US Navy Successfully Tests Real Life Laser Gun

@John Lasers powerful enough to do what you want and small + light enough to be mounted on a tank, car, or carried by a man will probably never happen. Certainly not in our lifetimes.

Its not because they can't make the laser small or light enough. Its because the energy requirements are hideous and you'd need Star Trek-esque power storage tech to make it happen.

Already some laws regulating laser use. They're already treated as weapons and people have gotten serious jail time for pointing them at people's eyes.

@tts I don't know.

If you were born in 1900, human flight was something relegated for the birds, or for rather limited purposes. If you lived to 1970, you would have seen flight's influence on two world wars and carrying mankind to the surface of the moon and back.

Humanity is proving to have an intuitive and creative grasp of technology that might surpass our emotional and intellectual capability to handle it. I worry a little about it.

@John Its a fundamental physics and material science problem. Intellect is not the issue.

FWIW our best currently available power storage tech still can't match the energy density, cost efficiency, or weight of gasoline. The recharge durability isn't very good either. Even the stuff that probably won't be out for nearly a decade or so that uses graphene probably won't be good enough to match gasoline.

You'd need a power storage tech that would be able to put hundreds of megawatts in a very small space weighing only a few hundred to 1,000 pounds or so. And that is if you were sticking with a tank or truck mounted option. And if you were limiting yourself to a lasing time of only a few seconds.

Even processed uranium or plutonium doesn't have that level of energy capacity in that small of a volume or weight. Especially once you start adding in the weight and volume of the necessary radiation shielding.

For a man portable rifle-esque version? Forget it. When I said Star Trek-esque tech I meant it. The energy density per pound/inch required would be obscene. Even if you only assume a few hundred megawatt storage capacity too. Which again doesn't let you lase for very long, only a few seconds. To have several minutes worth of lasing time capable of melting through even light armor plate quickly or blowing apart cinder block walls AND to sustain several minutes worth of lasing time you're looking at more than a few gigawatts of energy. Easily!!

I love science and tech AND scifi so it pains me a bit to say this again but: There really is no reason to expect to see any of this stuff ever much less in our lifetimes.

@John You forgot the most likely thing : laser AR15 uppers.

@tts >You'd need a power storage tech that would be able to put hundreds of
megawatts in a very small space weighing only a few hundred to 1,000
pounds or so. And that is if you were sticking with a tank or truck
mounted option. And if you were limiting yourself to a lasing time of
only a few seconds.

Like a tank. Or an aircraft.

Perhaps with batteries that would be designed to handle the stress of discharging and recharging in an extremely short amount of time. Coupled with a power source and regulator that can gather, store and bleed off excess energy in a matter of seconds.

Like a solar panel and electronic alternator.

And you wouldn't need tons of shielding to withstand a continual stream of radiation, just enough to fire a burst powerful enough for effect.

But above all, you'd have to have laws and regulations and stipulations and rules and discussions and understanding about who and what and where and when and more importantly, WHY you fire a laser at someone.

And that we don't have yet.

@wetcorps How would you describe the caliber? By power output or band?

Because I'd love one in the 40 megawatt range.

@wetcorps With a suppressor.

@John Remember the atomic powered bomber concepts of the cold war? Maybe we could bring them back as flying laser weapon battleships :)

@tts Lasers have been an infatuation militaries have coveted for some time now, dating back to WW2. They will never work in the scale aforementioned precisely because of what you mentioned in your points.

That is not even getting into the unfavorable weather conditions and contamination issues.

The navy is trying real hard on the PR department because they want more money. Its simple. Never mind that conventional guns and missiles have plenty of growth room left and are, IMO, a better option than venturing into the realm of lasers and railguns that are comparatively immature.

Im not sold on them yet. Im willing to change my mind if credible proof is demonstrated, which, has yet to be done. I used to be more optimistic towards railguns and lasers until I started reading the navweaponsforum ;)

@mig1nc Really the main problem with those was that the shielding required to keep the crew from dying immediately wasn't possible, and that maintenance exposed crew to even greater radiation risk.

