Energia-aseet: laser ym.

[ctg]

A sci-fi staple for decades, laser weapons are finally becoming reality in the US military, albeit with capabilities a little less dramatic than at the movies.

Lightsabers -- the favored weapon of the Jedi in "Star Wars" films -- will remain in the fictional realm for now, but after decades of development, laser weapons are now here and are being deployed on military vehicles and planes.

Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon -- all the big defense players -- are developing prototypes for the Pentagon.

The Navy has since 2014 been testing a 30-kilowatt laser on one of its warships, the USS Ponce.

Lockheed Martin has just announced a 60-kilowatt laser weapon that soon will be installed on an Army truck for operational testing against mortars and small drones.

The weapon can take out a drone from a distance of about 500 yards (meters) by keeping its beam locked onto the target for a few seconds, Jim Murdoch, an international business development director at Lockheed, told reporters this week.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Laser_weapons_edge_toward_use_in_US_military_999.html

 

[miheikki]

Miten tuo kamera pystyy seuraamaan ammusta?


https://tekniikanmaailma.fi/muu-tek...us-osuu-maaliinsa/?shared=760476-90a48843-500

Tältä näyttää, kun 7200km/h lentävä raidetykin ammus osuu maaliinsa

Ammuksessa ei ole räjähtävää kärkeä. Räjähdys syntyy pelkästään osuman voimasta. © YOUTUBE/DEFENSENEWSX


15:24

TEKSTI Joonas Gustavsson
Yhdysvaltain armeija pitää General Atomicsin kehittämää raidetykkiä hyödyllisenä monesta syystä.

• 0JAKOA
  
• Twiittaa
  
• Jaa

Kyseessä on sama raidetykki, josta kerroimme jo maaliskuun lopulla.

General Atomics –nimisen yksityisen alihankkijan kehittämän Blitzer-tykin osumasta on nyt julkaistu suurnopeuskameralla kuvattu video, joka näyttää millaista jälkeä ammus tekee osuessaan maaliinsa:


Raidetykit ja laseraseet edustavat sodankäynnin tulevaisuutta. Yhdysvaltain armeija on sijoittanut ”Tähtien Sodan ajan” aseteknologiaan satoja miljoonia dollareita 2000-luvun alusta alkaen. The Office of Naval Research sijoitti ensimmäisen raidetykkiprototyypin kehitykseen 250 miljoonaa vuosina 2005–2011. Yhdysvaltain laivasto käyttänee vastaavan suuruisen summan raidetykkeihin pelkästään tämän vuoden aikana.

Etenkin laivasto on kiinnostunut raidetykeistä niiden tarjoaman pitkän kantaman ja yksittäisen ammuksen hinnan vuoksi. Blitzerin tehokas kantomatka on jopa 170 kilometriä ja yhden ammuksen hinta vain 25 000 dollaria. Perinteiset ohjukset voivat maksaa jopa miljoonia dollareita kappaleelta.

45 senttiä pitkä ja reilun kymmenen kilon painoinen ammus vapauttaa lähellä maaliaan rungostaan tuhansia pieniä hauleja, joita General Atomics kutsuu nimellä ”kinetic energy impactors”.

”Blitzer saa vastustajamme pysähtymään ja miettimään: haluammeko todella edes hyökätä laivastoaluksen kimppuun?”, Yhdysvaltain laivaston kontra-amiraali Matt Klunder kertoo.

”… Koska vihollisemme tietävät häviävänsä. He voivat ampua koko arsenaalillaan meitä kohti ja me tuhoamme heidän ohjuksensa näillä pienkokoisilla ja halvoilla ammuksilla.”

Klunder kertoo raidetykistä tarkemmin allaolevalla videolla:

 

[ctg]

Miten tuo kamera pystyy seuraamaan ammusta?

Kuvaamalla laajakulmaa ja ottamalla kymmeniä tuhansia kuvia sekunnissa. Kuvaaja sitten seuraa objektia tuossa streamissa ja jälkikäsittelee sen katsojalle.

