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Last March, US Navy announced they were just 4 years away from fielding an operational shipboard laser weapon. Then a mere 6 months later, announced the Navy is just two years away. “We’re well past physics,” ONR said, “We’re just going through the integration efforts.” Likewise, Navy’s railgun has been successfully tested at the full power needed to fire a hypersonic slug at Mach 7- a muzzle velocity capable of hitting targets 220 miles away, and directly engaging ships and even jet aircraft. With energies like that, the slug doesn’t even need to carry a warhead; kinetic energy alone has the power of an explosive shell. Combat Laser Weapons The generally accepted threshold for a militarily effective combat laser is 100kW, with a long-term goal of 1MW. Prototype 100kW lasers developed for the DoD have been demonstrated to shoot through 2” of steel in 3 seconds, and are powerful enough to shoot down missiles, artillery shells, aircraft and destroy light vehicles. A 1MW class laser, properly collimated, is capable of boring through 20 feet of steel in one second. Laser weapons have been in development for quite some time. Airborne Laser Laboratory shot down several missiles in the 80s. Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) and MTHEL (mobile version) were developed in the mid-late 90s. They used a deuterium fluoride chemical laser and repeatedly shot down Katyusha rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds, including rounds fired in salvo. Airborne Laser (ABL) placed a massive chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) on a 747 with the ultimate intent of being able to shoot down ICBMs during boost phase, and successfully intercepted/destroyed several ballistic missiles in 2010. 747-based Airborne Laser YAL-1  MTHEL shoots down 3 mortars in salvo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LThD0FMvTFU#t=42s The chemical lasers used in THEL and ABL have a lot of drawbacks, though. For instance, THEL unleashes a highly toxic plume of exhaust every time it fires, and ABL takes a long time to reload. THEL was cancelled in 2006 and ABL in 2011 because much more promising solid state laser technology was right on the horizon. Much of the director technology is being retained for re-use for the next generation of laser; the latest mount (using a much smaller test laser) was able to fire onto a small craft bobbing in the ocean from another moving ship and set it ablaze. Laser optics onboard the YAL-1 ABL  High-Power Solid State Laser The solid state laser is an ideal weapon: compact, few moving parts, no toxic gasses, can be easily pulsed to avoid laser blooming, and never runs out of ammunition: it can be fired as long as the firing platform has fuel to keep flying/sailing and delivering power. Low-power solid state lasers are proven and common; every DVD drive and laser point has a solid state laser in it. Combat lasers are fundamentally no different, though the Joint High Powered Solid State Laser (JHPSSL) prototypes have power equivalent to roughly 20 million laser pointers being simultaneously pointed at the target. Three teams are developing high-powered lasers. Northrop Grumman’s system uses 15kW laser modules that are stacked for power, and demonstrated 105kW of power in 2009. This laser won an Army contract for the Solid State Laser Testbed Experiment (SSLTE) in 2010, of which little information is publicly available. Textron’s “Thinzag” prototype also uses 15kW modules to achieve 105kW, but works slightly differently, with with the laser uses “Thinzag” where the laser zig-zags repeatedly through a Nd:YAG slab. Raytheon did not win participation in the JHPSSL project, but has been funding their own research, and performed a successful series of demonstrations of their 50kW prototype laser shooting down small aircraft and UAVs. Northrop-Grumman Prototype 15kW JHPSSL module  Raytheon’s 50kW “LaWS” laser demonstrator  Most of the biggest challenges facing solid state laser weaponry have already been solved. They’re compact, they’re high power, they can be run off conventional power equipment, they can be mass produced, and they can be directed and held on the target. The largest issue yet remaining is that of cooling, as thermal efficiency is low: for every 1W of laser energy leaving the weapon, another 9W of heat is generated that must be cooled. Northrop-Grumman Prototype 105kW JHPSSL assembly  These solid-state lasers are extremely compact, and production models are expected to be not much bigger than a phone booth. Coincidentally, the F-35A (Air Force variant) and F-35C (aircraft carrier variant) were designed with phone-booth sized cavities where the lift fan is on an F-35B (STOVL variant), and are anticipated to be retrofitted with solid state lasers. The engine is designed to transfer the shaft-horsepower of a destroyer to the lift fan, and can be used instead to power a generator. The laser will be fired through a pop-out turret below the aircraft, able to fire 360° in an arc 180° below the plane, with possible a 2nd to cover the top. The plan is to fire two 3-second bursts followed by a 30-second cool-down period and 2 more bursts. Each burst will be more than enough to explode a missile or set an aircraft ablaze. The AC-130 is also anticipated to be one of the first platforms to field it, as well. And not just as an offensive weapon, but defensive: it can shoot down missiles and even anti-aircraft artillery shells fired against it. The Future of Laser Weapons Navy has decided to split laser development and procurement into two power classes: 100kW tactical lasers, and 1MW high-powered lasers. The 100kW solid state laser technology is mature and moving forward quickly, while another new laser technology, the