US military's RAY-GUN truck BLASTS DRONES, mortars OUT OF THE SKY The US military has successfully tested a truck armed with an auto-targeting laser that can shoot down mortars and flying drones in the air before they cause a kerfuffle for troops on the ground. Laser truck Battlefield lasers at last ... Uncle Sam's ray-gun truck In month-long tests at the White Sands missile range in new …
"A decent reflective surface will reflect over 95% of the incident energy "
A very expensive lab-made silver/gold mirror surface might. A bathroom mirror doesn't approach that level of reflectiveness.
Are you suggesting that a viable countermeasure would be to coat every arty shell and mortar bomb with a high-reflective finish? Do you know how many artillery shells a battery can get through in a day? And how old our existing supplies are and how large?
These are the same highly reflective mortar bombs that are going to be carried by grunts in a battle zone, right?
Do you want to be the one handing them out to the mortar platoon and asking them to keep them nice and shiny?
Of course that reflective coating is going to completely coat the munition, so there won't be any handy stencilled lettering left to tell you anything about what you might be firing.
Mirrored mortar bombs are a nice armchair general solution, with zero grounding in practicality.
The existing laser defense systems I've been around are already smart enough to give a fault report to the control panel when the lenses are dirty. (much to the aggravation of the poor fool on the maintenance team that has to go and clean 'em!)
I'd assume that this would be no different.
A number of the existing systems also have a park position that has the lens out of sight, and less able to be affected by random environmental hazards.
@AC "The existing laser defense systems I've been around are already smart enough to give a fault report to the control panel when the lenses are dirty. (much to the aggravation of the poor fool on the maintenance team that has to go and clean 'em!)"
Hopefully remembering to take the keys out!
This is just the Mark I which exists mainly to justify follow-on contracts.
Following a lone sniper attack on the lorry Boeing will go along to the DoD and ask for funding for an improved Mark II that will be only very slightly more expensive and contain a slightly less obvious fatal flaw.
You don't design weapons systems that way. Everything is vulnerable to something, that's accepted and unavoidable. You build the weapons system to accomplish their task, and you use your other assets to defend it.
For example, a modern US aircraft carrier by itself is insanely vulnerable to a WWII era diesel powered vessel or surface to surface missiles that are cheaper than a sniper, or even shallow water. But an aircraft carrier doesn't defend itself. It has the rest of its battle group, its aircraft and its CIWS for defense. The situation is the same for armored units.
Anti-armor snipers are also exceedingly rare things. They are an accessory to an already fully equipped military, not the types of enemies anyone is currently engaged with. Snipers in general are rapidly nearing the end of their usefulness anyway. In dense urban areas they are still a threat, but outside of city centers they are totally vulnerable to drones. By the time the laser weapons are deployed snipers will be anomalous things that represent the last ditch efforts of an already defeated enemy.
"Anti-armor snipers are also exceedingly rare things. They are an accessory to an already fully equipped military, not the types of enemies anyone is currently engaged with. Snipers in general are rapidly nearing the end of their usefulness anyway. In dense urban areas they are still a threat, but outside of city centers they are totally vulnerable to drones. By the time the laser weapons are deployed snipers will be anomalous things that represent the last ditch efforts of an already defeated enemy."
Phew. That's good new. People who can shoot someone from 2Km are indeed pretty rare.
Except in Afghanistan, where they've been driving up the kill range to over 2Km.
An anti-mortar system is fairly useful but (ant I know this would be rather unsporting) what if you're enemy attacks when your laser system is in the "park" position?
By the time the cover comes off it's all over.
".....Except in Afghanistan, where they've been driving up the kill range to over 2Km......" This is not a defensive system for small positions but for major bases, which may be many miles across. If the enemy can already fire safely at you from 2km then he won't be bothering with mortars, he'll be machine-gunning you (which is what the Talebints have been doing, not sniping with anti-armour rifles). Moving any form of rifle or MG into range of a major US base is a suicide mission as they have radar and sound direction tracking gear (works on the supersonic soundwaves produced by the bullet) that will pinpoint the position of a sniper very quickly.
"Phew. That's good new. People who can shoot someone from 2Km are indeed pretty rare. "
There are six of them, and all of them are on our side.
"Except in Afghanistan, where they've been driving up the kill range to over 2Km. An anti-mortar system is fairly useful but (ant I know this would be rather unsporting) what if you're enemy attacks when your laser system is in the "park" position? By the time the cover comes off it's all over."
Well Sod's Law dictates that will be when the mortar is disassembled, so it'll be a no score draw.
Seriously though; you're missing the point. The system is for Force Protection not front line use. And probably against people not as well tooled up. That means it gets parked up next to a runway, encampment or other base, protecting things more expensive than either itself or a few grunts.