 

[SJ]

Kuvaamalla laajakulmaa ja ottamalla kymmeniä tuhansia kuvia sekunnissa. Kuvaaja sitten seuraa objektia tuossa streamissa ja jälkikäsittelee sen katsojalle.

@miheikki Lisäksi kameran alusta on ohjelmoitu kääntymään tietyllä nopeudella ja tietyllä sektorilla. Alusta ei ole tarpeeksi jäykkä että kameran kuvaan ei jäisi tuota heittelyä kameran pysähtyessä.

 

[ctg]

MLADS

Tübitak Bilgem's new MLADS can be used for a wide range of missions: fixed and mobile perimeter/force protection, drone dazzling, drone elimination, day/night perimeter surveillance, day/night target tracking and elimination, and remote material processing.

The MLADS system components include a beam director with refractive focuser system, electronically adjustabe focus, and 4" Aperture Optics. It also features a thermal camera enabling detection in the 3-5 um spectrum range and an adjustable FOV and autofocus. The visible camera system features 4" f1500 optics, zoom, focus control and autofocus, 12x continuous zoom, etc.

The MLADS system has also been equipped with a laser range finder allowing a 10-2,000 m measurement range (upgradable to 6,000m) with a +- 1 m accuracy. The laser illuminator has a maximum range of 2,000 m, upgradable to 5,000 m.

The system is controled through a Command Control Unit designe to enable hard - soft kill scenario implementations. The CCU is fitted with laser unit control interface, thermal and visible camera picture-in-picture display, and optional active stabilization system and radar and GPS interface. The pan-tilt platform has a range of movement of +-90° in Azimuth and +-35° in elevation.

http://www.armyrecognition.com/idef...obile_laser_area_defense_system_21105175.html

 

[Leaderwolf]

http://www.darpa.mil/our-research?PP=0

Tuolta kun alkaa selaamaan Darpan projekteja, niitä julkisia, niin huh huh. Melkoisia muutoksia on tulossa sodankäyntiin. Ihminen on tosiaan luovimmillaan koittaessaan tappaa toisia ihmisiä yhä tehokkaammin.

 

[Quixote]

Raidetykin kehitys etenee. Tavoite päästä parin vuoden sisällä 10 laukauksen minuuttivauhtiin. Kiskot kestävät jo satoja laukauksia, tavoite 1000.

PENTAGON: Consider 35 pounds of metal moving at Mach 5.8. Ten shots per minute. 1,000 shots before the barrel wears out under the enormous pressures. That’s the devastating firepower the Navy railgun program aims to deliver in the next two years, and they’re well on their way.

http://breakingdefense.com/2017/05/navy-railgun-ramps-up-in-test-shots/

 

[Teräsmies]

Raytheon, in partnership with the U.S. Army and U.S. Special Operations Command, mounted a high energy laser on an Apache helicopter and tracked and fired on a target at White Sands Missile Range.

 

[ctg]

The thrust of the U.S. military’s laser weapon tests have focused on the sea, on land and aboard fixed-wing aircraft. You need a lot of power to generate a beam capable of burning through a target, which limits where you can stick a laser.

But they can work on helicopters, too. Raytheon recently tested a high-energy laser weapon attached to an AH-64 Apache helicopter gunship.

Raytheon claims it’s the first time a “fully integrated” laser weapon system—specifically, integrated with Raytheon’s Multi-Spectral Targeting System sensor in this case—has been successfully tested from a helicopter “over a wide variety of flight regimes, altitudes and air speeds,” the company announced in a statement.

http://warisboring.com/the-u-s-military-just-attached-a-laser-weapon-to-an-apache-gunship/

 

[ctg]

On ehkä mahdollista aiheuttaa vikatila dronessa erittäin kirkkaalla valolla, ja tuoda se tonttiin sitä laserilla polttamatta. Voisi myös toimi varoituksena operaattoreille, "Älä tule alueelle," käskynä teoriassa.

