Laser weapons: prospects in the air force. Part of 2

The Air Force (VVS) is always at the forefront of scientific and technological progress. No wonder what a high tech is weapon, like lasers, has not bypassed this kind of military.

History laser weapons on aviation media begins from the 70s of the XX century. The American company Avco Everett has created a gas-dynamic laser with a power of 30-60 kW, the dimensions of which made it possible to place it on board a large aircraft. The KS-135 tanker aircraft was chosen as such. The laser was installed in 1973, after which the aircraft received the status of a flying laboratory and the designation NKC-135A. The laser installation was placed in the fuselage. A fairing is installed in the upper part of the hull, covering the rotating turret with a radiator and target designation system.

By 1978, the power of the onboard laser was increased by 10 times, and the supply of the working medium for the laser and fuel was also increased in order to ensure the emission time of 20-30 seconds. In 1981, the first attempts were made to hit a flying Rrebee unmanned target and a Sidewinder rocket of an air-to-air (in-class) missile with a laser beam that ended without result.

The aircraft was once again modernized and the tests were repeated in 1983. During the tests, five Sidewinder missiles flying in the direction of the aircraft at a speed of 135 km / h were destroyed from the NKC-3218A laser beam. In the course of other tests in the same year, NKC-135A laser destroyed the subsonic BQM-34A target, which at a low altitude simulated an attack on a US Navy ship.

Boeing NKC-135A aircraft and hit targets - AIM-9 "Sidewinder" missile and unmanned target BQM-34A

Around the same time in which the NKC-135A was created, the USSR also developed a project for an aircraft carrying a laser weapon - the A-60 complex, which was described in the first part of the article. At the moment, the status of work on this program is unknown.

In 2002, a new program was opened in the USA - ABL (Airborne Laser) for placing laser weapons on an airplane. The main objective of the program is to create an air component of the antimissile defense system (ABM), to hit enemy ballistic missiles in the initial phase of flight, when the missile is most vulnerable. To do this, it was required to obtain a target hit range of order 400-500 km.

A large aircraft, the Boeing 747, was selected as the carrier, which after the modification was named prototype Attack Laser model 1-A (YAL-1A). Four laser systems were mounted on board — a scanning laser, a laser to ensure accurate target targeting, a laser to analyze the effect of the atmosphere on the distortion of the beam path, and the main high-energy combat high energy laser (HEL).

The HEL laser consists of 6 energy modules - chemical lasers with a working medium based on oxygen and metallic iodine, generating radiation from the 1,3 μm long wavelength. The guidance and focusing system includes 127 mirrors, lenses and light filters. The laser power is about one megawatt.

The program experienced numerous technical difficulties, costs exceeded all expectations and ranged from seven to thirteen billion dollars. During the development of the program, limited results were obtained, in particular, several training ballistic missiles with a liquid-propellant rocket engine and solid fuel were destroyed. The range of damage was about 80-100 km.

The main reason for the closure of the program can be considered the use of a deliberately unpromising chemical laser. The HEL laser ammunition is limited by the stocks of chemical components on board and amounts to 20-40 “shots”. During the operation of the HEL laser, an enormous amount of heat is released, which is brought to the outside with the help of a Laval nozzle, which creates a stream of heated gases that expires at a speed of 5 times the speed of sound (1800 m / s). The combination of high temperatures and fire-explosive components of the laser can lead to tragic consequences.

The same thing will happen with the Russian program A-60, if it is continued using the previously developed gas-dynamic laser.

Boeing YAL-1

However, the ABL program cannot be considered completely useless. During the course, it gained invaluable experience in the behavior of laser radiation in the atmosphere, developed new materials, optical systems, cooling systems and other elements that will be in demand in future promising projects of high-energy air-based laser weapons.

As already mentioned in the first part of the article, at present there is a tendency to abandon chemical lasers, in favor of solid-state and fiber lasers, for which there is no need to carry separate ammunition, and enough power supply provided by the laser carrier.

In the US, there are several programs of air-based lasers. One of such programs is the program for developing laser weapon modules for installation on combat aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles - HEL, which was commissioned by General Atomics Aeronautical System and Textron Systems by the DARPA agency.

General Atomics Aeronautica, in conjunction with Lockheed Martin, is developing a liquid laser project. By the end of the 2007, the prototype showed a power of 15 kW. Textron Systems is working on its own prototype of a solid-state laser with a ceramic working medium called ThinZag.

The end result of the program should be a laser module with a power of 75-150 kW in the form of a container in which lithium-ion batteries, a liquid cooling system, laser emitters, as well as a system for converting beams, targeting and holding onto the target are installed. Modules can be integrated to obtain the required final power.

Like all high-tech programs to develop fundamentally new weapons, the HEL program faces delays in implementation.

Laser module HEL

In 2014, Lockheed Martin and DARPA began flight tests of advanced Aero-adaptive Aero-optic Beam Control (ABC) laser weapons for aircraft carriers. As part of this program, technologies for targeting high-energy laser weapons in the 360 range of degrees are being tested on an experimental laboratory aircraft.

ABC Laser Test Platform

In the near future, the US Air Force is considering the integration of laser weapons on the newest Invisible Fighter F-35, and later on other combat aircraft. Lockheed Martin plans to develop a modular fiber laser with a power of about 100 kW and an optical-to-optical power conversion ratio in excess of 40%, followed by installation on the F-35. To do this, Lockheed Martin and the US Air Force Research Laboratory signed a contract for 26,3 million dollars. By 2021, Lockheed Martin should present to the customer a prototype combat laser, called the SHIELD, which can be mounted on fighters.

We consider several options for placing laser weapons on the F-35. One of them involves placing laser systems at the location of the lift fan in the F-35B or a large fuel tank, which is located in the same location in the F-35A and F-35C versions. For the F-35B, this would mean removing the possibility of vertical take-off and landing (STOVL mode), for the F-35A and F-35C, a corresponding decrease in flight range.

It is intended to use the drive shaft of the F-35B engine, which usually drives a lift fan, to drive a generator with a power above 500 kW (in STOVL mode, the drive shaft delivers up to 20 MW of shaft power to the lift-fan). Such a generator will occupy a part of the internal volume of the lift fan, the remaining space will be used to house the systems for generating laser, optics, etc.

Installing a laser weapon on the F-35B in the installation location of the lift fan

According to another version, the laser weapon and the generator will be conformally placed inside the hull among the existing units, with radiation output through the fiber-optic channel in the front part of the aircraft.

Another option is the possibility of placing a laser weapon in a hanging container, similar to that created in the framework of the HEL program, in case the laser of acceptable characteristics can be created in specified dimensions.

Multi-purpose aircraft container F-35

Anyway, in the course of the work, both the above-considered and completely different options for realizing the integration of laser weapons on the F-35 aircraft can be implemented.

In the US, there are several "road maps" for the development of laser weapons. Despite previously made statements by the US Air Force about obtaining prototypes for the 2020-2021 year, the more realistic dates for the emergence of advanced laser weapons on aircraft carriers can be considered 2025-2030 years. By this time, we can expect the appearance in service of combat aircraft of the “fighter” type of laser weapons with a power of about 100 kW, and by 2040, the power may increase to 300-500 kW.

US Air Force Laser Weapons Development Roadmap

The simultaneous presence of several laser weapons programs in the US Air Force indicates their high interest in this type of weapon, and reduces the risks for the Air Force if one or more projects fail.

What will be the consequences of the appearance on board of combat aircraft of tactical aviation laser weapons? Taking into account the capabilities of modern radar and optical guidance facilities, this, first of all, will allow the fighter to defend itself against incoming enemy missiles. If there is an on-board laser with a power of 100-300 kW, X-NUMX-2 air-to-air or ground-to-air missiles are supposedly destroyed by 4-XNUMX. In combination with CUDA type missile weapons, the chances of an aircraft equipped with laser weapons to survive on the battlefield will increase many times.

Maximum damage by laser weapons can be inflicted on missiles with thermal and optical guidance, since their performance directly depends on the functioning of the sensitive matrix. The use of optical filters for a certain wavelength will not help, since the enemy will most likely use different types of lasers, not all filtering. In addition, the absorption of laser energy by a filter on the order of 100 kW is likely to cause its destruction.

Missiles with a radar homing head will be hit, but at a shorter range. It is not known how the radio-transparent fairing will react to high-power laser radiation, perhaps it will be vulnerable to such an effect.

In this case, the only chance of the enemy, whose aircraft is not equipped with laser weapons, to “overwhelm” an opponent with so many air-to-air missiles, which the CUDA-type anti-missile cannon cannot intercept together.

The appearance of high-power lasers on airplanes will “nullify” all existing man-portable air defense missile systems (MANPADS) with the “Igla” or “Stinger” type, significantly reduce the capabilities of an air defense missile with optical or heat-guided missiles, will require an increase in the number of missiles in the salvo. Most likely, the laser can also hit the long-range ground-to-air missiles, i.e. their consumption when shooting at an airplane equipped with a laser weapon will also increase.

The use of anti-laser protection on air-to-air missiles and to ground-to-air missiles will make them heavier and larger, which will affect their range and maneuvering characteristics. You should not rely on a mirror coating, there will be practically no sense from it, completely different solutions will be required.

In the case of the transition of air combat in the near maneuverable, the aircraft with laser weapons on board will have an undeniable advantage. At close range, the laser beam targeting system will be able to aim the beam directly at the vulnerable points of the enemy aircraft — the pilot, optical and radar stations, control elements, and weapons on the external sling. In many ways, this eliminates the need for super-maneuverability, since no matter how you turn around, you still substitute one or the other side, and the displacement of the laser beam will have a deliberately higher angular velocity.

Equipping strategic bombers (missile-carrying bombers) with defensive laser weapons will significantly affect the situation in the air. In former times, an integral part of a strategic bomber was a rapid-firing aircraft cannon in the tail section of an aircraft. In the future, it was abandoned in favor of installing advanced electronic warfare systems. However, even an unobtrusive or supersonic bomber, if it is detected by enemy fighters, is highly likely to be shot down. The only effective solution now is the launch of rocket weapons outside the zone of the air defense and enemy aviation.

The appearance in the composition of the defensive armament of a bomber of laser weapons can radically change the situation. If a single 100-300 kW laser can be installed on a fighter, then a bomber of such complexes can be installed in the number of 2-4 units. This will allow self-defense at the same time from 4 to 16 of enemy missiles attacking from different directions. It is necessary to take into account the fact that the developers are actively working on the possibility of using laser weapons from several emitters together, for one purpose. Accordingly, the coordinated operation of laser weapons, with a total power of 400 kW - 1,2 MW, will allow a bomber to destroy attacking fighters from a distance of 50-100 km.

Existing and prospective bombers are potential carriers of laser weapons

The growth of power and efficiency of lasers to 2040-2050 years can bring to life the idea of ​​a heavy aircraft, like the type worked out in the Soviet project A-60 and the American ABL program. As a means of missile defense against ballistic missiles, it is unlikely to be effective, but equally important tasks can be assigned to it.

When a kind of “laser battery” is installed on board, including 5-10 lasers with 500 kW power - 1 MW, the total laser power that the carrier can concentrate on the target will be 5-10 MW. This will effectively deal with almost any air targets at a distance of 200-500 km. First of all, the DRLO, EW aircraft, refueling aircraft, and then manned and unmanned tactical aircraft will fall into the list of targets.

In the separate use of lasers, a large number of targets such as cruise missiles, air-to-air missiles or ground-to-air missiles can be intercepted.

What could the saturation of the airfield of battle with combat lasers lead to, and how will this affect the appearance of combat aviation?

The need for thermal protection, protective curtains for sensors, an increase in the weight and size characteristics of the weapons used, can lead to an increase in the size of tactical aviation, a decrease in the maneuverability of aircraft and their weapons. Light manned warplanes will disappear as a class.

In the end, it may turn out to be something like “flying fortresses” of the Second World War, wrapped in thermal protection, armed with laser weapons instead of machine guns and high-speed protected missiles instead of bombs.

There are many obstacles to the implementation of laser weapons, but active investments in this direction suggest that positive results will be achieved. On the way almost 50 years long, since the beginning of the first work on aviation laser weapons, to the present day, technological capabilities have increased significantly. New materials, drives, power supplies have appeared, computing capacity has increased by several orders of magnitude, the theoretical base has expanded.

It remains to be hoped that the promising laser weapons will not only be with the United States and its allies, but will also go into service with the Air Force of the Russian Federation in time.

Comments

[YOUR]

The Americans have made great progress in the development of laser weapons after the collapse of the USSR.
In 1995, Ukraine sold the Dixon auxiliary fleet tanker to the United States. An unremarkable ship went to the buyer at the price of scrap metal. However, with one caveat. In its holds were 35-megawatt power generators, special rotary mechanisms, large-capacity refrigeration units and much more equipment. And also a bunch of documentation.
Such a fit to pintos, and they did not even say thanks to Kuchma.
The first combat shot from the Dixon was fired in 1980. Range 4 km.

[Saburov]

Quote: YOUR

When installing a kind of “laser battery” on board, including 5-10 lasers with 500 kW - 1 MW power, the total laser power that the carrier can concentrate on the target will be 5-10 MW. This will allow you to effectively deal with almost any air targets at a distance of 200-500 km.

Did I miss something? How did you manage to circumvent (or rather overcome) the law of diffraction?

