Tactical High-Energy Laser

In a first-of-its-kind feat, the Army used a high-energy laser built by TRW Inc. to heat the shell, fired from a howitzer at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, and cause it to explode in flight. The test was successfully repeated a second time.

The shell, moving at about 1,000 miles per hour, was tracked by radar and heat-sensing infrared sensors, then locked onto and zapped by the laser beam travelling at light speed.

The so-called Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser is a short-range weapon being co-developed with Israel, which wants it to destroy Katyusha rockets fired at its border villages by Hezbollah guerillas in Lebanon.

The chemically powered weapon, which looks like a searchlight, is one of a handful of laser devices the Pentagon is working on under the umbrella of missile defense.

In earlier tests, the Army used the tactical laser to shoot down 25 Katyushas, both singly and in salvos. Artillery shells, however, generate far less heat than do rockets and are more difficult to track, officials said. Also, since rockets are pressurized, they are easier to detonate than are shells.




Has anyone ever heard of this?? i saw this about a year or so ago.

I think they have kind of given up on that one, more or less.....the Airborne Laser is still in development, though, and uses pretty much the same kind of chemical laser. The current trend is in developing solid-state lasers as weapons, though the power levels just aren't anywhere close to the power of chemical lasers.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/solid-state-las.html

yeah the Airborne laser should be done in 2009. I've got some cool pictures of the thing at work (I work for a big aerospace company). It uses a laser in the kilowatt range to illuminate the target, and the chemical oxygen iodine laser (somewhere in the megawatt range of power) destroys the target. Really cool stuff!!!

Once again, I remember seeing this on future weapons here >http://youtube.com/watch?v=6w-ql8msl0U&feature=related

or this > http://youtube.com/watch?v=nVxZ9IHTH2E

--hydro15

just a quick pic

spray on defense:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/spray-on-laser.html

another weapon, possibly same one:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/04/plasma_pulse_la.html

The airborne laser is here. No need to wait till 2009. I work for an aerospace company. Wed have installed 4 systems on coprprate jets. The system incorporates a class 4 laser and direction sensors. It fires and infrared coded pulse that disrupts an incoming missles nav system. Pretty cool to see under test.

GooeyGus said:

yeah the Airborne laser should be done in 2009. I've got some cool pictures of the thing at work (I work for a big aerospace company). It uses a laser in the kilowatt range to illuminate the target, and the chemical oxygen iodine laser (somewhere in the megawatt range of power) destroys the target. Really cool stuff!!!

Click to expand...

Tell my you're not at Lockheed Martin.

What kind of laser are this weapon?
I'm so curiously to know the output power...
This thing of the "direct energy weapons" is very interesting, but is also very terrible, I like the weapons for collect they and for know its operating mode, but I hate the war too much


Gregorio

sportcoupe said:

The airborne laser is here. No need to wait till 2009. I work for an aerospace company. Wed have installed 4 systems on coprprate jets. The system incorporates a class 4 laser and direction sensors. It fires and infrared coded pulse that disrupts an incoming missles nav system. Pretty cool to see under test.

Click to expand...

The laser he was referring to was a weapon system capable of killing a man from 50k meters.

I know this thread is sorta old, but has anyone looked into the newer weapon called "MEDUSA" its really freakin cool. All I know is the US has been working on weaponized lasers for quite some time... I saw a declassified video of a laser that looks much like THEL except the video had to have been from the 70's....and the laser shot down an RC aircraft from some distance away.

Some days later this was presented:
http : //www . theregister.co.uk/2008/11/14/ weaponised_rayguns_hit_shelves_in_time_for_xmas/
you have to remove the spaces

GooeyGus said:

yeah the Airborne laser should be done in 2009. I've got some cool pictures of the thing at work (I work for a big aerospace company). It uses a laser in the kilowatt range to illuminate the target, and the chemical oxygen iodine laser (somewhere in the megawatt range of power) destroys the target. Really cool stuff!!!

Click to expand...

supposedly though...for the operation of the laser noxious chemicals are used that could create a hazard should the "kill vehicle" become a target and destroyed over US soil...I'm not sure where I heard this from but it may be a possibility :-?