Physicists from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are seeing an everyday phenomenon in a new light.

By focusing laser light to a brightness one billion times greater than the surface of the sun - the brightest light ever produced on Earth - the physicists have observed changes in a vision-enabling interaction between light and matter.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/O...t_laser_sparks_new_behavior_in_light_999.html

Under typical conditions, as when light from a bulb or the sun strikes a surface, that scattering phenomenon makes vision possible. But an electron - the negatively charged particle present in matter-forming atoms - normally scatters just one photon of light at a time. And the average electron rarely enjoys even that privilege, Umstadter said, getting struck only once every four months or so.

Though previous laser-based experiments had scattered a few photons from the same electron, Umstadter's team managed to scatter nearly 1,000 photons at a time. At the ultra-high intensities produced by the laser, both the photons and electron behaved much differently than usual.

"When we have this unimaginably bright light, it turns out that the scattering - this fundamental thing that makes everything visible - fundamentally changes in nature," said Umstadter, the Leland and Dorothy Olson Professor of physics and astronomy.

A photon from standard light will typically scatter at the same angle and energy it featured before striking the electron, regardless of how bright its light might be. Yet Umstadter's team found that, above a certain threshold, the laser's brightness altered the angle, shape and wavelength of that scattered light.

"So it's as if things appear differently as you turn up the brightness of the light, which is not something you normally would experience," Umstadter said. "(An object) normally becomes brighter, but otherwise, it looks just like it did with a lower light level. But here, the light is changing (the object's) appearance. The light's coming off at different angles, with different colors, depending on how bright it is."

 

[Leaderwolf]

GA-EMS to test 10 MJ railgun in early 2018

General Atomics Electro Magnetic Systems (GA-EMS) is assembling a 10 MJ railgun in preparation for shipping to Utah, where the company will begin readying the weapon system for testing in 2018.

In addition, GA-EMS announced in May that it had successfully tested its hypersonic projectile, which has been fitted with an enhanced guidance electronics unit (GEU) containing a new battery configuration. The tests were conducted using GA-EMS' 3 MJ Blitzer railgun system at the US Army's Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

During the test, GA-EMS demonstrated a continuous two-way datalink that enables target information between the in-flight projectile and a ground station to be updated.

"Everything communicated, it was still operating when it landed 7 km away from our launch point – and it communicated in-flight, which is exactly what we were trying to achieve," GA-EMS president Scott Forney told Jane's .

Besides the GEU tests, the company stated that it had also demonstrated a new lightweight composite sabot, achieving successful sabot separation and maintaining in-bore structural integrity at high acceleration levels.

The projectile that will be launched later this year from the 10 MJ railgun will be twice as long as that fired from the 3 MJ gun, Forney noted.

For the past two years GA-EMS has been undertaking risk reduction testing on its 3 MJ gun. While the testing was to prove the railgun concept and pulse power capability, the company was unable to test their highly manoeuvrable projectile – which was loaded with electronics – because the 3 MJ launcher was too small, Forney said.

To work around that, the company created what Forney called a "bus round".

http://www.janes.com/article/72302/ga-ems-to-test-10-mj-railgun-in-early-2018

 

[ctg]

The head of Army Space and Missile Command on Tuesday laid out a five-year plan for testing high-energy lasers that would be powerful enough to take down enemy aircraft.

Army officials recently participated in a series of tests involving the Mobile Expeditionary High-Energy 5 Kilowatt Laser and the service’s Heavy Expanded Mobile Tactical Truck 10 Kilowatt Laser at Hard Kill Challenge, an exercise to test counter-unmanned aerial system technology.

“Both of the laser systems were highly successful,” Lt. Gen. James H. Dickinson, Commanding General, United States Army Space and Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command, told an audience at the Association of the United States Army’s 299th Institute of Land Warfare Breakfast.

One of the benefits of the 5 KW laser is it does not require engineers to operate, the Army was able to train soldiers for the operation in just two weeks, Dickinson said.