In the foreseeable future, “combat lasers” are not able, in principle, even to approach the good old guns / missiles in combat effectiveness. In the best case, their destiny is extremely narrow, specific areas of application such as burning optics for reconnaissance. equipment, sights, etc. If we talk about the use of lasers on the battlefield to “burn” tanks / infantry / missiles / aircraft, then this is just technical nonsense. And that's why. First, you only have to make a small introduction to the topic - how to evaluate and compare the impact on the target of different types of weapons. Those who are well versed in weapon physics may not read. For the rest of the educational program: What determines the degree of destruction of the target?
It is determined by three factors: 1) The power supplied from the weapon to the target. A commonplace banal example: the more you hit a person with your fist, the more damage he will inflict, all else being equal. “Stronger” means applying more muscle at a greater distance in less time. This is power. With regard to guns: the faster the projectile flies, and the heavier it is, the more power. The more he damages the tank, all other things being equal. With reference to the laser - the greater the power of the beam in kilowatts, the stronger it will burn the target. And in the same kilowatts you can translate the damaging properties of any other weapon and compare them. What will we do later. 2) The second factor is the area on which we bring power from the weapon. The smaller it is, the more concentrated the target experiences, the stronger the defeat (we don’t take extreme cases!). If you push the bully with your fist, there will be nothing for him. If you poke him with an awl with exactly the same effort (power), he will not be greeted. When they want to break through a tank, they try to make it a thinner striking element. So as not to “spread” power over the area. If we shoot a beam - we must collect it on the smallest possible area. Remember children's games with lenses and the Sun. A lens that collects the light of the Sun from a circle with a diameter of 5 cm - burns paper perfectly when this beam is compressed to a size of a couple of millimeters. In principle, the first and second factors are usually combined into one - the energy flux density. That is, they receive power in watts divided by the area of ​​impact. The higher this density, the more dangerous the impact. Measured in watts per square centimeter. But I decided to break them down for clarity. 3) The ability of the target to reflect, fend off the power of the weapon. That is, for example, if we take two armor plates and a projectile flying in them, but put one sheet at an angle, then the projectile can bounce off the inclined sheet. All else being equal. That is, the degree of destruction of the target very much depends on its specific vulnerability to this type of weapon with the first two factors being equal. It’s so simple not to sort through the interaction, there are dozens of types of interaction, but then it will be easier. For now, just remember that this must be taken into account. So, we repeat once again: in order to assess the damaging effect of a weapon, we are primarily interested in its power, concentration and methods of protection. Now let's see what has been achieved in the field of lasers and conventional weapons in terms of the above criteria. Power criterion. As I already wrote, the most powerful combat laser today is the ABL chemical COIL laser. Its power is about 1 megawatts. The power of the 76-mm division gun F-22 of the 1936 model of the year is about 150 megawatts. 150 times more! Divide the kinetic energy of the projectile (M * V ^ 2) / 2 by the time it is reached (about 0.01 seconds). We still do not take into account the explosive energy in the projectile itself. There are still as many. Think about this simple fact: a small ancient cannon from the time of the Second World War at a price of scrap metal is hundreds of times more powerful than an ultramodern “battle” laser weighing tens of tons and costing over 5 billions of dollars. A shot from ABL alone costs millions of dollars. And this energy shot is comparable to the burst of a heavy machine gun. The power of a Kalashnikov assault rifle is about 100 kilowatts. A US-Israeli laser with the same 100 kW (THEL) power was tested, they wanted to use it to protect against Grad missile shells. THEL installation in size - 6 delivered next to the bus. The project was closed at 2006 for complete inadequacy, although it still successfully shot down missiles and mines. By heating them in flight for several seconds. (The question is - what about the volley ????) Characteristically, no one even mentioned the possibility of defeating infantry with such a laser. Otherwise, even a child would clearly see its true capabilities, comparing it with an ordinary machine gun. It should be noted that it is no coincidence that the US military and experts believe that the minimum required laser power for combat use is 100 kW.

[Saburov]

Laserophiles will say: well, maybe the beam can be concentrated on a small area and thereby achieve a much greater effect with less power? Indeed - after all, industry uses laser machines that quietly cut centimeter steel with powers of only about a few kilowatts. At the same time, their rays are focused on a patch of several millimeters in size. Alas! Here, the physically irresistible diffraction law comes into force, which states that the laser radiation always diverges from the angle = wavelength / beam diameter. At distances of the order of meters, it can be ignored. And then what? If we take specifically a combat infrared laser with a wavelength of 2 μm (THEL combat lasers work at such a length, etc.) and a beam diameter of 1 cm, then we get the angle of divergence 0.2 of the milliradian (this is a very small difference - for example, ordinary laser pointers / rangefinders diverge by 5 milliradians and more). Divergence 0.2 mrad. at a distance of 100 meters it will increase the diameter of the spot from 1 cm to approximately 3 cm (if anyone else remembers school geometry). That is, the impact density will fall in proportion to the area in 7 times only by 100 meters. That is: if we know that a laser with a power of 100 KW burns an inch steel plate at point-blank somewhere in 2-3 seconds, then at a distance of 100 meters it will do this, roughly, 18 seconds. All this time, an armored personnel carrier (or whom you are going to burn there) must by itself patiently stand and wait. Do not violate those. process, so to speak. Well, as you know - a furrow of a couple of centimeters is unlikely to upset him anyway. For comparison: armor-piercing bullets from Kalashnikov calmly pierce 16 mm steel at the same distance. And I repeat - today the 100 kW laser is a huge installation weighing tens of tons, with huge tanks of toxic chemicals and sophisticated optics. When he "shoots" - huge clouds of poisonous smoke come from him, poisoning the entire vicinity. What will happen to all this if the enemy strikes from 100 meters throughout this kitchen from his good old large-caliber KPVT - you can imagine. And the rocket can accidentally hit ... And on a kilometer the beam density will fall already 300 times. Therefore, it is easy to understand that the distance of hitting a target even in 1 km for an 100-kW laser is an unattainable dream in real conditions. Unless you understand, for example, a canister of gasoline. Or a naked man tied to a tree. That is, a minimally protected target cannot be hit with such a laser at REASONABLE distances in combat conditions. By the way! On combat conditions: the battlefield is not always a desert White Sands training ground. It's rain. Snow. Fog. Explosions. Fumes. Dust. All these are almost insurmountable obstacles to the laser beam. Here, in general, you can forget about any concentration of the beam - it simply dissipates long before the goal. Who needs an assault rifle that is unable to hit targets in such conditions? I remember that the earliest firearms could not shoot in wet weather - the gunpowder was drenched. And the "shooters" just cut out the old fashioned way. Here it is, the inevitable fate of lovers of hyperboloids. 3) Also a very unpleasant point for "laser" is the ability to protect the target. And it’s very cheap and very cheerful. Because infrared rays are reflected from anything that is not hit (everyone can play with the remote control from the TV). A cheap window film with metallization reflects the vast majority of infrared radiation. Titanium reflects the IR laser very well. But we already barely brought it to the goal (just poetry!). Worse, there are also sublimation resins that are used to protect spacecraft from gigawatt heat fluxes, combined with the terrible mechanical effects of air pressure. In this case, the resin layer is damaged by a centimeter or two. That is, armor / steel is far from the most resistant material for the laser, no. It has long been an order of magnitude more "laser-resistant" coatings. It follows that even if it is possible to increase the power of laser guns by an order of magnitude, to gigawatts, this will not make them a prodigy at all. In this “sword and shield” competition, the shield has a huge, insurmountable head start. That is why laser-lasers very rarely tell WHAT goals they once again managed to hit and at what distance. And what is shown on the video raises more questions than answers. Ah well? - true laser lovers will say - but what do you all tell about chemical lasers when a technological breakthrough has already been made and “combat” solid-state light-pumping devices have appeared? There are no poisonous tanks, and they are much smaller! And decent power has already been achieved - for 100 kW! Indeed, a very compact little thing - 7 blocks each weighing 180 kg. Total 1300 kg. So that? A dream come true? Let's not rush. There are a couple of nuances. This huge cabinet weighing per ton is just the radiating unit itself. At least 500 kW should be supplied with electric power, given that the achieved efficiency of this laser is about 20%. (and even that is very doubtful, usually much less - less than 10%). Thus, 100 kW went into the enemy with us, and 400 kW remained in this cabinet. And these kilowatts need to be put out quickly, right? Otherwise, expensive optics will suffer. The dimensions of a cooling system of such power can be imagined by looking, for example, at a cooling installation. A rather big bandura, weighs 120 kg. The system can just serve for cooling industrial lasers; it diverts power from as many as whole 6 kW. And she consumes the same amount of electricity. So you need something the size of a truck to cool our 100 kW cabinet when firing. And all this in total will consume megawatts of electric power under 1. Well, how? Do you still like breakthrough 100 kW solid-state lasers?

[Saburov]

For your information, the USA had such a project as Excalibur. The space X-ray shield project was supervised by the legendary "father" of the American hydrogen bomb, Edward Teller, and was called the Excalibur. Like King Arthur’s sword, he had to strike enemy warheads with precision blows. In a matter of seconds after the start of Soviet nuclear missiles, American missiles launched anti-missiles, opening a peculiar curtain of x-ray lasers in space. Each missile defense station "Excalibur" was about a hundred moving metal rods of x-ray lasers mounted around a nuclear charge. Each rod was combined with a personal target capture and guidance system based on a small telescope. After selecting targets and pointing several rods at each of them, the nuclear charge was detonated, and x-ray laser beams “hit” the missiles. According to calculations, each rod could radiate energy in 5 − 6 kJ over a distance of 100 km. After the first unsuccessful test, there was an encouraging Dauphin test result, during which November 11 1980g. At a depth of 1 306 meters below the surface of a Nevada test site, a nuclear device was detonated. Its capacity did not exceed 20 kilotons, and there is no more accurate information about this explosion. It is generally accepted that during the test, the new Excalibur design was tested, theoretically calculated by the young member of Group O Peter Hagelstein. However, we certainly don’t even know that the Dauphin test really was related to a combat X-ray laser! Moreover, information about the results of the test is the only, albeit meager source of estimates that are considered experimentally confirmed. Namely, radiation with a wavelength of 1.4 nm lasted ~ 1 ns at an average power of ~ 100 Terawatt. Thus, ~ 100 kJ of directed energy was obtained from the string - as from a machine gun, if you do not take into account the beam divergence on the way to the target. 26 March 1983 year in an underground mine at a test site in Nevada in the framework of the Cabra program was the first, and so far the only, explosion of an X-ray laser with a nuclear pump power of 30 ct. Of this enormous energy, only the miserable 130 kJ hit the tip of Excalibur. An attack with such a sword would not be so far away, because the beam of radiation diverged significantly: every 10 m by a fraction of a millimeter, and after 100 km by almost a dozen meters.
Instead of miraculous weapons, a zilch turned out - in the most ideal case, at least one nuclear missile defense had to be spent on one warhead. And when you consider that many missiles carry several warheads and in addition there are a lot of false targets ... And it is not so easy to disable the target with a laser beam, even an X-ray, because modern warheads can withstand close nuclear explosions. In addition, the moratorium on nuclear tests following the first experiment completely transferred the task of creating nuclear-pumped X-ray lasers to the field of theoretical research.

[Saburov]

The fundamental law says: laser radiation always diverges from angle = wavelength / beam diameter and you’re at least killed, but it’s impossible to overcome or get around it. In principle, electromagnetic waves can be focused, as Alexey Tolstoy wrote, and, in general, all existing projects are not far from the immortal “hyperboloid”. But no matter how precisely the focusing mirrors were made, the beam still, alas, diverges. And the degree of this discrepancy is directly proportional to the radiation wavelength divided by the beam diameter. It turns out that the shorter the wave and the wider the beam, the smaller the discrepancy. And in order for the beam to be effective, it must be thin, otherwise all the power is scattered over too large an area. Thus, the main military effect of the laser beam is purely thermal, light quanta should simply be absorbed by the affected object and heat it to such a state that it becomes unusable. In order to have an effect on the target (the metal hull of a ship or aircraft), a certain number of joules must reach it. How much is hard to say. Depends on the degree of security of the object. And yet, apparently, it is at least several tens or even hundreds of megajoules - for such vulnerable objects as a rocket with a full fuel tank, and no less than thousands megajoules - for nuclear warheads that successfully overcome dense layers of the atmosphere without losing operability . For a continuous laser, even without taking into account the beam divergence, we are already talking about powers of thousands of megawatts. But then it turns out that the power of the energy source should be millions of kilowatts!

PS They say: A film for fools, for fools ... but I liked it!

[Horse, people and soul]

And if the x-ray laser already exists?

He does not need to burn the rocket shell. He will simply kill the rocket electronics or turn a special warhead into a pop. The warhead of a nuclear rocket converts a stream of fast neutrons into a pop. Maybe the x-ray laser will not ice?

Cutting and burning is probably not all that the laser can today.

Or what do you think?

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Horse, people and soul

And if the x-ray laser already exists?

He does not need to burn the rocket shell. He will simply kill the rocket electronics or turn a special warhead into a pop. The warhead of a nuclear rocket converts a stream of fast neutrons into a pop. Maybe the x-ray laser will not ice?

Cutting and burning is probably not all that the laser can today.

Or what do you think?

Of the more or less developed ones, only a free electron laser, but it is huge and the efficiency is low. And the X-ray radiation there, in my opinion, is "soft", i.e. with low permeability.

[Saburov]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

He does not need to burn through the shell of the rocket. It will simply kill the rocket electronics or turn a special warhead into a pop.

Well yes. Given that almost all military electronics have protection against EMP.

And so to you a note.

The main methods of protection against ionizing radiation are:

Distance protection;
Shielding Protection:
from alpha radiation - a sheet of paper, rubber gloves, a respirator;
from beta radiation - plexiglass, a thin layer of aluminum, glass, gas mask;
from gamma radiation - heavy metals (tungsten, lead, steel, etc.); gamma radiation is absorbed the more efficiently the larger the average Z of materials, so a ton of lead can be more efficient than a ton of iron.
from neutrons - water, polyethylene, other polymers, concrete; According to the law of conservation of energy, neutrons efficiently dissipate energy in light nuclei, so a layer of water or polyethylene to protect against neutrons will be much more effective than armored steel of the same thickness.

[Horse, people and soul]

https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/А-135

Both long-range missiles and short-range missiles of the A-135 system have nuclear warheads.

So, just a quick note.

Warhead protection increases the chance of warheads, but does not guarantee anything. As well as the interception of a missile defense with a nuclear warhead (neutron) does not guarantee. Everything has its own probabilities and they are far from 100%.

On the final trajectory after the breeding of warheads, it is very difficult and expensive to intercept. That’s why the United States is trying to move its missile defense as close to Russia as possible in order to bring down the missile itself on the accelerating section of the trajectory.

Russia has no such capabilities with respect to American missiles.

