Truck-Mounted Laser Guns

bl8n8r writes "Boeing has announced a contract with the US Army to develop laser cannons that are to be mounted atop 20-ton trucks for the purpose of shooting down incoming artillery, rockets, mortars, or bombs. The High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator project actually shoots stuff instead of just painting a mark on a target for other armament to hit."

Might work in pure mountain air

[EmbeddedJanitor]

surrounding Seattle, but I think you're right. I would not want to fire one of these in the dust and smoke of a typical battlefield. That energy will just get dissipated locally which can't be a GoodThing.

How do clouds and smoke change this?

[davidwr]

If there are a few hundred feet of dense clouds and smoke between you and the target, is the laser effective?

I guess the only consolation is that the enemy will have a harder time seeing you with all the clouds and smoke.

YouTube video of prototype

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is a youtube link of a prototype system. It can track and destroy more than one target in flight before impact. I know there is a longer version of this video, but I found this one first, you'll get the idea. The longer one shows it engaging artillery shells, rockets, and mortar shells.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVxZ9IHTH2E [youtube.com]

Re:So will this be the demise of their ...

[Chris Burke]

Rail guns are what the navy is going to use to replace cruise missiles (which replaced heavy ship artillery). Lots of advantages there -- about the same range and precision and destructive power as a cruise missile, but at a fraction of the cost. Plus has a huge advantage over both cruise missiles and conventional artillery shells in that the ammunition won't explode if the ship gets hit -- though I imagine the gigantic capacitors needed to fire the gun may blow up if charged up and hit, though that'd only be one shot's worth of energy rather than the ships whole payload. Rail guns have a bright future, as long as they can figure out how to keep the gun from destroying itself every shot.

Lasers so far are mostly being considered for defensive roles to shoot missiles and artillery down. This is a good role for lasers, since first hitting the target at the speed of light is good when you're trying to hit a small fast moving target, and second because the energy needed to destroy a warhead isn't that large.

Two awesome future technologies, two roles. It's a good time to be a geek. :)

Re:MTHEL?

[BlueParrot]

Are you sure it isn't in fact a follow-up to the THEL ? Also, iirc the THEL used deuterium to power its pumping, which could make it rather expensive. The breakthrough will be when they manage to get solid state lasers ( like Neodynium-YAG ) working like this. I imagine the Israelis will be quite interested in buying a few such devices.

Re:They're getting smaller every day.

[timeOday]

I'm guess you're being sarcastic, but taking out incoming mortar, artillery, and rockets really would be a boon in most forseeable conflicts including Iraq. For instance [washingtonpost.com]: "BAGHDAD, July 10 -- More than two dozen mortar shells pounded the Green Zone on Tuesday, killing three people, including a U.S. military member, and injuring 18, among them five Americans, U.S. officials said."

Re:MTHEL?

[ireallylovelinux]

This was from the youtube video posted later on.
THEL (Tactical High Energy Laser)
For years, chemical-powered lasers were seen as the only viable alternative for weapons-strength ray guns. The most promising of those systems, the Tactical High Energy Laser, successfully shot down dozens of rockets and mortars. (this video shows it in action.) But generating the THEL's megawatts of laser power required hundreds of gallons of toxic chemicals -- ethylene, nitrogen trifluoride. The weapons grew bulky (the small-scale version was only supposed to be kept in a mere right cargo containers, each 40 feet long). Worse, after a few shots, the lasers would have to be resupplied with a fresh batch of reactants. The logistics of hauling those toxins either through the air or across a battlefield made generals shiver. So, ultimately, interest swung back to solid state systems, like Yamamoto's, and, to a lesser extent, free electron lasers.

When can I get some of this tech?

[kabocox]

Forget freaking sharks. I want something like this scaled down on top of my car aimed at birds that dare to poop at my car. I want anti-bird defensives that will fry 'em if they dare to do a fly by near my car.

MTHEL works, but is too bulky

[Animats]

First, if you don't know about THEL, see this video. [google.com] Beam weapons aren't a joke any more.

Mobile THEL was a repackaging of the original fixed THEL system into three semitrailers. It's too bulky to deploy and too vulnerable on the ground. This thing is meant to defend against short-ranged mortars, rockets, and artillery. So it has to be sited up near the sharp end. Something more rugged and more mobile is needed.

Now that everyone has seen THEL shooting down rockets, artillery projectiles, and mortar rounds, the name of the game is making it small enough to be useful. This new project is to get something onto a single large truck that will do the job.

Re:Dude...

[jswigart]

As I recall the Geneva Convention is a promise that your country will not engage in certain things, period, and isn't conditional on whether the other side also does. Am I wrong?

Whether that's 'fair' or not is another issue altogether. Personally I think as the 'better man' as a country we should stick to those rules on principle. It's unfortunate that the scum on the other side exploit our general unwillingness to break the rules.

Can't I just make shiny bombs?

[Joce640k]

What happens when a laser hits something really shiny? Does it bounce off and heat up something else?

Is this a case of billions of investment being defeated by a rag and a can of polish?

Re:Dude...

[howlingmadhowie]

a propos being zapped in the face by cheney: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggecq52sbR0 [youtube.com] (in case you don't already know it)

Actually...