The development of high-energy lasers is going so well, Dickinson said, that the Army plans to test a significantly larger laser next year.

“In FY18, we will continue to improve upon these cutting edge systems by testing a 50 KW laser integrated into a similar platform,” he said. “A 50 KW laser is a key component in a system known as the high-energy laser tactical vehicle demonstrator.”

The goal of the service is to develop a 100 KW laser by 2022, Dickinson said.

Moving to a 50 KW laser will provide longer range and more lethality than the current 5 KW and 10 KW lasers, which are designed to engage small UAS platforms, Dickinson said.

Dickinson was tight-lipped about the details of the 100 KW laser except to say enable the service to engage larger types of targets such as “rotary-wing and fixed-wing” targets.

Army officials are working with industry and local universities to gain further advances in this field, Dickinson said, adding that the service hopes to create a High-Energy Center of Excellence at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

“These advanced laser systems can be integrated into more rugged and mobile platform compatible with the Army’s Battle Management Network in order to provide a lethal, low-cost and persistent defensive capability,” Dickinson said.

https://www.defensetech.org/2017/07/18/army-test-50-kilowatt-anti-aircraft-laser-next-year/

 

[Teräsmies]

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) demonstrates the Navy's electromagnetic railgun initial rep-rate fires of multi-shot salvos at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division. The revolutionary railgun relies on a massive electrical pulse, rather than gunpowder or other chemical propellants, to launch projectiles at distances over 100 nautical miles – and at speeds that exceed Mach 6.

 

[Leaderwolf]

Noita mörssäreitä kun lyö neljäkin yhteen laivaan, ja siihen dynamic armor normaalin teräslevyn lisäksi, niin voidaan hyvillä mielin todeta taistelulaivojen palanneen. 2000 luvun versioina.

 

[ctg]

The U.S. Navy’s shipboard railgun is moving from the lab to the testing range, a big step for a weapon designed to fire massive bullets at hypersonic speeds. But a separate breakthrough in electrical pulse generation — capacitors that provide a bigger jolt in a smaller package — that may reshape the future of naval power.

The railgun’s electromagnets are designed to accelerate a Hyper Velocity Projectile from zero to some 8,600 kmph, about Mach 7. That velocity requires a lot of power. In early testing, the Office of Naval Research had relied on banks of commercial capacitors to pulse electricity to the gun. But they were “not suitable for integration aboard a ship” — too large to fit aboard Zumwalt-class destroyers, as Thomas Beutner, head of ONR’s Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department, explained during a July event in Washington.

So ONR researchers developed their own capacitors, more compact yet capable of supplying 20 megajoules per shot, with a goal of 32 megajoules by next year. ONR said you can think of a megajoule as about the same, energy-wise, as a one-ton vehicle moving at 160 mph. These new capacitors “represent a new generation of pulse power, with an energy density of over a megajoule per cubic meter,” said Beutner. The capacitors, which store energy, are also able to recharge quickly enough in order to fire ten times in a per minute.

The entire point of the railgun is that it’s supposed to use the ship’s power, rather than rely on volatile fuel or gunpowder. But relying on ship power for a cannon that shoots Volkswagens can create huge fluctuations and power spikes. And the Navy wants future ships to power a lot of other things in addition to railguns, such as 150-kilowatt dronekilling lasers and powerful radar and electronic warfare systems. All of these pose “unique burdens on the power system,” Beutner said.

http://www.defenseone.com/technolog...change-energy-storage/139953/?oref=d-topstory

 

[ctg]

The Department of Defense is investing $17 million in directed energy laser weapons, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., announced at the Boeing facility in Albuquerque, N.M., on Wednesday.

"With our state's unique expertise in directed energy work, this funding will jump start the deployment of this critical technology and bring more high-paying jobs to the state," said Heinrich, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"This is an area where New Mexico can make yet another significant contribution to our nation's defense -- and in the process, we can see millions of dollars of investment and many new jobs in our state."