[Saburov]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

Both long-range missiles and short-range missiles of the A-135 system have nuclear warheads. Warhead protection increases the chance of warheads, but does not guarantee anything. As well as the interception of a missile defense with a nuclear warhead (neutron) does not guarantee. Everything has its own probabilities and they are far from 100%.

And what about anti-missiles? A close detonation with neutron fluxes and a laser whose effect is purely thermal?
In general, the modern problem is that the majority of knowledge is so superficial that, in addition to links to Wikipedia and YouTube videos, no more in-depth knowledge is observed.

I advise you to ask:
http://www.findpatent.ru/patent/259/2591207.html
https://publications.hse.ru/articles/191222565
http://elar.urfu.ru/bitstream/10995/40604/1/tmuenin-2016-77.pdf
http://elib.biblioatom.ru/text/atomnaya-energiya_t18-4_1965/go,38/

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

On the final trajectory after the breeding of warheads, it is very difficult and expensive to intercept. That’s why the United States is trying to move its missile defense as close to Russia as possible in order to bring down the missile itself on the accelerating section of the trajectory.
Russia has no such capabilities with respect to American missiles.

Again. How does this relate to the laser and how does it overcome the fundamental laws of physics related to the discrepancy of light quanta?

[Horse, people and soul]

Calm, comrade.



I kind of wrote about an X-ray laser, about whose readiness I’m not sure. If he is ready, then he does not need to warm anything.

The purely thermal effect, like that of a teapot, is for lasers of visible light wavelength.

[Saburov]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

I kind of wrote about an X-ray laser, about whose readiness I’m not sure.

Knowledge excludes doubt.

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

The purely thermal effect, like that of a teapot, is for lasers of visible light wavelength.

[Horse, people and soul]

Knowledge excludes doubt.

Nah ... this dogma excludes doubt.

Knowledge is the fruit of resolving doubts by experience.

[Horse, people and soul]

How does this relate to the laser and how does it overcome the fundamental laws of physics related to the discrepancy of light quanta?

This is precisely due to the fact that according to Reagan's "Star Wars" program, a flying laser (more than one) was supposed to fly over US territory and harass arriving (then Soviet) warheads of intercontinental missiles.

[Saburov]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

This is precisely due to the fact that according to Reagan's "Star Wars" program, a flying laser (more than one) was supposed to fly over US territory and harass arriving (then Soviet) warheads of intercontinental missiles.

I know about it. But only those corporations who were connected to the trough of the US military-industrial complex benefited from this. Especially with the "knowledge" of the president of the actor.

[aleks26]

On the final trajectory after the breeding of warheads, it is very difficult and expensive to intercept.

So, just a quick note.
BBs are bred not on the final trajectory, but much earlier. As soon as the "working height" is reached, the "bus" very quickly spreads the BB along its trajectories.

[Horse, people and soul]

So it is written. The final trajectory of the blocks is after their dilution. Read by you as you wanted to read. Crooked.

On the final trajectory after the breeding of warheads, it is very difficult and expensive to intercept.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

The fundamental law says: laser radiation always diverges with an angle = wavelength / beam diameter and you kill yourself, but it is impossible to overcome or circumvent it.

Write to Boeing, Rhinemetal, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc. according to the list, it's a pity because the guys are spending money, and the truth is, here it is ...

Quote: Saburov

In order to have an impact on the target (the metal hull of a ship or aircraft), it must reach a certain number of joules. How much is difficult to say. It depends on the degree of security of the object. And yet, apparently, it is at least a few dozen or even hundreds of megajoules — for such vulnerable objects as a rocket with a full fuel tank, and no less than thousands of megajoules — for nuclear warheads that successfully overcome the dense layers of the atmosphere without losing their working capacity. . For a continuous laser, even without taking into account the divergence of the beam, we are already talking about capacities of thousands of megawatts. But then it turns out that the power of the energy source should be millions of kilowatts!

Do I have a word about ships or warheads?

Here are my words:

If there is an on-board laser with a power of 100-300 kW, X-NUMX-2 air-to-air or ground-to-air missiles are likely to be destroyed by the 4-XNUMX.

or

The appearance of high-power lasers on airplanes will “nullify” all existing man-portable air defense missile systems (MANPADS) with the “Igla” or “Stinger” type, significantly reduce the capabilities of an air defense missile with optical or heat-guided missiles, will require an increase in the number of missiles in the salvo. Most likely, the laser can also hit the long-range ground-to-air missiles, i.e. their consumption when shooting at an airplane equipped with a laser weapon will also increase.

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

Write to Boeing, Rhinemetal, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, etc. according to the list, it's a pity because the guys are spending money, and the truth is, here it is ...

Scientific and technical swindlers have not been canceled. As well as making money from ignorance. And the fundamental laws of physics do not change throughout the existence of the universe.

PS The USSR at one time went all the way of creating a combat laser from and to, which is what the United States is doing now and in fact, reinventing the wheel, I would not be surprised if soon they begin to build a facility similar to the Terra-3. There were smart people in the USSR and they understood the "effectiveness" of this weapon, except for blinding and burning out the enemy's optics, the laser is not capable of more in combat conditions, due to its weak power, absolute inefficiency, insurmountable laws of physics and elementary and CHEAP ways of protecting against it. Remember how many laser projects were in the USSR, at what time and what results it achieved. For example, marine projects FOROS and DIXON, ground-based TERRA-3, space SKIF-2D, on a mobile chassis OMEGA, STILET, COMPRESSION, DAL, SANGVIN, aviation A-60. Which were long before any Firestrikes, and besides, they functioned successfully. Only their goals and objectives were completely different.

Sincerely.

[YOUR]

Quote: Saburov

Did I miss something? How did you manage to circumvent (or rather overcome) the law of diffraction?

I repent I didn’t read everything. Very much has been written. I didn’t know how to circumvent the diffraction law, but back in 1962, with the help of a laser, we measured the distance to the Moon with an accuracy of 300 meters. Craters Al-Battani, Tycho, Copernicus, Longomontan were located.
In 1965, it was determined with an accuracy of 200 meters using a new installation made at the Lebedev Physical Institute. Distortion is large due to the lunar surface. After the Lunokhod with reflecting prisms was delivered to the Moon, measurements were made with an accuracy of less than a meter. Since 1978, measurements have been made with an accuracy of 25 cm.
In principle, the Americans did practically the same thing.
What is this talking about? Firstly, the power of the beam that passed through the atmosphere reached the Moon and returned back, and secondly, about its narrow focus. Not scattered, but a narrow beam passed 400 thousand km there and the same back. It can be compared with military use.

[Saburov]

Quote: YOUR

What is this talking about? Firstly, the power of the beam that passed through the atmosphere reached the Moon and returned back, and secondly, about its narrow focus. Not scattered, but a narrow beam passed 400 thousand km there and the same back. It can be compared with military use.

What is a Laser Rangefinder? First of all, this is a laser, and not a simple one, but due to the Q-switching of the resonator and a number of other technical tricks, giving a very short pulse, measured by nano and picoseconds. And although the pulse energy is small 0.1-0.05 joules, the radiation power is colossal of the order of 250 megawatts and more. The intrinsic divergence of the laser beam is very small, it is measured by the value of 10-20 angular minutes, but at a distance of 500 km. spot diameter will be more than 2 km. The discrepancy is reduced by passing through a collimating optical system. Simplified, this system consists of two lenses whose tricks coincide. The focal length of the first lens is small, the second is large. The ratio of these tricks is equal to a decrease in the divergence of the laser beam and an increase in its output diameter.

A very small part of the laser pulse energy is taken by a special prism and sent to the photo-electron multiplier (PMT) of the start signal. The electrical signal turns on the time counter and makes the rangefinder computer remember when it happened. The time of the event is taken from a special device, which is not called a clock, but the cesium (rubidium, hydrogen) standard of time and frequency, and is tied to the state standard. The laser beam flies to the satellite, is reflected and received by the telescope. Typically, a receiving telescope has a receiving mirror area of ​​0,5 sq.m. or mirror diameter 0,5 m. These two numbers in the world are the most popular. The transmitting optical system, due to its smaller dimensions, is mounted on a receiving telescope, often with a laser. A telescope-focused signal is passed through an optical filter. This filter is not just a piece of glass of a certain color or with complex interference sputtering. The modern optical filter is called the Fabry-Perot Filter and consists of two completely transparent plane-parallel glass plates that are attached to each other by ferroelectric columns (a ferroelectric changes its length if voltage is applied to it). If we simplify talking about the interferometric processes that take place, the filter will transmit light whose wavelength is a multiple of the distance between these plates, provided that they are strictly parallel. In order for the distance between the plates to be a multiple of the laser radiation wavelength and to be strictly parallel, a control voltage is applied to the ferroelectric posts holding them together. Naturally, the filter itself is located in the thermostat, since local overheating or cooling by a tenth of a degree slows down its operation. After the filter, the reflected signal hits the photocathode of the PMT stop signal. The electrical signal from this PMT stops the operation of counters called the Time Interval Meter (IVI). That's all. Based on the propagation time of the light signal, knowing the moment of its emission, calculate the range to the spacecraft at the time at which the laser beam touched the satellite. There was nothing left - to get a beam through the satellite. This task is solved by the Slewing-rotary device (OPU). It allows the telescope of trajectory measurements to monitor the satellite, turning around two, or more axes. OPU electric motors are controlled by a computer. If the OPU could not bring the telescope to the meeting point with sufficient accuracy, then in order not to scorch white light, the receiving telescope usually provides for the possibility of outputting the image to the camera. Then you can enter a certain correction in the movement of the SDA. If the spacecraft (for example) is in low orbit, then the signal reflected from the skin can be quite enough to measure the range. But the higher the orbit, the weaker the signal, the dependence is in the fourth degree (the range is two times greater, the signal is weaker in 16 times, more than three, weaker in 81). To receive a signal, reflective angles and retroreflectors are placed on the spacecraft. How are they made. Imagine a glass cube. Three faces extend from each of the peaks. If on these faces we put aside the same distances from the top and cut off a piece of glass from the cube at these three points, then this piece in the form of a trihedral pyramid will be a corner reflector. The light incident on its base is reflected exactly in the opposite direction.

Now imagine that the range finder fired at a satellite at an altitude of 19 000 km. We know the energy of the shot, it will heat from 50 to 100 grams of water by one degree. The transmitting optical system will delay from 60 to 80% of the light. 70% will absorb the atmosphere. When the beam diverges around 10 arc seconds, the diameter of the beam in orbit will be about 800 meters, the energy that has reached the satellite will be spread over such an area. Its satellite reflects to the earth, but only the part that hit the 0,1-0,3 sq m of corner reflectors, i.e. an insignificant part. This pinhole of energy is weakened by 70% of the atmosphere (it is again on the way) and falls to the ground with a spot diameter of 600-800 meters. 0,785 sq. m, that is, one two-millionth part of this energy falls into the telescope. The receiving optical path is more complex than the transmitting one; it delays about 95% of the radiation. If the energy remaining after this is divided into a constant bar and by the radiation frequency, we get the number of photons that reached the photomultiplier of the PMT stop signal. Oddly enough, but we can detect 3000-8000 photons. You might think that this gigantic number of photons is quite enough for measurements. Alas. The photocathode itself has one output efficiency characteristic, and it is equal to 0,1-0,05%. This means that to guarantee knocking out at least one photoelectron, which will turn into a signal, it is necessary from 1000 to 5000 photons. At such long ranges, the measurement does not occur for every laser pulse, but after one or two.

[YOUR]

Well, why did it have to write?

[Saburov]

Quote: YOUR

Well, why did it have to write?

Quote: YOUR

What is this talking about? Firstly, the power of the beam that passed through the atmosphere reached the Moon and returned back, and secondly, about its narrow focus.

And for this I wrote, firstly, so that you at least a little understand how laser light-range finders work and secondly, so that you do not have false beliefs that the beam does not diverge.

[YOUR]

Diverges naturally. I read that in the first measurements, an area of ​​two square meters was irradiated km But this is at 400 thousand km range.

[Saburov]

Quote: YOUR

Diverges naturally. I read that in the first measurements, an area of ​​two square meters was irradiated km But this is at 400 thousand km range.

This is something from the category of unscientific fiction. Can you imagine what the diameter of the beam should be, so that through 400.000 km the beam diverges only by 2 km? Humanity has not yet created such technologies.

The basic working formula for the calculation is: α = 1,22 λ / d, where α is the divergence angle (radian), λ is the wavelength of light (in the document for convenience in nm), d is the initial beam diameter (in the document for convenience in mm). 1,22 - coefficient depending on the shape of the aperture (outlet).

[YOUR]

I have no idea. I remembered the figure and that’s it.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: YOUR

Well, why did it have to write?

And this copy-paste - http://space.hobby.ru/projects/slr.html

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

And this copy-paste - http://space.hobby.ru/projects/slr.html

So what? Do you disagree?

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

Quote: AVM

And this copy-paste - http://space.hobby.ru/projects/slr.html

So what? Do you disagree?

You can specify a link, it is not necessary to lay out the entire text.
Since you did not select the text as

quote

and did not indicate the source, it is perceived as if it were your words.

[swiazist]

Well, at least someone is adequate on the site. I did not see this article and wrote my same comets under the first part. Diffraction is our everything for laser weapons I think that the author will soon read somewhere about the collimator and start his song again. But about non-linear effects that begin to manifest themselves in megawatts, he modestly pointed out that the behavior of the beam in the atmosphere was studied.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

For your information, the United States had such a project as Excalibur ...

I didn’t say anything about them, it’s all theory and shy experiments.

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

it's all theory and timid experiments.

At the moment, this is still the most powerful shot. Pumped by nuclear weapons.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

And I repeat - today the 100 kW laser is a huge installation weighing tens of tons, with huge tanks of toxic chemicals and sophisticated optics. When he "shoots" - huge clouds of poisonous smoke come out of him, poisoning the whole neighborhood. What will become of this all, if a vrazhin hits from 100 meters all over this kitchen from his good old heavy-gauge KPVT, you can imagine.

This is not the case, be patient a couple of days.
Forget chemical lasers, this is an outdated technology.
And by the way, not all powerful lasers gave a poisonous exhaust, are you talking about the Fluoride-deuterium laser ...