Free Electron Laser (FEL) is being developed as a long-term 1MW weapon, which will be able to fire upon much harder and more distant targets. We’re not going to see a free electron laser on warships anytime soon as they’re huge and require more power than our present generation of warships have available, but they’re anticipated to scale up much better than solid state to 1MW powers and may show up along with railguns on future warships. Free Electron Laser at Jefferson Labs  Free Electron Laser video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWdGkb7r1iA Laser propagation near sea level is limited to about 5 miles effective range, so laser-CIWS is going to be limited to pretty much point defense. But range is virtually unlimited at higher altitudes. Aircraft can engage each other with lasers the moment sensors spot the enemy. Aircraft can engage ground targets, and ground lasers engage aircraft at very long ranges, as well. Lasers are going to be a massive game-changer on the future battlefield. ABL was designed to shoot down missiles hundreds of miles away, and F-35s (or UAVs) with lasers will have long range capability as well, able to fill the missile-defense gap of the lumbering YAL-1 with a highly survivable stealthy aircraft. Any quite possibly do this all within 4 years time. So, not quite the 2015 timeframe we were promised in the 90s, but not too far off, either. It’s not just the US; Russia, India, Germany and China are developing laser weapons, too. China painted a US satellite with a dazzling laser weapon in 2006. Germany recently tested a 50kW combat laser by shooting down two UAVs and cutting through a 15mm girder from a mile away. And Russia’s been developing an Il-76 based laser platform since the 80s that successfully performed operational tests in 2009 and is scheduled for further upgrades and testing in 2013.  Motherfucking Railguns What surprises most people about railguns is not that they appeal to the Navy, but that Navy’s already developed a fully functioning full-size full-power railgun weapon capable of hitting targets 220 miles away within 6 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uV1SbEuzFU The advantages are numerous for the navy- no magazines full of explosives, faster reaction times than possible with aircraft, ranges WELL beyond the appx 15 mile max range of existing 5” cannons, and 4x further than the 50 or so miles it can fire rocket-assisted shells. Railgun slugs move about 1.5 miles every second, making it possible to direct fire unguided rounds. GPS and laser-guided rounds will be used, too.  You may have noticed the railgun slug in the video above looked decidedly non-aerodynamic. That was intentional, to prevent an errant shell from mistakenly leaving the range in Dahlgren VA and crashing through a house in Philadelphia or New York City. In fact, in an earlier test a year prior, an aerodynamic slug had been used that pierced a steel target and flew an additional 7 miles- which is especially astonishing considering it was a flat trajectory.  There are some challenges, though. This railgun requires about 3 million amps, delivered in a tiny fraction of a second. It's the current that creates the magnetic field, so the more current, the more powerful the weapon. The current is provided by capacitors, but those capacitors still need to be charged; a production railgun will require about 16MW to continuously fire at a rate of 6 shots per minute, power that few Navy ships presently have. If it was placed on an existing warship with less available power (like an Arleigh-Burke), it would have to operate at a lower firing rate. Capacitor banks used to fire the railgun  Railguns are surprisingly simple in concept  Hypersonic Missiles Air Force is testing a hypersonic scramjet capable of pushing the aircraft at speeds of Mach 5 on conventional JP-7. Army recently tested a Mach 20 hypersonic maneuver vehicle; in Army’s case, it was unpowered and got its velocity from a Minotaur rocket, but is nonetheless capable of striking up to 2300 miles away in 30 minutes, and hitting a target with precision. Combine that with the new 30000lb GBU-57 bunker buster, and there aren’t many bunkers of the world that could remain standing. X-51A Waverider Mach 5 SCRAMJet demonstrator  XM-25 air-bursting automatic grenade launcher The XM-25 fires 25mm grenades with programmable computerized fuses designed to explode in mid-air to kill targets hiding behind cover. No dicking around with grenade launchers with iron sights and ballistic trajectories, just point the laser range-finder at the wall your target is hiding behind, add 1 meter, and fire to the side. Or set it for 1m contact delay and fire right through the wall. The computerized optics combine optical and thermal imaging and integrate a targeting solution right into the scope- it automatically adjusts for range and conditions and puts the crosshair pip right where the bullet will go.  A number of prototype XM-25s have been fielded in Afghanistan for the past year with unabashed success. Soldiers are fighting over who gets to carry it, and reports have been overwhelmingly positive. So good that Army is planning on beginning formal production next year. The newest updated prototypes are being deployed this month. US Army posted:During its initial Forward Operational Assessment, the XM25 provided a decisive advantage to Soldiers in combat in Afghanistan. While on patrol in Southern Afghanistan, Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division used the XM25 to engage and successfully defeat enemy forces hiding behind three-to-four foot walls used by Afghans to grow grapes, said Command Sgt. Maj. James Carabello, MCoE, a combat veteran who recently led infantry units in Afghanistan with the Army's 10th Mountain Division. 
