"Awesome weapons system upgrade!" Topic

The navy is testing a laser upgrade to the Phalanx CIWS!

link

The Phalanx is possibly my favorite weapon of all time. 20mm gatling cannon hooked up to an autonomous target tracking and engagement system? What could be cooler? Except now its got lasers!

picture

The tracking system is so sensitive, I've heard stories that they had to dial it down a little – because it had a habit of engaging seagull feathers falling from overflying birds. LOL!

I actually designed some of the point defense systems in Colonial Battlfleet with the Phalanx in mind. Looks like the Navy liked the idea and is using it. Wonder if I could get some kind of royalty from them.. LOL! :)

You've about as much chance as Paramount had when they tried the same trick with the same Navy regarding 'USS Enterprise'.
;-)

Until the laser does make it into service, THIS is even cooler, the 30mm Goalkeeper system

link

My brother-in-law once told me that during phalanx live fire tests, the weapon would sometimes acquire a seagull, which would of course result in a bad day for the seagull. It would shoot the bird to pieces, then shoot the pieces to pieces.

I hear tell that the Army is starting to test this for point defense against artillery and rockets. Not with lasers mind you.

Don't lasers violate some 'rules of land warfare' treaty?

As to goalkeeper, it certainly has a bigger round, but query what difference that makes, as a small round hitting a surface hugging SSM will probably do as much to damage or destroy the bogey.

Also the larger round means fewer rounds in the magazine.

Recently the phalanx was upgraded with a FLIR, making it, even in its current incarnation, probably the best all-round CIWS, especially considering the emerging danger to fleet units from littoral attack.

I am aware of the point defense tests against artillery. They did some testing up at China Lake.

G Dog – the 'Rules' are pretty vague on laser weaponry as most of the relevant treaties/conventions pre-date WW2.

The US seems to have avoided anti-personel laser development on the basis of 'if we field one, everyone will field them' philosophy – see some of the old articles on Red Thrust Star.

The man portable laser target indicators are claimed to be too low powered for anti-personel work, but some of the vehicle mounted laser guidance systems are getting there, and it would not take too much to make them effective against infantry & equipment that are not suitably equiped with defensive measures.

Pretty cool. Also pretty cool that the CIWS is available as the Centurion on a semi-trailer for portable use on land.

Doug

They're hecka cool, but sadly ineffective vs. ballistic missiles: link

Possibly the less-sexy SM-3 can do the job.

I played *waaayyyy* to much Harpoon on the PC when younger.

Only marginally apropos, I guess, but when I was working with hospital computer systems I discovered that the (now long-obsolete) ICD-9 codes that were used to classify injuries/conditions included codes for being shot with laser or plasma weapons. Strangely enough, there was no code directly applicable to super-gluing your butt to a seat cushion, a surprisingly common occurrence in Louisiana.

LT

I hear tell that the Army is starting to test this for point defense against artillery and rockets.

The US Army calls it CRAM.

link

The UK has been using it for land based point defence in Afghanistan for some time.

I look forward to the day when a sea-based system does something useful :)

I hope they will make a smaller variant for recreational fishing boats, since those pesky seagulls can be annoying.

@TGA tsk-tsk…

Haven't you read Rime of the Ancient Mariner?

Doug, also

Top Gun it would have to come with a counter then, so the Fed would know how much to charge you. A seagull is worth $500. USD

Or at least that was the price when I was in the service, and as most Gulls are protected under the migratory bird act there could be Jail time associated with killing one.

Jeff -

Those are hardly the typical anti-ship missiles the system was designed to counter.

A RAM launcher could probably stop it though.

IIRC Goalkeeper can engage targets farther out than Phalanx (30mm go further??). As both systems use a closed loop tracking system, ie the computers track the missile and the shells and make corrections to the gun laying to make the two coincide, being able to start the engagement further out is an advantage, especially against fast moving targets. The reason some SSMs such as Sunburn \ Moskit make their attacks at high mach numbers is to give CIWS systems as little time as possible to react. Additionally, even if you hit a missile, there is a danger zone inside which you may still get hit either by fragments (including the pesky warhead)so you are better off getting a hit with a 30mm than a 20mm because the 30mm has more stopping power and a better chance of an outright kill rather than a control kill, and a better chance of a control kill further away and therefore outside the danger zone.

or something like that.

I wonder how the energy weapon manages to track where it is shooting if there are no outbound rounds?

In the link provided, they don't specify but it's a good bet that drone was a crossing-target, which meant the fire-control had all the time in world to calculate the solution. Turn that into a closing (head-on) target and the parameters change. It would be interesting (but likely classified) to know how long the beam has to "dwell" on the target in order to cause damage. Unlike sci-fi renditions, beam weapons today require staying on target for seconds at a time in order to cause destruction via heat transfer – it's not unlike trying to track a moving target using a flashlight. This makes detection and tracking of the target critical to success. If you can make the effective beam wider and still put a good amount of heat transfer without dissipation or diffraction effects, the precision of the tracking requirement drops appropriately.

Conversely, the shorter range, the less the dwell time required because there's more heat being transferred to the target rather than being lost in transmission, but only up to a certain point. This is the other edge of the sword – if you can't meet minumum dwell times because of the range, you're going to get hit anyway, either by the weapon successfully penetrating your defenses or secondary damage effects from shrapnel as Pilgrim notes, or more historically by any remaining solid-fuel (the 2nd Exocet on Stark and the missile hit on Sheffield).

Still a lot of challenges to overcome – a typical chemical laser proven in real-world tests like the ATL requires five second dwell time to destroy a missile assuming the engagement starts at 12 miles. A Sunburn SSM will close with you at the rate of just under a mile a second (Mach 2 at sea level, moderate temps in 60s). Assuming a radar and visual horizon of about 20 miles, but detection ratios of 80% (remember, radar is not completely effective all the way to the horizon and is limited by mast height and other factors), that's 16 miles or so to detect,track and lay down fire. Assuming similar efficacy of five seconds for a kill, you'll get one chance, because at Impact -5, you're already going to take a hit somehow if it hasn't been killed yet. Your beam efficiency also drops due to weather and environmental effects – rain, sandstorms, all of those will cause diffusion and diffraction of the beam's efficacy on the target.

A guess on the closed-loop question – the feedback is based on reflectivity of the target. In the file photo, there are two additional tubes that look like cameras of some kind flanking the main projection tube. As the laser makes contact with the inbound, the reflectivity of the target changes. It could also be IR based, or mass-spectrum – as the target starts to deteriorate, you get feedback of increased profiles in silicon, titanium, etc. as the missile starts to degenerate into the base elements it's built from.

While it is true that a closing target will be approaching much faster, it is certainly an easier target to hit, and to track than a crossing one.

Any skeet shooter will tell you that.

Of course, the rub comes with the time needed to damage or vaporize the inbound weapon, and the ability to get the laser onto the target in time.

Goalkeeper has to be built-in. Phalanx was designed to be bolted on to just about anything. You could make a great Technical with one.

Laser tests are usually 'staged' to make the expense palatable. It is not a weapon of value due to power issues. After 50+ years they are still just showy, expensive pop-guns.
For successful tests, I offer you DIVAD. A werewolf on the range until the facts leaked out.