Quote: Saburov

That is, the density of impact will fall in proportion to the area in 7 times just 100 meters. That is: if we know that a laser with a power of 100 kW in the emphasis burns an inch steel plate somewhere for 2-3 seconds, then at a distance of 100 meters it will do it, roughly, 18 seconds. All this time, the BTR (or whoever you are going to burn there) should stand by itself and wait.

Everything is true, but there are actually destroyed targets at a distance of several kilometers, up to about 100 km. If only to deny tests in the style of "Americans lied everything"

The efficiency of fiber lasers reaches 40% (IPG claims 50%). Probably they lie to make the lazerofilov happy ...

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

This is not the case, be patient a couple of days.
Forget chemical lasers, this is an outdated technology.
And by the way, not all powerful lasers gave a poisonous exhaust, are you talking about the Fluoride-deuterium laser ...

Quote: AVM

The efficiency of fiber lasers reaches 40% (IPG claims 50%). Probably they lie to make the lazerofilov happy ...

Obviously, you believe in unscientific fiction. Let's go in order. Show me an article or video where, for example, it is clearly described in technical and scientific language how they could get around the main problems of laser construction?

The laser always had three problems: power, beam divergence, and heat removal from the working area. There is only one way to deal with beam divergence - by reducing the wavelength. However, it follows from the fundamental laws of physics that the shorter the wavelength, the more difficult it is to implement quantum radiation amplification. That is to build a laser.

And besides, the efficiency of the laser, even in theory, is less than "they" claim. In reality, no one in the world has achieved more than 20% efficiency (experimentally confirmed).

Quote: AVM

Everything is true, but there are actually destroyed targets at a distance of several kilometers, up to about 100 km. If only to deny tests in the style of "Americans lied everything"

About downed missiles and shells (which, by the way, have not been confirmed by anything, except for commercials, where there is no data on the range (except for the voiced ones), the nature of the target, trajectory, the number of volleys, material, and so on) are not worth a penny. These are the same ridiculous "statements" as about "Zircon", about 20 strokes, "Poseidons" and "Peresveta".

And why then the projects are closed for complete inadequacy (as soon as they "process" certain sums of money)? YAL-1 for example? According to the statements, he "successfully" knocked down everything ... 5 billion greens fell into the pocket of whom? What do you think?

[voyaka uh]

"And why then projects are closed for complete inadequacy" ////
-----
Because missile missile defense has advanced sharply. Now you can hit a "bullet in a flying bullet"
But it turned out: for a lot of money. And they returned to the lasers.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

But it turned out: for a lot of money. And they returned to the lasers.

To spend even more money. Apparently you are also alien to the fundamental laws of physics and knowledge of the subject. Since you are talking about returning to lasers.

[voyaka uh]

The laws of physics are alien to me no more than the engineers of Rheinmetall, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, IAI, Rafael.
As you can see, I ended up in a large company of profane people who do not understand physics.
But you are a stubborn person, although there are some shifts: earlier you did not admit that a laser is capable of shooting down Grad missiles and mortar mines in flight, but here you "gave up". Easy-easy.
As combat lasers "violate the laws of physics" will get up on alert in various countries, you will continue to "fight" to retreat.
Until new interesting discussions!

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

As the physics-breaking combat lasers rise

Thought processes (schizophrenia) can be disrupted, and the fundamental laws of physics remain unchanged throughout the existence of the universe. They can only be supplemented. You would have blurted out like Rogozin "on new physical principles."

Quote: voyaka uh

You didn’t recognize before that a laser is capable of shooting down Grad rockets and mortar mines in flight

If you had read "before" carefully, you would have understood that it was a volley from several installations. And the impossibility of shooting down a missile with a laser at long distances (from 5 km). There is not enough power.

Quote: voyaka uh

will get up on alert in various countries, you will continue to retreat "with a fight".

Already stood up in 80's, but since then the laws of physics have not changed at all.

[voyaka uh]

"then they would understand that it was about a volley from several installations" ////
-----
You did not understand. Probably due to poor translation.
Installation "Nautilus" is made in one single copy.
But the installation of Grad on the tests of Nautilus in the USA gave a volley of 10 missiles. The laser managed to shoot down 6 of them.
The distance was about 5 -7 km

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

But the installation of Grad on the tests of Nautilus in the USA gave a volley of 10 missiles. The laser managed to shoot down 6 of them.
The distance was about 5 -7 km

Video test in the studio! Who confirmed the distance and what is the interval between missile launches?

[voyaka uh]

Dear Saburov. Nautilus was tested for Israel and specialists from Israel. In Israel, hailings of cities by hail - alas, a regular reality. And we have not played and do not play with juggling tests of military equipment. Fraud will be revealed quickly - there will be funerals of people. A volley is a normal volley, and not a launch with a single delay in turn. Laser shot down and real mortar (single) mines from Gaza. Only weak - about 30-40 kW. And you need - for a volley of mines - about 100 kW.

[Shahno]

Two cars are available in the southern division. Well, so far they are not on combat duty. The successful application was mainly for purposes that do not go on residential development. I can say that the efficiency in mines is higher than in nurses ..

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

Nautilus was tested for Israel and specialists from Israel.

From which the Israeli Defense Ministry refused for complete inadequacy. I already wrote about this.

Quote: Saburov

A US-Israeli laser with the same 100 kW (THEL) power was tested, they wanted to use it to protect against Grad missile shells. THEL installation in size - 6 delivered next to the bus. The project was closed at 2006 for complete inadequacy, although it still successfully shot down missiles and mines. By heating them in flight for several seconds. (The question is - what about the volley ????)

Quote: voyaka uh

A volley is a normal volley, and not a launch with a single delay in turn.

Do you have any idea how the pumping happens? The laser does not work in "broken" mode!

In battle, if enemy missiles / shells fly in dozens, the laser will have to be fired quite often, and for this reason most of the developed combat lasers are chemical. Combustion of gaseous fuel (remember the pyramids of engineer Garin?) Brings the internal environment of the laser into an excited state, and it begins to generate powerful electromagnetic radiation. Therefore, it is necessary to act as follows - fired, purged the system, filed a new portion of reagents, and only after that - a new salvo ...
And yet, suppose that energy is found: for example, an 1 ton of fuel per 1 shot. As is known, the usual laser operation scheme provides for the “pumping” of the working medium (crystal or gas) with energy up to a certain level, and when a jump occurs, the accumulated energy is discharged by a light beam of a certain wavelength. But where to get that energy that did not go to the goal with the beam? So, for the most part, it will stand out in the firing device in the form of heat. Thus, only 40% will go to the goal (although in reality no more than 10%), but the remaining 60% will remain with us. And therefore, even having destroyed three or four goals, we can easily evaporate our own installation. It is no accident that even in much less powerful earthly installations, flowing water cooling is used not only for mirrors, but also for the working volume of the laser.

At the demonstration of the sample, a salvo was fired simultaneously from two missiles, and not from six.

Quote: voyaka uh

Laser shot down and real mortar (single) mines from Gaza.

That's it! Single! By heating for several seconds.

Quote: voyaka uh

And you need - for a volley of mines - about 100 kW.

Nonsense. Power plays a secondary role here. Already said in the above.

[voyaka uh]

Well, thank God! Come on ...
You already recognize that the laser manages to bring down two missiles in a row.
But the test for 10 degrees was also. Because the Israelites were interested in the reflection of just a volley and precisely these missiles. And 60% of the result was considered unsatisfactory.
Although in 2006 this decision was bitterly regretted. It was estimated that if the only Nautilus worked on a mountain by the sea north of the large city of Haifa, he would be able to intercept about 1/4 of the missiles that Hezbollah Haifa fired on (there was no Iron Dome then).

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

But the test for 10 Gradov was also.

Where? When? The story is silent about this ... since in a salvo of 10 missiles, it would be clear how useless this prodigy is.

Quote: voyaka uh

Although in 2006 this decision was bitterly regretted.

Israel’s Defense Ministry rarely regrets anything. If wishes were horses beggars might ride.

Let's get down to business. Where is the official regret of the Israel Defense Forces?

[voyaka uh]

Lasers are no longer chemical.
Have you read about Nautilus? Read about Kratos LaWS. Read about Rafael's Iron Beam. Fiber laser.
Power is increased by increasing the number of rays, and not by increasing the power of one beam. At 5 km distance receive a stable spot of 1 cm in diameter. A spot is formed by about a dozen rays.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

Read about Kratos LaWS. Read about Rafael's Iron Beam. Fiber laser.

I know. This does not change the picture at all. The laws of physics will not change from this.

Quote: voyaka uh

Power build up by increasing the number of rays

25 again? Whatever the power, the beam alas diverges. There is only one way to deal with beam divergence - by reducing the wavelength. However, it follows from the fundamental laws of physics that the shorter the wavelength, the more difficult it is to implement quantum amplification of radiation, or, in human terms, to build a laser. laser radiation always diverges from angle = wavelength / beam diameter

Quote: voyaka uh

and 5 km distances receive a stable spot of 1 cm in diameter.

Who confirmed this? Do you calculate the beam diameter and the discrepancy? Or help you?

The basic working formula for the calculation is: α = 1,22 λ / d, where α is the divergence angle (radian), λ is the wavelength of light (in the document for convenience in nm), d is the initial beam diameter (in the document for convenience in mm). 1,22 - coefficient depending on the shape of the aperture (outlet).

PS Even if it is possible to increase the power of laser guns by an order of magnitude, to gigawatts - this will not make them a prodigy at all. In this “sword and shield” competition, the shield has a huge, insurmountable head start. That is why American laser-builders (like the Israelis) very rarely tell WHAT goals they once again managed to hit and at what distance. And what is shown on the video raises more questions than answers.

[voyaka uh]

"they rarely tell WHAT targets they once again managed to hit and from what distance" /////
-----
There are no secrets. The Israeli military has a very specific task. Gaza is fired from mortars - directly from the yards of Arab homes. For the Iron Dome - this 5-7 km dead zone.
Radar and computer cope. But the rocket does not have time to intercept.
Here is a volley of 3-4 minutes and should intercept the laser. It’s impossible to fool anyone. People from the windows shoot the war on video. Or shot down or not. Either the mine exploded on the street, or - intercepted - in the air.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

It’s impossible to fool anyone. People from the windows shoot the war on video.

I have never seen the combat use of a laser shot on a mobile. Show!

[Shahno]

So people want to convey to you the possibility of focusing several beams (or several hundred). Or not an opportunity. Femtosecond pull?

[Saburov]

Quote: Shahno

So people want to convey to you the possibility of focusing several beams (or several hundred).

So I also want to convey to you the basis of the laws of physics. Although you will have a million of them, the beam will still diverge. The law of diffraction does not give a damn whether it will be a separate heavy-duty beam or a hundred weaker, ceteris paribus. And besides, each beam needs to be fed with something else than that and the mirrors of the working volume must be adjusted. Not too much for a pair of rockets?

[Shahno]

Here's a quote for you to think about ..
//Well no. Just due to the cyclic switching of the wave modules (since they induce pulses incoherent to each other), the time delay of creating an inverse population will be smoothed //

[Shahno]

Well, what you really are. Even if we are testing a megawatcher now, who will tell you before the completion of the tests.

[Saburov]

Quote: Shahno

Even if we are testing a megawatcher now, who will tell you before the completion of the tests.

We have such devices ... but we won’t tell you about them.

[Shahno]

Her, I can only enter into an argument. But to tell, with a view .. ?? Competitors support.

[Saburov]

Quote: Shahno

Competitors support.

Which competitors? In Russia, engineers and scientists have not been fed 30 for years ... what are you talking about?

[Shahno]

Well in vain, with you I look at the preparations being viewed. You make almost no mistakes ... Well, do not feed, prof. Soifer somehow fed

[voyaka uh]

You all the time Saburov expect some kind of trick or deception.
Everything is simple with us. The war is going on in front of people. What intercepts (or misses) the Iron Dome, what a laser. And I, lying on my back in the street, also watched the contrails of two missiles approach each other - up to a beautiful cloud and "boom!"
Okay. It was a pleasure talking with you.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

You all the time Saburov expect some kind of trick or deception.

I was taught to be critical of information. Especially to the unscientific. And even more so without providing facts. And the fact, as you know, is a special offer, fixing empirical knowledge, statement or condition, which can be verified (i.e. verified).

Quote: voyaka uh

What intercepts (or misses) of the Iron Dome is that of a laser.

The iron dome is a good tactical missile defense system. As for the laser, that is, the irresistible laws of physics for use in real combat conditions. Although for weakly intense hostilities, with a poorly armed opponent and at short distances it can do. But it is very energy intensive and too complicated. It’s easier to limit yourself to one LCD.

Quote: voyaka uh

It was a pleasure talking with you.

Mutually!

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

As I already wrote, the most powerful combat laser today is the ABL chemical COIL laser. Its power is about 1 megawatts. The power of the 76-mm divisional gun F-22 model 1936 year-about 150 megawatts. 150 times more! The kinetic energy of the projectile (M * V ^ 2) / 2 divided by the time it reaches (about 0.01 seconds). We still do not take into account the explosive energy in the projectile itself. There is still the same. Think about this simplest fact: a small ancient cannon during World War II at the price of scrap metal is hundreds of times more powerful than a state-of-the-art “combat” laser weighing tens of tons and worth over 5 billion dollars.

I have already seen all this somewhere, including a comparison of the energy of a laser and a projectile. This is precisely absurd, to compare the crocodile and the whale.

During the tests on the ABL program, several training missiles for 80-100 km were hit by a megawatt laser, try to shoot them down with an 76 mm gun.

Quote: Saburov

The power of the Kalashnikov assault rifle is about 100 kilowatts. A US-Israeli laser with the same power 100 kW (THEL) was tested, they wanted to use it to protect against Grad-type missiles. Installing THEL in size - 6 supplied by a number of buses. The project was closed in 2006 for complete inadequacy, although it did successfully shoot down missiles and mines. By heating them in flight for a few seconds.

THEL - chemical laser, they will not be of use, for this and closed.

Quote: Saburov

(question - what about the volley ????)

