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Boeing Airborne Laser






I have my doubts about the '100s of miles' claim really. If it were effective over such distances, why not just put it on the ground? If the purpose is to be able to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles, a few of these placed along the coastline would offer just as much protection. Since weight isnt a problem anymore, they could be built more powerful and with even better optical systems as well.

Even if the horizon would be a problem for low-flying missiles, just putting the end part of the optics on a rather large tower (say 100-200m or so) would give very decent range at much lower cost.
 
The '100s of miles' would only work at high altitudes, where the air is thin and clean, that's why you can't put it on the ground.

As for the 'rogue nuke': no-one would fire that in a missile at the US. You'd just ship it in in a standard cargo container.

This ABL is just another high-priced toy for the military (with generous spinoffs to lobbyists and sympathetic congressmen, of course).
 
I feel the same way about the container. Not that a nuclear weapon would be very effective when set off on the ground, it'll still achieve the terrorists goal of instilling great fear, and there would still be the fall out to deal with.

A ground based system would be effective though, unless its cloudy and the incoming vessel is above the clouds. This depends on the wavelength used though.

But even if could cover is a problem, great ranges can be achieved to hit anything that dives below the cloud deck. Cloudy conditions below 1000 ft or so are not that common, and a 1000 feet is still a horizon of 60 km to a target on the ground, or 120 km to a target also at 1000 feet altitude.
 
The reason they wanted it on a plane was so they can intercept the missile right after it is launched(boost phase). This is when the missile is most vulnerable. They probably couldn't blow them up while they're on their way down. The MTHEL millitary laser can blow up smaller stuff from the ground though. It is on a flatbed trailer.

YouTube - MTHEL THEL Mobile / Tactical High Energy Laser
 
As far as rogue nukes are concerned, I was thinking of the possibility of a nuke missile launched from North Korea towards Japan or Hawaii. But terrorists would probably only have access to deadly missiles in James Bond movies.
 
^ No, terrorist groups with enough intelligence (also if put together "intelligence" and "terrorism" give a nonsense phrase :p) and money enough, can actually get access to deadly missiles without too much problems ..... only, when you pay like 1,5 millions dollars for a 10 kilotons warhead missile, then you don't use it just for show your power, you probably keep it for a target that worth the expense, right ? :p
 
Schrecken_Licht said:
Check out this article with a cool pic I just found (of course it's only a red test beam and not the actual IR beam, but it still looks neat) of the ABL's optics:
Airborne Laser sticks to test regimen | Cutting Edge - CNET News

I wonder what's the power of that red laser? Either it's a long exposure or that's pretty powerful in itself!
Click to expand...


I bet its a high power Kr laser. Theres no way they would allow fog or anything like that in the clean optics room to make the beam more visible, and the exposure doens't look super long on the picture. Maybe a few watts of Kr red :evil:
 
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