Hefty 'battle strength' electro-laser breaks 100kW barrier US arms globocorp Northrop Grumman have claimed a significant raygun first - producing a 100+ kilowatt laser beam using electrically powered equipment. Blaster rays of this intensity formerly required the use of troublesome, toxic chemical fuels producing equally annoying wastes. The Northrop Grumman 100kW electric laser unit …
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I plain language that means they had to get all the bits off the lab bench and put it in a box, and then make it work like it did in the perfect conditions of the lab.
I picture a mad scientist type waving his hands at the suited guys in dark glasses saying something like "yes, yes, take it away, the plans are over there, just leave me alone", while he wrings his hands and mutters "i have something much better in mind now that I know this works"
Mines the one with the sleeves that fasten in the back..
Unless you're going to mount it in a Mark V Ogre, this is too big, too heavy, too hot and too energy hungry for a mobile land platform.
Instead mount it in the Navy's DD(X) and trade the effective long range firepower of those big guns for a flashlight that will slowly annoy the enemy to death.
While this silver elephant is too big, cumbersome and (as mentioned) probably too fragile to hitch up to your humvee and bump down a dirt track, it *would* be practical to put something this big on a warship. All you need then is a seabourne adversary who's willing to accommodate your latest piece of techno-porn by sending over a number, not more than the number of lasers your boat has, of missiles, bombs, planes etc. simultaneously.
Plus, of course, if they send over a submarine you're still screwed.
Portable. The concept is relative, as anyone who carried a "portable PC" in the 1980's knows. In any case, 1.5 tonnes is far better than the 20-tonne COIL chemo-beamer. If there is a linear relationship between weight and power, an electrical 1MW laser should weigh about 15 tonnes. That should adequate to toast friendly forces in short order.
You'll kill like you've never killed before. Northrop. Beaming with pride.
Just think about the possibilities! Forget mortar protection, you can FRY whatever is in range, cut through hordes of humans, slice through armour like butter... tanks, battleships... it's a big bad can opener of pure light. Too bad that there is next to nobody left with significant numbers of actual tanks and battleships to use this against. So mortars it ill be.
The unit is more portable than you think.
500KW is easy to produce with roughly a 700hp gas turbine.. about 2 feet long, 1.5 feet diameter (0.6m x 0.3m). The generator portion is going to be the heavy portion, probably 3 feet long by 2 foot depending upon phase/voltage req as well as req on frequency stability. Can try air core instead of iron for weight and size savings.. but some loss in efficiency.
1.5tons, 3000 lbs or 1364kg is not too hard either. Only problem I see is potentially the size(footprint), aiming mechanism and how fast the power needs to ramp up when firing.
There are several helicopters that can carry 3000lbs/1364kg... not to mention planes. Much smaller footprint than a Boeing 747..
BTW - blackhawk UH-60As have empty weight 4819kg, max takeoff at 9185kg.. Usable combat lift is about 3000kg+/- or 6,600lbs.+/-
--- anonymous because I see black helicopters..
Keep in mind that today's M1 battle tanks weigh in at about 62 tons. And they go reallly fast (best off-road vehicle that I know). Now the kit (generator, etc) could be mounted in a supplementary vehicle, but it's kind of like an artillery or even a machine gun crew (some coordination required).
Not a flame, but simply the fires of war.
As you stack the amplifiers you eventually get to the point that the beam will break the amplifying medium due to its intensity (I have seen cracked crystals, not a cheap thing to do). So you need a larger beam, which makes building the amplifiers more difficult. You also get similar problems if your beam isn't good quality as you get hot spots which can break the amplifier.
There is the same problem with the optics, but that is easier as you don't need to make the electrical connections to them.
Surely this would be good for a warship? You could put several off them on a ship, and power them from a nuclear reactor? Dunno what you would use it for once you had it on there though, perhaps a spot of 21st Century Dynamite fishing? Or burning cooking greenpeace protesters as if they were ants.
@reflexion
one reason come to mind for the mirror issue:
sand blasted mirrors, if they arent fortified (and they would be) then they'd last all of one night in arab-ia. if they *are* fortified, then the coverings would have to be replaced ridiculously regularly, and all you'd need is one lucky shot to waste the whole array. Non calibrated thermal lasers is not something you want in an army base.
@ Lockheed
I think we're looking more in the territory of Shadowcats :D
As any fule kno, lasers are not the weapon of choice for our future exoskeleton-enabled death-dispensing overlords. What they need are plasma beams, disruptor arrays or even photon torpedoes.
Rest assured my fellow meatsack underlings, we are safe for the time being.
To welcome putting it in geostationary orbit with some nice big solar panels.
Global warming and peaky oil problems solved. Lots of lovely leccy for desalination plants needed to feed the plants to feed the animals to feed the world. And also bankers and other crims could be dealt with with no mess by pushing them into the beam. Almost Utopia.
I can hardly wait.
1.5 tonnes is equal to 1500 kg., or about 3307 lb. That's just shy of 1.5 tons, which is probably why "tonne" is used as an alias for a megagram: because 2205 lb. (= 1000 kg.) is close enough to 2240 lb. (= 1 ton) that it doesn't make much difference -- and anyone who's still weighing stuff in pounds doesn't care about accuracy anyway.
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