US successfully tests a Laser Weapon that can Destroy Aircraft Mid-Flight

Doesn't look very effective. It takes a long time to kill the target and what is the range anyway? Could that thing even stop two incomming drones?
 
Doesn't look very effective. It takes a long time to kill the target and what is the range anyway? Could that thing even stop two incomming drones?

I don't think that is the end game point here. The fact they can do it now is a technological step, now we wait for further advancements.
 
Inevitable. Military lasers and other "future" techs (like rail guns) have been in development and testing since at least the 1970s. One of my EE professors from college worked on them in the early to mid 80s, and that's all he could say about it...
 
But at what cost?
About tree fiddy.
Inevitable. Military lasers and other "future" techs (like rail guns) have been in development and testing since at least the 1970s.
You have to question though, what is the point of all the spending? We'll spend billions on new technology, but then the Chinese spies will have it stolen in a month or less, so all you ended up doing is having the world spend more on defense to equalize again which is a bit pointless when you already have way more stockpiles of current stuff than anyone else.
 
About tree fiddy.

You have to question though, what is the point of all the spending? We'll spend billions on new technology, but then the Chinese spies will have it stolen in a month or less, so all you ended up doing is having the world spend more on defense to equalize again which is a bit pointless when you already have way more stockpiles of current stuff than anyone else.
Being able to steal the technology doesn't mean they can actually duplicate it and produce it in reality though.
 
You have to question though, what is the point of all the spending? We'll spend billions on new technology, but then the Chinese spies will have it stolen in a month or less, so all you ended up doing is having the world spend more on defense to equalize again which is a bit pointless when you already have way more stockpiles of current stuff than anyone else.

Being able to steal the technology doesn't mean they can actually duplicate it and produce it in reality though.

Rizen speaks the truth. Russia and China both have been stealing military tech from the US and other countries for decades and decades...but look at the poor state of their militaries technologies.

They are great at making a small number of flashy and neat proof of concepts to puff their chests up to the world, but they done have the financial or technological capabilities to enter them into mass deployment.

Then there's the allies of the US: we share (sell?) certain aspects of technologies in order to maintain and bolster those partnerships. It's staying at least one step ahead of the greatest potential threats to one's nation.

That all comes with steep price tags: the R&D, the manufacturing, the testing, the revising, the information protection, the purposeful decoys and diversions to outside and inside espionage, the espionage to others, etc.

Freedom comes at a price, and I'd rather it be money than innocent lives of oblivious populaces. Sometimes the latter happens, which is a disturbing reality and, sometimes, an unintended and undesired consequence of staying at least one step ahead.
 
Being able to steal the technology doesn't mean they can actually duplicate it and produce it in reality though.
If they can steal and reproduce all our other tech, and they make almost everything that we consume in the US, why would they not be able to build this? If anything, they have more manufacturing capability than the US if entering into a new arms race.
DejaWiz said:
Then there's the allies of the US: we share (sell?) certain aspects of technologies in order to maintain and bolster those partnerships.
"Allies"... riight. Most of our so-called allies run 24x7 anti-American propaganda campaigns for decades now, even in my German quiz shows I watch I can't avoid the constant smearing of the US. And our "allies" like Israel that receives more foreign aid per year than all other countries combined (despite the fact they are a developed nation) just manipulate us into fighting their wars while playing both sides like in the Iraq/Iran incident where they were caught admitting that the goal was just to keep Muslims attacking Muslims to weaken everyone around them, not to mention the coverup of the Liberty incident where the comms said "but sir its a US ship" and they attacked anyway and called off rescue efforts and then launched one of the biggest coverups that persists to this day. Or perhaps our Saudi allies that also happen to be the number one funding source for most terrorist organizations that target the US.

With allies like that, who needs enemies?

IMO, the only one this benefits is the military industrial complex that has a new excuse to keep spending more on new tech since the old stuff is now rendered "obsolete". And then the "obsolete" equipment goes to their police forces so we have a para-military SWAT around the country with APCs and the like.
 
