Star Wars Lasers for fighter pilots by 2012?

[TekDragon]

Linkage (http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=JEDIWEAPONS-06-24-03&cat=AN)

I wont bother copy-pasting. The link has no ads or pics so its a quick load and read.

Pulled it off the Drudge Report (http://www.drudgereport.com/)

[Yuyi]

That would be hotT :brow:

[TekDragon]

Im wondering how advanced the lasers will be in 2012. Right now the main limitations are size and power (the ability to punch through atmosphere).

The best part is that things like this will open up more funding for military laser research. Before you know it, ICBM missle shields will be a reality.

Then China and Russia can suck my wang.

[Khronos]

:p
cool.

[Lise]

Hmm. If they could get it small enough to replace the GUNS on the fighters that'd be perfect. Also, the only real problem in an atmosphere is air degredation. All weapons feel air resistance, but lasers really suffer from air scattering especially at ground level. In space they rock all (unless you use nuclear weapons or maybe high-power railguns), but I'm not too sure a laser would be useful as anything other than a close-range weapon here on the ground.

[MilitantB0B]

I have a question about laser weapons in space. Since in space, there is no resistance to light, unless it hits another object in space, if you where to have a laser battle in space, wouldn't every missed shot rocket off into space? I would hate to accidentally start a war with an alien race due to poor marksmanship. :D

[xuur]

In space they rock all (unless you use nuclear weapons or maybe high-power railguns)

actually, a nuclear weapons primary effectiveness depends on reaction of atmosphere to the superheating of air and surrounding materials generated by the fission of the radioactive materials within. heat due to release of atomically active materials and shockwaves from the initial blast do far more damage than the actual event itself..altho its still quite substantial.

in space, with no atmosphere to react to the heating, nukes are substantially less effective. I would imagine however it would look pretty cool. ;)

now...railguns. those are just good fun for all concerned.

(sorry, I couldnt resist)

[Derfud]

Foolish Humans, the "lasers" in starwars weren't really lasers since they did not travel at the speed of light, which lasers do. They referred to them as "Blasters", probably because they werent supposed to be lasers. Lasers usually travel in a long constant beam, that travels at the speed of light. The weapons in starwars were little balls of energy that moved slowly compared to the speed of light.


Just thought i would straighten that out.

[NightWalker XI]

MBT's already have anti-missile defence lasers so nothing new...

[Matuse]

I would hate to accidentally start a war with an alien race due to poor marksmanship.

Not possible. Even with no air, space is still populated by vast amounts of dust, and at interstellar distances, is just as effective. Plus, lasers disperse by themselves. A .000001% variation in the specific "flight" path of a photon is meaningless at a range of say a hundred miles, but at a distance of 30 light years (roughly 170 trillion miles), that laser beam will have gotten so diffuse that it wouldn't even be detectable anymore.

MBT's already have anti-missile defence lasers so nothing new...

Link proof immediately. I call major BS.

[NightWalker XI]

erm...BS...fiiine..

Linka (http://www.sinodefence.com/army/tank/type98.asp)

This is the extract:

Next to the pic of the JD 3 read that, it says they use it to attack the enemy gunners optics and this is China, USA probably has somethign better they jsut don't show it to public, but PLA shares msot of their stuff witht he people

[SmilingBandit]

The lasers on MBT's would go more to blind the optics of incoming missiles, it doesn't actually shoot down the weapons like the Airborne laser does (will).

[TekDragon]

Originally posted by SmilingBandit
The lasers on MBT's would go more to blind the optics of incoming missiles, it doesn't actually shoot down the weapons like the Airborne laser does (will).

Actually, your giving the chinese too much credit. The laser on the T-98 MBT doesnt target missles. It targets enemy vehicle, then the laser intensity is increased. This blinds the enemy targeting equipment and also has the potential to blind gunners using visual sighting.

Direct quote from text:
The procedure of the laser weapon would first use a low-powered beam to locate the optics of the enemy weapon. Once the enemy weapon was located, the power level of the laser would be immediately and dramatically increased. Such an attack would disable the guidance optics of the enemy weapon and/or damage the eyesight of the enemy gunner.

I doubt anyone but the US (or strong ally) could make a tank laser system to shoot down missles. It would take incredibly fast/accurate/powerful sensors and targeting computers.