We already have perfectly workable drone piloting, and I don't think we're that far out from being able to do maintenance with robots the same way we assemble items in the first place.

I'm not even entirely sure PR would kill it- we already have nuclear powered aircraft carriers and submarines in common usage, and the air force flies nuclear payloads over the US occasionally, and neither have had unified opposition.

@John You'd need solar panels covering acres to get enough power to run the sort of laser you want. A few slapped on the side of a tank, truck, or aircraft won't cut it.

The amount of batteries you'd need are incredible with anything resembling modern or near future tech. Again you're not going to pull that off in a tank or truck even with 'atomic' batteries (aka really small nuclear reactors, they do exist, Hitachi of all people make them IIRC).

On a aircraft it won't work either with modern or near future tech. Too much weight and space would be needed. You're looking at high tens to hundreds of tons of batteries at a minimum to store the necessary 100's of megawatts of energy. There was a 747 born laser that was made a while back but it was nowhere near as powerful as you want and it was a chemical laser too. It was a interesting test demonstrator but it was far too weak, expensive, and delicate to do anything useful.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Even then the thing only had a lase time of a few seconds at peak power. Good for a estimated 20 shots or so.

Any energy source with enough energy density to do what you want it to in a light enough and small enough package is going to have severe radiation problems. You simply can't pack that much energy into that small of a space without certain consequences.

This is a fundamental physics problem and not a intellectual issue.

For battle field use there has been plenty of war gaming going on since the 80's on how to use lasers in a war. For civie use they're already regulated as weapons if you use them as such and past a certain power rating its flat out illegal to sell them to civies. Disscussion of the sort you're talking about already happened a long time ago.

@wetcorps And De Leon starts his press conference in 3...2...

@John Actually, its not too hard to imagine producing electrical energy from explosives.

Such devices are used to make electromagnetic pulses already - flux compression generators. Magneto hydro dynamic generators.

Producing energy we know how to do, storing it temporarily in capacitors too.

So, scaling down to a tank is not inconceivable.

@damien Energy production from such devices is hilariously inefficient on a macro scale, you're still in Star Trek land to get the sort of energy you want in a small enough and light enough package.

Capacitors are also a terrible large scale power storage medium due to their discharge characteristics which are bad enough that they've been ruled out for doing stuff like running car motors which are generally fairly tolerant of noisy power sources. Lasers need very high quality power sources to run with anything resembling decent efficiency. If you sacrifice that efficiency you can get them to work with crappy power sources but your energy requirements get massively blown out.

You'd need to double or triple your energy storage capacity to pull it off. Even with Star Trek land tech power storage capacities it might not make sense.

@mig1nc Make them unmanned and cut down on the lead plate between the engines and the cockpit.

Eternally flying laser drones, to deliver fiery vengeance upon anyone who shows up on the Disposition Matrix.

Edit: whoops looks like this has already been said

@damien Laser gun and cartridge Patent
US 5761235 A
ABSTRACT
"A laser gun uses small arms technology for loading and firing a cartridge containing flash powder. When the cartridge is fired, the flash powder burns to produce an intense burst of light. This light is directed for optically pumping a laser medium that emits an intense pulse of laser light. The cartridge-based small arms technology allows the gun to be easily and conveniently carried about and fired rapidly and reliably."

EDIT: patent abandoned with no working prototypes.

@n0truscotsman Using lasers and rail guns is greatly prized by the navy - why? - because it makes the ship more survivable. No gun powder or nasty rocket fuel on board to go off when hit by the enemy.

@JCitizen well, applying the reality of tanstaafl, you trade the risks of ammunition explosions and propellant for very delicate and abysmally short life components that require more power than what is capable of being put out by a destroyer or frigate.
The costs associated with those two weapons are incompatible with the current naval budget climate at a time when they simply lack the manpower and money to maintain what systems they have NOW. Railguns and lasers will only compount an already terrible situation.

@DaveP. Unfortunately we couldn't get sharks. But we do have giant mutant sea bass.

@Peadair Are they ill tempered?

@Anton Gray Basson Absolutely