And why then do air defense at all, if you can always "throw" it? Why is Israel knocking down the Qassams? Still, you can't intercept, and to hell with them, even then everyone will fly.

Quote: Saburov

What is characteristic is that no one even mentioned the possibility of infantry being hit by such a laser. Otherwise, even the child would clearly see his true capabilities, comparing with a conventional machine gun. It should be noted that it is no coincidence that the US military and experts believe that the minimum required laser power for combat use is 100 kW. As we can see, this is really enough to at least come close to the damaging power of small arms.

More let slip. And 100 kW laser successfully knock down mortar mines and MLRS missiles, no, you can 30 kW, but they say 100 kW is almost guaranteed. About this weapon in the following material.
Try AK mine to bring down. In flight.

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

I have already seen all this somewhere, including a comparison of the energy of a laser and a projectile. This is precisely absurd, to compare the crocodile and the whale.

In your absurdity, a comparison of combat effectiveness and the degree of destruction of the target?

Quote: AVM

During the tests on the ABL program, several training missiles for 80-100 km were hit by a megawatt laser, try to shoot them down with an 76 mm gun.

But what about ten goals at the same time? The laser does not work in "broken" mode. And these "statements" about the defeat of the target in 80-100 km, I repeat, nothing (except for oral statements) has not been confirmed.
Indeed, the absurdity is to confuse the degree of destruction of the target with the nature of the target. Filter.

Quote: AVM

THEL - chemical laser, they will not be of use, for this and closed.

Oh how? That is, they threw in money, without theoretical studies of the project? Although according to the same gallant "statements" he "knocked down" everything.

Quote: AVM

And why then do air defense at all, if you can always "throw" it? Why is Israel knocking down the Qassams? Still, you can't intercept, and to hell with them, even then everyone will fly.

And what does the missile defense (Iron Dome) and the laser have to do with it? And how will you reflect 20 rockets with a laser at the same time?

Quote: AVM

They will even say a word. And 100 kW laser successfully shoot down mortar mines and rockets MLRS, no, you can 30 kW, but they say 100 kW is almost guaranteed. About this weapon in the next article. Try to bring down the AK mine. In flight.

Quote: Saburov

A US-Israeli laser with the same 100 kW (THEL) power was tested, they wanted to use it to protect against Grad missile shells. THEL installation in size - 6 delivered next to the bus. The project was closed at 2006 for complete inadequacy, although it still successfully shot down missiles and mines. By heating them in flight for several seconds. (The question is - what about the volley ????)

Quote: Saburov

Indeed, the absurdity is to confuse the degree of destruction of the target with the nature of the target. Filter.

As long as there are fools in the world,
By deception, we live, therefore, with our hands.
What a blue sky
We are not supporters of robbery:
A fool not need a knife,
You’re lying to him from three baskets -
And do with it what you want!

Yours!

[voyaka uh]

"And what about ten goals at the same time?" ////
----
Yes, just like with any air defense.
If there are more planes than anti-aircraft missiles, some of the planes will break through.
But no one says that air defense is useless for this reason.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

"And what about ten goals at the same time?" ////
----
Yes, just like with any air defense.
If there are more planes than anti-aircraft missiles, some of the planes will break through.
But no one says that air defense is useless for this reason.

We are talking about the combat effectiveness of the laser in general, and the laser has it, in combat conditions, tends to zero.

[voyaka uh]

"The laser for combat use is 100 kW. As we can see, this is really enough to at least come close to the destructive power of small arms" ////
----
And why you modestly did not compare the distance of the defeat of the target, but only the power ?.
At small arms - a few hundred meters
In lasers - a few kilometers.
And the speed of achieving the goal. A few seconds at the shooter (the goal will have time to move).
Lasers - instantly.

[Saburov]

Quote: voyaka uh

And why you modestly did not compare the distance of the defeat of the target, but only the power ?.

Let's compare. Distance hit by an anti-aircraft missile and a laser? The 9 laser has a km (experimentally confirmed) limit, at a distance of optical visibility. And then for a minimally protected target such as a drone. Almost all videos are silent range. And in those videos where it shows the range does not exceed 2-3 km. Moreover, the security of the goal is absolutely consciously hushed up.

Quote: voyaka uh

At small arms - a few hundred meters

Naturally! Have you heard about ballistics? How are you going to get for kilometers? Screw the ballistic computer to the machine? What kind of nonsense write?

Quote: voyaka uh

In lasers - a few kilometers.

Not a few, but 2-3 km in reality (for 100 kW laser). The developers of YAL-1 claim the defeat range in 100 km, but no one has confirmed this. Although they themselves stated that the beam diverged at 100 km to 25 meters (this is a very small difference, the beam diameter can be calculated) and they themselves recognized that with such a difference it does not represent combat effectiveness. And here again comes the notorious fundamental law of physics, namely:

α = 1,22 λ / d, where α is the divergence angle (radian), λ is the wavelength of light (in the document for convenience in nm), d is the initial beam diameter (in the document for convenience in mm). 1,22 - coefficient depending on the shape of the aperture (outlet).

And at least you are killed, but it is impossible to get around it!

Quote: voyaka uh

And the speed of achieving the goal. A few seconds at the shooter (the goal will have time to move).
Lasers - instantly.

What are you talking about? A subsonic target for one and a half km is "burned" for several seconds, but here at speed? Yes, they will not even be able to aim (the drives will not allow), in order to aim at supersonic targets, range is needed, and the laser is unable to work at long distances, for one simple reason of the law of diffraction!



If you raise the main problems of the combat effectiveness of the laser:

1) Scattering (diffraction law)
2) Evaporation of the target material (complicates further "burning")
3) High Power Consumption
4) Absorption of a beam (loss of energy of a light wave passing through a substance)
5) Lack of indirect fire
6) An easy way to counter light radiation
7) The problem of the remainder and removal of energy.

PS They say: A film for fools, for fools ... but I liked it!

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: voyaka uh

"The laser for combat use is 100 kW. As we can see, this is really enough to at least come close to the destructive power of small arms" ////
----
And why you modestly did not compare the distance of the defeat of the target, but only the power ?.
At small arms - a few hundred meters
In lasers - a few kilometers.
And the speed of achieving the goal. A few seconds at the shooter (the goal will have time to move).
Lasers - instantly.

It is useless, not to convince. All this nonsense about comparing the incomparable from this opus:
http://worldcrisis.ru/crisis/3307424

It makes no sense to argue too much, reality will put everything in its place, this is not a flight to Alpha Centauri, the results in the next 5-10 will be accurate for years (I mean - the complexes are in service).

Even if you give links to the video, they will say that the rocket has explosives for self-destruction.

Four rabbis are coming. And one of them starts a conversation
about god And two of them immediately shut up - they say, okay to you, in your company
let’s rest as long as you can torment your head with nonsense. The one - "How,
do you not believe in God? And also the rabbis !!! Yes, so that you ... "And those - again -
all this nonsense, and that's it.
Here the righteous rabbi raises his hands to heaven and says - "God, if
do you hear me, give a sign to these stupid, let them know that you
there is ... "And at this time there is a thunderbolt from heaven. Everyone became quiet. Then
one of the unbelievers - "No, nonsense. Coincidence." Everyone agrees
and the first again for its own - they say you could not be
coincidence - the sky, they say, is clear.
They got him, and he decided to ask God again. Raised hands to the sky
and shouts: "God, you see, these idiots don't believe us. Coincidence,
they say Sign again, the way they know. There is a thunder from heaven.
Everyone was quiet, and then again - oh well, nonsense. That them - "TWICE
CONTRACT??? And Nuka God, give, please, some more significant sign,
otherwise these stunners do not know the laws of nature ... "Here is heaven
they open up and there is a big physiognomy that says
that supposedly he is God and what he is, and then the heavens converge and the face
hiding. All four were taken aback, and then one wakes up:
"So what, all the same there are three of us against two of you !!!"

[Saburov]

Quote: AVM

the results in the coming 5-10 years will be accurate (meaning the complexes in service).

Let's argue that they will not? On cognac suit?

Quote: AVM

reality will put everything in its place, it's not a flight to Alpha Centauri

Reality is the law of diffraction. Flight to Alpha - Centauri with "superluminal" speed is the same as "traversing 1000 beams in one" of the diffraction law.

Quote: AVM

Even if you give links to the video, they will say that the rocket has explosives for self-destruction.

Bring! Must do, not talk. In general, it’s strange that dubious videos are a convincing argument for you, but there are no laws of physics ... Paradox! The age of consumption after all.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Saburov

Quote: AVM

the results in the coming 5-10 years will be accurate (meaning the complexes in service).

Let's argue that they will not? On cognac suit?

I do not mind, provided that this applies to all types of lasers - ground (air defense or missile defense), ship and aircraft. Of course, I mean not lasers for blinding optics, namely, for physical destruction of targets at a distance of at least 1 km, and not even micro UAVs such as quadrocopters or inflatable / duralumin boats, but something more substantial, at least - mortar mines and / or unmanaged rockets and further ascending.
5-10 years from now is until March 2029.

[Witsapiens]

In the foreseeable future, “combat lasers” are in principle unable to even approach the combat effectiveness of the good old guns/missiles. At best, their lot is in extremely narrow, specific areas of application, such as burning out optics for reconnaissance. equipment, sights, etc.

It’s 2024, and combat lasers seem to have already begun to enter service with NATO countries. So you can wipe yourself with your text sheets.

[Cowbra]

The use of optical filters for a certain wavelength will not help, since the enemy will most likely use different types of lasers, not all filtering. In addition, the absorption of laser energy by a filter on the order of 100 kW is likely to cause its destruction.

I do not understand why? just you can put a filter, transparent ONLY for a particular wavelength, on which the HOS is operating and cutting the rest ...
But in general - I also don’t quite understand, the laser has the property of doing this - to get rid of mirror coatings ... Further, I don’t really understand how energy can be transmitted. If an impulse, then the laser pump there should be something like an explosion of nuclear weapons, if the irradiation is at least somehow long, then right away - go around, hang around. Roughly speaking, the laser moving along the spiral trajectory of the ATGM will not hold, the beam will fall, the spiral is difficult to calculate, the same principle will be put on anti-aircraft missiles

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Cowbra

The use of optical filters for a certain wavelength will not help, since the enemy will most likely use different types of lasers, not all filtering. In addition, the absorption of laser energy by a filter on the order of 100 kW is likely to cause its destruction.

I do not understand why? just you can put a filter, transparent ONLY for a particular wavelength, on which the HOS is operating and cutting the rest ...

GOS then needs wide bandwidth to get a normal image. If she leaves one bandwidth, she will not see anything, some fragments. Imagine that you have left 555 nm bandwidth for your eyes. You will see only the green part of the spectrum (part of the green part). And it is on it that the enemy will put a hindrance.

Quote: Cowbra

But in general, I also do not quite understand, the laser has the property of such - to be reflected from mirror coatings ...

From different coatings, with different efficiency, more on that later.

Quote: Cowbra

Further, I don’t really understand how to transfer energy. If a pulse, then the laser pumping should be something like an explosion of nuclear weapons, if the exposure is at least a long time, then immediately - walk, walk.

Didn't quite understand the question? Now lasers are either continuous or quasi-continuous (with a high pulse frequency), if that is what is meant.

Quote: Cowbra

Roughly speaking, the laser going along the spiral trajectory of the ATGM will not hold, the beam will fall down, it is difficult to calculate the spiral, the same principle will be put on the anti-aircraft missiles

Will hold That's why lasers now have more chances for implementation - high-quality guidance according to AFAR, high-speed drives. To ensure tracking, it is not necessary to rotate the entire laser, only the power output section rotates, it is quite compact.
And for a rocket, any maneuvering is a loss of energy, a decrease in speed and range.

[Nicholas C.]

Quote: AVM

Hold. That's why lasers now have more chances to implement - high-quality guidance according to AFAR, high-speed drives. To ensure tracking, you do not need to rotate the entire laser, only energy output sectionIt is compact enough.

No no no. Questions.
To rocket 50 km. The rocket goes on a hypersound (in 30-40 year), for example, 3 km / s. Knowing about your cunning laser, the developer of the rocket for 50km. The GOS will not turn it on, but on a rocket it will cheaply and angrily put the damper in front of the GOS. Therefore, to destroy the rocket you need, not only to direct, but hold focus laser radiation at one point on the rocket the necessary time, let 1с. (I remind you that in a second the rocket flies over 3km). Focus accuracy is tenths of a millimeter. Or a few millimeters enough to invest the necessary power density?
The first. Are you sure that AFAR provides such accuracy? This is in what range it should work? What characteristics should an AFAR have to have in order for it to even detect an inconspicuous air-to-air missile behind 50km.? To reflection: https://vpk.name/news/158938_na_kakoi_distancii_su35_obnaruzhivaet_f22_i_f35.html
The second. This is what kind of drive will provide you with such accuracy of holding on such a shoulder? Do you have exactly in the drive-motor- (gearbox or other) node-lens there will be no mechanics and no backlashes?
Third. Laser radiation has a characteristic - divergence. How long is the waist of focus? Meters? Tens of meters? Those. you need the appropriate speed (frequency in tens of kHz) and accuracy: a) calculate the distance to the rocket (what to do with the same AFAR?), b) refocus the radiation (again with what? put the engine on one of the passage elements into the lens - backlash is a plus to the fact that in the node of guidance? to introduce an adaptive element into the optical path? - there are their own adventures).
Sorry to simplify the task to the level of ideal conditions. Author, answer the amateur questions. I still have them. And more.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Nikolay S.

To rocket 50 km. The rocket goes on a hypersound (in 30-40 year), for example, 3 km / s. Knowing about your cunning laser, the developer of the rocket for 50km. The GOS will not turn it on, but on a rocket it will cheaply and angrily put the damper in front of the GOS. Therefore, to destroy the rocket you need, not only to direct, but hold focus laser radiation at one point on the rocket the necessary time, let 1с. (I remind you that in a second the rocket flies over 3km). Focus accuracy is tenths of a millimeter. Or a few millimeters enough to invest the necessary power density?

