials said. But another also said it does have limitations.
It needs a "line of sight" for targeting. "It does not curve, and cannot go over the horizon," the official said.
He also noted that bad weather can affect the beam, but added that "bad weather can be a factor in many of our current weapons systems" as well.
@natlsecuritycnn on Twitter
Первым делом маяться опознаться зачем все-таки нужны вышки-туры. Тож Вам требуется произвести обработка фасада неужели внутренние работы ради высоте более 5ти метров, то обычной приставной лестницей явный не обойтись. Дозволено, непременно, воспользоваться строительными лесами, всетаки кто производить, если рабочее интервал ограничено если просто не хватает времени для сборку трудной и громоздкой конструкции? Вышка-тура лучшее решение.
Вышка-тура – это сборно-разборные конструкции высотного типа, содержащие разное количество секций, в зависимости через модели.
Минарет представляет собой набор секций, средняя величие которых не превышает полутора метров, закрепляющихся побратим на друге, внутрь которых могут утверждаться настилы для размещения рабочих и материалов. Такие вышки имеют массу преимуществ перед остальными подъемными конструкциями.
Мобильность.
Вам порядочно интересно: вышку туру
Это одно из самых важных преимуществ. Вышки-туры не занимают избыток места. Их свободно причинять воеже объекты в разобранном виде, независимо же свободно носить пропорционально рабочей площади в собранном виде.
Легкость и удобность монтажа и демонтажа.
Каланча состоит из базы, колес со специальными опорами рабочей площадки, креплений, диагональных стяжек и боковых лестниц. И собирается всего в шабаш шагов без каких-либо посторонних инструментов:
1) Установка базы. Бык – основа, состоящая из четырех балок, надежно закрепленных среди собой, колес и домкратов, которые обеспечивают бездеятельность вышки.
2) Установка рамы первого яруса, какой укрепляют диагональными балками.
Опричь устанавливают следующие ярусы, соединяются они сообразно принципу «труба в трубу».
3) Установка настилов. Дабы удобства монтажа и подъема настилы изготавливают из
нескольких частей. И уже потом установки настилов ставятся защитные ограждения.
Демонтаж происходит в обратном порядке. Презрительно, чтобы всетаки харя, участвующие в демонтаже, были в касках и подле с зоной демонтажа вышки не было посторонних.
Многофункциональность.
Несмотря воеже небольшие габариты вышки-туры удобно извлекать присутствие проведении наподобие внутри, беспричинно и снаружи помещения.
Модульная конструкция.
Это позволяет оперативно менять возвышение вышки с использованием дополнительных секций.
This is so cool! The laser has been tested against and destroyed drones and fast-moving small boats. No deaths and target destroyed!
Boating activities are as varied as the boats and boaters who participate, and new ways of enjoying the water are constantly being discovered. .**.
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The Navy didn't develop anything. Raytheon took some industry grade fiber communication lasers, the kind used to drive long haul fiber optics links for the communications industry, and hacked them together into an array to form a combined laser of modest power. Then the laser by itself is nothing, it must be cued to the target's position by the PHALANX weapon system, also made by Raytheon, how convenient. Navy test and evaluation is a hopelessly inept joke of an activity, they haven't demonstrated anything, which is why they have to resort to computer generated imagery, aka a cartoon, to show how it works in the real world, or so they hope, how low can they go. The news release is just a scam to justify the Navy throwing more money away on nothing.
1. A $2.00 laser can blind a pilot. From that comes $31 million, (+ $1.00) to blow it up?
2. And STILL no flying car?
3. If Tesla were alive, he'd be sending Edison a note saying, "In your face!"
4. Really liked the guy who mentioned light sabers, BTW!
5. Cheney is caught saying, "Ex-cellent,... now we can being our work on the Death Star. Heh, heh, heh"
6. CIA secretly installs secret "hemorrhoid remover" under Kim Jong Un's toilet, as practical joke.
7. By the third generation of beam weapons, the government finally acknowleged they were really designed for planetary defence, due to the coming alien threat.
8. Air force versions un-official nickname "Flying Fickle Finger Of Fate".
9. Hey, now we're only a warp engine away from ticking off the rest of the universe.
10. NBC's found to employ latest tool, to pry Jay loose from the Tonight Show.
Can the system tracks and destroy multiple drones at one time?
