
US military reveals laser can down drones, mortar rounds - bane
http://news.yahoo.com/us-military-reveals-laser-down-drones-mortars-225318179.html
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1053r
If this system is actually combat ready any time in the near future, it has
very large geopolitical consequences. The Korean peninsula has mutually
assured destruction (and thus stability) because the South could destroy the
North easily militarily (and with the help of the USA), but not before the
North shelled Seoul (the South's capital and largest city) to the ground with
artillery rounds.

Because Seoul is so close to the border, it has allowed the North to have a
standoff with the south without needing a nuclear deterrence. The North will
need to step up their second strike nuclear capabilities, or get strong
assurances from China that China will step in in case of invasion if this
defense system works and is deployed over Seoul.

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tocomment
Wouldn't it change all modern warfare? Aren't mortars a big part of all land
battles?

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runarb
This may be easily countered by making the mortar round rotate faster. At list
that has been the concern in the past. I guess that the laser has to heat the
mortal shell so it exploded in mid ear. If the shell rotate slow it may be
possible to heat a single area, but if it was to rotate fast you would need
much more energy.

Such a system will probably not help Seoul much in an all-out war. According
to this article [0][1] N.Korean may have as much as 13,000 artillery pieces
positioned along that border, capable of delivering 10,000 rounds a minute.
Any anti artillery system will be overwhelmed by thus numbers.

0:
[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/nor...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/north-
korea-and-flattening-seoul)

1:
[http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/weapons/...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/weapons/north-
korea-conflict-weapons-available)

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chris_mahan
Not if you have 10,000 anti-artillery 100KW laser on vehicles. Let's say each
one costs 1 million dollars, you would have to spend 10 billion dollars. Lets'
say your operating costs are 3 billion a year (2 man crew at total cost of
$100,000 each and another $100,000 for support, maintenance, and command, per
unit). Over ten years the system would then cost 40 billion dollars, ($10B
upfront + $3B/year x 10 years). This averages out to 4 billion a year. Per
wikipedia, there are 25 million people in Seoul metropolitan area. This turns
out to be $160/per person per year (or 43 cents per day per person).

You can bet the US government and the South Korean government are going to
look seriously at that option.

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chris_mahan
Let's say my numbers are off by a factor of ten, and each unit costs $10M, and
the support is $3M, and the total cost is $40B/year over 10 years: that's
still completely worth it, at $1600 per person per year, especially if Korea
pays $20B and the US pays the other $20B.

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ChuckMcM
I've been following the laser programs for a long time. It always seems they
and the rail gun projects are 'any time now' sorts of technologies when
presented by the contractor and 'maybe in a couple of decades' when talked
about by the generals.

But its very true that having a working 100kW laser would provide troops with
basic immunity from overhead threats, and smart projectiles would provide the
ability to engage enemies in bunkers, making pretty much every aspect of
'conventional' warfare moot. And making everyone who can afford it,
invulnerable to insurgent attack.

That leaves killing civilians as a proxy, which is the biggest irony of all
high tech weaponry, when people want to attack and can't hit the troops, there
are always the shopkeepers.

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3pt14159
Question about laser weapons: how do they handle heat shielded shells? For
example, I make a shell out of depleted uranium, then I coat it with a coating
of strong heat insulator, then I coat it with a very reflective surface, then
I "spin" it while I fire it. First the laser reflects, but even if enough
energy gets to the absorption layer, how does it penetrate through the
material? You would need gigawatts at the very least to have a physical force
(since light particles have such little mass). Is it because even thermally
resistive stuff burns at some temperature and the interface layer smokes off,
no matter how thermally insulative?

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XorNot
You don't file kinetic penetrator shells on parabolic trajectories since they
don't have explosive payloads. They're near-direct fire weapons.

Your problem is you've invested all this effort into making a heavy, heat-
proof shell, but how much explosive and how much range are you going to get
from such a thing?

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samstave
Could a laser system be effective against small arms/sniper fire?

I recall an article in wired from ~2005 which talked about a tracking system
that could track all bullets flying in the air over a vast area. Couple this
with a laser and could you shoot pistol/rifle/sniper fire out of the air?

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ChuckMcM
They have the tracking system, it's called ShotSpotter. There are domestic and
military versions.

As for defense, its all about heat over time. A 100kW delivered into a small,
say 10mm spot. Is very difficult to effectively reflect away, even if your
mirror reflects 99% of the light energy away you are still getting a kilowatt
of energy dumped into your reflector.

