posted
We already have fighters with lasers, except that they only target the eyes of other fighter pilots, and it's pretty easy to defend against if you know the wavelengths of the most likely types of lasers.
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posted
I dunno. A laser that can do that kind of damage needs a pretty hefty power supply. I could see one on a ship, or maybe on a B52, but not on a fighter.
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posted
Already in the works. The F-35, and maybe the F-22, I'm not sure about that one, was built specifically with a large powerplant to provide extra power in case they successfully shrank a laser so it would fit on a fighter.
They already have ABLs on 747s. Now they're close to shrinking it to the size of a fighter. Smaller laser, less power needed, plus big power plant equals fighter borne lasers. I'll see if I can find an article.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Wouldn't lasers be easy to defend against using a reflective chrome finish on the outside of the plane? Also, a partially mirrored surface on the cockpit glass would also probably make it less damaging.
Posts: 3354 | Registered: May 2005
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quote:Because the conventional (CTOL) and carrier-capable (CVTOL) designs have no need for vertical flight, the area behind the cockpit which normally houses the lift fan in the STOVL variant, is empty. This extra room has allowed engineers at Raytheon Electronic Systems to design a compact solid-state laser package that would fit in the empty bay. In addition, the engine-driven shaft, producing more than 27,000 shp, that would otherwise drive the vertical lift-fan can now be used to drive a generator. This gives the F-35 the ability to generate more than enough power to drive a laser, eliminating the need for heavy batteries and freeing the design from complex and unwieldy chemical lasers powered by toxic substances, such as that which will be used on the airborne laser (ABL) project. Additionally, a solid-state laser would prove less costly, more robust and more easily maintained in the field or onboard an aircraft carrier.
With an expected power output of 100 kilowatts, a laser mounted on the F-35 would have an effective range of between 6.5 and 10 miles. It would likely be mounted on a moveable turret, similar to those used by current forward looking infrared (FLIR) and other electro-optical devices for use onboard aircraft. Lasers would be used primarily against ground targets, particularly small, moving targets, used in place of precision-guided bombs or missiles. The turret would be mounted at the bottom of the lift-fan bay.
posted
Planes wouldn't be the primary target of the laser steven. Ground targets would be. Good luck chroming everything within sight that's on the ground.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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My father-in-law works at Raytheon, working on fighters and other military contracts. He's not allowed to talk about his work (he signs non-disclosure agreements and has a security clearance and everything.) Now I wonder if he figures out how to fit lasers on planes and supply them with power...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm not sure lasers on fighters makes a lot of sense.
Just curious but, why not?
KQ -
It's really more to do with designing the laser at this point. The F-35 already has the power source and the space for it. The challenge is to shrink it and make it go, basically, but at the output requirements (100KW) to make it a viable weapon.
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Cuz lasers that can shoot down missiles can FAR more easily shoot down human-piloted aircraft. Then the contest becomes a matter of who has the more powerful laser. And ground-based lasers can always be MUCH more powerful than any laser that can be carried by an aircraft. Voila, air-superiority fighters become obsolete.
Any aircraft fire-control system that can target ground objects can also be used as ground-based fire-control to target aircraft. So ground-attack fighters also become obsolete.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: I'm not sure lasers on fighters makes a lot of sense.
Just curious but, why not?
KQ -
It's really more to do with designing the laser at this point. The F-35 already has the power source and the space for it. The challenge is to shrink it and make it go, basically, but at the output requirements (100KW) to make it a viable weapon.
Oh, I know, but he did work on the F-35 at one point. And he's worked for Raytheon, gosh, since they bought out that department of TI (where he used to work.) I know he doesn't work directly with lasers, which is why I was saying that. It was kinda jokey. Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I might try that. But subtlety is far beyond my pregnant brain's reach right now. And by the time I recover, I'll probably forget to ask...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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Nope, ICBM's are hyper-expensive compared to bombs.
Single-shot breech-loading rifle companies were effective against mass attacks of Zulu armed with spear-swords. And as long as the US can continue to choose impoverished foes with primitive weaponry such as Iraq and Afghanistan...
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bombs and missiles can be pretty expensive themselves. Lasers, once installed, are free, and would perform much the same function as a bomb or guided missile like a maverick.
Either way I don't see your point. F-35s are stealthy, and if they ever got one in an F-22, uber stealthy. And like you say, when we're attacking a primitive (relatively) nation, what worry is there that they have a ground based laser with advanced detection equipment? Seems a strange assumption to make.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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We mustn't forget about our good friend Metal Storm *drool* (Google it if you've never seen it before, it's juicy)
As an offensive weapon, I think MS would easily trump a laser. Lasers seem to me to be very situational. Only REALLY useful in precision strikes. When you need to unleash hell though... nothing does the job like 1,000,000 rounds per minute.
Besides, if you're going to use a laser, why not do it from a satellite ala-Real Genius? Plenty of room in space for power supplies.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Through the chuffing great cables snaking out of the rear of the gun assembly...
How effective would this be tactically? Would it require specialised "rail gun ships" which were little more than floating power stations?
Fascinating none the less.
A quick question (prompted by laziness and a lack of time to do sums) - in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" they use rail guns as launchers for loads from the moon to earth. How much bigger would a gun of that sort have to be in order to fire a projectile into orbit from Earth - or are we talking unfeasable orders of magnitude?
Posts: 892 | Registered: Oct 2006
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That would be pretty tricky ballistics I think... Isn't angle of exit just as important as re-entry for items leaving the atmosphere? Wouldn't want stuff burning up.