Luckily, not many base commanders are stupid enough to surround their bases with barriers that snipers can see through at ground level (otherwise snipers would shoot at people, instead of your enemy just plopping mortar rounds inside the walls, which is what the actual threat is), and are equally unlikely to fail to emplace their defences. Nor are such bases typically surrounded with enough cover that snipers can crawl up to them, or cited conveniently where snipers can over-look them. And it's not like people patrol around bases and over-fly them with drones equipped with IR cameras on the off-chance that a two-man team with a 30kg AMR are planning on sneaking up to them and somehow hitting a 10cm target from the kind of range that you're talking about, either.
The military isn't entirely stupid in its purchases. Laser anti-mortar/rocket base defences are being purchased because our enemies like to lob mortar bombs into established bases. It's a solution for an existing problem, not a pipe dream. And a few of these in police/army bases would have saved a bit of bother during the Troubles, too.
So it keeps mortar rounds from exploding, but what if the enemy dispenses with the explosives and just uses the mortar as a more advanced catapult and starts flinging the modern equivalent of rocks and cannonballs? The laser doesn't help you then, except maybe that instead of heavy stuff falling on you, you have heavy hot stuff falling on you.
Instead of targeting American soldiers, they'll target our multi million dollar pieces of equipment, like helicopters, airplanes and oh how about the ray gun that stops them from using explosive mortars?
Disrupting enemy mortars is equivalent to causing the enemy not to use them. If the enemy can't rely on them and abandons them, than you don't even need perfect coverage.
You're suggesting that they can do without them, and I would have to ask, why have them in the first place if they can do so?
Launching 30lb weights at your enemy stopped being a threat when we stopped using mounted cavalry. It would be very confusing, sure, but all you have to do is close the vehicle door or step inside while they were falling. Old, dud, mortar rounds from Palestine usually don't even go through the roofs of the Israeli buildings.
Mortars are effective only because the have quick cycle times and the fact they explode. They aren't accurate, at all, and hitting something directly with a mortar round would be fairly rare anyway. Without the explosion part they're less useful than driving golf balls at your enemy.
Forget the catapult - or even a dogapult; go for a horseapult*
In most of the areas the US envision this would be deployed, a sudden influx of carrion would be swiftly followed by a sudden influx of carrion eaters. Once the number of vultures is high enough, resume with "LIVE" rounds and watch the laser try to shoot around the "chaff" flying about.
* Please note the more common cowapult couldnt be used in many areas due to the local religious beliefs.
"So it keeps mortar rounds from exploding, but what if the enemy dispenses with the explosives and just uses the mortar as a more advanced catapult and starts flinging the modern equivalent of rocks and cannonballs?"
Then rocks land near your infantry and they say "What idiot is using an already inaccurate weapon system which relies on fragmentation to throw rocks at us?" and then they ask their nice friends with counter-battery RADAR to drop a few 155s on the mortar position and maybe mount a patrol to see if they can find any mangled flesh.
Artillery is a killer. Fragmentation was responsible for about 75% of casualties in both world wars. Comparatively few people were killed by being directly hit by shells. Solid shells have no place in an anti-infantry/materiel role.
Well heres some tech we could use to shoot them down. ;-) And is portable too so when the cops come we could always part it in the garage and out of sight. ;-P
Seriously though, you could probably get some laser kit and cobble together some sort of radar control.
I'll bet those Amazon drones are slow enough to be an easy target for a laser that doesn't need to be all that powerful....
No need for a hi-tech approach here. Talk Grandfather out of his long-barrel "goose gun" with magnum shot shells. These were very tightly-patterned shotguns used for knocking high-flying geese out of the sky. Just perfect for slow-flying drones. Easy to find on Google ... check for 'market hunters' in US history.
Can't help feeling that an awful lot of people have been killed by rocks, basically, over the years.
OK, maybe not as efficiently, but even so... I'm assuming, just from energy transfer requirements, that this is a single-incoming at a time handling device? You'd need a bunch of them to handle a bunch of mortars, or a mortar firing fast enough to have more than one in the air at the time?
Yes, in ancient warfare catapults killed lots of people, but that tended to be because of the unit formations that were used. A 1000 men standing in a tight formation gives a pretty good target. The modern militaries use far more distibuted deployments. So a rock falling out of the sky might if it was super lucky hit 1 man (unlucky if your that man though), but it will not hit more then 1, unlike in the old days where 1 rock landing in a compressed group could kill a dozen...
"Can't help feeling that an awful lot of people have been killed by rocks, basically, over the years."
Citation required.
Trebuchet and catapults are siege weapons, predominantly used for shooting at walls. Infantry in the way would be more of a bonus than the object. Such weapons simply don't fire fast, accurately or far enough to use against dispersed infantry (or even infantry at all really, outside of Hollywood blockbusters). They don't have much range, either. If you are close enough to launch a rock, you have somehow rolled your siege machine well within the effective range of an assault rifle.