[Anonymous Coward]

That'd be fine, because you'd be using the weapons to kill. They're fine with that. The problem would be using the lasers to *blind* those people. That's a violation.

Countermeasures:

[jafac]

Pack a load of 10 shells, 9 chaff, 1 HE.

First one is intercepted halfway to the laser truck, explodes, deploys chaff on detonation.
Second one is intercepted halfway between previous interception, and laser truck, because truck's radar was impaired by chaff, second one explodes, deploys chaff on detonation, closer to truck.

Lather, rinse, repeat, until the radar's range is too short to give the computer enough time to find an intercept solution.

Cost to attacker: 9, $500 chaff shells, + 1 $2000 HE shell.
Cost to defender: $50 Million laser + whatever else the attacker decides to shell with impunity next.

Re:I'm so proud

[R3d M3rcury]

...before or after it manages to hit the ground?

That's the tricky part. You have limited time in which to do this. Also, while I'm not an expert in this stuff, I assume that if you have the mortar spinning, it would be difficult to heat one point to cause a failure.

Once again, I'm not an expert on this stuff and I may be wrong. That said, here's my strategy for defeating one of these: Fire a group of spinning and reflective mortars followed closely by a larger group of "regular" mortars. At worst, the laser will spend more time destroying the reflective mortars and allow the regular mortars to get through. Firing the reflective and "regular" mortars from opposite sides of the compass might also be useful.

The unknowns would be how effective spinning and reflective painting would be against this laser and how many mortars would you have to fire to overwhelm the system. Also, to solve this problem you just deploy more of the trucks. After all, we have unlimited tax dollars here in the US to spend on such things...

a flaw in your plan...

[tjstork]

If the chemicals needed to shoot down your mortars are significantly lighter than the mortars you fire, advantage goes to the guy with the laser. See, war at this scale is all about who can transport the most stuff to the front first. If you have to bring a truckload of mortars to take out one laser truck, all those things that the laser truck "protects" are going to get you.

As it is, this is a great weapon that can be used to suppress insurgencies. Insurgents have the element of surprise, but they generally have shitty transport capabilities and have to haul things up for an attack up very slowly. Like, a guy smuggles in a rocket launcher on a donkey. If you take away the likelihood of success of an occasional rocket attack, you've just defeated, militarily, a huge portion of insurgent strategy.

This makes it far, far easier to impose democracy on new nations, and increases the likelihood that future Iraqs can succeed and much more easily. If we can get something to detect IEDs, we would be golden.

Re:a flaw in your plan...

[quanticle]

Insurgents have the element of surprise, but they generally have shitty transport capabilities and have to haul things up for an attack up very slowly.

Well, it depends on what the insurgents are hauling. Sure, for heavy weapons (like artillery and armor), insurgent transport capabilities are pretty crappy. But for small arms and explosives, insurgent transport networks, combined with good caching strategies (like the tunnel-depots in Vietnam) can provide a very robust and reliable supply chain.

Given that most US casualties these days come from IEDs and small arms (e.g. snipers), one has to wonder how useful this will be in an insurgency. Sure the insurgents do use mortars. However, insurgent mortars generally aren't very accurate and can only really target fixed positions (like US bases), which are hardened against such attack anyway. The real damage from mortar attacks comes from attacks against civilian targets, which fosters sectarian violence and worsens civil strife.

So where do you plug them in?

[gevantry]

Oh. They'll run off batteries. I wonder what the power requirements will be, how many shots per charge, and recharge time?

Actually, this could be a boon for developing better batteries, the kind that can be used for electric cars. And, lest we forget, practical hydrogen fuel cells that can keep those batteries charged if not produce enough power to eliminate the need for batteries in the first place.

The possibilities for spin-off tech may be more interesting than the laser cannons or rail guns.

Re:I'm so proud

[donaldm]

Having a laser that can "vaporise" or at least cause the target to breakup and explode is the stuff of science fiction. This is not to say it can't be done given enough money and research but this technology does not come cheap and then you have to ask "is this worth it"?

The are many solutions of hitting a speeding object some of them cheap and other prohibitively expensive and a "Star-Wars laser" is very much on the expensive side. A cheaper solution and one that has been tested with varying degrees of success is something like a a radar and laser detection and targeting system followed by a rapid firing weapon using conventional or non conventional explosive rounds.

One ruggedized weapon system that could work well with fast rapid deployment is some thing like a radar and laser detection and targeting system coupled with some thing like a "Metal-Storm" system http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_Storm [wikipedia.org]. This type of system could quite easily be built at a fraction of the cost of a laser weapon system and would be much more reliable. Of course if you really need to destroy an incoming projectile over a much longer distance (more than 20km) then a missile system like the "Patriot Missile System" is probably the best thing.

All weapon systems have strengths and weaknesses and in a war situation it is not necessarily the best or the most innovative technology that can win, although it does help. If you look at history this has proven true time and time again.

Re:How do clouds of popcorn change this?

[dave420]

That wasn't a satellite. It was a ship in low-earth orbit. They referenced it being launched from a B1. Though an un-manned satellite would make far more sense, I would have thought.

I watched the film last night, funnily enough :)