And for how much will include? And where will she go? By the 40, the laser power of a kilowatt will be brought to 300, it will fire it with the flap, this will have to be wrapped up in the entire rocket in thermal protection. At a distance of 50 km the spot will be on the order of 10 cm in diameter, which are there tenths of a millimeter.

Quote: Nikolay S.

The first. Are you sure that AFAR provides such accuracy? This is in what range it should work? What characteristics should an AFAR have to have in order for it to even detect an inconspicuous air-to-air missile behind 50km.? To reflection: https://vpk.name/news/158938_na_kakoi_distancii_su35_obnaruzhivaet_f22_i_f35.html

In the centimeter range, again, if we are talking about the 2020-2030 of the year, then this is one thing, and the 2030-2040 is another, the radar will also change, perhaps there will be a radio-photon radar.

Quote: Nikolay S.

The second. This is what kind of drive will provide you with such accuracy of holding on such a shoulder? Do you have exactly in the drive-motor- (gearbox or other) node-lens there will be no mechanics and no backlashes?

The one that put the developers. If you do not completely deny the results of the ABL program, then you already hit targets at a range of about 80-100 km, i.e., focusing and targeting issues have been worked out.

Quote: Nikolay S.

Third. Laser radiation has a characteristic - divergence. How long is the waist of focus? Meters? Tens of meters? Those. you need the appropriate speed (frequency in tens of kHz) and accuracy: a) calculate the distance to the rocket (what to do with the same AFAR?), b) refocus the radiation (again with what? put the engine on one of the passage elements into the lens - backlash is a plus to the fact that in the node of guidance? to introduce an adaptive element into the optical path? - there are their own adventures).

And how is a direct hit by an antimissile on a target now implemented? And how do you plan to work with Peresvet? And how was the American shuttle illuminated under the Terra-3 program? I cannot analyze, down to the smallest detail, all the issues that are developed by companies with tens of thousands of people and a budget of billions of dollars. I can only operate with the information provided by them.

They declare that they will receive such a complex by such a year, based on the stated characteristics, it is possible to make a prediction of the impact that new weapons will have on the database, and then we will see ...

[psiho117]

Quote: AVM

If you do not completely deny the results of the ABL program, then targets at ranges of about 80-100 km are already hit

for 100 km they were guaranteed to not hit anything - for, according to their own words, at this distance the laser beam forms a spot with a diameter of tens of meters.
Generally unknown that и at what distance they were amazing.
No information other than the fact of the experiment, the Boeing Corporation and the MDA did not. There is not a word about speeds and distances, target sizes and weather conditions. Yes, a demonstration target with a rocket engine was hit - but it was not known what it was.

According to rumors, it was a kind of demonstration target built by a specialist for these tests. And one hundred percent - it was low-speed, thin-walled, and with a light-absorbing coating.
They shot at night, away from the coast - so that the concentration of water vapor and air turbulence did not interfere with dusting in the eyes.

And the funniest thing - the second solid-fuel target, supposedly shot down - was not shot down at all. The laser made a capture, and began irradiation - but since this target was full-time, and not like the first one — from the foil, it was not possible to quickly bring it down, and the cooling systems could no longer cope with the heat removal.
As a result, "the laser was deliberately turned off before the destruction of the target, since all the tasks of this test were completed" (quote from the report).
Bravo, gentlemen.

[psiho117]

Well, for a snack most funny: This multi-billion dollar program was declared by the US Department of Defense "not applicable in practice."
Further, a few more quotes, dear to my heart, from this memorable report:
“Dust particles in the atmosphere lead to the absorption of energy and the erosion of the beam, reducing the effective range of destruction. In addition, dust particles burning in the beam create infrared noise, making it difficult to precisely aim. "Weapons cannot be used if a cloud appears between the laser and the target."
The final paragraph of the phrase should have been cast in granite: "Physics are physics and cannot be easily beaten", which loosely translated will be: "Physics is physics, you can't go round it on a crooked mare."

The then US Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, issued an even more chic phrase:
“I do not know anyone in the Ministry of Defense who thinks that this program should or can be quickly deployed. The reality is that you will need a laser 20-30 times more powerful in order to hit launch missiles at the proper distance. To put this system into effect, we need to have 10–20 carrier planes at a cost of $ 1,5 billion each, with a maintenance cost of $ 100 million per year, and I don’t know a single person in uniform who believes that such a concept may be workable. ”
Voila.
A curtain.

[Corn]

Tear out a quote from the text and hence the confusion

The maximum damage with laser weapons can be caused to missiles with thermal and optical guidance, since their performance directly depends on the functioning of the sensitive matrix. The use of optical filters at a specific wavelength will not help, since the enemy will most likely use different types of lasers, and filtering from all of them will not be possible.

it’s just possible to set a filter transparent ONLY for a specific wavelength at which the GOS operates and cuts off the rest

and it is this particular wavelength from the spectrum of laser radiation that will pass the filter and burn the IR matrix.

the laser has the property of this - reflected from mirror coatings ...

again, it’s hard to create a surface that can effectively reflect the entire spectrum. For example, an ordinary mirror absorbs IR and UV radiation without problems, a matte foil shields IR well, but it also absorbs UV and visible range, and so on. There is also protection on the basis of evaporating surfaces, but this is already overweight.

If an impulse, then the laser pump there should be something like an explosion of nuclear weapons

no need to reinvent the wheel. There is such a thing as capacitors.

the laser moving along the spiral trajectory of the ATGM will not hold, the beam will fall, the spiral is difficult to calculate, the same principle will be put on anti-aircraft missiles

there is nothing to calculate there. It is difficult for any rocket to compete with the speed of light, and they learned to keep even the most maneuverable target in the crosshairs of the sight back in the middle of the 20th century.

[Cowbra]

and it is this particular wavelength from the spectrum of laser radiation

The laser is characterized by the fact that there is an extremely narrow wave, of the same frequency in fact, NO ONE IN THE LASER OF THE SPECTRA !!!

and learned to keep even the most maneuverable target in the crosshairs of the sight back in the middle of the 20th century.

Therefore, in order to destroy a rocket, you need not only to aim, but to keep the focus of laser radiation at one point on the rocket for the necessary time, even 1s. (I remind you that in a second the rocket flies 3km). The accuracy of maintaining focus is tenths of a millimeter. Or is a few millimeters enough to put in the required power density?

Yeah, and the Strategic Missile Forces appeared in ancient China. Together with powder rockets ... It's not even close.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Cowbra

The laser is characterized by the fact that there is an extremely narrow wave, of the same frequency in fact, NO ONE IN THE LASER OF THE SPECTRA !!!

Well, actually, there are lasers that can simultaneously emit several spectral lines, somewhere I even read about a laser that emits a practically white beam, due to the superposition of the lines of the spectrum. But it is rather an exception, and not our case.

[Cowbra]

I have not heard of this, it is doubtful to me precisely because light beams of different frequencies just will not be able to focus into a parallel non-scattering flow ... The advantage of the laser is lost. However, my knowledge is definitely outdated.
Write: guess why emitters 12? Everyone on their own frequency

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Cowbra

I have not heard of this, it is doubtful to me precisely because light beams of different frequencies just will not be able to focus into a parallel non-scattering flow ... The advantage of the laser is lost. However, my knowledge is definitely outdated.
Write: guess why emitters 12? Everyone on their own frequency

In order to bypass the filters, you will not get rid of everyone, you have already written about this in the following material

The titanium sapphire laser (Ti: Sa) has an ultra-wide emission spectrum - from 0.65 to
1.1 um. Due to this, it can be rebuilt in the whole range, and
choose some wavelength, in addition, he is able to radiate at once in all
spectrum (this results in ultrashort pulses). To pump it
Many other lasers are used, and Ti: Sa itself has been used in
scientific research, range finders and spectroscopy. Because of its complexity
applications in the industry did not find.

[Horse, people and soul]

the laser will not hold, the beam will fall, the spiral is difficult to calculate,

The laser does not need to calculate lead. Taki, the speed of light.

[Cowbra]

You have not finished reading. Here I asked a question - energy is transmitted in a single pulse, or the beam must be kept on target. It turned out that it was necessary to keep. Which is an order of magnitude more complicated than anticipation.

[Horse, people and soul]

Which is an order of magnitude more complicated than anticipation.

Yes?

The target does not maneuver, ballistic. The speed of the target for pointing the beam is not critical.

Here, I suspect, a cloud of red-hot ionized plasma around a target flying in hypersound (warheads of ballistic missiles) can become overwhelming armor for the laser.

[Cowbra]

Yes, I also understand that another problem is that it is necessary to keep an u-narrow beam at a certain point of a rather rather large rocket ... A non-trivial task. Plus there are a lot of missiles, each of them will have weak points differently located - again the task is nontrivial ...
And by the way, why suddenly "does not maneuver something" ?! She's an anti-aircraft missile, what kind of anti-aircraft missile is it, if it doesn't maneuver ?! And the anti-ship missiles and the Kyrgyz Republic - everyone maneuvers ...

[Horse, people and soul]

I'm not talking about anti-aircraft missiles at all, but about warheads of intercontinental ballistic missiles, against which the Americans made their flying laser under the Star Wars program. He was supposed to fly over his territory.

[psiho117]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

The laser does not need to calculate lead. Taki, the speed of light.

Not necessary. But he needs a lot of other things.
For example, the most technologically advanced laser on the planet needed the following to fire directly:
1) a scanning laser system at the given coordinates detects and measures the distance to the target
2) followed by illumination of the target by a laser tracking and target illumination
3) followed by a pulse from a second laser, designed to measure atmospheric permeability and determine atmospheric interference compensation
4) and finally - a series of pulses from a third, combat laser.

Hmm, it’s not so simple
not at all piu-piu offhand.

[Horse, people and soul]

Certainly not pew-pew, but not the Death Star either.

Something has long been implemented in laser rangefinders, rockets and laser-corrected air bombs, automatic weather stations, etc.

[psiho117]

Quote: Horse, lyudovѣd and soulѣlyub

Of course, not pew-pew, but also not "Death Star"

Structurally, the Death Star was not something overwhelming: it's all about size - a system of giant kyber crystals was required, and a highlight - the injection of hypermatter from the reactor into the resulting ray. Just a new approach

[Nikolaevich I]

The author reckons a lot in laser weapons, not thinking that each "sword" is riveted by its own "shield" ... well .... let the people rejoice. ....while! I am not going to describe the entire program of measures for protection against laser weapons now ... let's take a "special case". The fact is that a rocket (with the same optical-electronic seeker ...) can have not only "direct" ... "vision"; but also "peripheral" ("lateral") ... that is , the optoelectronic guidance system (homing) may not be "point", but "distributed" in the rocket body ... (as it were, 2-3 "conditional seeker")! Moreover, it becomes real with the introduction of a "virtual gimbal" .. The head part is protected by a "cap", a "curtain" made of heat-resistant glass ceramics .... In general, the "head" seeker is switched off when a laser beam is applied to it, but the missile is aimed at the target along the "enemy" beam with the help of "peripheral vision "! There is another technical idea that uses the principle: "master-follower (e)" ... If you need a more detailed explanation, then please note: I promised not to bore a helluva lot of potential readers with lengthy descriptions ...

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Nikolaevich I

The author reckons a lot in laser weapons, not thinking that each "sword" is riveted by its own "shield" ... well .... let the people rejoice. ....while! I am not going to describe the entire program of measures for protection against laser weapons now ... let's take a "special case". The fact is that a rocket (with the same optical-electronic seeker ...) can have not only "direct" ... "vision"; but also "peripheral" ("lateral") ... that is , the optoelectronic guidance system (homing) may not be "point", but "distributed" in the rocket body ... (as it were, 2-3 "conditional seeker")! Moreover, it becomes real with the introduction of a "virtual gimbal" .. The head part is protected by a "cap", a "curtain" made of heat-resistant glass ceramics .... In general, the "head" seeker is switched off when a laser beam is applied to it, but the missile is aimed at the target along the "enemy" beam with the help of "peripheral vision "! There is another technical idea that uses the principle: "master-follower (e)" ... If you need a more detailed explanation, then please note: I promised not to bore a helluva lot of potential readers with lengthy descriptions ...

All this is correct, the sword-shield competition will always be. But even if everything works, it means that it will be necessary to develop and re-purchase all the missiles, anti-tank guided missiles, etc.
In this sense, the introduction of LO is already profitable. And not everyone will be able to do this, there will not be enough intelligence and / or money.

And yes, you can still return to the old ways of targeting (we actually did not refuse) the laser in the tail, or radio command guidance for missiles or missiles in-in.

[Nikolaevich I]

Quote: AVM

1. But even if everything works, it means that it will be necessary to develop and purchase again all the missiles, ATGMs, etc.

Quote: AVM

2. It is possible to return to the old methods of guidance (in fact, we did not refuse) a laser in the tail, or radio command guidance for SAM or missiles-in.

I agree ... with both the first and the second "paragraphs"! Moreover, I will add that it is advisable to add a heat-resistant "cap" to the "radio command" rocket or change the "duck" scheme to impulse correction ... The main point of my comment is that I do not agree with that "impression" ("Chief! Everything is lost! "...) which may arise from some readers IN ...

[spech]

based on oxygen and metallic iodine

Is oxygen metallic too?

The main reason for closing the program can be considered the use of a notoriously unpromising chemical laser. The ammunition of the HEL laser is limited by the reserves of chemical components on board and amounts to 20-40 “shots”.

20-40 shot down missiles from 1 (ONE) aircraft is not enough?
No comments

[SHOPPING MALL]

There is not only this problem. Each shot, in my opinion the order of 1,2-2 million. $ Worth, that is, the meaning of the laser is lost - almost unlimited ammunition (as long as the carrier has fuel) + a cheap shot (the cost of fuel required to generate electricity).
In addition, the components of the oxygen-iodine laser are extremely fire-hazardous, and in the process the whole system heats up strongly, and there it is not far from before the fire-explosion.
And there are almost no prospects for the development of lasers of this type, if I understood correctly. Over the years of their research, 40-50 have squeezed everything they can.

[Vadim237]

60 kilowatt laser can be used on armored vehicles to destroy RPGs and ATGW.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Vadim237

60 kilowatt laser can be used on armored vehicles to destroy RPGs and ATGW.