Will a reflective surface neutralize the laser? You could put camo cloth on a mirror and it will only expose the mirror when the laser strikes.
Leave it to the military to try to justify a $31 million weapon that's ineffective in bad weather. I wish I owned stock in the defense industry.
We have defenses for any situation, don't worry. I guess that's the point of defense. How much money are those lives worth? You really should get some perspective.
So buy stock in the defense industry .... sheesh.
finally taking Nikola Tesla's idea I see.
Finally. There it is. From satellite hunter killers to warships. Now everybody knows we have a working death ray.
Bring back the battleship and equip it with all lasers. And maybe a wave motion gun like in Starblazers.
Lasers don't kill drone planes. People kill drone planes.
still waiting for that light saber
How long before someone gets caught using the new laser to blow up beer cans?
$31 million? Sure, it's only $1 a shot, but how many times will it get used? How many $100 thousand missiles do you have to fire to make $31 million? 310! That's a lot of missiles. Where is the return on investment?
Did you think that developing missiles did not cost any money? Missiles don't grow on trees last time I checked.
funny laser already for the US you would think we would get that far in years to come not already wounder what else the US has under there sleves and for some reason this cenerty is just movin to fast bet will have are own Flying DIses fly in space and have are own moon bases in 50 year
Learn much? Back into the trailer Junior.
I ran out of air trying to read your entire one sentence post.
Words cannot even begin to describe how awesome this is!
truly it is unbelievable!
I heard they were going to train sharks and mount these on their heads....
uh,we don't have sharks, but we have ill-tempered seabass instead.
We will put mirrors around our boats to reflect laser. Hah!
Ever taken a physic class?
A standard mirror can reflect 70% of broadband light. If you know the wavelength of a laser you can theoretically build a mirror to reflect 99+%. Thats how most lasers work – mirrors.
I must have it... you know... for hunting. :p
I need one for protection. Someone might try to break into my house and I need that laser to vaporize them!
And what will happen when the first Admiral tries to use it as a pointer for a presentation in D.C?.........There goes the Washington Monument
Lame. Where's the flash of orange light and the pew pew noises?
Lazer Beams, in my Dreams.....;-D
why you wanna hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me, hit me with your laser beam?
love it.
Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
Hokie Religions? All hail Frank Beamer!
Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi!
What's next? Sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads?!
No we'll just have the brits deploy 007
Drones and small boats. Sounds like larger aircraft (fighters?) could be vulnerable also.
Supersonic jets might be a bit hard to target, but drones and boats are slow.
Not really, speed of light is faster than speed of sound.
@EddO The targeting systems and actuators would be the limiting factor in this case. What use is the speed of light if you can't aim it fast enough?
You target it automatically using radar which also moves at the speed of light.
Lasers don't kill people. People with lasers kill people. Hahahahahahahahaha
What happens when the casing of the drone, missile or other target is mirrored, like stainless steel or even a mirror? Does the directed energy just get re-directed like other light waves?
Depends on the frequency of the laser.
While you could reflect a good portion of the laser with a mirror, unless the mirror is tuned to the frequency of the light it would still melt with enough power. It also would never be able to accurately reflect back to the ship, if thats what you are thinking.
Laser roasted! evenly cooked ... on air and space.
But always think what other countries uses them against us? There will be no missiles to deflect these beams!?
As a side benefit they can shoot down ducks and roast them at the same time.
Great technology. This is the future.
Are the American people going to get these to shot down drones over American soil ?
Its against federal law to aim a laser at a plane.
you think the first captain to use it will say "fire phasers mr. worf!"?
I hope not. TNG sucks compared to the original.
...said no one ever.
Hahahahahahahahaha...
So what happens if the enemy uses mirrors to deflect this laser beam?
Have a friend point a laser pointer at your chest while you're bouncing on a trampoline. Then hold up a mirror and see how much luck you have deflecting the beam back at him.
That depends on how reflective the mirror is versus how powerful the beam is. No mirror is 100% reflective and will absorb some energy. Most likely the beam will temporarily be deflected until the mirror heats up enough to destroy it's reflective capability.
