U.S. Navy Tests World’s First Laser Weapons System

U.S. Navy Tests World’s First Laser Weapons System

The U.S. Navy recently tested the world's first-ever active laser weapons system, which is now deployed and ready for war. The Laser Weapons System, or LaWS, is now deployed aboard the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship, where CNN was able to witness the system destroy a drone in flight and moving targets on the Persian Gulf. The system has special materials that release photons, and, at the speed of light, it silently hits an object, burning it to a temperature of thousands of degrees. Each strike travels 50,000 times the speed of an incoming ICBM.

I've been following a thread by penroc which caught my attention about the use of lasers... And looky here what happened today!How cool is that... Well, in a way.

"I can aim that at any particular spot on a target, and disable and destroy as necessary," said Christopher Wells, captain of the USS Ponce. "It reduces collateral damage—I no longer have to worry about rounds that may go beyond the target and potentially hurt or damage things that I don't want to hurt or damage." The system, whose strikes are silent and invisible, is currently active at sea, ready on the USS Ponce for an enemy. It is primarily intended to take on drones, aircraft, and small vessels that could be used in an attack from countries such as Iran and North Korea. One of the weapon's biggest strengths is its versatility.

We were just saying - if there's a 'hint' of it? They 'got it'...

And we do...

peace

Dose this mean the drone wars are over

a reply to: markovian

I sure hope so but sadly, I doubt it.

They'll just arm drones with lasers now.

peace

This is actually quite old news, I think the first test videos came out in 2015

a reply to: InspectorGadget13

Hate it when sites do that.

But it was news to me.

peace

originally posted by: silo13
a reply to: markovian

I sure hope so but sadly, I doubt it.

They'll just arm drones with lasers now.

peace

And then Sharks...

This was on future weapons like 10 years ago.

That system has been out a while now, they have shot down a drone and it was operational, or at least allowed to be used since 2014. So far it is for small aircraft, drones and small boats and is a short range weapon.

a reply to: smurfy

a reply to: InspectorGadget13

The system has been deployed on the Ponce for awhile now, but that was operational testing. This was their version of the IOC test, which means it's now considered operational and is officially available for use.

a reply to: silo13

None of them are large enough to carry one.

Doubt well see lazers in war not on tanks and ships its just hard to fly with a cord atached

I doubt anything short of a skycrane can pick up the batery needed to power it

While this weapon has major cool and bad ass factor there are some issues I have researched about how to defeat a weapon of this caliber. The simple question I asked is can't an enemy target simply coat their surface with a highly reflective surface material to defeat the laser?

I found a great response from this source so I am not sure if this is considered cross posting mods:

If you look at reflectances of common materials used to make mirrors with (for example, the topmost graph found on this wiki page), you'll see that not 100% of the light is reflected, especially at the shorter wavelengths. I'm still looking for a somewhat better source for similar curves for household mirrors, but I know that the idea is roughly the same -- it's actually pretty difficult to make a mirror that reflects 100% of all incident light. The light that does not get reflected gets either absorbed (mostly) or transmitted (usually only for very thin film mirrors). The portion that gets absorbed is transformed into heat, which is transferred into the mirror material. Therefore, if you shine a short-wavelength, high-power laser beam directly onto a mirror with the intention of damaging the mirror, the power of the laser must be great enough to ensure that the portion of the light that gets absorbed is great enough to heat up the material sufficiently (and fast enough) to melt it. This makes most laser weapons only really effective on surfaces with low reflectance (plastics, certain composites, human skin, etc.) thin-walled structures (fuel tanks, etc.) sensitive electronics (camera's, targeting systems, etc.) etc. Laser weapons (at least, currently) serve a different purpose than ballistic weapons; they are more a tool for precision work at large distance. These are the same sorts of problems a laser cutting tool encounters. Most of these sorts of machines can cut effortlessly through plastics, wood, etc. with high precision. However, when cutting through metal, they can only cut through relatively thin sheets (1cm aluminum already presents too much of a challenge for most machines) because of the high reflectance of most metals. The efficiency of the machine is also not too great with sheet metal -- a 50 kW machine will normally transfer only a handful of watts of heat to the focal point.

a reply to: markovian

Laser Avenger

They mounted a 1kw laser in place of missiles on an Avenger in 2009. There won't be a laser tank any time soon, but the power supplies are getting smaller and laser systems smaller.

originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: smurfy

a reply to: InspectorGadget13

The system has been deployed on the Ponce for awhile now, but that was operational testing. This was their version of the IOC test, which means it's now considered operational and is officially available for use.

What I meant was,
In September 2014, the LaWS was declared an operational asset, so the ship commander has permission to use it for self-defense.
In December 2014, the United States Navy reported that the LaWS system worked perfectly, and that the commander of the Ponce is authorized to use the system as a defensive weapon.
It was in the Persian Gulf at the time. It's still a bit 'space invaders' though...a pinger.

a reply to: smurfy

Right, but even though he was authorized to use it, it wasn't officially past IOC at that point. It was still in operational testing.

Woo

LASER USA!!!

muh command and conquer generals fantasy hath arrived!

a reply to: silo13

Good, we can blow up boats and airplanes. Finally we can defend ourselves.

a reply to: seasonal

It beats using a multimillion dollar missile to do it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Maybe, depends on cost, I would bet there is a crap ton of R+D in that weapon.

But in long run, with the proper energy generation they can get the PEW, PEW right.

originally posted by: silo13
a reply to: markovian

I sure hope so but sadly, I doubt it.

They'll just arm drones with lasers now.

peace

I wonder how big a done would have to be to carry the laser's power supply?