C-130H delivered for the start of the ATL (Advanced Tactical Laser) program

The C-130H transport, which belongs to the U.S. Air Force's 46th Test Wing, was handed over to Boeing on Jan. 18 in Crestview, Fla., near Eglin Air Force Base. Boeing is modifying the aircraft to enable it to carry a high-energy chemical laser and battle management and beam control subsystems.

Boeing will begin flight testing the aircraft this summer with all subsystems on board except the high-energy laser. A low-power surrogate laser will stand in for the kilowatt-class, high-energy laser.

The high-energy laser is being built in Albuquerque, N.M., and is scheduled to achieve "first light" in ground tests this summer. By 2007, Boeing will install the device on the aircraft and fire it in-flight at mission-representative ground targets to demonstrate the military utility of high-energy lasers. The laser will be fired through an existing 50-inch-diameter hole in the aircraft's belly.

Link

ATL concept picture


The thought of another type of laser weapon in the 'arsenal of democracy' is very exciting. I also just heard the ABL may be made more flexible to handle cruise missile and SAM threats.




[edit on 24-1-2006 by NWguy83]

mod edit: Cut down quote and changed to external quote
Quote Reference (review link)
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[edit on 24-1-2006 by UK Wizard]

I know the ALL shot down several AIM-9s in tests. I think it would be great to see either ABL or ATL or both capable of anti-SAM work. Especially since the Fighter Mafia was nice enough to get rid of all the USAF EW aircraft.

[edit on 1/24/2006 by Zaphod58]

NWG,

The simple fact of the matter is that 90% of the existing laser weapons exist _specifically_ to blind humans with temporary (short term militarily acknowledged effects) 'dazzlement' leading to long term 'unmapped' damage that shows up months or years later. As corneal burns mimic the behavior of glaucoma (clouding of the lens) while deeper retinal injuries (whose ultimate behavior is simply loss of sight) provide the joys of initial symptomology that includes excruciating burning pain and 'bright spots' in the visual field up to complete flashover effects with nausea and loss of coordination as the large scotoma like 'nulls' of retinal deterioration lead to eventual deadening and/or separation of tissue from the back of the eye.

_Keep In Mind_ that something as simple as a laser pointer qualifies as a Type II or IIb eye hazard. And exposure to a 1 /watt/ laser has instantaneous and permanent eye damage effects.

Now.

Realize that the most basic behavior or 'monochromatic, coherent (phase-aligned)' light radiation is that it wants to play energizer bunny. Which means that when it is scintillantly scattered off any object which does not act as a perfect black body absorber, there are minimal further refraction losses in the air but rather something like a disco ball effect. Furthermore, what is IS sometimes detected is pulse redoubling and multifrequent doppler harmonic like effects which more or less makes even the nominal rating of 'eye safe' a joke in terms of predicted vs. actual spectral specie behavior.

When a deliberately engineered 'disturber' like the Chinese ZM-87 weapon (actively marketed for over a decade) is applied to unprotected troops, high peak (pulsed) powers of up to 15KW are matched to average 'scanning' radiation of only about 10W. Yet effectively permanent blinding damage can occur out to about 3km and dazzlement with 'variable' longterm effects out to about 10km.

Now notch the power up to 100KW. Hit a truck roof or windshield. And watch the light scatter in a dozen or more near IR strobes which saturate as much as 10-20 square kilometers. Put the truck into motion. And your 'glitter' scintillance becomes a veritable mobile laser light show of random eye hazard scattering.

_Which nobody sees a flash from to duck_.

Now imagine what happens when not only do we have soldiers coming home, worthless societal cripples for life because they've been lazed from MILES away. Blindfolded like the victims of Phosgene in WWI.

But someone decides that a scientist or engineer at company A is perfecting X faster than his own company B can make product Y to compete and so decides to zap him with a laser on the way to work.

Or some nutjob believes that it might be fun to see how MANY kids in a schoolyard he can zap before his battery runs out. Knowing that there will never be any 'physical evidence at the scene' or key signature indication to cue a counter search such as muzzle report.