Boeing conducts laser research at its Albuquerque facility and with the Air Force's Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M. The University of New Mexico's engineering school will also play a role in the program.

Heinrich is the founder of the Congressional Directed Energy Caucus which supports greater development and deployment of smaller, more economical lasers and high-energy microwave systems for the military.

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/DOD_to_invest_17M_on_laser_weapons_research_in_New_Mexico_999.html

 

[ctg]

Argentina reportedly wants to buy the US Navy’s laser death ray testbed warship, the fearsomely named USS Ponce.

According to the Mail on Sunday, the Argentinians are interested in buying the 46-year-old former landing platform (dock) from the American Navy when she is decommissioned next year.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/09/04/argentina_eyes_up_laser_cannon_warship/

 

[ctg]

The U.S. military has been working to develop laser weapons. With Lockheed Martin’s latest Advanced Test High Energy Asset, or ATHENA, weapon, the capability could come sooner rather than later.

The world’s largest defense company recently tested the prototype laser system, which brought down five Outlaw drones at the Army’s White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, it said in a release Wednesday. The drones have a wingspan of 10.8 feet.

In a series of videos, the Outlaw unmanned aerial vehicles are seen going down one by one after the fiber laser, equipped with advanced beam control technology, fires at them.

https://www.defensetech.org/2017/09/21/lockheeds-athena-laser-brings-drones/

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The head of Air Force Special Operations Command said the service plans to test an experimental type of laser destined for a gunship next year.

“I remain an enthusiastic supporter of doing this demo,” Lt. Gen. Marshall “Brad” Webb, head of Air Force Special Operations Command, said Tuesday during a briefing with reporters at the Air Force Association’s annual conference outside Washington, D.C.

“If you put out a questionnaire to those scientists involved in lasers, you find about half and half — half of them are skeptics, the other half are zealots,” he said.

“So I think it’s well worth what the Air Force and SOCOM plan to get to — can we take the laser technology in its current state — fiber, solid state — and shoot from air to ground? Can we control the beam, and can we overcome the aerodynamic, aeromechanical jitter etc.?” he added. “I am very enthusiastic about that.”

https://www.defensetech.org/2017/09/20/air-force-test-gunship-laser-next-year/

 

[ctg]

A key benefit of the Dragonfire LDEW technology is that the base system is highly adaptable and its effects are scaleable. As such it offers a range of different engagement solutions depending on the tactical scenario, these include tracking, deterring, dazzling the sensors of a potential threat, up to damaging or destroying it.

The laser developed by QinetiQ employs a scalable, coherent beam combining technology to create laser source with a power level of ‘several tens of kilowatts’. The system will be scalable to higher power levels, as required. The coherently combined fibre laser technology developed by QinetiQ associates phase control system that provides a high precision laser source that can be effectively directed at dynamic targets and achieve high power density on target in the presence of turbulence. Beam combining is a technology that is able to achieve enhanced power densities at target, reducing defeat times and increasing engagement range. Therefore, although the system is not of a ‘100 kW’, power level which is considered for weapon grade lasers, the Dragonfire beam director designed by Leonardo optimises the laser beam to optimize to atmospheric conditions that otherwise would dissipate much of the energy.

http://defense-update.com/20170912_ldew.html

 

[TBman]

Näiden laitteiden tarvitsemaan energiatarpeeseen on muuten valmistautuminen ollut jo kauan tuolla eri paikoissa, joissa olen puuhannut... käsittämättömän järeitä energiansyöttövalmiuksia ja kaapelointeja jo paikallaan mitä moninaisimmissa kohteissa. Onko Suomessa varauduttu vaikkapa tukikohdissa tällaisen kalustuksen aiheuttamiin tarpeisiin, vai on se normaalimeininki, että kun saadaan jotain hankittua, niin "housut kintuissa" tehdään energiakanavia ja -kaivoja ja papanaharkolla seinät "valetaan" kun ei maksa paljoota... ????