It covers a lot of ground, covering the lasers themselves, how to use them and the countries that currently have them on the go.
https://newatlas.com/laser-weapons-future-warfare/52801/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=80d5f86286-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-80d5f86286-92533145
Interesting.
Shields Up.
Peak Warming Man said:
Interesting.
Shields Up.
Keptin
Cymek said:
Peak Warming Man said:
Interesting.
Shields Up.
Keptin
Australian Army uniform, post-2030:
PermeateFree said:
It covers a lot of ground, covering the lasers themselves, how to use them and the countries that currently have them on the go.https://newatlas.com/laser-weapons-future-warfare/52801/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=80d5f86286-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-80d5f86286-92533145
From link,
> However, lasers also come with some serious disadvantages. They require huge amounts of power and the power generators are bulky. If you expect to see hand-held laser pistols, don’t hold your breath. The batteries needed to power such things would be so powerful and so dangerous that they’d be better used as hand grenades – preferably thrown by someone with a very strong arm.
LOL. That is so true. What the article says up to here agrees with what I know.
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.
LOL. Did not know that.
> the light is in a single wavelength like a precisely played note on a violin
Am listening to mrs m practicing preliminary grade violin right now, and I can tell you that the laser’s precision is far better than a violin’s.
> Even very early lasers could put out a surprising amount of energy as they burned their way through wood, plastic, cement, and steel. The latter was of particular interest and as safety razor blades were a common choice for laboratory targets, a new measurement was conceived to gauge the cutting power of the laser, known as the “Gillette.”
Didn’t know that either.
> There is no one-size-fits-all anymore than there’s a hunting rifle that’s suitable for both squirrels and elephants.
Why not? The only variables to play with are frequency, power and focus. That’s a lot less variation than with a bullet. Frequency is highly constrained as well by choosing the material that generater most power, and you generally want best focus. Unless it’s for blinding your opponent of course, where it needs to be defocussed until you can be sure of hitting all optical sensors.
> lasers can be tuned to any frequency, from infrared up to gamma rays
GAMMA rays, that’s a new one to me. I only know lasers from infrared to X-rays.
> Continuous or pulsed.
That’s an easy one. Pulsed. Always.
> excimer lasers, use volatile reactive chemicals to create powerful lasers. One leading example of this is the Chemical Oxygen Iodine Laser (COIL)
I know of excimer lasers, but didn’t know of oxygen-iodine.
> it’s fitted with a Fast Steering Mirrors (FSM) for small corrections and Adaptive Optics (AO) to correct for atmospheric turbulence.
OMG. Adaptive optics for laser weapons. I hadn’t thought of such a thing, but it certainly makes sense it your enemy is sitting on Mars!
> the United States poured millions into laser weapon development (even before the first laser was invented)
Before!
> each laser one holding 30 kg (66 lb) of ruby crystals
Expensive? No, very cheap compared to some of the US lasers.
> Currently, dazzler lasers must use low-power green visual light to temporarily blind hostiles.
(Whisper, Princess Di)
> It isn’t yet possible to make a laser that is powerful enough and remains focused enough to kill someone quickly.
You’ve got to be kidding.
Anyway, darn good article.
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.
LOL. Did not know that.
Wasn’t that Reagan and Star Wars, started off somewhat realistic and then was disinformation to try and make the USSR spend large amounts on countermeasures and supposedly helped bring down the USSR due to partial cause of economic crisis.
> Currently, dazzler lasers must use low-power green visual light to temporarily blind hostiles.
(Whisper, Princess Di)
Aren’t blinding lasers against soldiers condemned or frowned upon similar to biological and chemical weapons
Cymek said:
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.LOL. Did not know that.
Wasn’t that Reagan and Star Wars, started off somewhat realistic and then was disinformation to try and make the USSR spend large amounts on countermeasures and supposedly helped bring down the USSR due to partial cause of economic crisis.
Pretty much.
captain_spalding said:
Cymek said:
Peak Warming Man said:
Interesting.
Shields Up.
Keptin
Australian Army uniform, post-2030:
Have they got the army uniform photo mixed up with a Mardi Gras one?
PermeateFree said:
captain_spalding said:
Cymek said:Keptin
Australian Army uniform, post-2030:
Have they got the army uniform photo mixed up with a Mardi Gras one?
Just worked it out; it’s a new approach to war by giving your enemy 7 years bad luck. Damn cunning that!
Michael V said:
Cymek said:
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.LOL. Did not know that.
Wasn’t that Reagan and Star Wars, started off somewhat realistic and then was disinformation to try and make the USSR spend large amounts on countermeasures and supposedly helped bring down the USSR due to partial cause of economic crisis.
Pretty much.
I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
The problem with laser weapons is physics, a fact that the writer of that article seems to conveniently ignore.
Trying to pass high intensity light through air ionises the air, which limits the range severely. A while ago I built a 40W CW CO2 (infrared) laser — that’s bright enough for reflected light to permanently blind you, so I had to wear protective glasses when I turned it on. Even at that power the light was bright enough to ionise the light it passed through, which attenuated the light so much that it lost its ability to cut metal in less than a metre. I was able to create fireballs in the lab, though (that was fun.)
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:
Cymek said:
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.LOL. Did not know that.
Wasn’t that Reagan and Star Wars, started off somewhat realistic and then was disinformation to try and make the USSR spend large amounts on countermeasures and supposedly helped bring down the USSR due to partial cause of economic crisis.
Pretty much.
I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
It may have been
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:
Cymek said:
> What’s interesting about this odd trend is that some of these claims were military disinformation projects intended to distract enemy powers and make them waste resources on pointless research.LOL. Did not know that.