Or say a politician is standing in the way of a power block and rather than kill him outright it's simpler to just take away his sight if not his vision. Except this politician hasn't run for office yet when he leads a demonstration against the G-8, whose security force, utterly 'beyond the law' in their right to protect trade agreements ammounting to human slave trade and techno/resource piracy, decide to break up a 'hostile crowd led by a radical leftwinger' without /hurting them/. With a laser added to the usual gas and rubber bullet mix, this becomes not only possible but _coverable_. As one individuals 'freak biologic reaction' to an incapacitant or irritant chemical removes him from ever being the man with a plan, in the future.

These are NOT low collateral weapons systems. They are the ultimate 'no time to duck, never misses' proof of why war itself must become a death penalty crime to all who indulge in it. Lest it's technology not only invalidate man's presence on the battlefield (a long-since occurence we are only beginning to IED-randomized understand).

But also because they make acts of little barbarism seem merciful in the way that they do not have immediate, bloody, consequences to 'disturb' the herd mind of what society will and will not accept as being morally wrong.

DEWS are NOT some noble ideal of 'Star Wars' like gunfights at the OK corral. They potentially are the Devil's Own Flashlight of efficient, effective, _ruthless_ oppression. If they have any value at all, it is in the way they will make even 'proud warriors' cower in fear of losing sight of their own mystique. Literally.


KPl.


LINKS-

Wide Area Blinding Effects
www.why-war.com...

Blinding Laser Weapons
www.icltd.org...

HR Watch Report
groups.google.com... l=en#4d8c15014a353589

Except he wasn't even talking about DEWS, or eye hazards, he was talking about weaponised systems operating in an entirely different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. Specificly, those designed to burn holes in flying projectiles.

Travellar,

DEWS- Directed Energy Weapons Systems.

Which is a generic term covering all weapons that use partical/wave energy rather than kinetic or explosive-chemical effects as it's kill mechanism.

Unfortunately, if you read the Top LINK, you will see that the F-35 variant of the _ATL_ (diode pumped not chemical) is in exactly the category of DEWS which applies to most certainly to eyeblinding weapons because it's power level (100KW) is so high that /even as a vehicle disabler/ it is capable of casting eye hazards out to multiple square kilometers worth of secondary-victim occupied space.

If you want to consider lasers as low collateral weapons, you would be well advised to consider whether you would rather be blinded for life, quite possibly with excruciating secondary symptoms. Or simply dead.

The greatest danger of DEWS is that they make war SEEM CLEAN.

Even if you were correct about it's secondary scintillance problems, an ATL will be all but useless on heavy armor. It won't sink the smallest class of frigate. But it can cripple and maim, without 'military commitment or comment', soft personnel targets (civillians) at the press of a button.

That is very bad news because it makes it easier for war to become a 'purely political' (easy to begin and leave) rather than logistical (openly acknowledged as a function of lives and time commited) driven system. In such an arena, weapons don't act as agents of social change. But of social entropy and staticism if not outright oppression.

I would rather see lasers obliterate every aircraft in the skies as a function of 'secondary to missile defense' application. Than have them pointed at the ground by nameless parties who use them as covert action systems for unknown agendas.

That is what you are asking for here. That is what you are ignorantly cheering on.

Unfortunately the military doesn't see things the way that I do because they have migrated from protecting and saving those in their care, to sustaining purely their own pride of place in the world. And so as long as it doesn't perturb their 'roles and missions' turf, they will let anybody do anything. Until too early to guess becomes too late to stop.


KPl.

ah, you were refering to collateral damage. I thought you'd misread the original post as being about blinding weapons, rather than destructive.

ch1466 is correct. The ATL would potentially be extremely effective as a blinding laser and this could be more important than its other uses.

Taking out an enemy aircraft with a laser requires a lot of energy. Taking out the pilot's eyesight requires much less, and so can be done at a much greater range.

actually, (and correct me if I'm wrong, KTI), I think he was commenting of the threat of blinding as collateral damage to anyone watching that tank or mortar team over there getting burnt.