"The US Navy has a real ray gun!" Topic

link

ZZZZAAAAPPPP.

So, given the earlier discussion about the target sensitivity of the Phalanx system this thing is being combined with, will sailors be enjoying pre-cooked seagull for dinner?

Yum, biscuits with seagull gravy.

and that's the 'man-portable' version…you should see the ship-mounted varient!

Scary.I don't like living in the Future.

LaWS is fitted to the Navy's "R2-D2" robotic gun turret…

Is Luca$ getting royalties from the US Navy for this? ;D

Unfortunately even Lucas can't get royalties for this because R2-D2 didn't have a laser gun turret, if they do produce an "astro-droid" however, he will of course be looking to cash in.

Wow, combined with our aerial robotic assassin drones, world-spanning digital communications networks and portable "pad" computers, we're really living in the scifi world I read about as a kid. Is "Ender's Game" even SF anymore?

lugal hdan,

Of course "Ender's Game" is still SF, remember they had instant communications. Radios still have a lag, and there is limited bandwidth available, so the number of remotes you will be able to control is actually pretty small.

I believe the biggie for this Weapon will be the in the point defense role when you have rocket and mortar attacks. Now the only stuff that will be falling on the ground will be bits of rockets or mortars, not 20mm DU rounds.

The unofficial description of the CIWS (spoken: Cheez-Whiz) weapon mount is 'R2D2 with a hard-on', but Fox can't run the full version.

Hey, they finally got the beast down to a reasonable size (but I bet the per-unit cost is 10x higher!).

Now you just need to deploy 2 or 3 of those at each FOB in the sandbox. Go ahead, shoot all the rockets you want at us, they'll just fall short, in little-bitty pieces!

Vaporizing is good, as on Star Trek, unless you or your side's weapons are the one getting vaporized.

Now, if they can just get that reduced down to a hand-carried model.

But but we've been told here that Lasers won't work as weapons???

I'm confused

Go Navy! So think about what this means for conventional weapons and seapower. How do ship-killing missiles, airplane delivered munitions, UAVs, aircraft carriers, ballistic flight artillery rounds, fit into a world in which you can conceive of vessels bristling with sufficient laser AA bateries to shoot down anything in LOS whose flight time to target is more than the time to lock on and engage? Couple this with direct fire rail-guns and we may just have to re-enter the age of the dreadnoughts where Naval combat becomes up front a personal again. Shades of Alfred Thayer Mahan!

Lost Pict

ROFL Photonred.

Also, GW keeps claiming that a sword is a more effective weapon than the Rocket-propelled-.75 Caliber-man-portable explosive Bolt Rifle.

Isn't 40k a simulation game?

Anyone ever read "Seas of Venus" by David Drake?

Ship-mounted lasers made missiles obsolete, so Battleships firing armored penetrators are back in vogue.

Hard for the R2D2-Laser to cope with an 18" slab of tungsten fired from 24 miles away.

Speaking of Drake, make the system small enough to put on a tank and you've got the air defense he envisioned.

The reality of killing target with photons are pretty complex. Most RAM *Rockets, Artillery and Mortars) turn out to be pretty soft targets at the moment.

Speaking of Drake, make the system small enough to put on a tank and you've got the air defense he envisioned.

Woohoo! So once we have "if it flies, it dies" sorted out, war will be all about armor and mechs, like it SHOULD be! :)

OGRE!!!!

I imagine missiles won't become obsolete, until they make a fusion battery with an infinite charge.

Until that time, the challenge will be to overwhelm the laser before it can target all of the incoming weapons, and/or to get it to deplete its batteries in a series of salvoes, before they can be recharged.

Until they start putting nuke powerplants onto escort vessels again, the advantage will be with the attackers using missiles.

Still, grav tanks with lasers can't be far behind. I just wish they would get the anti-grav repulsors perfected soon.

Since when has GW put out any Simulation games… 40K is pure sci-fantasy!!!

That was a joke, retz. Hardee Har Har…

They need a full scale test on some pig/cow carcasses ala Mythbuster format…mmmmmmmmmMMMMMMZzzzzzzappppp pow!

Mmmm meat is yummy!

I'm thinking about the quality of the crews that will have to maintain and test this weapon system, as well as the equipment itself.

Sounds good until it has been at sea for six months and then is required to 'work' without warning.

Dan

Surely you are not implying that any modern day combatants would conduct a surprise attack Dan.

That would be unchivalrous, and severely frowned upon.

;-)

Warships with railguns, point-defense death rays, flying recon robots, and they're going to have to get big again…

(Marvin T. Martian voice) "At long last, my dream come true!"

"Anyone ever read "Seas of Venus" by David Drake? Ship-mounted lasers made missiles obsolete, so Battleships firing armored penetrators are back in vogue."

That's what I'm talking about.. bring back the Iowa class!! Much more fun than them being museums.

Won't this make area effect EMP weapons more important? And makes the ship a torpedo target first?

Typical Fox news-Navy has 'Really Big Ray Gun.' One fears….

Here is the plain jane official USN release from NSWC Dahlgren link

Googling for "U.S. Navy's Laser Weapon System" digs up a pile of related articles including this picture: link

Pretty heady stuff…

Lost Pict

Parzival obviously remembers the same rationale used for the SJ Ogre! game that I do: point defense against aerial targets becomes so effective that anything that flies, dies. Combined with new armor and some other stuff that we all knew was pure science fantasy at the time…

Congrats to the navy. Way to follow in the footsteps of the Air Force ;)

Inter-service rivalry aside…. I'm guessing that this system will receive no further budgeting, just like the Air Force one which Gates eliminated the budgeting for the day after it was successfully tested.

So, as cool as it might be, no, you probably won't see a return of the dreadnought or the elimination of airpower from modern warfare, at leas not anytime soon. The country lacks the money to invest that much into the military, especially when there are more realistic issues that need money thrown at them.

Not only that, but the air force also just successfully tested the x-51, which (if certain sources are to be believed) is destined to become the delivery system for a new generation of air-ground and anti-ship missiles, as well as a future replacement for the ICBM. The chances of a system like this neutralizing such a threat are slim to none, then again, fortunately we're the only ones thus far to have either of these techs.

Plus, there are still some very effective countermeasures against laser fire.

A simple plasma surrounding a missile would make it invulnerable to this laser at least, and any that are even 10 times as powerful. A plasma causes a cloud of charged particles that break up the coherent light of a laser. It is one of the biggest problems with using lasers as weapons that their effectiveness is their own worse enemy. When the laser hits its target, it creates a cloud of plasma at the target site that breaks up the beam. That causes the beam behind it to be disbursed by the plasma, or if the beam wanders, it creates more plasma… Turns out this last bit turned into a trick that allowed for the weaponization of the beam laser. The beam travels in a tiny circle that allows the plasma it creases to itself disburse before the beam comes back round to hit the same area again.

As for the X-51, I wouldn't be so confident that we are going to be the only ones to have such tech. Russia, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and India are all working toward a similar program (with varying degrees of success). Russia's Scramjet even looks like the X-51, but with more rounded edges. China's looks like a big nail with a ring around it.

I'm not concerned about China, their J-10/11 fighters are absolute crap. And I don't mean the designs… I mean their quality. Word on the street is they may well be retired from service after only a couple years because of their tendency to fall apart/cease functioning mid-flight.

The Russian's on the other hand seem to have this wonderful ability to make things about as good as ours, for a lot less money… but they are in dire financial straits at the moment, and if certain Russian military officers are to be believed, their military is in shambles despite the popular perception that they are dumping tons of money into defense spending.

Australia's defense budget doesn't worry me either. Last I had heard New Zealands military was virtually nonexistent and the government had a general pacifist attitude.

India is still playing major catch-up and are still behind China when it comes to advances (although Indian quality is superior).

The only nation on that list I would maybe be worried about is Japan, but given their domestic politics, I don't think we have much to worry about from them.

[Last I had heard New Zealands military was virtually nonexistent and the government had a general pacifist attitude.]

We're just lulling you all into a false sense of security. Any day now and we'll start playing 'Risk' with real countries.

"…..New Zealands military was virtually nonexistent and the government had a general pacifist attitude".

See, I told you so.

I keep telling people that this is just a ruse to foster world complacency. Those overly nice Kiwis plan to take over the the world, soon.

Even now, as we speak, they are trying to corner the sheep and wool markets.

Next, they'll be cornering the giant-calamari market too.

"NEW ZEALAND, WHY NOT?"