DCS 2018: Laser weapon ramp ‘inevitable and imperative

[steve001]

... the Department of Defense, being led by his former employer, the Missile Defense Agency. “They are developing a very high power laser, capable of being carried on a high-flying UAV, intended to target missiles during their boost phase,” he said

”This laser would deliver more than 500 kW and have a range of hundreds of miles. The first step in this endeavor will be a competition to develop a low power demonstration laser to explore beam control and tracking at altitude.”


DCS 2018: Laser weapon ramp ?inevitable and imperative?

 

[hakzaw1]

good share---+ REP

 

[CurtisOliver]

Hundreds of miles. Very good divergence then. Nice find. Thanks for sharing.

 

[paul1598419]

Yeah, the major problem is getting a focused beam that far away through air currents and other changes in the atmosphere that need to be compensated for. I don't know how practical such a weapon would be during a nuclear war. With thousands of incoming warheads all arriving at basically the same time.

 

[RedCowboy]

During the boost phase is a problem unless targeting submarine born missiles.

They need to send a pattern of 25 or so anti ICBM missiles up to meet the ICBM at it's arc, stop with the idea of 1 anti missile doing the job and send a spread not only increasing the width of the intercept but the depth, maybe 3 spreads of 15 missiles timed one behind the next, it's important enough, we just need to crank them out at a reasonable cost, now that AI is going into the delivery system it will be possible for swarms of intercept devices to work together without telemetry.

 

[steve001]

Some comments and question. I think I remember reading somewhere sometime ago air itself can be used to compensate for diffraction.
The divergence could be in microradians.
And not related to this proposed laser: how bright would 500Kw of 532 nm light appear?

 

[CurtisOliver]

:lasergun: <-- This bright?