John Paul Jones, Meet “Star Wars”
Apparently the Navy has deployed a new, high-tech weapon system in the Persian Gulf. It’s an operational prototype of a 30-killowat laser weapon system.
This one is more than simply a “dazzeler”, too. Though it has non-lethal modes of operation (including “dazzling” an opponent’s eyes), it’s also reportedly capable of destroying small targets.
Bloomberg.com has a decent article on the subject. If you’re interested in either new weapons or Naval matters, IMO it’s worth a look.
Category: Military issues, Navy
That’s cool from a “gee whiz” point of view, but there was a lot to be said for chucking Volkswagen sized projectiles over 25 miles and annihilating everything in the immediate area….damn, I miss battleships. Yeah, I know, I know, they were obsolete and a pain in the ass to maintain, but still.
Actually, they are still working on that too.
http://www.wired.com/2014/04/electromagnetic-railgun-launcher/
Yep, the Navy has lazers and rail guns. Think that Chinese carrier everyone is worried about won’t be THAT much of a problem in the end.
Mach-freaking-7!!
Dunno about the rail guns. Everything I’ve read (which is certainly nowhere near everything there is) says that they currently have to be rebuilt after each shot, and that reliability upgrades are still purely hypothetical. Plus you need a freakin’ dedicated reactor to supply enough juice to fire them. I know they’re supposed to eventually come standard on the Zumwalt class, but it seems like that promise wasn’t very well thought-out (just like every other aspect of the Zumwalt design). I’ve also read that their theoretical range is generous at best and accuracy has thus far been found wanting.
The gun mounts of the Iowa class, on the other hand, are proven, tried, and true, even if the ships themselves are old. I still wonder why nobody likes the idea of doing a hybrid design combining the cancelled Montana class with the Arsenal Ship concept of the 1980s. Seems to me that a BBG or five would be a worthwhile investment.
Very true on all counts. I would say that the big advantage a rail gun would have over the traditional guns is that they don’t need and explosive force to send them on their way.
Increases safety and also frees up a lot of space that would have been dedicated to powder storage.
Not ready for prime time yet, but they are getting a lot closer.
Not to get off topic, but weren’t you “Mustang2LT” not too long ago?
Congratulations on the promotion!
Yeah, I changed the moniker over back in late May when I pinned on the black (or silver) bar.
Dadburnit! That was MY idea! And they didn’t even give me credit!
Next thing you know, they’ll be going after my dental floss net to stop a Bradley in its tracks. And I won’t get credit for that, either.
That’s just mean.
30-kilowatt? That’s gotta be the continuous wave output, because that’s pretty weak tea … gonna have to go read about that.
Thinking about it, though, if a 3 watt lab laser requires special eye protection, even with atmospheric scattering, I bet it would be very painful, if not instantly, permanently blinding at many miles.
Solid state … impressive. I was guessing an Excimer, or gas dynamic CO2 type, but solid state would be inherently more robust in a marine combat environment, I suspect.
Anyway, Drive on, Navy!
From the comments section of that Bloomberg article:
Can they put these on the Mexican border? Interlocking beams, so they can’t cross or get fried? The southern border might sound like giant bug zappers…..
*snerk*
Works for me!
Could we at least start the rumor that it will happen?
I assume that the end goal of this project will be to attach the lasers to trained sharks.
A lower-cost alternative is also being developed using seabass.
+1
I don’t know about the shark or the seabass but isn’t there some dude that was featured on here not too long ago claiming that he was a SEAL and that he used dolphins for covert infiltration? Nikko or Kiko something-or-other? Now, laser beams on dolphins, that’s an idea since they are a lot smarter than sharks and ol’ what’s his nuts can train them!
Hondo…Thanks! I love lasers. I can’t wait for the bigger ones to show up.
Anyone remember the movie “Real Genius”?
“It’s ice Kent, it’s what happens to water when it gets too cold”
One of my favorite parts from that movie:
Mitch: You know, um, something strange happened to me this morning…
Chris: Was it a dream where you see yourself standing in sort of sun-god robes on a pyramid with a thousand naked women screaming and throwing little pickles at you?
Mitch: No…
Chris: Why am I the only one who has that dream?
From elsewhere, the Navy reports that the Laser can destroy drones up to 10nm away as well as small boats. I’m very happy with this, even if it is just the first small test.
In other news, did you folks know that the Captain of DDG-1000, USS Zumwalt, is Capt. James Kirk? I. Kid. You. Not.
Lasers on ships? High-tech Destroyers the size of pocket battleships? Capt. James Kirk?
Coincidence? I think not. 🙂
Chuck the Zumwalt name, Enterprise serves her better.
DDG-1701?
Hope none of the crew gets issued red shirts.
I’m not even going to ask who the Medical Officer is…. (he’s dead Jim).
Will there be a dude with a wierd accent in the engine room? Or a hot black chick with a weirder name on the radio?
