Possible reason the A-10 is being dropped

It's also extremely low-cost to build and operate. Aha, perhaps that's why the arms dealers want it gone and are convincing the Brass to dump it...

Reply to
Larry Jaques
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The lasers Martin is talking about were the chemical lasers that were pumped with a chemical reaction, and that could put out a continuous 1 MW beam. They've been abandoned as weapons for several reasons. They just aren't practical.

The laser types being developed now are solid-state, mostly diode-pumped fiber lasers developed from industrial cutting and welding lasers.

There are other types of lasers under development that hold promise for weapons. Right now, in industry, we're all waiting for high-power direct-diode lasers. There are some prototypes working now. They could make extremely compact weapons.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

They're dumping it because an illiterate, barefoot gook with a three-generations-old, black-market Russian MANPADS can knock them out of the sky like flies with a flyswatter.

Otherwise, they're great.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

[snip]

Probably depends on where the penetrator hit - the magazine is somewhat separate, and unarmed artillery shells are not fragile.

The kinetic energy of a kilogram of metal moving at 2,000 meters per second (Mach 6 or 7) is considerable: 2 megajoules. This is a meteor strike.

At the force levels of such impacts, there are *no* solids, and only density matters. And speed of course. Think of it like drilling dirt with a water hose.

The simulation software used to predict effects are called hydrocodes, as in fluid dynamics.

And don't forget the steel fragments from where the penetrator barged through four to six inches of armor steel. This inside will look like it was sand blasted. The crew never knew.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

Yes, but megawatts are really not enough - everything is too critical to carry off under battlefield conditions. Needs to be tens of megawatts, and a hundred would make this a duck shoot against all but reentry vehicles (which will spin and have mirror finishes by then).

These issues and stories come up in Aviation Week from time to time.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

Well, how much you need is a matter of what you're trying to do. Right now, fiber laser bundles putting out on the order of 30 kW are able to shoot down drones and disable speedboats. They apparently can shoot down small rockets, like the ones Hamas and Hezbollah shoot at Israel. The Israelis want a bunch of them, fast.

At 100 kW, you have a pretty useful battlefield weapon. They'll have that soon. At 1 MW, you're able to burn through some armor.

For the shorter ranges they're working with now, it's more a matter of focus (BPP, if you're into lasers) and tracking. The beam(s) is focused with lenses; it doesn't depend on the parallel beams themselves. The tracking must be absolutely amazing to place a steady laser spot on a flying drone for a few seconds and shoot it down, but that's what the shipboard systems can already do.

Star Wars is still a ways off.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

And they will work for a while, and are perfect for defeating a swarm attack.

But a lightweight water-cooled shield will defeat a 30 KW laser, so long as the sea doesn't run out of water.

Yep. The problem here is the distance and the unsteady atmosphere.

And no worries about unsteady atmosphere.

Yes tracking is key, but so are active optics, to maintain a bright focal spot despite blooming due to the beam itself.

Yes, but we will get there, one new capability at a time, as the art progresses.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

Guess you wanted nerve gas loads inside and if the boom wasn't enough then the marketing group got to clean up the bomb zone...

Targets normally don't have much boom unless they are looking for a show.

They are old versions that have fuel to put them there unless a crane lift didn't.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

I'm talking about an ICBM or MRV coming in at high speed and you shoot it with a BB, the BB dents the skin which then causes friction and burning and you know the rest. Think of the Shuttle. Something out of place or moving into the airflow burns and causes massive disruption and explosions as it cascades into death.

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

Can you imagine the barrel of a tank cannon heated up in a spot - I think it just might 'backfire'...

Mart> >

Reply to
Martin Eastburn

Yes, probably.

Indeed!

That's very telling, isn't it?

The pureed crew?

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Exactly. Red mist. Cooked.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joe Gwinn

I did, right after watching the movie "The Jackal". That was a meanass little remote controlled toy, wot? The look on Jack Black's face...

Reply to
Larry Jaques

Again, that's because since the Spanish American war and the time of Nicola Tesla the US military has financially focused in on metal and chemical fas hioning side of the military (that benefitted fossil fuel concerns) and rel atively nothing went toward military electrophysics or electromagnetic rese arch and production.

Reply to
mogulah

You seem to have a belief that the military could create magic if they just knew what technologies would be available 50 years in advance.

As for long-range Star Wars lasers to knock out ICBMs, what do you do if it rains?

Reply to
Ed Huntress

Again, that's because since the Spanish American war and the time of Nicola Tesla the US military has financially focused in on metal and chemical fashioning side of the military (that benefitted fossil fuel concerns) and relatively nothing went toward military electrophysics or electromagnetic research and production.

============

How can you use a computer yet be so ignorant? Have you heard of Radar, a highly theory-dependent military invention of the mid 30's? We tested torpedos that sensed the target ship's magnetic field in

1928.

The Navy developed the electromechanical drive used in modern hybrid cars a century ago for battleships and submarines.

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Cell phone technology arose from military research during WW2, as did computers themselves.

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The DEW Line early warning radar project of the 50's forced us to learn how to network computers automatically. Mitre, the think tank where I worked, was formed to help integrate IBM's computer expertise with Raytheon's radar knowledge. No single existing company possessed the combined skills the project demanded.

I used and maintained an Army-Air Force ancestor of the Internet in the early 70's.

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Can you understand this description of WW2 tech? That principle of rectangular polar conversion is basic to advanced electronics. Sin^2(X) + Cos^2(X) = 1

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-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

When I was closely involved with that stuff, before the push toward COTS, military electronics were about 20 years ahead of civilian use.

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Remember the comment that the missing Malaysian airliner could have been tracked if it carried the right technology? I built prototypes of it in ~1995.

-jsw

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

DARPA has pushed laser technology for decades. As I mentioned, the man who helped me built a ruby-rod laser in 1965, Dr. Herb Elion, was doing advanced laser research for the Navy then.

When they dropped the chemical lasers for impracticality, diode lasers were already making progress in industry. So a lot of research tagged along with that. Those are the weapons we have today. The realm that further advances in laser weapons are in consists largely of problems with maintaining beam integrity. The government has thrown a lot of money into university research that's been working on that. It's very complex.

Laser technology has been pushed so hard, from so many angles, for so long, that it seems doubtful that it could have moved much faster, no matter how much military-industrial-complex money was thrown at it.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

In the mid 60's a military contractor beamed a ruby laser between their NH facilities 15 miles apart. While they were setting up the beam hit the ground, causing a woman to fall into a fit of religious ecstasy from seeing the Burning Bush.

I spent three college summers working on government research grants.

Reply to
Jim Wilkins

Nicola Tesla was actually the initiator of what could have been Star Wars tech way back when. Ever hear of Tunguska?

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Reply to
Larry Jaques

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