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Watch The U.S. Navy’s New Laser Weapon Take Out Two Ships — Parallax Forums

Watch The U.S. Navy’s New Laser Weapon Take Out Two Ships

Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
edited 2014-12-12 02:58 in General Discussion
Video
http://news.yahoo.com/watch-u-navy-laser-weapon-two-ships-video-173218470.html

The U.S. Navy announced Wednesday that a new laser weapon deployed into Persian Gulf earlier this year performed seamlessly during testing that wrapped up in November, and declared the weapon a success.

Deployed for the first time aboard the U.S.S. Ponce in September, the Office of Naval Research released a video Wednesday of the LaWS (laser weapon system) taking out two test targets.

Comments

  • Heater.Heater. Posts: 21,230
    edited 2014-12-10 13:54
    "performed seamlessly"

    What an odd expression.
  • Ron CzapalaRon Czapala Posts: 2,418
    edited 2014-12-10 15:03
    Heater. wrote: »
    "performed seamlessly"

    What an odd expression.

    However, the video narrator said "performed flawlessly" (at 24 seconds)
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    edited 2014-12-10 15:42
    Looks like the trick is to approach in the blind spot of this weapon.
    I see they also did not show any counter measures, like simple mirrors, or how it copes with 500 or 1000 targets..
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-12-10 18:41
    IIRC the Somali pirates have mostly curtailed their activity. Otherwise, they and their small boats might have been suitable experimental targets. All it takes is one well-publicized example, as the Russians did.
  • TorTor Posts: 2,010
    edited 2014-12-11 02:42
    erco wrote: »
    IIRC the Somali pirates have mostly curtailed their activity. Otherwise, they and their small boats might have been suitable experimental targets.[..]
    On some of those vessels the pirates keep captured innocent non-Somali fishermen, as slaves basically. You can't just fire on those vessels with something like this.
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,256
    edited 2014-12-11 08:54
    Agreed. Now tell Putin! :)
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2014-12-11 09:05
    Took out two small boats (the video said 'small boats'), not two ships..

    It is a handy weapon system, but I was always taught that you can put a boat on a ship, but you can't put a ship on another ship.

    Stopping a whole ship with a laser is yet to be done.
  • User NameUser Name Posts: 1,451
    edited 2014-12-11 19:59
    Umm...I don't think the idea ever was to blast a hole through the 14" steel hull of a battleship. In fact that seems like the worst possible approach. Seems like directed attacks on the conning tower or the fire control radar or other sensitive spots would be the way to go. The demise of the Bismark began with nothing more than a torpedo jamming the rudder.

    Also, given the increasingly asymmetric nature of warfare, why waste a $10M missile on every hostile target, including drones and suicide boats?

    Finally, the speed of light allows you to aim at the target, not at where the target is extrapolated to be when your projectile finally reaches it.
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2014-12-12 02:58
    Also, It isn't a bad device for blinding incoming fighter jet pilots. I suppose they will have to fire on targets via radar and stay beyond the line of sight.

    I just got a bit annoyed with how the content of the video morphed to such a grand scheme as sinking ships. Yes, it might disable a ship that could then be sunk. Not sure quite how, but possible. It guess it could blind everyone on the bridge and then turn to some other nastiness.
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