The following material is already ready for this.

[san4es]

A large Boeing 747 aircraft was chosen as the carrier

The high-tech weapon system of the Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser (ABL) consists of a high-energy laser, a flight tower assembly, tracker laser-illuminators and a beacon illuminator - for installation on modified 747-400F. Simply put, he first uses infrared sensors to detect missiles, then three low-power tracking lasers calculate speed / import, and finally, the main laser is launched within 3-5 seconds from the front tower.

[Operator]

The laser as a means of self-defense against air-to-air and surface-to-air missiles has no prospects - an alternative to it are mini-rockets with pulse correction engines (available overload 80 g), placed on board the aircraft in the amount of several tens of units.

A non-maneuverable megawatt class laser carrier of the Boeing type or a heavy bomber itself will be shot down / disabled after the remote use of the C-400 / 500 anti-aircraft missile with ARGSN protected by a heat-resistant ceramic ceramic fairing.

The only sphere of use of lasers is space with a large number of weakly protected and poorly maneuverable targets (satellites). The range of the laser will be determined by the angle of divergence of its beam, multiplied by the power.

In other words, the analogue of "Peresvet" with a megawatt nuclear power plant on board and a solid-state laser, being launched into near-earth orbit now, will not have competitors for another 25-50 years

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

The laser as a means of self-defense against air-to-air and ground-to-air missiles has no prospects

How to know ...

large and cumbersome bombers are easy prey for enemy missiles. Such, for example, is the main aircraft of the long-range bomber aircraft of the United States Air Force - the legendary B-52, or Flying Fortress. On the one hand, it can carry up to 31,5 tons of various weapons, or an 51 unit of ammunition, including nuclear weapons. The bomber has one of the most powerful electronic warfare systems among US combat aircraft.

It includes equipment for creating misleading and noise interference, heat traps and dipole reflectors, and B-52 bombers of some modifications are equipped with electronic suppression systems designed to suppress enemy radar stations, interference transmitters, radar warning equipment, and pulse-Doppler protection station tail and jammer transmitters.

On the other hand, due to the large size and maximum take-off weight of almost 230 tons, the strategic bomber has poor maneuverability and is not able to evade enemy missiles. Therefore, the Americans decided to equip it with laser weapons, which will be designed primarily to protect the B-52 from missiles. Moreover, the combat laser should not blind the ammunition guidance systems, knocking them off the target, but physically destroy them.

AFRL believes that a laser installation on board a multifunctional heavy strategic bomber will more effectively protect it from enemy threats. The project was named SHIELD (“Shield”) and should be implemented within five years. During this time, researchers must develop outboard containers with combat lasers that can be used not only on B-52, but also on US C-130J Super Hercules military transport aircraft.

Quote: Operator

- an alternative to it are mini-rockets with impulse correction engines (80 g available overload), placed on board the aircraft in the amount of several dozen units.

They can (and should) complement each other -

In combination with CUDA type missile weapons, the chances of an aircraft equipped with laser weapons to survive on the battlefield will increase many times.

Quote: Operator

A non-maneuverable megawatt class laser carrier of the Boeing type or a heavy bomber itself will be shot down / disabled after the remote use of the C-400 / 500 anti-aircraft missile with ARGSN protected by a heat-resistant ceramic ceramic fairing.

If he is in the area of ​​such a complex, if the missile is not rejected by the EW, if the rocket itself is not struck into the side projection, if the missiles with ceramic protection are created, if ARGSN works through this protection, and when they finally make C-500.

Quote: Operator

The only sphere of use of lasers is space with a large number of weakly protected and poorly maneuverable targets (satellites). The range of the laser will be determined by the angle of divergence of its beam, multiplied by the power.

In space, there are problems on the use of lasers, and perhaps talk about it.

Quote: Operator

In other words, the analogue of "Peresvet" with a megawatt nuclear power plant on board and a solid-state laser, being launched into near-earth orbit now, will not have competitors for another 25-50 years

If "Peresvet" really has a megawatt nuclear power plant on board and a solid-state laser ...
Something about the Petrel and Poseidon immediately said that there is nuclear technology, so as not to tell about Peresvet? After all, the mention of technology does not give a way to implement it.
I would really like to be wrong, I would really like to, but I’m afraid -

It can be assumed that the most likely candidate for installation in this complex is a gas-dynamic laser, a descendant of a laser being developed for the A-60 program. In this case, the optical power of the Peresvet laser can be 200-400 kilowatts, in an optimistic scenario up to 1 megawatts. As another candidate, the previously mentioned oxygen-iodine laser can be considered.

[psiho117]

Quote: AVM

In space, there are problems on the use of lasers, and perhaps talk about it.

Ummm ... and which ones? Offhand, except for problems with the heat sink - I do not see any.
But the benefits - at least eat booty.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: psiho117

Quote: AVM

In space, there are problems on the use of lasers, and perhaps talk about it.

Ummm ... and which ones? Offhand, except for problems with the heat sink - I do not see any.
But the benefits - at least eat booty.

It is with him, and this is not an easy problem. If ours solved the problem with the heat sink of a megawatt nuclear power unit, then they will cope with the laser. Unless of course we have such a laser.

[psiho117]

And there, apart from the refrigerant, there is nothing to come up with - well, at least at the existing technological level. We cannot make effective radiators yet.
So - an automatic tanker that flies and refuel Laz. space stations Eh, dreams, dreams ...
Unfortunately, the cosmos is not interesting to humanity now. Here's the new iPad - this is the breaking news.

[Horse, people and soul]

Not enough power? Just plug in the battery more.

[Horse, people and soul]

Against energy weapons, they immediately come up with some kind of energy shield made of plasma.

And, well, a good direct mass strike at hypersonic speed is unlikely to ward off anything other than a timely maneuver, which is not always possible.

[Shahno]

A year and a half ago there was an international conference on SE lasers (X-ray, etc.). I then did not understand from such a heap of participants one representative from Russia. The topic is not interesting or what? From Tel Aviv University, and then there were two ..

[voyaka uh]

The laser can be installed only on the F-35 "A" and "C" versions. In which there is no
fan for lifting traction.
"B" cannot be touched in any way, otherwise it will not be "B"
A defensive laser from explosives and anti-aircraft missiles will be able to cover F-35 from attacks
from below. And to shoot "offensively" can only forward and down.
At first, it is wiser to place defensive lasers on defenseless "elephants":
large military transport workers, DRLO aircraft, transport helicopters.
Fighters can make a maneuver, but elephants cannot.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: voyaka uh

The laser can be installed only on the F-35 "A" and "C" versions. In which there is no
fan for lifting traction.
"B" cannot be touched in any way, otherwise it will not be "B"

Exactly, but this is the information that I found on the net.

It is possible to start with "B", since there is already a "cardan" to drive the generator.

Quote: voyaka uh

A defensive laser from explosives and anti-aircraft missiles will be able to cover F-35 from attacks
from below. And to shoot "offensively" can only forward and down.

It seems like there should be two outputs (wiring is probably fiber optic), and most likely will make small protrusions in an unobtrusive layout, like an existing OLS, so that you can work in a larger range of angles.

Quote: voyaka uh

At first, it is wiser to place defensive lasers on defenseless "elephants":
large military transport workers, DRLO aircraft, transport helicopters.
Fighters can make a maneuver, but elephants cannot.

Yes, there are plans for B-52 and C-130.

[voyaka uh]

"they will start with" B ", since there is already a" cardan "to drive the generator." ////
----
Ah, I got it. They will take the engine for "B" and test the system on it.
Not using a swiveling nozzle.
As if the plane is "A".
----
A defensive belly laser has already been delivered to Israeli military transport workers.
But it is weak - it can blind the head of MANPADS or an infrared head of an anti-aircraft missile, but it cannot fire a rocket.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: voyaka uh

"they will start with" B ", since there is already a" cardan "to drive the generator." ////
----
Ah, I got it. They will take the engine for "B" and test the system on it.
Not using a swiveling nozzle.
As if the plane is "A".

Like so

Quote: voyaka uh

A defensive belly laser has already been delivered to Israeli military transport workers.
But it is weak - it can blind the head of MANPADS or an infrared head of an anti-aircraft missile, but it cannot fire a rocket.

We have something similar, if I understood correctly, then in the President-S complex there is also a weak laser for suppressing the IR heads of MANPADS.

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

if the rocket itself is not hit in side view

An anti-aircraft missile flying to a target along a ballistic trajectory can only be hit in frontal projection.

With a maximum firing range of C-400 / 500 long-range missiles at a low-maneuver target in 400-500 km with an active trajectory segment (before rocket fuel generation) most of the trajectory from 300 to 400 km the anti-aircraft missile will fly by inertia and will not respond to the laser beam. empty rocket engine (75-80% body length).

Moreover, after an OUT, an empty rocket engine can be shot out and only a compact warhead, protected from a laser with a ceramic (nose) and ablative (side) coating, will fly up to the target.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Quote: AVM

if the rocket itself is not hit in side view

An anti-aircraft missile flying to a target along a ballistic trajectory can only be hit in frontal projection.

With a maximum firing range of C-400 / 500 long-range missiles at a low-maneuver target in 400-500 km with an active trajectory segment (before rocket fuel generation) most of the trajectory from 300 to 400 km the anti-aircraft missile will fly by inertia and will not respond to the laser beam. empty rocket engine (75-80% body length).

Moreover, after an OUT, an empty rocket engine can be shot out and only a compact warhead, protected from a laser with a ceramic (nose) and ablative (side) coating, will fly up to the target.

I agree that the more the target is hit, the more difficult it is to influence it, and the defense will also be set. Shield and sword ...

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

Shield and sword

For us, this is nuclear weapons, not LO

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Quote: AVM

Shield and sword

For us, this is nuclear weapons, not LO

Interestingly, and you in all topics, not about nuclear weapons about him remember?
tanks? - No, a nuclear weapon!
guns? - No, a nuclear weapon!

Hope only for nuclear weapons resembles the approach of one country - Comrade Kim Jong Il, Comrade Kim Cher Eun ... They have no other arguments, as in the joke:

Little hare, little fox, little wolf and bear cub after the New Year
They say that they were given.
Leveret: Dad gave me a toy train. Almost like a real one!
Pup: And they gave me a typewriter!
Teen Wolf: And a toy gun for me. Shooting shoots!
Bear: ... And to me ... And I ... And from me ... And I’ll LOOK BOSHKY all of you right now !!!

When a mortar mine crashes into our Armed Forces base in Syria, which cannot be intercepted by either Pantsir, TOR-th, or S-400, and Derivation-Air Defense does not intercept, what to do? To apply nuclear weapons? Tactical or just "world to dust"? Who will we start working on?

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

When a mortar mine crashes to the base of our Armed Forces in Syria

From the classics: "Then it is necessary to inflict an artillery strike on the position of the mortar", - Lopatov (C)

In my comments on other topics, I stated my position on intercepting all attacking ammunition (from mines to the Kyrgyz Republic): only hardcore - I mean MHTK antimissiles.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Quote: AVM

When a mortar mine crashes to the base of our Armed Forces in Syria

From the classics: "Then it is necessary to inflict an artillery strike on the position of the mortar", - Lopatov (C)

Well, if the mine is uncontrollable, then the enemy will be lucky, but even after the first shot, there can be losses both by equipment (for example, it hits the Su-57 in the parking lot if it is outside the caponier) and people.
After how many shots are guaranteed to spot the position of the mortar (s), have time to deploy the gun and open fire? 5-10? 2-30?

And if a mine is controlled, such as the "Edge" complex - 120 mm, then generally the edge.

Quote: Operator

In my comments on other topics, I stated my position on intercepting all attacking ammunition (from mines to the Kyrgyz Republic): only hardcore - I mean MHTK antimissiles.

By mine cost 10-50-100 $ missile cost 20 000 $ (in prices 2006 g)?
Even a controlled mine "Gran" in export version costs about $ 5000-10000. It will be a one-sided game, the enemy will always win either in terms of the targets hit, or in terms of the means spent on attacking / repelling the attack. That is why Israel, which constantly collides with all these pieces of iron, is actively working on a laser air defense / missile defense system, since you will go broke on missiles for the Iron Dome.

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

a rocket worth 20 000 $ (in prices 2006 g)

The price of MNTK in the domestic version is unknown, but the essence is different: what is the price of a laser complex capable of intercepting mines - 10 or 100 million bucks?

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Quote: AVM

a rocket worth 20 000 $ (in prices 2006 g)

The price of MNTK in the domestic version is unknown, but the essence is different: what is the price of a laser complex capable of intercepting mines - 10 or 100 million bucks?

Unknown, especially in the domestic version, because it is not there yet, supposedly it should be comparable to the cost of the same class air defense systems.

The laser is not a divine miracle, but a very real "earthly" technology, tested on industrial samples.
Industrial fiber lasers have made a leap lately, the military will take the best and adapt it to their needs.

It was just the industry, with a cut-off distance that was enough 5-10 kW, and now 100-500 kW can be used to cut tank armor. It's like with processors for a computer; a new one appears - the old one becomes cheaper. What cost 2010 $ in 1000 now costs 50 $.

Examples of capacity for cutting metal (close, of course).

From the material on the development of laser industrial technology:

Few people in the laser industry would be able to predict how much power fiber lasers being sold could be today.

“If you came back to 10-15 for years and told me that we would sell 10 kW fiber lasers as a standard industrial product, I would think that you are crazy,” said Kurt Weingarten, chief commercial laser technology specialist at Lumentum in Zurich, Switzerland, who added that he would not be alone in his skepticism.

Even when fiber lasers became better known for metal cutting, welding, and other processes, customers of Milpitas, Calif., Headquartered at Lumentum, asked, “Who ever needs more 6 kW?” However, now the company often supplies the 9 kW system and considers the ability to run products with 10 kW or higher. “This is really amazing,” said Weingarten.
The observation reflects the continued exponential increase in fiber laser output, which has been going on for more than two decades for systems with continuous radiation. This increase was due to the unique advantages of the fiber laser format, which made it possible to reach achievements such as IPG Photonics, based in Oxford, Massachusetts, in the 2012 year, which supplies the 100 kW power system.

