Boeing: Raygun dreadnoughts will rule the oceans by 2019

[cobalt1999]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/04/17/boeing_raygun_dreadnought/

US aerospace mammoth Boeing has made a bold announcement, saying that it will "transform naval warfare in the next decade" by developing powerful warship raygun turrets able to blast enemy missiles and aircraft out of the sky from afar.

The arms globocorp said yesterday that it has been awarded an initial $6.9m contract in a deal potentially worth as much as $169m, to develop a prototype Free Electron Laser (FEL) beam cannon.

Boeing say that this will provide an "ultra-precise, speed-of-light capability and unlimited magazine depth to defend ships against new, challenging threats, such as hyper-velocity cruise missiles", and that "FELs are capable of achieving the megawatt power the Navy requires for ship defense".

<snip>

Even better, the US Navy plans its next generation of warships to use electric transmissions for their propellors, meaning that the whole mighty power of their engines could be used by electrical weapon systems on occasion (at the cost of briefly losing propulsion). The proposed Zumwalt class destroyers, for instance, would have up to 80 megawatts available - enough to run several FEL raygun turrets, even at the low efficiencies typical of directed energy weapons.

That sort of thing would indeed transform naval surface warfare, where at the moment aircraft and ship-killer missiles are king. If an enemy can get close enough to send a volley of supersonic sea-skimmers in over the horizon at your fleet (in other words, if you don't control the skies with airborne radar and fighters), then you're in trouble. You just have to pray that interceptor missiles will be able to achieve head-on kills at closing speeds in excess of Mach 5, within metres of the wave tops and within seconds of getting a radar lock on the sea-skimmers: a risky and very expensive proposition.



I usually am a critic of our defense spending, but this is really cool technology that could be as game changing for navies as the switch from cannons to guns was. So much for the new Chinese "carrier buster" missile if this technology is worked out.

[depakid]

1. Not just on ships

Northrop Grumman Corp. engineers in Redondo Beach have developed an electric laser capable of producing a deadly 100-kilowatt ray of light, a major milestone that is expected to help transform what was once a Buck Rogers space fantasy into reality.

Announced Wednesday, the landmark achievement -- long considered a Holy Grail for weapon developers -- opens the way for development of laser weapons small enough to fit in a fighter jet yet powerful enough to destroy an enemy craft in the blink of an eye.

After more than four decades of frustrations and failures, "you can now see that the battlefield applications of laser weapons are becoming a real possibility," said Barry Watts, senior fellow and an expert on so-called directed energy weapons at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments think tank in Washington.

Laser guns are still years from being used in combat and it may be the middle of next decade before they are installed on fighter planes, tanks and ships. But Northrop "proved" that a laser powered by electricity could generate a beam powerful enough to destroy targets in the battlefield, said Brian Strickland, the Army's manager for the Joint High Power Solid State Laser program.

"This is a major milestone because we have proven that we can build it," Strickland said. The beam from a solid-state laser is powered by electricity, which can be generated by a jet engine or the turbines of a tank. Chemical lasers are capable of producing much more powerful beams, but because the energy output relies on the quantity of chemicals used, they take up a lot of space.

Dan Wildt, vice president of Northrop's directed energy systems program, said few believed that an electric laser could produce a 100-kilowatt beam. Reaching even 10 kilowatts was considered a milestone just a few years ago.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-laser19-2009mar19,0,4081483.story

Mt guess is that there are will be quite a few applications of this technology for commercial and scientific purposes.

[cobalt1999]

4. It may be the techonolgy that saves us from an asteriod impact.

You nailed it in that the commercial and scientific purposes will be more interesting.

[drm604]

2. Have you read to the end of the article?

But. Even Boeing admit that they've been fooling about with FELs for decades without really getting anywhere - let alone up to megawatt power. There's worrying talk of the new FEL being used for "non-lethal effects", too, which in this context translates as "it won't have anything even close to megawatt power, but you could use it for scaring pirates in skiffs, or making tea or something".

Also the Zumwalt class has lately been deferred - very likely cancelled altogether, in favour of more ordinary Arleigh Burke missile ships.

So no, actually. We almost certainly won't see command of the seas enforced by raygun battlewagons in a 2019 timescale. This is, pretty much for sure, just corporate puffery by Boeing - if of an interesting sort.

[cobalt1999]

3. Yes, but Boeing last month successfully tested the system against ground targets

No, the technology isn't near prime time ready now, but many of the physics problems have been overcome during the "fooling around" research.

I personally doubt the 2019 timeframe, but 2029 looks entirely reasonable based on where the science/engineering is at now.

Even if Boeing is off by a decade, it is interesting for this technology to obsolete a good bit of the current Air Force and Navy.