grover fucked around with this message at Jan 19, 2013 around 14:00 |
| # ? Jan 18, 2013 17:06 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 10:59 |
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I realize that we should be equipping ourselves for the NEXT war, but is there any future tech that's good at stopping insurgencies/IED type stuff we faced in Iraq/Afghanistan?
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 18:11 |
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Elendil004 posted:I realize that we should be equipping ourselves for the NEXT war, but is there any future tech that's good at stopping insurgencies/IED type stuff we faced in Iraq/Afghanistan?
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 18:21 |
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Elendil004 posted:I realize that we should be equipping ourselves for the NEXT war, but is there any future tech that's good at stopping insurgencies/IED type stuff we faced in Iraq/Afghanistan? Insurgencies aren't something that you can counter with technology. Technology enables the counterinsurgents at all levels but insurgencies are primarily a people problem. Drone strikes, optics, comm gear, armor, biometrics, precision weapons and so forth give the counterinsurgent more tools to win the fight but, ultimately, it comes down to factors outside of technology. IEDs are readily adaptable to the changing situation on the ground. I don't know what is or isn't publicly available(not that I had any cool guy insider knowledge) but with a little research you should be able to see how the insurgents changed their methodologies as new counter-ied technology became available.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 18:31 |
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Great, more high-tech murder machines for the imperialist armies of our overlords.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 18:55 |
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Whatever happened to the next generation of infantry helmets? About 18 months ago the Commandant (then General Conway) was saying that they'd approved a new type of helmet that could actually defeat 7.62x39 and that they were rushing it out. Haven't heard a word about it since.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 18:58 |
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Solid state combat lasers in stealth fighter aircraft. But rek still fly's a plane from the Eisenhower administration, and we still ferry troops in planes from the Nixon era. GG Airforce. GG.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 19:09 |
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Just a future warning do not derail the thread into the uselessness/wastefulness of these things. I'm trying to keep things as un-D&D/GBS as I can here. You're more than welcome to argue the effectiveness or the practicality of the platforms, but not any 'hurf drones to bomb browns' poo poo. I will probate people for that.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 19:55 |
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Vasudus posted:Just a future warning do not derail the thread into the uselessness/wastefulness of these things. I'm trying to keep things as un-D&D/GBS as I can here. I think this thread would be more about "lasers-to-blacken-browns-with" though. Which I'm unironically fully in support of. 