The article implies that this current technology wouldn't be much good against things like cruise missiles, because the latter do not follow a fixed trajectory and can change course. But since the radar acquisition and laser operate virtually instantaneously (at the speed of light anyway, which at these ranges amounts to much the same thing) even a highly manoeuvrable object would still be in roughly the same place when the laser fires as when the radar located it. Clearly some sort of active counter measures or stealth technology incorportated in the missile might bugger things somewhat, but that wasn't what the article implied.
A more likely problem with something as large as a cruise missile would be how to accurately point the relatively narrow beam of energy at the right part of the missile to do the maximum damage.
It would be nice to know how much time it needs to destroy each shell, as there are veichle mounted mortar systems that have a fire rate above 10 rounds/minute. And while I don't know much about infantry carried mortars I know that they are fairly cheap (though short-ish ranged), which means that it could get overwhelmed.
Sure, it's version 0.1 tech, and I think that it's aimed more towards defeating cruise missiles rather than mortars, at least that seems more cost efficient to me.
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Alien invasion is certainly a possibility!
The other, obviously far less fun, possibility is that this is how the US military complex really makes its take to the bank in dump trucks profits. The design, manufacture and sale of offensive weapons systems cover the enormous, perpetual operating costs for the defense contractors.
The defenses against the offensive weapons they just sold you are where the crazy money is at. You automatically get two customers for each defensive systems for each offensive system customer. You get to sell to the people who bought your offensive system (can't be vulnerable to inevitable copy cat technology) and you get to sell to everyone you like, but not so much that you sell them offensive systems. It's a really great way to run a business. It's too bad that it all relates to disassembling people against their will, but that's the way it is.
A good alien invasion would really do wonders for Earth though.
Eventually the military want to use the system to shoot down incoming cruise missiles, rockets and artillery shells...
I can see the point of fighting mortars or even enemy drones. But in the hopeless and futile wars in which the USA currently and in the future engages, incoming cruise missiles etc are rather unlikely to happen. Are they still trying to fight guerrilla with cold war big army tacticts?
".....I can see the point of fighting mortars or even enemy drones. But in the hopeless and futile wars in which the USA currently and in the future engages....." What, like Iraq, where the Allies sorted the major insurgency and put a balanced political system in power, only for the Shia to get greedy and stuff it all up? You must have missed the news where the surge and the Anbar Awakening took care of the worst of the problems (that and kicking Moqtada Sadr's arse twice). Maybe you meant Afghanistan, where the Taleban and chums hide in caves in a minority of the country and the majority is under relatively stable and peaceful rule (well, until Kharzai screws it up again). You seem to be mistaking the inability of Muslims of difference sects to live peacefully together for a Yank military problem.
".....incoming cruise missiles etc are rather unlikely to happen....." Rubbish. for example, Iran and China are some of the largest suppliers of weapons to the terror groups the Yanks have been fighting, and the Iranians and Chinese have always given their latest weapons to those terror groups. Hezbollah is an example of how Iran has already given drone tech to a "partner", and during the Iraq insurgency the Iranians gave their latest IED and anti-tank missile tech to the Shias. To close your eyes to the chance of future "guerrilla" groups having cruise missiles, a tech Iran and China have been working on for years, is just to demonstrate how the chip on your shoulder blinds you to the obvious.
"......Are they still trying to fight guerrilla with cold war big army tactics?" Cold War tactics were major tank battles over Europe, not defending bases against "insurgent" mortar attacks. Please go borrow a clue.
What, like Iraq, where the Allies sorted the major insurgency and put a balanced political system in power, only for the Shia to get greedy and stuff it all up? ... Anbar Awakening took care of the worst of the problems (that and kicking Moqtada Sadr's arse twice).
Woah this is beyond retarded. Or else someone gets his news exclusively from Amurrica Fuck Year Raha-Rah Tacticool Operations mags.
Probably thinks we should bomb Syria for freedom and stuff. Coz the rebels are all cuddly mockracy-loving Sunni and will pile into evil guy Bashar and kick some arse. Yeah.
"....Woah this is beyond retarded....." Oh, did that immense socio-political chip on your shoulder stop you from switching over from the kiddies' channels to watch some news? Don't tell me, you're one of those "determined to baaaaah-lieve" types that just hates to admit Bush's surge worked. It's only since the drawdown, the handing over of policing to the Iraqis, and the subsequent score-settling of the Shias, that the violence has returned. But you go on hating if it helps you cope, mmmkay.