Try flying a drone with a mirror large enough to deflect a laser beam. Just a bit unwieldy. But I suppose you could make the surfaces of the drone highly reflective.
What happens? Well, I'd suggest that the enemy leave the frames on those mirrors. Easier to grab and hold, you know.
So on a foggy or hazy day, the laser is pretty much useless as the particles in the air scatter the energy of the laser beam. Is the Navy trying to tell us that their other weapons don't work to well in fog? I want my money back!
It will not work reliably in the North Atlantic. Fortunately, not many hostile drones or small boats come from that part of the ocean.
May have better luck in tropical oceans where there are lot of hot heads, some of them covered with towels.
It depends on the frequency of the laser. Just like how laser eye surgery works, the right frequency laser will go past the right median without being hindered. This is one reason laser actually does calibration to determine the conditions along the path to the target before it fires.
Just in time, because China has been on a tear making Drones designed to take out US Carriers. Google it.
I hope that we do not give this weapon to Apartheid Israel.
nothing like a bullet that travels at the speed of light-wow!--so when do we get a phaser?
Our Air Force has been trying to kill Global Hawk 30 & 40 for nearly 2 years. Yet congress keeps forcing the Air Force to buy these highly flawed machines rather than fixing them. Maybe The services can use this new laser to kill them off.
I saw this on the news last night, and it seems like a VERY humane way to wage "war" if thats what you wish to call it...
The beam hits a target, no matter where on the target....it just starts "drilling a hole" at some point it will hit something critical and down the device....
If a manned device....It gives the humans aboard, a reasonable amount of time to abandon, ie eject....from the device...
Killing the equipment, and not the humans....
Anti-personnel lasers have been around and have been banned by international arms agreements for quite some time. The problem with lasers is that they are a very painful way to die and I'm surprised to see the US implementing these long-range lasers and simply calling them "Anti-drone" lasers. They can just as easily be pointed at a manned aircraft and melt the skin off the pilots.
All the same to me. Don't make them because they might hurt somebody? LOL. Better to just blow parts off their body with conventional a weapons? It's called war, weapons are designed to hurt people. Why do you think they come out with names like "Anti-personell mines?"
So? If melting their skin off gets the job done, it's no skin off my back. What's with this new PC style of warfare where we try to kill the enemy humanely? Efficiency is the only killing concern we should have. If countries don't want their soldiers to die painfully, perhaps they should avoid conflict.
Good. Now if they can mount them to freakn sharks heads it would be freakn awesome.
Nice one.
OMG,, It's taken them 25 years to reassemble Dr. Hathaway's laser that Kent Knight and his team of genius misfits destroyed?
Chris Knight.
It was hidden in Lazlow's basement the whole time.
It just took them 25 years to eat all the popcorn in Dr. Hathaway's house
Soon all the gun nuts will be able to buy their very own laser gun, now won't that just be great.
I'll fight to protect our 2nd amendment right to bear lasers.
Sounds like an episode from a Flash Gordon movie I once saw.
they're hiding the wonderwaffe along with the ray guns and im willing to bet there is a more powerful laser on one of the satellites no doubt but they're saving it for if aliens land
So will the people who actually need this tech have it available to them or just our military? If the military has the drones, and the lasers that kill the drones, who are we really protecting with this laser tech? It seems to me we are just the aggressors declaring war on the world. What nation has drones that are a threat to anyone? Only one I can think of is us, the USA. We are the only nation on earth that has killed people using drones, yet now we have the tech to kill those drones. What's the point? Is there a drone threat from another aggressive war-mongering nation? I know of none.
Have you ever heard of Top-Secret information? I doubt you know much of anything.
CHINA
If the US is the only nation you can think of to have drones, you really need to broaden your mind. Currently all major nations are developing drones. While they may not have it at the moment, it is likely not far away at all that a douzen of countries will have it. Drones aren't exactly rocket science, so to speak.
Google China drones. They are making tons of drones designed to attack US carriers.
The idea is probably to have a suitable defense BEFORE other countries come at us with it.
But yes, I agree that the last thing our military (or humanity in general) needs is energy weapons.
State of Israel developed the first ones.