Quite frankly, I’m more into the fact that the new Navy martial arts system has been simplified into a four-part system: The Punch, the Two-Handed Clasp Whack, the Knife Hand, and the Flying Jump Kick (if you’ve seen the Original Series, you’ll get it).
Oh, and the fact that all problems can be solved through physical violence and logic.
The Boldly Going bit is pretty neat too.
You forgot the neck pinch and being able to build a gun out of bamboo, some cord and homemade gunpowder and diamonds.
I still say a BBG would kick a Zumwalt’s ass. Probably cost less, too.
I disagree. The equipment on a Zumwalt gives it greater striking distance than your average battleship. It’s smaller, faster, and nigh-impossible to detect on Radar.
I think a Zumwalt would sink any battleship she’d encounter because of her ability to strike without warning.
When the Iowas were reactivated in the 80s, the Russians were scared of them. They were scared because they had zero confidence in the ability of even their carrier-killer cruise missiles to even mission-kill a fast battleship. That’s a big part of the reason why they invested so heavily in giant-ass torpedoes: apart from another battleship, torpedoes (sub-, surface-, or air-launched) are the only weapon system proven capable of sinking battleships. They feared that even if they hit a Surface Action Group with a tactical nuke, the battleship (having lost radar and other complex electronics) would simply close to visual range and rip the shit out of anything that looked Slavic, while the BB’s armor would withstand anything else they threw at it. Think of it as the surface ship equivalent of an A-10. The Zumalt class relies almost entirely on stealth, which we have discovered the hard way is no longer as stealthy as it used to be. Many concerns have been voiced that the Zumwalts will be deathtraps if they ever take a real hit (tumblehome hulls don’t handle flooding very well). There’s also the issue of general seaworthiness–tumblehome designs work okay for sailing ships, but there’s a reason why that configuration went out of style before the HMS Dreadnought went into the water. Add to that the ratio of cost to actual firepower. A BBG would combine the 16-inch guns of a Montana-class battleship with the Arsenal Ship’s metric shit-ton of VLS launchers, protected by modern composite armor as well as some good old-fashioned pig steel, giving better protection for the same weight. Modern technology could reduce the necessary crew significantly, meaning more space for fuel and ammo. Modern turbine propulsion could allow it to beat the Iowa’s already impressive speed, or you could just go the BBGN route. Instead of full stealth, go with a design like the Arleigh Burke class, which still has reduced radar and IR signatures. In the end, you have a much more potent warship, probably at less cost, that is also much more survivable in combat. It shouldn’t operate alone any… Read more »
Unless we can either A.) Reactivate the 4 Iowa class ships, or B.) find a way to produce Chobham armor on a vast scale, we aren’t likely to get anywhere with the BB design. Yeah, I’d like to see them back in the fleet as well. They have used less than half their actual service life since being built.
BUT……. these United States no longer posses the ability to produced 18″ rolled armor plate. We can’t produce anything approaching that ability these days. Add to that that the government, which so carefully stored spare barrels for the 16″ guns, and thousands of rounds of ammunition for them, has been working to destroy all of it.
You are correct about the Soviet concerns of engaging these battleships. Short of a nuke, they were likely to survive most anything. They were MUCH better armored and supported internally than the old Arizona class, and a direct hit on either the hull or the forward face of a turret with even their most powerful shell or cruise missile would only piss of the Botswain’s Mates.
Those vessels were designed to slug it out at close range with the Japanese Yamato class battleships, survive, and overcome.
Even torpedoes would be difficult to use, with our experiences in WWII showing that multiple hits would have to be scored in order to do serious or fatal damage to them.
But I AM in favor of building the arsenal ships, and also of building something akin to what we would consider a “Monitor” with 2 or 3 turrets to provide gunfire support for Marines ashore. Maybe not 16″ guns, but something like a M109 Turret with a magazine system mounted onboard might be a handy thing to have.
Well, shit. I don’t suppose that a significant industrial/economic revival could be had by restoring the capability to manufacture rolled steel armor plate? Of course it could, but the current occupiers of our nation’s capital would much rather pay welfare than create jobs. Chobham armor was my first thought for the lightweight component too, but I wonder if there might be alternatives, since Chobham has been around for 30+ years. Of course, this could very well be my inner 15-year old saying, “Fuck you, science! This shit would be awesome and you know it!”
I have always felt that the fast battleships were underrated and underutilized. And given how effective they were in the Gulf, a modernized replacement seems to me like a no-brainer. Granted, there was also the explosion aboard the Iowa, but that just proved that, like most great weapon systems, they are not idiot-proof (and that the Navy is willing to accuse innocent dead men of being closet gheys on a mass-murder suicide kick rather than admit that they allowed stupidity). It also proved that a fast battleship could survive what should have been a catastrophic incident which by all rights should have torn the ship in half.
Shit, I guess I know better than to think they’ll ever do this, even if I do insist that we can. But I’ve been aboard the Missouri in Pearl Harbor and the Iowa in San Pedro, and it’s impossible not to have, in the immortal words of Rodney Farva, a “raging, mega-huge boner” when seeing one of those monuments to American awesomeness.