Huge efforts have been poured into creating laser weapons small and efficient enough for use in aircraft, tanks, and ships. Who knows how many test platforms and pre-production models are out there at this point? Plenty, I imagine. The article includes a photo of a 747 built over a decade ago with an early nose-mounted laser weapon; nearly the entire aircraft was filled with the necessary equipment. Things have gotten a LOT more compact and powerful since.
After decades of toiling and dead-ends, the dream of operational laser weaponry is about to become a reality.
. . . What that meant was that the system demands, the platform demands were greatly reduced, and it meant that the laser weapon, not just the laser, the whole laser weapon, could now start being made small enough, powerful enough, to now be deployed on Army vehicles, Navy ships, and even on aircraft. So, that's really what changed the game. And as you can see, there's a lot of activity in this domain from our customers, all the services are now advancing capability in laser weapon systems for land, sea, and air. Lockheed Martin is a premier provider of this technology in all these domains, and we are working in all these domains.
So, the kind of the key message is the final piece of the puzzle to enable the fielding of laser weapons was solved using the fiber, the beam combined—spectrally beam combined fiber laser technology. Now what we're looking at is we're moving beyond S&T, Science and Technology demos... Is this even possible? We are now seeing those initial systems being built and ready to be deployed on platforms. For example, we have the program, the HELIOS [High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance] program, which is to build, integrate, and install a laser weapon system on a DDG Arleigh Burke class destroyer.
Seems like a terrible idea given how easy it is to counter.
I vaguely remember a old 80’s movie where bros were using mirrors to defend against soldiers with lazer rifles. Came on fuckin showtime in like 93 bro one of you fellow old fuckers rememver. Them fuckas were all fighting in some shitty abandoned apartment buildins.
It was called Real Genius with Val Kilmer. I posted the trailer about a Month ago. Check my posts.
Wow I remember it now. I remember val being in it now!! Awesome fren.
Well, that and how somehow every country in the world is in on the secret.
Laser weapons and DEW always takes me back to the film ERASER. Maybe its just me
The weapon in "Eraser" was a railgun, though. It used electromagnets to fire metal projectiles at tremendous speeds.
Which do exist, and are powerful, but incredibly impractical and not reliable enough for deployment last I checked.
"Eraser" wasn't my first cinematic thought -- that would be Star Wars -- but it's certain appropriate. Not the Woke Austrian's best film, but certainly not his worst.
SW for me as well. BTW, for a funny, I was just catching up on the Mandalorian and watched an episode that made me choke laughing. I placed the actual line on the screenshot. If you've seen the movie it's from, you'd understand. ---> https://ibb.co/98VbXgr
I'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday and also Sunday to tell us what season/ep that was from.
That has to have been put in there on purpose.
LOL, great movie and it's S02E07 of The Mandalorian.
Yea, SW too, and as a child of the 70s/80s myself, I can def appreciate that thought. But since it was so Sci-Fi (lightsabers used against non-humans), for some reason ERASER sticks with me as targeted weapons against actual people
Pew! PewPew Pew! Kek!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rEhcTUeCGA&t=20s
"Phased plasma rifle in 40-watt range"
Thanks for the clip! And I must say, the salesman at the counter over-promised when he said "You can't miss" with a laser sight. Laser sights are very helpful -- critically so in some situations -- but I can testify that you CAN miss, if you aren't careful.
i just want my lightsabre...its an elegant weapon.
Now if they could get Turbolasers and Blasters. That’d be dope. Though I settle for an M36 Kantrael Pattern Lasgun.
All jokes aside. Gun stores are going to look pretty dope here in a decade or two. Because I can guarantee there will be rifle sized variants in short order. There’s already Gauss Rifles in early prototype stages available to purchase. And the ATF hasn’t got around to regulating them yet. Though due to the early prototype stage they aren’t exactly all that powerful yet.
That and I can bet there is at least one probably multiple Texans thinking on how they could convince the Military to let them take the laser cannons Hog Hunting.
One limitation on hand-held laser weapons is they will set things on fire, so if you miss your target you could easily cause a disaster. They'll never be legal for hunting, for instance, and even as home-defense weapons I don't think I'd be comfortable with one. Starting a forest fire or burning down your house wouldn't be optimal.
If we get particle-beam or other energy weapons that DON'T immediately set things on fire, that'd be something else entirely. I don't know if such are possible, though.
“Wouldn’t be optimal” kek thanks T800. Kek
Didn’t mean to offend
You certainly didn't offend me! I have no idea why anyone would downvote your comment.
