GoRdOn_B
0
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2008
- Messages
- 634
- Points
- 28
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.
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.