Where z is the distance from the beam waist (w[Sub]o[/Sub]). Using this I get the beam doubles after 989 meters using your numbers, or just less than 1 km. This means the power/area in the beam has been reduced by a factor of 4 after 1 km.
I’m curious about this and must admit I know nothing about it. Iwould think though that building a camera that tracks an object and keeps it in the center of the image cannot be too hard (as long as there is good contrast between the background and the object). Once you have the camera, it shouldn’t be too hard to hit the object with a laser (just bolt the thing to the camera and make sure it’s properly aligned). Does anybody know if this is possible?
Another thing, does anybody know how much power is required to destroy a missle within an order of magnitude or so?
I have no idea how reliable they are though, or what the maximum speed or minimum size of the projectile they can track is. Anybody know how well these type of systems work?
There’s a little more on how the test was done in this AP story.
No explanation is provided as to why they need two types of sensors. Perhaps the IR is really part of an adaptive optics system like that used in the airborne laser ?
Well, no technology has ever been developed, until now, meant for destroying artillery shells in combat. This is the first experimental weapons system to take that on, as far as I know, and so I’m saying it’s not a mature science. Tracking them is - we’ve had counterbattery radar for decades - but actually shooting them down is something new.
Strange, I posted a reply to this yesterday but it never went through.
I’ve read up quite a bit on the phalanx system, and never read about it being used to shoot down shells in flight. Your link is broken, so I’m not sure what that would say.
If it did do that, though, it was probably strictly under test conditions with a modified shell to aid tracking or something similar. If the phalanx had the ability to shoot down shells in a combat environment, it most certainly would’ve been employed that way, I think.
As far as I know, we have no weapons system that even tries to destroy incoming artillery shells in a combat sense, and so I’d still say it wasn’t a mature science.
I have to side with the skeptics. Given the rigged ABM tests, I’m inclined to believe that the shell had a guidance system, or that the laser was already pointing right at the correct spot.
If you want to convince me, set it up so you have a dozen artillery pieces in different locations, loaded with unmodified shells such as an enemy might use. Set up a target that the laser is supposed to defend. Tell the guys running the laser that sometime within the next 48 hours one of those cannons will shoot at the target.
Then let’s see if the laser can lock onto the shell and shoot it down.
The Phalanx CIWS is perfectly capable of being used to knock down artillery shells in combat. This has been demonstrated with production models, not test beds, in systems placed on naval vessels. The only problem is the depleted uranium bullets that it employs; in in a battlefield environment, they were judged to be a risk to personnel in the area. My link (which works for me) investigates ways to mitigate this drawback with a self-destructing round designed for anti-artillery use in battlefield conditions:
Rockets are defined as rockets because they use rocket propulsion - they can be guided or unguided.
Missiles are any object or weapon that is thrown at a target or shot or launched from an engine, gun, etc. (Collins English Dictionary)
When they are guided they are called guided missiles.
When they are unguided they are called ballistic missiles.
An artillery shell and a dart are both ballistic missiles.
A Katyusha is a ballistic missile.
Seawolf (a fully automatic, fast reaction, high speed, point defence missile system in use by the Royal Navy) is a guided missile that has been credited with intercepting a ballistic missile (a 4.5" naval artillery shell) during proving trials.cite
The US military uses it’s own definition between the two, which don’t always match dictionary definitions.
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In US military terms, rockets are always unguided.
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In US military terms, I’m pretty sure missiles are always guided.
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Not true - ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, for example, are guided. And that’s what I thought at first too - that the “ballistic part” meant that they had no guidance system - and that’s when I learned that US military definitions are different from Websters, etc. They’re “ballistic” bacause of the path they take. As opposed to cruise missiles, etc.
They designed a missile to take down artillery shells? Odd.
Stupid me, I should read more closely (and stop making multiple posts) - you meant (I assume) that the missile shot down an artillery shell in trials, not that it was designed for it.
It is a rocket because it uses rocket propulsion, but that does have any bearing on whether it is guided/unguided.
In your own words “they’re ballistic bacause of the path they take”. The term “ballistic” means that they are moving “under their own momentum and the force of gravity”. At that point they are unguided because guidance would require some other force to act on the missile.
The fact that somebody coined the inaccurate term ICBM when they are only ballistic missiles during the mid part of their flight does not invalidate the original meaning of the words, or their application to rocks, shells, eggs, etc. (and I suspect that the early forms of ICBM were not capable of manoeuvering on reentry).
I cannot comment on the specific meanings that the US military apply to certain words (but I am happy to take your word for it). IMO the narrow meanings applied by any organisation to well-defined words in common use cannot be allowed to limit the use of the established definitions.
I am not against jargon, it is a valuable technique in its proper place (i.e. when extreme precision of expression is required) but many organisations (and the US military is not the worst offender) go to extreme lengths. In my world a spade is a shovel, not a manually operated earth moving implement.
Assumption correct, but I have often wondered why they used a shell as a test target. Probably because it was cheaper than a drone.
To do so might even be seen as Snarky, and that’s a rocket assisted, jet powered, nuclear-tipped intercontinental cruise missile of an entirely different color