"IPG Photonics, based in Oxford, Massachusetts in 2012" - founded by a Russian ...

[Operator]

The analogy of combat lasers with industrial ones is erroneous - the latter cut steel for a long time, point-blank and under ideal conditions, and the former must pierce the same mine’s shell almost instantly, at a distance of about 1 km and in dusty / smoky air conditions.

For combat lasers, megawatt radiated power, dynamic target targeting, etc. are required. etc., which clearly translates into an exorbitant price.

Well, the question on filling - how the laser will shoot down mines in the fog?

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

The analogy of combat lasers with industrial ones is erroneous - the latter cut steel for a long time, point-blank and under ideal conditions, and the former must pierce the same mine’s shell almost instantly, at a distance of about 1 km and in dusty / smoky air conditions.

For combat lasers, megawatt radiated power, dynamic target targeting, etc. are required. etc., which clearly translates into an exorbitant price.

Minimum cutting speed 0.5-0.6 m / min. This fact determines the maximum thickness of the steel sheet being cut. Currently - 30 mm with laser power - 6 kW.

http://www.technolaser.ru/russian/album.html

The "sky-high price" is a very relative concept; the entire cycle of operation and the resulting benefit from operation must be considered. We do not yet have prices for comparison at all, there will be - we'll talk.

Quote: Operator

Well, the question on filling - how the laser will shoot down mines in the fog?

Just as not in the fog, but with less efficiency. How much smaller - depends on the laser wavelength and fog density. The fog does not hang high, it spreads along the bottom.

[Operator]

This is all about anything, since a laser, by definition, works in the optical range, and there (a range) there are a large number of barriers to the propagation of radiation - fog, clouds, dust, salt mist over the sea, artificial aerosol, clouds (when working against air targets ).

And the height of the upper / lower border of the fog (as a special case of an obstacle) is not to blame for this — it is with these borders that the route of arrival of a radar-guided missile to a laser unit worth several million / tens of millions of dollars will be chosen.

And if we recall such a simple and effective method of disabling a laser as spraying an artificial aerosol (so that the enemy does not depend on weather conditions), it becomes clear 100% vulnerability of the ground / surface laser against the simplest countermeasures.

Therefore, the scope of application of laser weapons is limited to airless space, and then only if there is a megawatt power for impulsive target destruction, and not "drilling" the target with a kilowatt beam for several seconds, because after fixing the target of laser irradiation, it will simply be enveloped in a cloud of aerosol impenetrable for the laser ...

So the future of spacecraft depends to a greater extent not on solid-state lasers as such, but on compact nuclear power plants of the megawatt class such as those used on the Burevestnik, Poseidon or Peresvet.

Wanguyu that soon the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces will announce the launch of a laser station with a nuclear power plant into orbit for "probing the Earth's atmosphere" - Basov / Prokhorov / Rosatom approve

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

This is all about anything, since a laser, by definition, works in the optical range, and there (a range) there are a large number of barriers to the propagation of radiation - fog, clouds, dust, salt mist over the sea, artificial aerosol, clouds (when working against air targets ).

Well, here you can not convince. You, too, do not bring in the figures that as an effect? How clouds will reduce the power of the beam, fog?

Quote: Operator

And the height of the upper / lower border of the fog (as a special case of an obstacle) is not to blame for this — it is with these borders that the route of arrival of a radar-guided missile to a laser unit worth several million / tens of millions of dollars will be chosen.

It will be a key word, but for now it is not. And any maneuvers for rockets - the loss of energy. The predicted trajectory is also a minus to such a weapon. Yes, and it does not help her at a distance of 2-3 km and power 100-300 kW.

Quote: Operator

And if we recall such a simple and effective method of disabling a laser as spraying an artificial aerosol (so that the enemy does not depend on weather conditions), it becomes clear 100% vulnerability of the ground / surface laser against the simplest countermeasures.

This is where you are going to spray it? With a rocket in-in, or in-s? Here, a smoke generator for an ATGM was proposed to be delivered. Do you really think that a rocket or a plane can fly and put an aerosol / smoke screen in front of you?

Quote: Operator

Therefore, the scope of application of laser weapons is limited to airless space, and then only if there is a megawatt power for impulsive target destruction, and not "drilling" the target with a kilowatt beam for several seconds, because after fixing the target of laser irradiation, it will simply be enveloped in a cloud of aerosol impenetrable for the laser ...

Impermeable aerosol, what kind of animal is this? You understand that in the atmosphere instead of burnt out / evaporated particles, new ones immediately arrive, well, with a certain delay, probably. And in space, spray the aerosol, the laser will burn through these particles, and the new ones will not come as a replacement, because no wind, no motion. So what about the impulse is debatable.

Quote: Operator

So the future of spacecraft depends to a greater extent not on solid-state lasers as such, but on compact nuclear power plants of the megawatt class such as those used on the Burevestnik, Poseidon or Peresvet.

For a laser, it is not YASU that is needed, but an NPI, and not the type that exists on Poseidon (by the way, the NPI is more likely there) and on the Petrel. And in space, there are completely different problems with nuclear energy, I very much hope that the nuclear tug with such a nuclear power plant will be implemented.
And Peresvet ... Well, let's see what kind of laser is there. It bothers me that they said about the Yasu Burevestnik and the Poseidon NPU, so why not say Peresvet - say a nuclear powered laser, the very presence of such information will not allow it to be copied, but they are silent. And that means most likely there is nothing to brag about - either a gas-dynamic or chemical laser.

Quote: Operator

Wanguyu that soon the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the RF Armed Forces will announce the launch of a laser station with a nuclear power plant into orbit for "probing the Earth's atmosphere" - Basov / Prokhorov / Rosatom approve

Well, as they say, your words are in your ears.

[Operator]

Honestly, I did not understand - is there a laser that can hit a target through air masses that are opaque in the optical range and filled with water vapor (fog, clouds)? Do not give the link?

For your information, the US Navy abandoned the laser creation program designed to intercept low-altitude RCC targets because of a sharp reduction (to 1-2 km) of the laser range in salt fog conditions, which always hang above the sea surface - the beam was repeatedly reflected from the crystals salt and defocused.

In the same way, it is possible to form clouds of protective aerosol against laser radiation, including in space, in a more concentrated way - it cannot be pierced, regardless of the radiation power.

Similarly, it is also possible to protect the ammunition attacking the ground-based laser installation — to organize the ejection of an aerosol from the nose of the ammunition during the flight of the ammunition from horizon to installation. This method was planned to be used to protect the Soviet ICBMs in the active part of their trajectory (in addition to the rotation of the rocket around the longitudinal axis) - if American optical lasers were put into orbit as part of the PIO program (but the Americans refused to use the latter nuclear pumped).

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Honestly, I did not understand - is there a laser that can hit a target through air masses that are opaque in the optical range and filled with water vapor (fog, clouds)? Do not give the link?

Are there any? This is right Stephen King of some kind. Well, maybe burning wells in Iraq gave a local effect.

Quote: Operator

For your information, the US Navy abandoned the laser creation program designed to intercept low-altitude RCC targets because of a sharp reduction (to 1-2 km) of the laser range in salt fog conditions, which always hang above the sea surface - the beam was repeatedly reflected from the crystals salt and defocused.

Yes, an aerosol above the sea scatters the beam more strongly. But they did not refuse, and it seems they are waiting for an acceptable 100-150 kW laser. I would say 300 kW more real.

Quote: Operator

In the same way, it is possible to form clouds of protective aerosol against laser radiation, including in space, in a more concentrated way - it cannot be pierced, regardless of the radiation power.

Around what? Have I ever talked about fixed or sedentary targets? Aerosol around a mortar mine or rocket in-in?

Quote: Operator

Similarly, it is also possible to protect the ammunition attacking the ground-based laser installation — to organize the ejection of an aerosol from the nose of the ammunition during the flight of the ammunition from horizon to installation. This method was planned to be used to protect the Soviet ICBMs in the active part of their trajectory (in addition to the rotation of the rocket around the longitudinal axis) - if American optical lasers were put into orbit as part of the PIO program (but the Americans refused to use the latter nuclear pumped).

On the active site, except at the very initial stage, until the rocket gained speed, otherwise it is a falsification of the PIO.

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

Aerosol around a mortar mine or rocket in-in?

Namely, the aerosol ejection is forward along the flight through the hole in the nose cone of the attacking munition (with the help of burning checkers).

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: Operator

Quote: AVM

Aerosol around a mortar mine or rocket in-in?

Namely, the aerosol ejection is forward along the flight through the hole in the nose cone of the attacking munition (with the help of burning checkers).

There is such a thing in the shells - the bottom gas generator, designed to remove the bottom resistance resulting from the discharge of air, but there the products go behind the shell, where there is no resistance.

If it is placed in the nose, then in order to create smoke at a transonic speed before a flying projectile, I can’t imagine how much gas should be emitted. Most likely, it will be smeared on the body with a layer less than 1 mm thick, while it is not known how it will affect the flight trajectory due to the unpredictable influence on external ballistics.
And where to put it on ammunition with a head guidance?
Looking ahead, the best in this case is suitable ablative protection.

[psiho117]

Quote: AVM

If you place it in the nose

you don’t need to place anything in the shell itself, you need to add a couple of smoke rockets of the RPG-30 type - if the laser hits them, then clouds of smoke or aerosol make it difficult to detect / aim / hit the main charge. If not, KAZ or dynamic will trigger.
In general, it seems to me that the era of penny RPGs burning super-expensive tanks is coming to an end. In the future, significant tricks will be required to overcome the active and passive protection systems for tanks.
Why am I talking about tanks? Because I do not believe in aviation self-defense laser. Well, at least for the next 30 years it will be deaf there, the maximum is the blindness of the GOS, but not the downing of the rocket itself.
But in the ground technology there are options ... there the weight and size requirements are not so strict, and there are no such overloads, and indeed it’s much easier.
So the first in line for arming a manhole. protection is tanks, and not B-52 at all.
The idea with the B-52, I generally consider the next grand drank ...

[bk0010]

I'll add my 5 cents: there is another problem with lasers. A really powerful beam (I do not remember the parameters) turns the air into a plasma, which begins to absorb it intensively. So just to increase the power of the earth will not work, but to focus on a few rays with very high accuracy is also not easy.
It was assumed that the X-ray laser would not spoil the electronics of the warhead, but would cause such intense heat that the shock wave arising from it would destroy the warhead.
Protecting any grenades and ATGMs from a laser is not a problem: the radiation detector and the smoke generator are inexpensive and weigh a little. And if the 1 ATGM generation, then you can do without the radiation detector. Plus, they rotate, that is, you need to warm the target very quickly.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: bk0010

I'll add my 5 cents: there is another problem with lasers. A really powerful beam (I do not remember the parameters) turns the air into a plasma, which begins to absorb it intensively. So just to increase the power of the earth will not work, but to focus on a few rays with very high accuracy is also not easy.

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: bk0010

Protecting any grenades and ATGMs from a laser is not a problem: the radiation detector and the smoke generator are inexpensive and weigh a little. And if the 1 ATGM generation, then you can do without the radiation detector. Plus, they rotate, that is, you need to warm the target very quickly.

And what will this smoke generator "smoke"? An ATGM operator? They actually fly towards the target.

Given the range of their damage rotation does not help them.
And by the way, they don’t all revolve, mostly it’s the USSR / Russia ATGM.

[bk0010]

Quote: AVM

And what will this smoke generator "smoke"?

Box smoke generator cling to the head off an anti-tank. In flight, the smoke will close the ATGM, the laser will heat the smoke.

Quote: AVM

Given the range of their damage rotation does not help them.

What is the relationship between range of damage and rotation?

[SHOPPING MALL]

Quote: bk0010

Box smoke generator cling to the head off an anti-tank. In flight, the smoke will close the ATGM, the laser will heat the smoke.

This I will not comment.

Quote: bk0010

What is the relationship between range of damage and rotation?

Such that the energy density at a distance of 1-2 km will be high enough to hit the ATGM missile, regardless of whether it rotates or not.

[psiho117]

SW Author, thanks for your work.
As I understand it, your position is that - Lasers are developing rapidly, and what they can’t now, will they be able in 5/10/15 years?
By capacity - I agree. But the question of the influence of atmospheric conditions has not been resolved, and cannot be fundamentally resolved (until the greaser is made).
The military is a very conservative and picky people.
And an arms system that so Depends on weather conditions - categorically not suitable for them.
Understand that you cannot rely on weapons that fire today - and tomorrow, in the rain - no.
You can’t trust civilian life with a system that will not be able to bring down anything during a dust storm, for example.
Allah-Babahs cannot be considered fools - it is precisely under the difficult weather conditions that they will predict their shelling.

And here is my position: microelectronics is now developing at a much faster pace than lasers, and it is much cheaper and easier to solve problems using cheap anti-aircraft guided projectiles 57-60-75mm (not even 30mm, they are more expensive, and more are spent on their target) .
No problems with the weather. No expensive components.
High efficiency.

[Shahno]

I envy the author. How many boards were painted, how many prototypes were burned, how many stands were destroyed. But we did not dare to explain what was happening. But he made up his mind, and informed, in an understandable form. And it is very valuable ....

[Operator]

Quote: AVM

in order to create smoke even at a transonic speed before a flying projectile, I can’t imagine how much gas should emit

The "Shkval" torpedo moves under water (the density is 1000 times greater than air) at a speed of 100 m / s due to the creation of a gas bubble around the hull by diverting part of the jet engine gases to the nose.

Attacking ammunition with an aerosol filling is not necessary to have an optical or radar GOS - it will completely cost inertial guidance, since it is intended only for blocking (aerosol cloud) laser radiation for the time of arrival to the target of the second attacking ammunition equipped with ARGSN and fragmentation warhead.

[SHOPPING MALL]

In the United States passed the test of the laser unit for fighters

https://topwar.ru/157630-v-ssha-proshli-ispytanija-lazernoj-ustanovki-dlja-istrebitelej.html

[SHOPPING MALL]

The British showed a hybrid power plant for combat lasers:
https://topwar.ru/157824-britancy-pokazali-gibridnuju-jenergoustanovku-dlja-boevyh-lazerov.html