"I miss the year 3000 when life was simple and brains flew through space and everyone ate lasers." – Phillip J. Fry
Just one question,
Can you use a huge prism to refract that laser?
feel free to hold the prism while the Navy tests your theory
No. By its nature, a laser will not refract.
Holy crap, someone here who actually understands optics?! You have my respect.
Yeah, because if you understand optics you have the key to the WORLD!! THE WORLD!!
All electromagnetic energy refracts. Laser eye surgery is called refraction surgery. Shine a laser through a glass of water and see what happens.
A laser beam is frequency locked and highly coherent. I think you mean that a laser can't spectrally separate by it's nature. It's also just packets of light, and can be refracted.
we need phasers and photon torpedoes
Photon cannons have always been available, even to the public. Flashlights. Not even joking. A photon torpedo would be...a flashlight on a torpedo.
It is kind of slow to burn through the target drone. What if drones come in in the hundreds and overwhelm this laser system. Are there any kind of rays that can disable the electronic components of the drones in a quick shot instead? That's all we need to do, to make them ineffective as a weapon. They will dive into the sea themselves.
Peter, why are you assuming this laser system has to burn through it's target? I didn't read that in the article. A directed energy beam need only disable a drone to bring it down.
Totally wrong. That's not how any of this works.
It does indeed burn a hole through the aircraft. There's no such thing as a long-range directed EMP beam that disables aircraft. That's Star Trek stuff.
I hope we can have laser fire arms in another 10 or so years. It'd be nice to shoot our laser weapons over 1,000 times and it'd only cost us like $15 or $20 to do that.
.
Ray Guns are a very sanitary way of wounding - Self-cauterizing ! - But take forever to heal.
.
THAT should be very attractive for our GunNutz ! - Hey, No ballistics tracing, either.
.
So....... Satelites and aliens need worry...
Or satellites armed with lasers.
Not if Stanley Kubrick's Space Child has anything to say about it.
shoot me with your laser beam...
Or how about... Hit me your sizzle-stick!!
That's what she said!
Star Wars meets reality. What we need is a laser weapon in space pointer at North Korea and Iran.
No, we need one pointed at Apartheid Israel.
Shouldn't your name be "I HATE JEWS"? Cause that would be more accurate... one thing's for sure, you're not a Jew!
Offense: $1 per shot. Defense: $1 mirror at Walmart.
Remember, you can't return that mirror once it has a hole burned through it even if you kept the receipt.
I'm all for using this in other countries. I'd worry about Obama having that power here. Socialists often find a straw man argument to attack their own people, such as "enemy combatant" "sympathizer" etc.
It starts with the leaders mug up on bill boards, dressing school children all the same and getting them to chant pro regime songs, programs to turn in your neighbors for dissent. All of the above have happened here.
Yes... and Conservatives typically make crap up about people they don't agree with. Seriously, you're stupid...
You should try not making things up. You should also learn the meaning of the word "socialist"
@Fubarack,and let me ask you if you're so informed just when,where all this extreme security guidelines start???If you remember as I do all with Bushs Patriot Act,Homeland Security not Pres.Obama the socialist as you wrongly stated..And trust me bud he's not the shoot first ask questions later type as Bush was either in lying to start 2 wars at our expense definitly not Pres.Obamas fault ..And kids do dress the same because schools thefts were up because kids were stealing brand name cloths from other kids because they wanted to and this plan again to dress everyone the same just curtails those thefts if all are wearing the same threads right..Where is this song singing deal at and what regime songs being sung normally used ,please spell it out more clearly because I'm not in the habit of figuring out puzzles, yours as well..And your name Fubarack I apply to someone of middle eastern dissent and yes in your country maybe innocents are killed for no reason but not here so please get with the program because nothing of this nature I can relate too as well...
Just your handle tells me everything I need to know about you, F. Thanks. Now I can simply and instantly avoid your posts and not waste my time.
I just bought one at big lots!!!
Yeah the book "how to be funny for dummies" just arrived at biglots
"The present is theirs, the future for which I really worked is mine"
Nikola Tesla
Nikola Tesla died penniless.... so much for his great inventions and ideas... LOL..
Maybe they can loan some of these new gadgets to the people of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen.