Army achieves new high-powered laser weapon breakthrough

| October 9, 2020

Though we know he has a fetish for large things that go boom, the KoB sent in this tip on something that’s silent and invisible.

Firing lasers from fighter jets while in combat, hitting enemy hypersonic missiles in space and incinerating enemy drones from armored combat vehicles are all missions intended for fast-emerging, now-in-development laser weapons.

Lasers and many laser technologies such as rangefinders and spotters are of course already used in many applications, including deployed Navy ships. At the same time, the Pentagon and military services are moving quickly to develop newer, stronger, more-mobile laser weapons. Much of this includes “laser scaling” and “size, weight and power” improvements intended to engineer lasers able to arm fighter jets and even destroy enemy ICBMs in space.

Army scientists and weapons developers are working to engineer lasers strong and durable enough to travel into space and seeking to build compact, transportable, smaller-form-factor lasers able to integrate into fast-moving, fighter jets and transportable soldier devices. The Missile Defense Agency is now “power scaling” lasers in preparation for using them for missile defenses, the Air Force Research Laboratory is miniaturizing strong mobile power systems to fire lasers from fighter jets and the Army is already arming Stryker vehicles with laser weapons.

Now, Army developers and New York University scientists may have achieved a technical breakthrough enabling weapons developers to engineer stronger, longer-range and more durable laser weapons. The breakthrough pertains to complex scientific advancement with optics and photons at the molecular and most elemental levels. Researchers are now able to engineer what’s called a 3D photonic crystal lattice structure better able to contain and streamline the application of laser light.

There’s no word on if the Navy is installing these on the heads of sharks, but they’d be idiots if they didn’t.

Source; Fox News

Category: Army, It's science!, Science and Technology

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A Proud Infidel®™

I begin to wonder if we didn’t already have it and are only beginning to admit it because we already have something bigger and badder. I wonder just how quickly the COMMUNIST Chinese will go full throttle to start stealing that technology?

David

If more than two people knew of it before, the Chicoms are probably already on it. We are lousy at keeping our collective yaps shut.

Flakpup

A good annual read is DCSA’s Targeting U.S. Technologies report. From the 2019 report, “East Asia and the Pacific region entities were identified in 47 percent of the reports of targeting technologies and information relating to lasers.”

https://www.dcsa.mil/Portals/91/Documents/CI/FY19_Annual_Targeting_US_Technologies.pdf

Skippy

I bet China is excited if Biden get elected
It will be like a plane and a sub landing
In there hands

Sparks

Gives a new meaning to burn em down. Let me know when they have it in an AR platform.

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

Coming soon, a backpack portable laser rifle.

5JC

We already had such a thing but Obama gave it up in treaty Day 1 in office back in 2009.

The IDF had an ADA system built by the US that successfully shot down rockets and artillery rounds but scrapped it due to cost. A couple of years ago out of the blue they had sudden renewed interest.

The Navy has been working on Sea based platform for years. The Air Force had a crazy expensive Air Bourne Laser. It was a billion dollars a unit in 2007 dollars.

Anonymous

Obama jacked-up a lot of stuff.

USAF Ret

Yes, but then the gun control movement will demand limits on Battery size.

11B-Mailclerk

Assault Battery

Hmm

5th/77th FA

Wasn’t sure if I know exactly how it all works, but I DO know that I want one…or several…in different calibers/configurations/platforms. Side arm, shoulder fired, quad 50s/bofors (for mounting in the bed of Big Red) Ball Turret (for mounting thru the SMURF(sun/moonroof) of Sassy, Little Josey, and the Ark). And yes, guilty as charged, I do have a fetish for large things that go BOOM!

Hope they continue to work on this. Maybe call Doc Brown, he can get his Flux Capacitor refueled, go find Marvin to procure a Q36 Modulator and we can have a REALLY BIG BOOM…and turn the Chinese Communists into molecules. Wonder how much of the research is already on a flash drive being downloaded into ChiCom files as we speak.

Toxic Deplorable Racist SAH B Woodman

Give the ChiComs a “Disintegrator Gun”, watch the gun disintegrate as soon as they pull the trigger.
(another h/t to Bugs, Daffy, Porky, & Marvin)

Green Thumb

Luke, use the Force….

Sapper3307

We need a shark big enough to carry it now.

26Limabeans

Light is a wave and therefore this weapon system belongs to the Signal Corp.
No, light is a particle and therefore this weapon system belongs to the Infantry.

Ex-PH2

Light is both a wave and a particle, and therefore, it belongs to the Navy and the Marines.

5th/77th FA

BOOOOOOONNNK! (“Klaxon horns going off, Flags being Thrown”) Oh Hells to the Naaahh, nix, nien, uhh uhh NOPE!!!!

“…belongs to the Navy and the Marines.” Assumes facts not in evidence. The article specifically states that the ARMY was developing this and was ARMY RESEARCHERS, and besides, EVERYBODY has heard the ARMY TERM…LIGHT ARTILLERY!

I need a pillow to rest my case!

Hack Stone

Judging by the marksmanship of the Galactic Stormtroopers, they better spend the first week snapping in, and take all five days the following week to qualify on these weapons.

Jeff LPH 3, 63-66

Why did the Mil keep this a secret since 1936 when Flash Gordon traveled to the planet Mongo to kick Ming the Mercileses butt.

CCO

Let me check my notes….