If they can steal and reproduce all our other tech, and they make almost everything that we consume in the US, why would they not be able to build this? If anything, they have more manufacturing capability than the US if entering into a new arms race.
They make a lot of consumer goods, yes. They don't necessarily have the production and materials science expertise to make the advanced alloys that are used in things like fighter aircraft, various weapons systems, stealth tech, etc. You can see this in how they had to modify their clone of the F-35, the J-31. That's why the J-31 is twin engine vs single engine (they can't duplicate our jet engines) and it lacks all of the integrated data technology.
 
They make a lot of consumer goods, yes. They don't necessarily have the production and materials science expertise to make the advanced alloys that are used in things like fighter aircraft, various weapons systems, stealth tech, etc. You can see this in how they had to modify their clone of the F-35, the J-31. That's why the J-31 is twin engine vs single engine (they can't duplicate our jet engines) and it lacks all of the integrated data technology.
You could say the same thing about Japanese and Korean cars, and they used the massive savings on R&D to invest into manufacturing and have no problem producing the same tech now. Heck, the Koreans recently scalped BMW engineers to develop their cars, which I'm still not clear how they got around the non-compete. We'll likely see the same with the nuclear Type 004 aircraft carriers thanks to Russians and Americans selling out.

I'd much rather see the money invested into infrastructure to increase our manufacturing and shipping capacity and rebuild our roads and bridges as Trump made a central promise of his campaign.
 
Would you please enlighten us all as to what the relevance of this is to the news of naval lasers?
It was brought up that the only reason the US has friends is because we bribe them with gifts like naval lazerbeemz, and I brought up that its not working because they just take the billions and still just do whatever is best for themselves anyway and aren't real allies, and one of the examples was Israel's repayment of the US's devotion including that attack.

IMO you can't make friends or get them to respect you by buying them stuff, at least not real ones, as you just come across as a chump. Real friends usually have beliefs and goals in common, so ideological and practical allies.
 
You could say the same thing about Japanese and Korean cars, and they used the massive savings on R&D to invest into manufacturing and have no problem producing the same tech now. Heck, the Koreans recently scalped BMW engineers to develop their cars, which I'm still not clear how they got around the non-compete. We'll likely see the same with the nuclear Type 004 aircraft carriers thanks to Russians and Americans selling out.

I'd much rather see the money invested into infrastructure to increase our manufacturing and shipping capacity and rebuild our roads and bridges as Trump made a central promise of his campaign.
I would much rather see money invested into infrastructure as well, I'm just explaining that just because they steal the blueprints doesn't mean they can manufacture it domestically.

RE: non competes, they're very likely unenforceable especially if it's across country lines.
 
But can it do this? (I need my popcorn)
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The development of this tech has been accelerated due to the advancement of cheap reliable drones. Countries like Iran love to use cheap drones, basically the same as the drones hobbyists in the US buy, and use them in "swarms" to attack a target. It doesn't make sense to take down a bunch of $50 drones using a million dollar missile. Systems like the AEGIS combat system should be able to handle some of it, but even the ammo from that gun system is almost certainly more expensive than the drones, and ships don't carry an infinite amount of ammo... On a ship with a nuclear reactor like an aircraft carrier, power is not a particularly limited resource like missiles and gun ammo is.
 
Hopefully, there are some folks here (and out there) that aren't nieve enough to believe that this "public" announcement is anywhere near the full extent of the US's progress in this field...

In 99.9999% of all public disclosures about military tech advancements, whatever you hear about in the news today, is actually about 5 years behind what they have actually accomplished behind the scenes...

In other words, we have had the ability to shoot down incoming aircraft, missles, rockets, satellites etc at will for quite some time now....with ever increasing accuracy & destructive powers, it's just been very tightly locked down and kept out of public & enemy view, making it harder for them to steal/duplicate the tech...

This is just anutha case of what was once thought of as purely science fiction becoming a reality faster than most people thought possible :D
 
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This seems appropriate. I'm also nearing completion of my PhD in novel laser development, so I find news like this to be very exciting.
 