[Mtx]

Originally posted by TekDragon
Im wondering how advanced the lasers will be in 2012. Right now the main limitations are size and power (the ability to punch through atmosphere).

The best part is that things like this will open up more funding for military laser research. Before you know it, ICBM missle shields will be a reality.

Then China and Russia can suck my wang.

So what you are saying is terrorisum could become really profitable? Considering no military could stand up to the US why waste the time trying when they can hire a tewrrorist faction to kill US civilians instead. Oh how smart is that! Now we can have suitcase size nukes go off across the country. WEEEE!!!

When your enemy sees no other way... terrorisum starts sounding good.

I'm X-army so if there are any MERC corperations out there that need my services I am more than willing to fight for your cause for a mere 100,000 a year plus full armorment.

[Spider]

How much you willing to bet the canadians are gonna get screwed out of this one?

We would own americans if it wasnt for them making us deconstruct the arrow :(

[Mtx]

No one cares what Canada thinks. One squadron of fighters and a few US tanks could lay waste to all of Canada. Canada is a military joke made for the amusement of Americans.

Canada would role over faster than France.

[TekDragon]

Mtx stop picking on Canada. They are a very vital country. Where else would we get all of our ice?

Anyway, you make it sound like opposing nations with nuclear capabilities that just had said capabilities nuetralized by a missle sheild would turn to hiring terrorists.

Nope.

The moment a deal went down between Russia and a terrorist group, or China and a terrorist group... the US (and allied) intellegence network would know.

Two things could happen then. If Bush or another conservative is president, we will immediately go global with a nuclear threat on said nation(s) if any WMD goes off on American or allied soil.

If we got some pussy liberal democrat like Clinton... well.... id say some bribing and begging would occur.. then wed get nuked.. then i dunno. Lets just hope we dont get a democrat.

*shudders at the thought of a liberal president in these times*

[Hamma]

Originally posted by TekDragon
Mtx stop picking on Canada. They are a very vital country. Where else would we get all of our ice? :rofl:

Take political debate to the political debate forums kthx

[shinken]

oh so many fun things in this post,

A: canada sux majorly

B: although before a few years ago light only moved at 186268.4 MPS (pretty sure that was it, summer kills brain cells) recently they were able to use a super dense super cold compound they were able to slow a laser beam down to about 27 or 28 mps much much slower and able to actually be seen by a human eye though i dought that

C: on the fighters w/ lasers i doubt that, they would probably not be very effective unless at high altitude and all current pilots are trained to lead their targets because bullets are not an instantanious travel weapon so all pilots would have to be retrained to use the new weapon,
also the new JSF is scheduled to roll out in 2007 {along w/ many other new weapons like the XM-29 rifle which is alot like the punisher from PS look it up its cool } and it would have to be totaly revamped to use the new weapons system, so until we have space fighters it prolly wont happen, esp. scence, fighters ment for space flight would most likely have a nuclear fusion reactor powering the engines and weapons

[NeoTassadar]

Originally posted by shinken
B: although before a few years ago light only moved at 186268.4 MPS (pretty sure that was it, summer kills brain cells) recently they were able to use a super dense super cold compound they were able to slow a laser beam down to about 27 or 28 mps much much slower and able to actually be seen by a human eye though i dought that I heard something like that. But the compound that it was shown through: to say it was "Super cold" is understatement of the year. It was put to near-absolute-zero (for the only slightly educated, absolute-zero is when that space has NO energy in it whatsoever), something like 0.0001 K (C-236, I think is how you get Kelvin. Something close to that, anyway.) degrees.

[Matuse]

They are a very vital country. Where else would we get all of our ice?

Since Canada is (by far and away) the largest trading partner the US has, they in fact are completely vital.

The link to information on the chinese tank does nothing to dispel the call of BS. Using lights to screw with people's vision has been in use since WWII and before that even.

Shooting down an anti-tank missile isn't a matter of targeting...they don't fly all that fast, since they only need to hit tanks and not supersonic aircraft. The trick is putting enough power to either directly impede the flight path of the missile, or detonate its warhead. Completely infeasible with today's technology, you'd need a building sized powerplant hooked up by wires to the tank to pump out enough energy to do the job.

[Dyganth]

It's not a problem right now to make a laser that can dish out the power of a nuclear power plant, the only problem is that you have to have a nuclear power plant to power the sucker.

Once they figure out how to make a portable power source that powerful it'll be east from there on.