The next step in laser weaponry. Options

[GrizzAFWX]

Ran across this news article today:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123154924

Gives a new definition to gunship.

Quite interesting considering the "Airborne Laser" project that was originally designed to shoot down ICBMs was large and could only be fit on a 747 and now they have a system that can fit on a C-130 and accurately engage targets. I wonder how long it will take for this to become operational.

I wonder if we'll see this in ROTR... (*NOTE this is not a suggestion, just a casual comment.)

[NergiZed]

I'm pretty sure Airborne Laser has been canned. (the 747 one)

I think ATL was deemed 'ineffective' on some official review of the military, but has been spared the ax for now. I'm not totally sure what you would with the ATL though. I guess you might be able to disable an insurgent by giving him some bad burns, and if you aim well, you could explode a gastank on some vehicle. It's hardly worth it at that cost. I think the ATL will be fairly useless in battle, laser systems like HELLADS and THEL are far more promising, but that's just my opinion.

Regardless, I'm sure whatever technology that spawns from this in the future may be a truely useful Offensive (or defensive) laser system.

This post has been edited by NergiZed: 20 Jun 2009, 20:44

[Cobretti]

I'm pretty sure Airborne Laser has been canned. (the 747 one)

There's an ongoing debate about the future of the program, mostly based on how well it performs in tests. I suppose this one is a cheaper version designed to appeal to Defense Department bean counters. As for the weapon itself it's primarily designed to destroy ballistic missiles by overheating the missile's skin. The ATL is designed to be more versatile, being able to be used against ground and air targets.

[Pickysaurus]

Could be useful in taking out missiles?

[Zeke]

[Pickysaurus]

WHAT is that?

[Zeke]

the REAL laser avenger

[Pickysaurus]

Very cool
Is it an actual unit or a prototype?

[The_Hunter]

as far as i know it's still prototype and only powerfull enough to cut down small UAV and Drones but nothing beyond the size of that.

[CommanderJB]

*Rubs hands together with glee*

There's an ongoing debate about the future of the program, mostly based on how well it performs in tests. I suppose this one is a cheaper version designed to appeal to Defense Department bean counters. As for the weapon itself it's primarily designed to destroy ballistic missiles by overheating the missile's skin. The ATL is designed to be more versatile, being able to be used against ground and air targets.

ATL isn't really a cut-down ABL; the YAL-1 is the only aircraft that can engage ballistic missile with any hope of success right now, because ATL is much too small, too slow and without the sensor set needed to find and track them successfully. It was designed from the start to be more of a surgical Spectre than anything else; the answer if you have an enemy mortar team, roadblock, light armoured vehicle or similar in city streets or civilian areas that you need to remove for special forces, for example. ABL on the other hand is designed to counter only boost-phase ballistic missile threats, and does so at ranges and velocities that are well out of ATL's domain. As for the programmes, yeah, Gates wants to axe the ABL all right, but it really hinges on its first representative test (i.e. engaging a missile target in flight for the first time), which is coming up in a couple of months IIRC. Should be quite an interesting watch!

I wonder if we'll see this in ROTR... (*NOTE this is not a suggestion, just a casual comment.)

Given the response I received when I suggested that very system as a Spectre enhancement for Townes back in the days of ShockWave yore, I wouldn't be getting your hopes up if I were you!
As for laser weapons as a whole, I think they'll stay a 'counter-weapon' for the time being rather than becoming an actual offensive device. I'd expect to see THEL-like systems replace medium-range SAMs in area defence applications over the next thirty or forty years given a much lower per-shot cost once the technology has been developed to the point where it is widely deployable. Laser tanks and such, on the other hand, are a long way off yet - anything other than a stationary application when it comes to high power is totally dependent on the generation capacity of a very limited platform, and your average tank simply doesn't have the power in it to put out a beam powerful enough of doing much more than singeing your hair (okay, so it'd be a bit more than that, but it wouldn't be much). As for laser rifles, well, you get the idea...
Fighter jets and bombers et cetera are a much more interesting proposition, however - one of the most intriguing ideas is the possibility of mounting an ATL-esque system inside the lift fan cavity on a modified F-35B Lighting II (which, obviously, would no longer be capable of STOVL); this could prove a very useful air combat system if it was developed to the point where it could intercept incoming air-to-air (or surface-to-air) missiles, thereby providing cover for the rest of a strike package, and the F135 engine has a considerable power surplus that is just the job. Not something you'll likely get before 2035-odd at a generous estimate, but the possibilities are certainly there.
It also seems appropriate to mention a couple of other laser systems:

As some of you will notice, this is in fact a modified Ilyushin Il-76MD (NATO reporting name 'Candid') transport aircraft, the closest equivalent of which in US service is the C-17 Globemaster III. This particular model is called the Beriev A-60 and was built by the Soviet Union as one of the first airborne laser testbeds (flying in 1981, at almost the exact same time as Boeing's NKC-135 Airborne Laser Laboratory, the YAL-1's forerunner). The only confirmed aircraft known to have been built was destroyed in a fire on the tarmac years ago, but just in April an alert Russian plane-spotter snapped this pic, so it looks like rumours about a second aircraft were in fact right for once after all. The A-60 is not really Russia's version of the YAL-1 (or rather, given their operational dates, vice versa) as the A-60 uses its laser in a different way to shooting down missiles and even in a different way to the ATL's precision target removal. Instead, it takes much more of a support role; it has been mentioned, for example, that one intended use was to completely ruin the infra-red targeting optics of entire armoured formations at a time, or, probably more usefully, of satellites and ships et cetera. This would come close to violating Geneva Convention and Conventional on Certain Conventional Weapons (yes, that's really its name) provisions outlawing 'laser dazers' designed to blind enemy personnel, but operating on a slightly different wavelength it has the potential to seriously disrupt enemy sensors over an area, and I imagine that given enough time it would be effective against small air targets as well. That, however, was more the job of this one:

Almaz-Antey, the manufacturers of the S-300P/S-400 series of strategic SAMs, also investigated other rather less conventional methods of shooting stuff down, and this was one of them. As you can see it's remarkably similar to THEL, but again this was built (and tested successfully, shooting down several target drones) in the late 1980s. No idea what's happened to it these days though. For further reading, take a squiz here.
So as you can see, lasers are remarkably widespread, just not in practical service yet. Still, with Russia, America and Israel at the very least all working on laser systems you can bet it won't be too long before one goes on operational alert somewhere, and they'll be here to stay when they do.

This post has been edited by CommanderJB: 21 Jun 2009, 17:12

[Shiro]

Interesting things you found here. Reminds me about this article I found in february. Just another weapon and step closer to ROTR.

[GrizzAFWX]

I'm pretty sure Airborne Laser has been canned. (the 747 one)

I think ATL was deemed 'ineffective' on some official review of the military, but has been spared the ax for now. I'm not totally sure what you would with the ATL though. I guess you might be able to disable an insurgent by giving him some bad burns, and if you aim well, you could explode a gastank on some vehicle. It's hardly worth it at that cost. I think the ATL will be fairly useless in battle, laser systems like HELLADS and THEL are far more promising, but that's just my opinion.

Regardless, I'm sure whatever technology that spawns from this in the future may be a truely useful Offensive (or defensive) laser system.

If I read defense secretary Gates' budget changes correctly a couple of months ago, operational funding for the airborne laser was cut, but the platform would be continued on a lower budget as a research and development program.

CommanderJB,

Very nice research there. That would be pretty neat to outfit the F-35B like you mentioned. If they did it, I would imagine they would probably just create to new versions of F-35 the D and E models, one for conventional airfields and the other for conventional carrier launches (no STOVL capability).

[partyzanPaulZy]

Yeah, soviets were doing research upon this field (according to them since 1972), but in last years of USSR they stopped whole programme because of financial problems.

There are rumours soviets used some really advanced weaponary against China on Ussuri River (recently they even said it was laser, well those rumours said about long thick cables heading to battlefield, but still you know rumours, it could be something else like some really flamable or airfuel chemical or nothing real).

However I found picture to this laser system, how could it work:



But although laser is laser,
railgun owns it,
today even conventional weapons are better than laser (energetically and practically).

This post has been edited by partyzanPaulZy: 21 Jun 2009, 23:58

[GrizzAFWX]

Yeah, soviets were doing research upon this field (according to them since 1972), but in last years of USSR they stopped whole programme because of financial problems.

There are rumours soviets used some really advanced weaponary against China on Ussuri River (recently they even said it was laser, well those rumours said about long thick cables heading to battlefield, but still you know rumours, it could be something else like some really flamable or airfuel chemical or nothing real).

However I found picture to this laser system, how could it work:



But although laser is laser,
railgun owns it,
today even conventional weapons are better than laser (energetically and practically).

The nose and canopy of that plane sitting in the hanger looks like a MiG 1.44.

This post has been edited by GrizzAFWX: 22 Jun 2009, 1:47

[Pickysaurus]

That picture doesnt show the LAZER to have long range... aircraft ballistic missiles can be aimed and fired long before that range

[Cobretti]

I'm pretty sure the dramatization in the picture is in no way representative of the actual range/capabilities of the laser if it was produced.