100KW Free Electron laser...

[Schrecken_Licht]

I'm sure this has been posted on around here before in the past, but this particular link has some interesting information on wavelength and other peramaters:
Boeing Completes Preliminary Design of 100 Kilowatt Free Electron Laser Weapon System and Eventually Megawatt Class Lasers
Another article on the same thing:
Boeing Completes Design of Shipboard Superlaser | Danger Room | Wired.com

 

[zxcvbnm44]

Very cool story bro. The navy is always behind on the curve as far as tech goes, but when they actually put the metal to the grindwheel, s**t gets f****d apart!

Oh, and unless I am mistaken, this should be in the Science & Lasers forum.

 

[HaloBlu]

Thanks for the new link, very interesting watching this progress.

Oh, and unless I am mistaken, Schrecken_Licht is one of only a couple members who wouldn't be a "bro". :san:

 

[MickyP]

This technology is always truly fascinating.

I have my doubts though whether this system will be sufficient to knock out incoming missiles though, especially the ship mounted model.
Do some maths with me. Look at the in-service CIWS weapon system, the Phalanx.
This consists of the in-service M61 Vulcan 20mm Gatling cannon guided my automatic radar. The in-service ammunition for the Phalanx CIWS is called the PGU-28A/B 20mm round.
The muzzle velocity of this round is 1050m/s-1 and the projectile weight is 102.4g.
This means each direct hit on an incoming missile delivers 56.4Kj of kinetic energy per hit.
The Phalanx fires 3000-4500 rounds per minute. Potentially delivering 50 rounds onto target per second, potentially delivering 2820Kj of kinetic energy to the target per second, out-powering the 100kW laser by a factor of 20.

Also noted, when trials were conducted for the land based MTHEL that was designed by the Israelis to shoot down mortar shells, is that countermeasures are simply far too easy to implement.
To apply a high reflective coating to the missile / shell, or to utilize special reflective geometries in the design of such missiles / shells, or simply finely polish the original silver paint of the shell, reduced the effectiveness of the incoming laser energy to the extent that the laser failed to destroy the shell, and the shells were delivered to their intending targets. The countermeasures were far simpler and far cheaper than the MTHEL technology itself. To design expensive equipment that is susceptible to cheap countermeasures is NOT the way to win conflicts.

The only sure way to protect against such attacks is to use old school ballistic energy. Hit that incoming shit with walls of lead.
I hope most of what I just said makes some sense.