Wasn’t that Reagan and Star Wars, started off somewhat realistic and then was disinformation to try and make the USSR spend large amounts on countermeasures and supposedly helped bring down the USSR due to partial cause of economic crisis.
Pretty much.
I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
It wasn’t the fake technology. It was the constant (deliberate) escalations in the arms race that cost USSR too much money and made them (effectively) go broke, as I understand it.
Michael V said:
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:Pretty much.
I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
It wasn’t the fake technology. It was the constant (deliberate) escalations in the arms race that cost USSR too much money and made them (effectively) go broke, as I understand it.
In 1986 Carl Sagan summarized what he heard Soviet commentators were saying about SDI, with a common argument being that it was equivalent to starting an economic war through a defensive arms race to further cripple the Soviet economy with extra military spending, while another less plausible interpretation was that it served as a disguise for the US wish to initiate a first strike on the Soviet Union.
Michael V said:
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:Pretty much.
I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
It wasn’t the fake technology. It was the constant (deliberate) escalations in the arms race that cost USSR too much money and made them (effectively) go broke, as I understand it.
AFAICT the intention wasn’t to bankrupt the USSR. It was only afterwards that experts realised that’s what happened. The Soviet economy didn’t really follow the same rules as a free market economy. For example the Russians had titanium submarines while the US considered that prohibitively expensive.
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:
Witty Rejoinder said:I think that reasoning was applied after the fact. If fake technology was a weapon to use against the USSR it would have been used earlier than the 1980s.
It wasn’t the fake technology. It was the constant (deliberate) escalations in the arms race that cost USSR too much money and made them (effectively) go broke, as I understand it.
AFAICT the intention wasn’t to bankrupt the USSR. It was only afterwards that experts realised that’s what happened. The Soviet economy didn’t really follow the same rules as a free market economy. For example the Russians had titanium submarines while the US considered that prohibitively expensive.
I can imagine a massive arms race could cripple your economy if a significant proportion of its devoted just to making weapons.
Cymek said:
Witty Rejoinder said:
Michael V said:It wasn’t the fake technology. It was the constant (deliberate) escalations in the arms race that cost USSR too much money and made them (effectively) go broke, as I understand it.
AFAICT the intention wasn’t to bankrupt the USSR. It was only afterwards that experts realised that’s what happened. The Soviet economy didn’t really follow the same rules as a free market economy. For example the Russians had titanium submarines while the US considered that prohibitively expensive.
I can imagine a massive arms race could cripple your economy if a significant proportion of its devoted just to making weapons.
btm said:
The problem with laser weapons is physics, a fact that the writer of that article seems to conveniently ignore.Trying to pass high intensity light through air ionises the air, which limits the range severely. A while ago I built a 40W CW CO2 (infrared) laser — that’s bright enough for reflected light to permanently blind you, so I had to wear protective glasses when I turned it on. Even at that power the light was bright enough to ionise the light it passed through, which attenuated the light so much that it lost its ability to cut metal in less than a metre. I was able to create fireballs in the lab, though (that was fun.)
Thanks a million for that. That helps to explain why a laser that is powerful enough to burn through 1.2 million Gillette razor blades can’t quickly kill a person. The Earth’s atmosphere gets in the way.
I’ve only ever seen other people use lasers, in particular Nd-yag lasers. They didn’t have any trouble with atmosheric ionisation, but that’s a different wavelength. Check web. CO2 laser frequency infrared at about 10 microns. Nd-yag laser frequency is about 1 micron. That doesn’t explain the difference in ionisation.
I would have loved to see those fireballs.
On the topic of laser cooling being a problem, I did once design an extremely effective small heat exchanger. I suggested it to the Australian army but they weren’t interested, luckily.
Laser weapons that blind people are only frowned upon if the blindness is permanent.
On that topic, one interesting early appearance in Science Fiction is very different to that in War Of The Worlds. I’m referring to the start of Day of the Triffids by John Wyndam 1951. Nine years before lasers were invented he suggested the blinding of humanity by laser weapons that our defence forces had mounted in orbit.
I just had a thought. Has anyone ever checked to see if lightning can generate laser light?
There is such a thing as a nitrogen laser, powered by an electrical discharge, that operates in the ultraviolet range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_laser
This would be a natural phenomenon, and totally different to the well-known technology of using a laser to control lightning strikes.
mollwollfumble said:
I just had a thought. Has anyone ever checked to see if lightning can generate laser light?There is such a thing as a nitrogen laser, powered by an electrical discharge, that operates in the ultraviolet range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_laser
This would be a natural phenomenon, and totally different to the well-known technology of using a laser to control lightning strikes.
Possibly unrelated, but there’ve been a number of papers reporting naturally occurring lasers in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus. See, for example, The Natural 10-μ CO2 Laser in the Atmospheres of Mars and Venus
mollwollfumble said:
This would be a natural phenomenon, and totally different to the well-known technology of using a laser to control lightning strikes.
I remember from many, many years ago I though up the same thing. Must be back in the 70’s so I reckon.
btm said:
mollwollfumble said:
I just had a thought. Has anyone ever checked to see if lightning can generate laser light?There is such a thing as a nitrogen laser, powered by an electrical discharge, that operates in the ultraviolet range.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_laser
This would be a natural phenomenon, and totally different to the well-known technology of using a laser to control lightning strikes.
Possibly unrelated, but there’ve been a number of papers reporting naturally occurring lasers in the atmospheres of Mars and Venus. See, for example, The Natural 10-μ CO2 Laser in the Atmospheres of Mars and Venus
Sorry, that link doesn’t work. Try this one: adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1985SvAL…11..162S