As for shooting bullets out of the sky, that might be a bit tougher. It works
for mortar shells because they have an explosive you can set off, but turning
a lead bullet travelling along into a blob of lead travelling along, not very
effective. However, there is a paper from the Army Ballistics Lab that
discusses reducing the effectiveness of bullets by putting divots into them.
Basically if you can deform a bullet in flight it will begin tumbling and
likely hit further from where it was aimed than it would have if it had not
become deformed.

Of course an unsophisticated adversary with RPGs isn't going to be buying
'laser proof' RPGs any time soon :-)

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JonSkeptic
>"The experimental weapon, dubbed the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator
(HEL MD)"

I gotta give it to them for their ability to name projects.

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gngeal
I'd go for Light Ordnance Rapid Deflection High Energy Laser Mobile
Demonstrator. Much scarier that way.

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ihsw
How about Directed Energy Advanced Technical High Barrier Equipped Affixed
Machine (DEATHBEAM).

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melvinram
I wonder why they didn't stick another L word at the end... like High Energy
Laser Light... to make it HELL MD. :)

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DigitalJack
Mobile activation demonstrator. HELL MAD

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taf2
budgetary reasons obviously... they couldn't afford the extra ink

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chaz
Original source:
[http://www.army.mil/article/116740/Army_vehicle_mounted_lase...](http://www.army.mil/article/116740/Army_vehicle_mounted_laser_successfully_demonstrated_against_multiple_targets/)

~~~
forgotAgain
_[http://www.army.mil/article/116740/Army_vehicle_mounted_lase...](http://www.army.mil/article/116740/Army_vehicle_mounted_laser_successfully_demonstrated_against_multiple_targets/)
_

The image on this link immediately conjures thoughts of unmanned warfare.

Also, if it can hit a mortar shell it should be at least the basis for
something effective against snipers and hand grenade throwers.

It's getting too easy to fall into the war as a video game trap.

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Symmetry
I'm surprised we aren't seeing these on ships, since those already have huge
amounts of electricity available to potentially power them and already have
point defense systems based on guns. Or maybe gun based systems work fine, but
can't be used on land since 20mm gunfire that goes up is going to come down
somewhere, and is much more likely to come down somewhere bad on land then on
sea.

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cobrausn
The US Navy is actually the one most interested in lasers, because the huge
power generation capability of ships lends itself to their use quite nicely.

EDIT:

[http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/08/17658147-navy-
unv...](http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/08/17658147-navy-unveils-
powerful-ship-mounted-laser-weapon)

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Havoc
Somewhat confused. I'm sure they demo'd shooting down mortars before.

This version does seem to be mobile though so perhaps thats the breakthrough.

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sp332
Yeah, I think mounting it on a truck is the new part.

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Inception
It's cool, I'll give them that....but is this really what the world needs?
It's too bad these minds couldn't have worked on something that could actually
benefit the Earth rather than something to destroy all who oppose the will of
the United States!

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XorNot
It's a defensive laser weapon. While all defenses generally act as force
multipliers in some capacity, it's a weapon which improves the ability of the
US to efficiently defend itself.

The US military has been able to _destroy_ all who oppose it since the 60s.
That's not the point here.

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Already__Taken
Great, americans who can pick on people now with even less fear of reprisal.
That'll help.

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Jtsummers
Or other nations (say China) develop these systems and deploy them throughout
their allied states. US air superiority is severely reduced.

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doliork
So what... apply a highly reflective coating to your drones/shells and that
thing is worthless.

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XorNot
Try firing a shell with a reflective coating that doesn't get dirty, or
outright destroyed, by the firing process.

One problem with lasers is that you have to keep their optics very clean
because dirt becomes a heat absorber, which then deforms the optics, which
then absorbs more heat...

You _might_ be able to make it work with a missile, but it wouldn't be easy,
and any such coating would require high technology to make and have to be
actively maintained - can't fire dirty rounds. So, beyond the capability of
militias, even if someone was supplying them with silvered rounds that worked.

And while you could definitely silver a drone, the problem is a drone isn't
ordnance - you can just keep lasing it all day long till something fails or
you hit a weak point (like the camera optics on the drone, which by definition
terminate on an absorptive surface).

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doliork
Bullets, shells sure, that might be a problem. But as for drones: If you know
