Lankan Ranger
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US Navy vs Iran Navy & Laser Gun
Incinerating a million dollars' worth of equipment in 3 seconds flat is pretty easy if you're the US navy and you need to destroy a hostile drone: short-range interceptor missiles that will do the job cost up to $1.4 million.
But when the USS Ponce steams into the Arabian Gulf next year, it will have a far less costly countermeasure at its disposal: it will be the first warship to be armed with a shipboard laser weapon, the US Office of Naval Research has revealed.
Developed by Raytheon Missile Systems, based in Tucson, Arizona, the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) will be able to track and destroy drones or explosives-packed speedboats.
It does so with a searing beam of infrared radiation from a 100-kilowatt fibre-optic laser – and each firing costs just a few dollars in electricity. What's more, the system can track agile targets that quickly change direction, and of course its beams travel at the speed of light.
And whereas missile systems need to be reloaded for reuse, a laser can be fired repeatedly so long as the ship has enough power and the weapon can be adequately cooled between shots.
Although the first such system cost $32 million, in the longer run it will be "tremendously affordable", says US navy research chief Matthew Klunder. The laser has so far excelled in tests, successfully combusting drones and setting speedboat outboard motors alight.
It's no accident that the first laser weapon will be deployed on a ship, says Elizabeth Quintana, a defence systems analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. All branches of the US military have experimented with lasers, but those based on chemical lasers such as the Airborne Laser , an aircraft-mounted antiballistic missile weapon, and the Tactical High Energy Laser, which targets artillery rockets, were abandoned partly because of the huge power supply needed – one that required six trucks to transport, in the case of the THEL. "But a modern warship is able to generate a lot of electricity, more than enough to power a laser weapon," she says.
Drone-wrecking laser gun to sail on US warship - tech - 12 April 2013 - New Scientist
Incinerating a million dollars' worth of equipment in 3 seconds flat is pretty easy if you're the US navy and you need to destroy a hostile drone: short-range interceptor missiles that will do the job cost up to $1.4 million.
But when the USS Ponce steams into the Arabian Gulf next year, it will have a far less costly countermeasure at its disposal: it will be the first warship to be armed with a shipboard laser weapon, the US Office of Naval Research has revealed.
Developed by Raytheon Missile Systems, based in Tucson, Arizona, the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) will be able to track and destroy drones or explosives-packed speedboats.
It does so with a searing beam of infrared radiation from a 100-kilowatt fibre-optic laser – and each firing costs just a few dollars in electricity. What's more, the system can track agile targets that quickly change direction, and of course its beams travel at the speed of light.
And whereas missile systems need to be reloaded for reuse, a laser can be fired repeatedly so long as the ship has enough power and the weapon can be adequately cooled between shots.
Although the first such system cost $32 million, in the longer run it will be "tremendously affordable", says US navy research chief Matthew Klunder. The laser has so far excelled in tests, successfully combusting drones and setting speedboat outboard motors alight.
It's no accident that the first laser weapon will be deployed on a ship, says Elizabeth Quintana, a defence systems analyst at the Royal United Services Institute in London. All branches of the US military have experimented with lasers, but those based on chemical lasers such as the Airborne Laser , an aircraft-mounted antiballistic missile weapon, and the Tactical High Energy Laser, which targets artillery rockets, were abandoned partly because of the huge power supply needed – one that required six trucks to transport, in the case of the THEL. "But a modern warship is able to generate a lot of electricity, more than enough to power a laser weapon," she says.
Drone-wrecking laser gun to sail on US warship - tech - 12 April 2013 - New Scientist
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