Boeing Advanced Tactical Laser In Action

snowden said:
Seems like more of our tax dollars thrown uselessly into the military-industrial complex. Funny how some people are so upset if we spend $30 billion to help other human beings live healthier, happier lives but they don't care if we use it to develop useless "weapons" that can't do shit and take an entire tank of fuel to fire...

http://www.laserfocusworld.com/articles/318547

"Outside observers are skeptical that ATL will pave the way for practical laser weapons. “It’s more of a harassment weapon than anything else,” says Philip Coyle, senior advisor at the Center for Defense Information (Washington, D.C.) and a former director of military testing. He says the laser would not be effective against hardened targets such as tanks, and that targeting individual soldiers would raise ethical concerns about blinding weapons. He suggests that laser weapons might be useful only against “very soft targets” such as pickup trucks and tents."
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Sadly doing what it does best it would seem.
 
Heh, remember the stink raised when people found out we contributed $5 billion on the LHC?
 
Yeah, all you nay-sayers are gonna feel pretty embarrassed when we've got Spec Ops teams equipped with vinyl tape deployed to lay out black rectangles on the terrorists' hardware. THAT will show ya'll a thing or two!

:D
 
Now.. build this into a satellite system and make it powered from its own nuclear plant.
 
MrLonghair said:
Now.. build this into a satellite system and make it powered from its own nuclear plant.
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We're working on it, along with the Chinese I'm sure. Lots of info here:

http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/program/sbl.htm

We're still using hydrogen to power the laser.

Started typing up random questions and stuff but I don't have time for a good conversation right now. It's all very interesting though :)
 
If only the same enthusiasm that people have over military weapons where to be applied to nation wide healthcare and some more brains for those people who consider healthcare socialism. Now that would be "Cool"...
 
LOL ruined a nice paint job!

20 Million.. wait Billion for a cup of gas and a match.
 
The laser did "defeat" the truck (according to news releases), however this was a preliminary shot and not the full power one.

The sources that carried the video originally made that clear, it lost some of the explanations as it filtered through the web.

For those interested: the ATL is a chemical (COIL) laser mounted in a C-130. It's doubtful it will ever see wide deployment as flying around with tanks of toxic chemicals isn't the most efficient way to do things. It's more proof of concept that you can direct and target a beam from a moving aircraft and deliver enough energy to defeat a target, all things that will flow into a deployable solid-state laser system down the road, once power output has matured on those systems.
 
I just hope the pilots and the "gunners" don't get carried away like it's all a video game! LOL
 
the-one1 said:
Anyone know what the effectiveness this is to a mirror (glass, aluminum, whatever)?
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Depends on the mirror I'd guess. I highly polished and perfect mirror will of course reflect the light, however the slightest imperfection and it's 'crack-shatter-blamm' time baby. As a a child I saw this personally at NASA White Sands during a family visit they hosted for employees (the old man worked there). Long story short, they showed videos from the then defunct star-wars project. I remember them well, including watching this huge mirror that was supposed to reflect the laser out of the valley and to the target, just explode because of some 'dust' issues, and also put a fairly decent sized hole in the side of a mountain.

Full disclosure, I'm not an optics expert by any means, and the video I'm referencing was as a child many years ago, so I could totally be mistaken. Never the less, it was a cool thing to see. I bet they still have it at the visitor's center somewhere, along with all the various steel panels with huge holes in them created by 'experimental high energy weapons.'
 
If anybody attacks us with a pickup truck I guess we can ruin their paint job lmao
 
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