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 20:13 |
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How much atmospheric penetration do lasers have coming into the atmosphere? Are we going to have satellite-based laser systems? The distance through space would be negligible as it's empty, so once you can get on-target through the entire atmosphere it seems like you could just target anywhere you wanted in entire hemispheres. Cooling would also be laughably easy I imagine cause space is all cold and stuff.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 20:34 |
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SumYungGui posted:How much atmospheric penetration do lasers have coming into the atmosphere? It's very wavelength-dependent. Certain wavelengths are preferentially absorbed by water vapor in the air, others are preferentially scattered, others could penetrate quite well. But you can't just generate any arbitrary wavelength you want, except with an FEL. quote:Cooling would also be laughably easy I imagine cause space is all cold and stuff. No, cooling's harder in space, because there's nothing to carry the heat away. No conductive cooling, no convective cooling, the only way to shed heat is to radiate, and radiative cooling is awfully inefficient. And it's only cold if you're in the shadow of something and can radiate into a 3-degree background, if you're in direct sunlight at 1AU you're going to heat up pretty quickly, that's why the surface temperature on the moon gets up to over 100C. Phanatic fucked around with this message at Jan 18, 2013 around 20:44 |
| # ? Jan 18, 2013 20:42 |
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genderstomper58 posted:Where could they even go from here? Just experiment with new crazy alloys? Trying to increase a barrel life 10x seems like a whole lot of work and money but I'm no materials engineer grover fucked around with this message at Jan 18, 2013 around 20:44 |
| # ? Jan 18, 2013 20:42 |
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SumYungGui posted:How much atmospheric penetration do lasers have coming into the atmosphere? Are we going to have satellite-based laser systems? The distance through space would be negligible as it's empty, so once you can get on-target through the entire atmosphere it seems like you could just target anywhere you wanted in entire hemispheres. Cooling would also be laughably easy I imagine cause space is all cold and stuff. Ranges of laser weapons are virtually unlimited when fired from aircraft in the air-to-air or air-to-space role, due to how thin the atmosphere is at altitude- 1.6psi at 50,000ft for example. An F-35A or C packing a laser (as they're expected to get soon after Navy ships get them) would be as effective in the anti-ballistic missile role as the 747-based ABL, but at much lower cost. Phanatic posted:It's very wavelength-dependent. Certain wavelengths are preferentially absorbed by water vapor in the air, others are preferentially scattered, others could penetrate quite well. But you can't just generate any arbitrary wavelength you want, except with an FEL.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 20:53 |
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I was under the impression that the real boon for space-based lasers was going to be in the x-ray laser realm.. Since most methods of generating an X-ray laserbeam require very high vacum. Was pretty sure that the high energy x-ray laser was the holy grail but then again I don't really know anything about lasers so. v  v.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:16 |
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GAS CURES KIKES posted:I was under the impression that the real boon for space-based lasers was going to be in the x-ray laser realm.. Since most methods of generating an X-ray laserbeam require very high vacum.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:22 |
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How effective are lasers vs. people. Can we put a drone with a combat laser and literally laser terrorists faces off as they pop their heads up? Is there anything prohibiting that? I assume if a laser will go through 20' of steel, it'll go through a dude. In terms of combating IEDs I was more wondering is there anything on the forefront of technology like jammers (which I know exist but I don't know much about their effectiveness), or high tech armor that absorbs blasts or something like that.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:24 |
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Elendil004 posted:
Everything interesting in this realm is classified.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:41 |
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Godholio posted:Everything interesting in this realm is classified. Aww and this laser stuff isn't? Lame!
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:42 |
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Elendil004 posted:How effective are lasers vs. people. Can we put a drone with a combat laser and literally laser terrorists faces off as they pop their heads up? Is there anything prohibiting that? I assume if a laser will go through 20' of steel, it'll go through a dude. There are a variety of jammers (that we won't really discuss further) that are pretty effective, and reactive armor that's been in place for the last half decade or so works pretty decently against RPGs and the like. Honestly though if were talking orbital weapons (which I am pretty sure are hella illegal) you can't go wrong with a kinetic kill package. Why yes, I would like a 20 foot long, pencil shaped solid brick of tungsten and DU hitting with the impact force of a low yield atomic weapon. That would be just lovely, and probably cheap as poo poo with the expensive part getting it up there in the first place. edit: also the problem with any sort of ground-ground laser is the fact that you'll probably blind everyone on both sides by using them.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:42 |
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Elendil004 posted:How effective are lasers vs. people. Can we put a drone with a combat laser and literally laser terrorists faces off as they pop their heads up? Is there anything prohibiting that? I assume if a laser will go through 20' of steel, it'll go through a dude. Math time. 100kW x 1 second = 100kJ of energy. 24,000 calories. Roughly the same energy you'd get if you crawled under a 500W heat lamp at Wendys for 3 minutes. It's only really enough energy to boil 44 grams of water, or raise body temperature a few degrees. In practice, what it's really going to do is give some really nasty burns and set clothing on fire. What it's not going to do is bore holes through people or cause heads to explode or anything like that. It's far more effective against material. grover fucked around with this message at Jan 18, 2013 around 21:50 |
| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:47 |
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grover posted:Humans are filled with a pretty effective cooling system that continuously pumps fresh coolant throughout the body. A laser capable of burning through steel is certainly going to gently caress a person up, but not really in the way most people would envision it. That's why you use plasma, duh.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:49 |
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Vasudus posted:That's why you use plasma, duh. * God, in this case, meaning the US Navy warship offshore.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 21:51 |
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Vasudus posted:That's why you use plasma, duh. That's further down the Tech tree. You've gotta get all the way through Heavy Lasers before you get to Plasma. Lasers and Rail Guns: Literally X-Com in this thread. grover posted:Humans are filled with a pretty effective cooling system that continuously pumps fresh coolant throughout the body. A laser capable of burning through steel is certainly going to gently caress a person up, but not really in the way most people would envision it. True. But you're expending those 100kJ over only one second, and over about one square centimeter of area. Remember, .50 BMG carries only 15kJ of energy and that will certainly gently caress up your day.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 22:05 |
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GAS CURES KIKES posted:I was under the impression that the real boon for space-based lasers was going to be in the x-ray laser realm.. Since most methods of generating an X-ray laserbeam require very high vacum. The X-ray laser was an SDI boondoggle. "Methods of generating an X-ray laserbeam" necessitated a nuclear detonation, and the underground testing didn't result in any measurable lasing at all. The idea was a submarine would launch a little popup weapon that would go exoatmospheric, it would have a bomb inside, the bomb would go off and then the x-rays from the bomb would pump a laser medium that would shoot x-ray lasers at 50 or so different inbounds. Didn't work. Not even a little bit. And x-rays are one of those wavelengths that the atmosphere is pretty opaque to, so they don't do you any good for shooting down.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 22:12 |
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I really wouldn't object to being part of the manual labor team at these research labs. Hey dude, go get the forklift and haul this big fuckoff piece of steel to the test site. We're testing the railgun today. Graduate school be damned, I would totally do that.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 22:15 |
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JerksNeedLoveToo posted:That's further down the Tech tree. You've gotta get all the way through Heavy Lasers before you get to Plasma. 
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 22:24 |
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grover posted:Lasers of this size aren't typically collimated that tightly, for a number of technical reasons that have mostly to do with the targeting optics. You can see pretty clearly in the MTHEL tests that the laser beam used is a couple feet wide- same is true of the other directors in the OP; anytime you see a laser, you can generally assume the beam is as wide as the lens, or else they'd have used a smaller lens. No reason an operational weapon couldn't focus the beam however it would be most effective, though. Wider lenses collimate better, not worse, because diffraction is inverse to aperture. If you want the beam to diverge less, you make your aperture wider.
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 22:42 |
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grover posted:Or rods from God*. Speaking of Rods from God: meet Project Thor.  A satellite armed with "an orbiting tungsten telephone pole with small fins and a computer in the back for guidance". Hitting it's target with an impact speed of mach 10, one rod would be the equivalent of 11.5 tons of TNT with the ability to strike anywhere on earth in a matter of minutes (granted the satellite is in the right place). Though the XM29 OICW still holds a special place in my heart. 
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| # ? Jan 18, 2013 23:07 |
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All well and good but where's my powered exosuit? It's not futuristic enough if I don't have a powered exosuit.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 00:16 |
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Regarding railguns, I had understood that one of the major R&D issues being worked on was the needed advances in materials science for the magnetic armatures. From what I gathered, the underlying issue was that the test bed guns tore themselves apart after every shot. The magnetic fields around the armatures not only attract/repel the projectile, the fields generated interacted with each other as well. Basically, the two rails in the gun rip themselves apart as they repell each other. I guess you could always change out barrels between shots, but I wouldn't want to be the guy who had to screw on a new 50-foot barrel on a pitching destroyer deck in the middle of battle. Edit: Holy poo poo, and I hope any future Railgunner's Mates don't have any metal fillings in their teeth. I just looked up the magnetic field strengths that the test railguns are using: 10 Tesla. To put that in perspective, the Earth's magnetic field is about 30 microtesla, a refrigerator magnet is about 3 millitesla, and a MRI machine (about the strongest magnetic field that your average individual will ever come into contact with) is only about 2-3 tesla. JerksNeedLoveToo fucked around with this message at Jan 19, 2013 around 01:12 |
| # ? Jan 19, 2013 00:58 |
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SumYungGui posted:All well and good but where's my powered exosuit? It's not futuristic enough if I don't have a powered exosuit. Here ya go. http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/te...08_exoskeleton/ Just one among many, but I'm sure within a couple years, someone will strap some armor and a minigun on it...