".......Probably thinks we should bomb Syria for freedom and stuff. Coz the rebels are all cuddly mockracy-loving Sunni and will pile into evil guy Bashar and kick some arse. Yeah." LOL, it is so ironic that the people who were all for intervention a few months back (when they knew SFA about the Mid East) have suddenly jumped to the fashionable conclusion that all the rebels are Sunni extremists (because they still know SFA about the Mid East). I'd explain some things to you about the country and its mix of people, but, going on your past posts, it really would be a complete waste of time. Maybe we can hope Oprah will do a special for sheep like you. The really tragic part of the current mess in Syria is that the carefully prepared political message that Assad is now the acceptable option is being so eagerly swallowed by sheeple like you, regardless of how the majority of Syrians seem to want neither Assad nor the Sunni extremists, they're just caught in the middle. Enjoy your stupidity, it's going to last all your life.
"Are they still trying to fight guerrilla with cold war big army tacticts?"
'still'? Can you cite to me an example of this happening in the last decade?
Are you seriously suggesting that our army is still rolling around in MBTs using cold war tactics, while even someone who can't spell the word has figured out that they don't work? It's kind of crucial for Officers to be able to understand conflict and use the correct tactics. If you have figured it out, then they (what with being there and all) figured it out a long time before you.
A very long time:
We've been doing quite well at anti-insurgency warfare for quite a while. The British caught onto the concept sometime near the end of the 18th Century when they got caught with their pants down a bit, and although America didn't learn about it all until Vietnam, they caught on quite fast.
Just because we have a military capable of fighting WW3, it doesn't mean they can't fight the war they have just spent ten years fighting, too. People and organisations can do things in more than one way you realise?
Psyx,
Obviously, I have to explain more since my former comment was a bit on the short side. Neither did I write nor mean that the US military didn't evolve from the cold war days. Indeed they are on the technological forefront, probably more than ever before. This is part of the problem why the US military is not winning - their last success was operation Desert Storm. And even that was a hollow victory.
They, and I explicitly include their government, rely too much on technology to fight a war. They follow the arms race and believe with just enough high-tech weaponry they can win against any enemy. The hollow victory of Desert Storm I mentioned because since then they believe in "blitzkrieg" - a tactic that obviously didn't work ever after.
Sudan and Libya were quick (and troops didn't touch ground), already forgotten but hardly a success story when you pay attention what's going on now. And their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan was and is a disaster. Eight years in Iraq, do you consider it victory? Twelve years in Afghanistan, do you consider that a victory? (Spare me the propaganda of successful withdrawal from Iraq - the war goes on, it's just more privatised.)
Psyx, partly I do have to agree with you: it's not only the tactics that is the problem. It's the lack of strategy in Washington that is the real problem. What do they want to achieve in the Near/Middle East? Peace obviously doesn't appear on their menu. It's more like if I come to your place, have a crap, and then I claim your house is mine.
A word regarding the military capability to fight WW3. The US is currently involved in two middle-sized long-term conflicts and already at its limits of personnel resources. WW3? My arse.
I fully agree that people and organisations can do things in more than one way - problem is, the only way the USA sees in the mentioned conflict zones is the way of war. That's not a solution. Never was, never will be.
You are confusing the post-action failures of politicians - especially Muslim ones - with the successful conclusion of the military action. Desert Storm was a fantastic military success, it's the politicians that have thrown it all away since. Same goes for Afghanistan, where the Allies (in co-ordination with Afghan groups that actually represented the MAJORITY of the Afghans) mounted a lightening campaign to remove the Pakistani-backed Taleban from power. You mention Libya but ignore the successful outcome of other actions such as the former Yugoslavia. The difference? Even despite the intense and historic hostility between the many factions fighting in the former Yugoslavia, the West persevered and the locals were intelligent enough to want peace. It seems the different Muslims sects just prefer endless wars. Just look at Somalia and the never-ending civil war. Or how Afghanistan had twenty years of civil war before the US-led invasion. Iraq was held together under Saddam Hussein by the ruthless eradication of any form of dissent, even by members of his own family.
TBH, my solution for Iraq would have been partition into separate Kurdish, Sunni and Shia autonomous regional states bound into one federated group of states and with the oil money shared. It would probably have led to ethnic cleansing and forced expulsions of those not willing to migrate to their new regions, but it would have allowed all the local politicians to get their snouts into a trough rather than letting the Shias use their advantage of numbers to stuff it all up. Melting pot solutions in the Mid East just don't seem to work, as shown by the Lebanon, so I would think it better to give them each a pot of their own. Afghanistan could go the same route, replacing crude borders drawn by colonialists with new tribal ones.
But any solution for Iraq or Afghanistan would still have required the subduing of the Iraqi and Taleban forces and their removal from power, which was quite quickly and competently completed by US-led forces in a very successful manner, it's just you don't want to admit it.
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