Navy Laser Sets Ship on Fire

I have seen laser pointers that could do that, Navy is sure behind the times! :eek:
 
You've seen laser pointers that set a BOAT on fire at a mile away? I'd sure like one. But in all seriousness, that's awesome.
 
insane. imagine if someone tried to put it out and the laser lased their head off.
that would make for some good antipirate video on youtube.
 
PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW PEW
 
I'm not seeing how that's real useful. I was thinking it was like...instantaneously shot through. Like it burned a hole in the engines, then caught it on fire.

I can see this as being useful for killing ppl, not so much against vehicles. A weapon that has no recoil, no need for calculations of wind, distance, gravity, etc.
 
I can see this thing getting abused. "hey, set the captain's hat on fire!
 
that's it? why isn't there an echoing whooshy screaming sound, followed by a fireball?
 
They need to make the laser beam light up blue and add sound effects to it so it looks and sounds like the TOS Enterprise firing phasers.
 
Boat shifts, laser shoots in to space, 2 weeks later little green men ask why we smoked Bill from the planet Glorpok. THIS is how it starts gents.
 
Lasers only make PEW PEW sounds when they are shot in space. Everyone knows that.
 
Ep53_phaser.jpg
 
stealthy123 said:
seems an expensive boat to set ablaze just to prove you can in this economic times...
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EXACTLY...I was wondering who...besides myself, would notice this little tidbit.Did the taxpayers foot the bill for that? Why not use an old junker. Obviously those were good engines...they were running before the demonstration.
 
Just wait until Submarines are equipped with the megawatt versions that cut steel at 2000 ft/s
 
If we are seeing this then it already is more advanced than this imo
 
So no one bothered to look up and note that ship in article is from a ship class thats been retired, something is fishy about all this.
 
krotch said:
I'm not seeing how that's real useful. I was thinking it was like...instantaneously shot through. Like it burned a hole in the engines, then caught it on fire.
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Those Chinese "Ship Killer" ballistic missiles came just in time to become antiquated. Air Defense is about to undergo a revolution. Everyone with non-stealth aircraft are going to get reamed when the aircraft versions of this that they are working on come out.

Then you can start dropping off killer satellites in space with that x-37b they are playing with, at which point the nuclear arsenals of most every country become moot until transferred to terrain hugging cruise missiles. The Soviets have already begun deploying new missiles with additional decoys, we shall see how long that lasts before people have to start stripping missiles down and trying to armor them.
 
krotch said:
I'm not seeing how that's real useful. I was thinking it was like...instantaneously shot through. Like it burned a hole in the engines, then caught it on fire.

I can see this as being useful for killing ppl, not so much against vehicles. A weapon that has no recoil, no need for calculations of wind, distance, gravity, etc.
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Disable a ship from a mile or more away before they would even know you're there? Reduce the need to chase them down? Instantly blind people? Pop balloons?
 
Saabjock said:
EXACTLY...I was wondering who...besides myself, would notice this little tidbit.Did the taxpayers foot the bill for that? Why not use an old junker. Obviously those were good engines...they were running before the demonstration.
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Most likely a boat seized under drug trafficking laws.
 
josephunh said:
So no one bothered to look up and note that ship in article is from a ship class thats been retired, something is fishy about all this.
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You took the effort to look up that Spruance class destroyers had been retired, but not the fact that the ship listed had been retained specifically as a test platform and declared it "fishy"?
 
Brak710 said:
shield everything with mirrors

problem?
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This is one of the funniest threads I have seen here in some time. I cant stop giggling like a little school girl.

Oooooo, Naboo cruisers for everyone! I want a nice shiny chrome boat!

I wonder if flat black stealth craft burn faster then?

Better yet, why not just get a mirror on a turret with a targeting system that sends it right back?

You know some sailors have used it to light their cigs already... you just know it.
 
Those targeting systems are really impressive. The lasers aren't bad, but I still think they're gonna end up being a fair weather only tool with limited usefulness.
 
probably want to use this for "pirate" vessels off the coast of africa, disable their ass from a mile away and then all the pansy assed pussies can be happy we didn't turn them into swiss cheese.
 
undertheradar said:
Better yet, why not just get a mirror on a turret with a targeting system that sends it right back?
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Soralis said:
Simple solution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corner_reflector
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Well, there are two reasons I can think off of the top of my head. A. I wonder, if the lazer is hot enough to melt through 2000 ft of steel in a single second, I wonder how long the laser would take to melt 'glass' aka a mirror that's maybe 1/8th of an inch think? I suppose about 5 micro-seconds(not miliseconds) at which point the lazer is once again lighting your ship on fire. If you are extremely worried about the 5 microseconds of 'lazer' boucning back, you could attempt to aim it so the reflection is cast into the sea. IE at a cuved area of the ship's hull and make the ship start taking on water or target the same area and cut a horizontal line across seperate the top half of the boat from the bottom half. Alternatively, cut a reasonably large circle.

Secondly, a lazer can target/fire theoretically extremely fast. If you had a large mirror you were physically moving around the ship with 'motors' to try to avoid the lazer, well, there's the issue of it only last 5 micro seconds. Ignoring that, consider that a lazer can travel that 1 mile, considering its traveling at the speed of light, several orders of magnitude faster than your mirror can move via motors to protect that area of the ship and you'd only need to target an unprotect area of the ships hull for all of (1 mile / 186,282.397 miles per second) = 5.36 x 10^-6 seconds.

If you coated the ENITRE SHIP in mirrors, that would be fantastic except for the mirror lasting only 5 microseconds before being melted and the lazer going straight thru and the pointed out flaw of the ability to target areas of the ship were the hull is curved so the deflection is into the sea(not back at the navy ship firing the lazer). Not to mention the expense of covering entire ships in mirrors.
 
Mirrored surfaces aren't a big problem, they either shoot at a place without them, or employ more destructive physical munitions.
 
Yoda4561 said:
Those targeting systems are really impressive. The lasers aren't bad, but I still think they're gonna end up being a fair weather only tool with limited usefulness.
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Indeed they are. The power of the laser is a so what. High power lasers are pulsed and I imagine that some sort of sensory feedback that receives the light or other reflected energy is keeping it on track. GPS would not be accurate enough to keep it focused at one spot on the motor. Think about the rail gun accuracy combined by high power lasers like this in an integrated targeting system. Sure makes sense to me for the Navy to go that way.

Power sources are going to become a major concern for naval operation and war soon too. With these new technologies that require HUGE amounts of power we and other nations are going to build ships with HUGE reactors. Crazy stuff
 
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