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 01:24 |
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Yeah, the forces are insane, and there's really no good way to deal with the high-energy plasma eroding the rails. They're working on it, though. Speaking of insane magnetic fields, here's a view of the new EMALS electromagnetic catapult that's going on the newest aircraft carriers. Energy level is 122MJ, about 4x higher than the railgun in the OP. I haven't been able to find peak field strengths for it listed online, though.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSZr58hH_cI
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 01:30 |
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Hovermoose posted:Speaking of Rods from God: meet Project Thor. Why did they pick tungsten for that, isn't it one of those elements we are going to have a shortage of in a decade or so? The first thing that comes to mind is heat resistance for re-entry into the atmosphere.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 01:34 |
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Account_Username posted:Why did they pick tungsten for that, isn't it one of those elements we are going to have a shortage of in a decade or so? It's dense, heat-resistant, and great for punching through other materials. It's easier to work with than depleted uranium, and still relatively cheap. So, basically if you were building a huge fuckoff dart, it's fantastic. In fact, if you're building a small dart, it's super popular, too.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 01:53 |
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JerksNeedLoveToo posted:It's dense, heat-resistant, and great for punching through other materials. So, basically if you were building a huge fuckoff dart, it's great. In fact, if you're building a small dart, it's super popular, too. Well it is used for welding electrodes so yeah tungsten is pretty god drat heat resistant heh
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 01:54 |
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It's also probably a ton better politically if the things ever became reality. Oh hey, we put a bunch of metal rods up in space vs. Oh hey, here's some depleted URANIUM rods up in space. ATOMZ.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 04:53 |
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Howdy GiP, ordinary civilian here. I was just curious if any research is/was put into more powerful or more efficient propellants for regular bullets. Those .50BMG's are pretty huge for the amount of bullet it has to throw for many thousands of yards.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 05:06 |
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oh yes oh god yes form the head FORM THE HEAD unghhhh...
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Vasudus posted:Honestly though if were talking orbital weapons (which I am pretty sure are hella illegal) you can't go wrong with a kinetic kill package. Why yes, I would like a 20 foot long, pencil shaped solid brick of tungsten and DU hitting with the impact force of a low yield atomic weapon. That would be just lovely, and probably cheap as poo poo with the expensive part getting it up there in the first place.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 05:13 |
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IronSaber posted:Howdy GiP, ordinary civilian here. I was just curious if any research is/was put into more powerful or more efficient propellants for regular bullets. Those .50BMG's are pretty huge for the amount of bullet it has to throw for many thousands of yards. There have been several experiments with caseless ammunition, but nothing so far has overcome the inertia that drives mass military procurement.
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| # ? Jan 19, 2013 05:22 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 10:59 |
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JerksNeedLoveToo posted:Regarding railguns, I had understood that one of the major R&D issues being worked on was the needed advances in materials science for the magnetic armatures. From what I gathered, the underlying issue was that the test bed guns tore themselves apart after every shot. The magnetic fields around the armatures not only attract/repel the projectile, the fields generated interacted with each other as well. Basically, the two rails in the gun rip themselves apart as they repell each other. It's nothing terrible, really. The way the things work is that a current generates a magnetic field, and then that magnetic field acts on each electron that comprises that current. So indirectly there's a force on whatever those electrons are moving through, F=Il x B, I=current, l=length, B=magnetic field strength, and it's a cross-product so it's all at right angles. So the current goes up one rail, through the projectile, and back down the other rail. I is horizontal, B is vertical, and the direction of the Force acting on the projectile is towards the muzzle. But the I is also passing through the rails, so the direction of the force exerted on them is outward, the interaction between current and the magnetic field that pushes the projectile down the barrel is also trying to push the rails apart. But that's not a big deal, you've just got to build your gun in a robust enough fashion that it can withstand that force. That's not different from any other artillery piece; the 16" guns on an Iowa-class battleship had to contain an explosion of 700 lbs of propellant each and every time they fired, which is why they weigh well over 100 tons. The big issue is rail erosion, as that massive current arcs between the projectile and the rail. You've got very high current trying to pass through a small area of contact between the rail and the projectile, which causes enormous resistive heating which turns the contact surface to plasma, which is conductive, so the current continues to pass through it, superheating it and causing it to melt/vaporize/erode the rails. That plasma also wants to expand which places an additional significant force trying to drive the rails apart, but again, that's just a matter of making the gun strong enough to withstand that force, it's not as big an issue as the rail erosion. Phanatic fucked around with this message at Jan 19, 2013 around 05:30 |
| # ? Jan 19, 2013 05:26 |
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