there is such a laser defence system, dispatch one or two silver drones (which
maybe high in maintenance) destroy it. Then send the normal drones.

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XorNot
But again: it assumes you can build a drone which wouldn't be killed by the
laser system.

Even if you silver the drones, they're not going to reflect the laser back at
it - they'll just scatter it away. But a drone is a complicated surface -
you've got optics, flaps etc. on it. And a silvered drone would reflect the
sun incredibly brightly - it would be the easiest LADAR or just optics target
to find in the sky, which means you wouldn't need to hit it with radar and
reveal your position to shoot at it - and if the camera optics look at the
laser, they'll be destroyed instantly.

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snake_plissken
A little known irony (at least in my opinion): missile/projectile defense
systems like this can be destabilizing.

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gngeal
Downing mortars? How can you "down" something firmly standing on the ground?

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jug6ernaut
Mortar rounds...

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gngeal
Well, someone edit the title, then!

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monsterix
It's sounds pretty cutting edge but a video instead of a still (why calling it
a gallery?) would have been better.

Looking at these feats of technology and trends of early drones, lasers,
processing, robotics, motor-limbs, 3D printing and other aspects of machine
development it seems that the day is not far when the outreach of the
Government is gonna get completely beyond people's ability to contain it.

I can imagine things like people not being allowed to use naked eyes while
walking on the streets; force use of licensed Ocular Rifts to take a stroll
instead. Driving cars taken off the list, use self-driving ones etc.
Eventually shunt the squishy skin under a robot and rely only on the brain
part of the human to do the mundane stuff.

Doesn't look great to me, but ...

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rayiner
> Looking at these feats of technology with early drones, lasers, information
> mining, robotic motor-limbs, 3D printing and other trends of machine
> development it seems that a day is not far when outreach of the Government
> is completely beyond people to contain 'em.

I find this point of view somewhat perplexing. The history of the last 1500
years or so has been a continuous, if not perfect, arc towards better
societies. Technology reached the point long ago where it outstripped the
ability of the people to contain government in a pure firefight. North Korea's
government, for example, is managing to maintain total and absolute power
using essentially 1950s technology. If it weren't for the other countries
breathing down their necks, they could do it with WWI technology.

The basic problem at the root of most dystopian descriptions of the future is
that they assume that government actors are not subject to game-theoretic
considerations. If anything, technology makes the kind of governments
presented in Brave New World or 1984 even less feasible, because with as
destructive technology advances, it takes a much smaller faction of people
_within_ the government to topple the whole system.

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harryh
People are hardwired to think that doom awaits us all whether it's from
eternal damnation due to our sins against god, or due to totalitarian
governments building dystopic futures on the back of advanced technology.

It's basic Joseph Campbell. The story is always the same, just with some of
the words changed.

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monsterix
> People are hardwired to think that doom awaits us ...

I didn't say that _doom awaits us all_. But responses to my half complete
comment do say something about what is likely, or what average people are
afraid about. If we are to believe that we often meet our destiny on the road
taken to avoid it, these refutations are a sincere indicator of the potential
impact.

Let me come to what @rayiner said on the comment above yours.

From parent > If anything, technology makes the kind of governments presented
in Brave New World or 1984 even less feasible, because with as destructive
technology advances, it takes a much smaller fraction of people within the
government to topple the whole system.

Absolutely! Smaller fraction of people will have higher power to execute,
topple or rule. So it works both ways.

I do have some apprehensions about this new level of operation. New tech bases
itself on deep understanding and application of human psychology, magnifies
its wrath on the perpetrated empowers the perpetrator even more. But given any
tech product for every x% of legitimate and intended use, there is y% of
illegitimate and unintended use. For example, for each licensed gun that
protects somebody in the US, there are a few versions of that same innovation
that kill hundreds of people elsewhere.

I am not sure if y > x, but could be.

True that a gun is not responsible for the crime - it is the person vying to
kill who is - but the gun definitely is a quicker and surer "solution" for
people with that intent. It's harder to kill a man with a knife or bare hands,
so a killer would prefer a gun.

IMO, petty violence will find a new complex and probably dreadful micro form
with advent of weapons having more sci-fi. How this will impact Governments of
future, some with money and even more dreadful resources, some with lesser
money and more nastier leadership is yet to be seen.

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aubreyjohnson
Pew pew.

