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originally posted by: noeltrotsky
a reply to: moebius
How do they generate the massive energy requirements for energy weapons to be placed inside a fighter airframe? The current flying energy weapon is in a 747. As well, energy weapons aren't over the horizon so missile tech already has them beat for distance.
one reason the ABL was cancelled other that excessive ideology getting in the way is that the technology was out of date by the time they were ready to field test it at full power. Lasers of comparable power can now be fitted on hummers. because the cooling needs have been reduced and because the aiming optics have become much simpler. and that is just the stuff that is not classified. in reality we now have lasers that can be aimed like a phased array radar with phase shift drivers and frequency based steering. the laser emitters can be slabs, fiber optical, led or even a liquid lasing medium. many of those require little cooling because the weapon beam is created by combining many small lasers with individually small wattage and therefore small thermal heating. it is not a stretch to believe the TRL for LASER weapons in the classified world are such that they can predict they will be mature in time for a next generation fighter.
originally posted by: noeltrotsky
a reply to: moebius
How do they generate the massive energy requirements for energy weapons to be placed inside a fighter airframe? The current flying energy weapon is in a 747. As well, energy weapons aren't over the horizon so missile tech already has them beat for distance.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: noeltrotsky
It's an acceptance of the fact that they're facing 20 years of development, and not waiting to get it started.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: boomer135
Visual stealth still has a few issues, but by the time the sixth gen is flying I'd be willing to bet they have them solved.