A shitton, and these laser firings only cost like 30 cents in energy.
150kW out might be absolute worst case (older tech) max input power 550kW (CW especially high beam quality is typically lower efficiency) but there are more efficient ytterbium fibre lasers than that (some are 60%-80% but lower beam quality). Sorry bit rusty on my ytterbium non-doubled fibre laser efficiency numbers and they are usually CW, so maybe another 220kW for cooling. They have options for reservoir approaches though, larger chillers use more juice so depends which way you go. All up 800kW for a 1 second shot plus continuous cooling and pump requirements after shot.
 
Millions. You don't want to think about it.
Not to mention there really isn’t that much from a numbers standpoint. US invests in defensive counter air, not really ground to air. What little ground to air we have is more so for ballistic missile defense.
 
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The benefits of the laser over interceptor missiles are many. Recognize this was a proof-of-concept. The goal would be much lower dwell times for target destruction. (More powerful laser source, tighter beams, intelligent aiming for weakspots.)

1. Ships carry missiles in VLS. Once fired, that cell is empty until the ship returns to port. A larger vessel carries ~64 missiles. These are split between anti-air, anti-ship, and cruise missiles.
2. Related: ships only have so many anti-air missiles. If it carries 28, then the 29th missile gets through.
3. Hypersonic inbound missiles are VERY difficult to intercept. To physically get an anti-air missile up and to the hypersonic inbound missile's location before it hits the ship (or whatever that ship is protecting) is a VERY difficult proposition. Lasers don't have that limitation. This is the main driver pushing directed energy weapons on ships.
4. Engagement time can be greatly reduced (if the delivered energy can be increased). Pulse, slew to the next target, pulse, repeat as needed...
5. Cost per round. A gallon of diesel vs. millions.
6. Signature issues: ever see the poison gasses come off a missile launch? A snap-shot with sailors on deck would produce casualties. Not so with lasers.
7. A technique to engage targets is shoot, look, shoot. Meaning, fire an anti-air missile. Did it hit? If not, fire a second one. That technique is risky. A better technique would be shoot, shoot, look, shoot. Fire 2 missiles (assume an 85% probability of intercept and do the math), look, fire a finisher if needed. This would deplete the limited magazines even faster. Lasers just shoot as needed.
 
It would go well with the miniaturized nuclear reactor. Nuclear powered cruisers and destroyers on indefinate patrols for AA defense.

Toss in a couple submarines and a bunch of torpedoes, and a laser cruiser/destroyer group can take out an aircraft carrier fleet.
 
Looks like these naval lasers just met another milestone in reaching operational status with a live fire test in the Pacific.

I wonder if they work on shiny aircraft? :p

https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-ship-destroys-drone-with-laser-weapon-2020-5

Remember no mirror is perfect. At the energy levels involved even a few percent of the beams power is enough to burn off the outmost reflective surface at which point the target is no different than any other lump of plastic or metal being slagged down.
 
5. Cost per round. A gallon of diesel vs. millions.
And how much for cost of platform? Will this be patented technology so only one company has the rights to make? Will it cost a quarter billion per unit to deploy with huge maintenance/upkeep costs associated with it?

Answer is I dont know, but what I do know is simply saying millions vs cost of a gallon of diesel may be a bit premature and possibly way misleading
 
And how much for cost of platform? Will this be patented technology so only one company has the rights to make? Will it cost a quarter billion per unit to deploy with huge maintenance/upkeep costs associated with it?

Answer is I dont know, but what I do know is simply saying millions vs cost of a gallon of diesel may be a bit premature and possibly way misleading

Obviously there are other costs. Equally obvious, I was discussing the cost per engagement, not the fielding cost or the development costs.

I did not include the costs of developing phased-array illumination radars or how to gimbal a seeker in a missile or...etc.

This technology is a game-changer. Ask a Revolutionary War soldier how much is too much to spend for a working belt-fed machinegun.

As always with new tech, the devil is in the details. Seeing it develop under field trials will determine whether or not it will be of sufficient utility to be fielded.
 
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