Posts: 636 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Oh, I suspect that it would be pretty easy to use a rail gun to put a projectile into orbit. The problem is that any useful payload would be destroyed by the acceleration forces, both accelerating along the rail, and then decelerating as it tears through the atmosphere. It's not the same as reentry, because it would slam into a ground level atmosphere instead of gradually settling into increasing gas density.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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"Because the railgun uses electricity and not gunpowder to fire projectiles, it eliminates the possibility of explosions on ships."
Good point about questioning the power supply, Glenn Arnold. Some of the proposed space-based ABM lasers are supposed to be powered by small atom bombs. Which would kind of defeat the whole safety thing, wouldn't it?
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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About power supplies in space-- the trouble is not room, but weight. Increased weight *dramatically* increases the cost of putting something in orbit.
About powering the rail gun-- a ship's power plant (nuclear or not) is a pretty potent energy generator. Nuclear vessels (or "wessels" if you're a Russian from the future who doesn't realize how ironic it is to be asking after them in 1984 San Francisco) ought to have plenty.
Lastly, while the F-22 has stealh characterisitics, I wouldn't describe it as "uber-stealthy".
Edit: and a lunar payload launched from a rail gun would be in the atmosphere already... so it's not going to suddenly impact it like a re-entering craft does... and no I don't think angle of incidence departing the atmosphere matters nearly as much as entering.
one more edit: I want a rail gun like in Quake II. I loved that thing.
Posts: 3846 | Registered: Apr 2004
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quote:so it's not going to suddenly impact it like a re-entering craft does
It's going to impact it even more suddenly, at the instant it leaves the rail gun.
My question about the power supply is less how the energy is generated, but how it's released. 10 megajoules in a small fraction of a second is no mean feat. I'm thinking of how the fusion experiments pull so much energy in an instant that it would shut down the grid, so they use flywheel energy storage to accumulate power over long periods of time and then suddenly bring the flywheel to a stop when they bring the plasma up to temperature. That'd maybe be possible in an aircraft carrier, but they're talking about this thing replacing the 5 inch guns on a destroyer.
edit to add:
A friend of mine worked on rail guns in the 1980's, in Florida. At the time they used a warehouse full of car batteries to fire the gun, and when it went off, the sides of the warehouse (sheet metal) flexed inwards from the current flux. They were worried about destroying the building from metal fatigue.
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quote:Lastly, while the F-22 has stealh characterisitics, I wouldn't describe it as "uber-stealthy".
The F-117 has what I would call "stealth characteristics." The F-22 is on par with the B-2, from what information has actually been released on its RCI. It was built specifically to be that stealthy, taking into account heat signature, radar cross section, etc. Even the hinges on the weapons bay door and the cockpit are covered to reduce return.
The Navy experimenting with creating an ELINT version of the F-35 to replace the Hawkeye, and the F-22 is a lot more stealthy than the F-35. In wargames tests in Alaska, a squad of F-22s took out 104 "enemy" aircraft without ever even being fired upon.
Maybe we just have a difference in terminology, but I call it uber stealthy.
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When was the last time that US fighter jets actually had to fight (in combat) foreign fighter jets? I mean, I haven't heard anything about the terrorists owning any, and the last real war we've participated in was Vietnam... did air-to-air combat occur then, even?
I just haven't heard of any recent air-to-air combat going on these days. If someone has, please enlighten me.
Posts: 292 | Registered: Jun 2006
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There was air to air in the Persian Gulf war. A "Turkey Shoot" was the phrase they used, if I remember. I think they were trying to get the planes out of Iraq so they wouldn't be destroyed on the ground though, they weren't really trying to defend anything.
I don't remember any air to air in the current war, I think because the no fly zone was already in effect.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Yeah, I never quite understood why the US pours quite so much money into fancy toys and gizmos that fly or sail when they've never really had that much trouble there. The last few quagmires that the US has been in, the problems had more to do with the situation on the ground than in the air or the sea.
What we really need are Terminators and power suits Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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There was plenty of air-to-air in Viet Nam. The History channel has some tasty documentaries on them, complete with realistic CGI dogfights. Since then,..., hmmm, I'm drawing a blank, aside from the limited challenges in Gulf War I like Glenn mentioned. Lots of bombing, little to none air-to-air.
Posts: 6316 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Always have to be prepared for the next encounter. You never know who your next enemy will be.
Besides, without all the gizmos that sail and fly, all those little guys on the ground would never go anywhere.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Yeah, I never quite understood why the US pours quite so much money into fancy toys and gizmos that fly or sail when they've never really had that much trouble there.
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Always have to be prepared for the next encounter. You never know who your next enemy will be.
Yep. There are certainly other powers capable of fielding planes and ships that could give ours a run for their money. I don't think it's safe to assume that we won't find ourselves in conflict with these powers in the future.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Always have to be prepared for the next encounter. You never know who your next enemy will be.
Yep. There are certainly other powers capable of fielding planes and ships that could give ours a run for their money. I don't think it's safe to assume that we won't find ourselves in conflict with these powers in the future.
Personally, I'm rooting for the Betazoids.
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
All the reason they should have dominated the galaxy. I mean, really, they're the ultimate super-weapon and, apparently, they just sit around and feel things and have annoying mothers. What the crap? Where's the ambition?
Posts: 4753 | Registered: May 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ketchupqueen: I might try that. But subtlety is far beyond my pregnant brain's reach right now. And by the time I recover, I'll probably forget to ask...
Forgive me for my ignorance... but I feel like you've been pregnant since 2005... I must have missed an interum between two little ones?
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