So maybe what triggered the Hawaii fires
Got something I have been wondering. Against the below text I copied from a novel called Kill Decision by Danial Suarez, is a time coming when gunpowder firearms will become obsolete, and therefore we might revert back to a time when only a small few have to ability to weld power.
Behind every law is the implicit threat of force, and behind ever vote, is the implicit threat of rebellion. That's the bargain that holds a free society together, and no society with a large power imbalance remains free for long.
Democracy only arose when the ability to deploy force was decentralized.
If you go back to the middle ages, the state of the art weapon's system was the armored knight. He cost a fortune to train, feed, and equip, but a mounted armored knight could overpower almost any number of peasants on a battlefield. The distribution of political power in midevil society reflected this. Authority was vested in a tiny minority, and the people had no choice but to obey.
Then with the advent of gunpowder, that all changed. Suddenly you didn't need a highly trained specialist warrior to win on the battlefield. All you needed was a warm body who could fire a gun. Anything they could aim at, they could kill, and from that point the edge in warfare went not to highly trained warriors, but to the side that could field the most people, at which point we saw the rise of the nation state, and nationalism as a concept as a logistical requirement for fielding and ever larger conscripted army, but this changed the political dynamic. The nobles could no longer ignore the demands of their subjects. Those subjects now had to power to kill them, or to refuse to fight in their wars, so kings began to cede more power and authority to representative bodies of the people, like congress, parliaments and so on.
Agree with your views of decentralized power. It is basically what the 2nd amendment says. ....
When looking at past ages, we have to be careful to make hasty conclusions on appearances.
The Golden Spurs Battle in Flanders, The Farmers Rebellion in Germany, as just two examples, show that a rabble can easily defeat a highly trained ironclad force. there is more to war than just weapon systems, as these can be seen as force multipliers.
For instance, a long bow has more force projection on point on a target, than just a regular bow. Equally, a mounted force with bows has a different application than warriors on foot armed with the same bow.
In essence, war is all about logistics and what is being projected in an environment of the fog of war. Many mistakes have been made in that department. And it is those mistakes that lead to demise.
When it comes to revolutions, the score is a bit different, but in essence in same. A guerilla is all about sustaining it: sourcing the support. Lacking such support, a revolution will simply die by itself.
That is why, when large enough numbers of people go on strike, the powers that be will make way. No amount of guns and bullets, whatever they have, is sufficient to overcome a massive civilian response, except when foreign soldiers are used to control that population.
This is the reason why many potentates have always relied on foreigners for their protection. The Byzantium Basileus relied on Batavians to protect him. the House of Orange on the Scotts Guards. The Engllish on the Hessians, etc.
Today, in the European Union, it would be the deployment of Bulgarian militarized police to quell an issue in France, etc. The game is always the same.
Suarez is an interesting author -- a good storyteller and a clear thinker.
Democracy arose in ancient Greece for similar reasons, I think: the State did not have weapons beyond those the average man could obtain (or make) and deploy.
Today, we're fully in another situation like that of the middle ages, where the State (or almost any government body) typically has weapons that Mr. Average cannot afford, make, or obtain -- tanks and other armored vehicles, missiles, aircraft, and so on -- not to mention newer, high-tech nightmares. This is one reason today's America is in a very different situation than our Colonial ancestors were. Everyone had muskets and swords back then; cannon could be obtained by a group of citizens (or a single wealthy person, for that matter), so the British did not have a serious edge involving better weapons -- and the Brits were fighting on the colonist's home ground, a treacherous month or more by ship from their home base.
These laser weapons are just another in the high-tech arsenal that the State has and the citizenry do not. A dangerous situation, yes.
Yea but all those high tech weapons can't be brought to bear in a war against citizens. This old article I saved from years ago give an interesting perspective.
I'd actually seen that before . . . and it makes a good point -- guerrilla war doesn't need high-tech, but it also isn't compatible with anything like normal American life. I wouldn't want to spend my whole remaining life, my children spend theirs, and THEIR children spend theirs, in a war-torn society with atrocities being committed on both sides and with traditional snitches and spying augmented by 24/7 high-tech surveillance (example: https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/your-wifi-can-see-you) and nano-weapons (for instance, smart-dust weapons) added to the mix.
The vax, Bill Gates' weaponized mosquitos, mRNA and other nano-tech in the food supply . . . it's gotten almost BEYOND SciFi now.
They will be on future fighter and bombers. At a minimum, as missile defense systems.
DE Weapons are already on our aircraft.
Is this already available and in use? I'd check with California and Hawaii as it sure seems like they both appear to have been "test" sites.