I’d say the number one complaint about the U.S. Navy is not enough giant lasers that can shoot down aircraft, but they’re working on it. Giant lasers on ship is part of the path to giant lasers in space. First you do lasers on land, then on water, then in the air, and then in space. That’s how Science! works.
Notice how as our military advances in technology, all our enemies seem to devolve? We’re getting lasers and they’re using hand me down AK-47s and trying to piece together explosives. Eventually, it will be like an advanced alien race versus cavemen, which is the goal of any military. That and to be worshiped as angry gods.
Space nerds like you are why we don’t have anything but wimpy five inch guns in the Navy. Leave your fantasies to Star Wars, nerd. Give me my sixteen inch or even eight inch guns.
Navy Lasers belong on real boats like the Iowa Class Battleships! Not on those pretend “battleships” that the navy now uses! Now lasers and 16 inch guns that go Boooooooooom!!!!!! would be like super awesome. Plus the Iowa Class Battleship was the most awesome looking ship to ever grace the planet! And whoever came up with the idea to de-commission them needs to walk the plank!
Then the Arabs instead of going “oh no, chuckle chuckle…here comes another totally ghey aircraft carrier”, they would be OH NO…here comes the USS Fred Thompson with 16″ guns and lasers, we shall all die horrible deaths today!!!” And for once, they would be correct!
Yes, yes, preach it, jimmy.
I watched the video. No, there is too much. Let me sum up. This is the first laser I’ve ever heard of that can be dynamically tuned to different wavelengths, allowing it to operate simultaneously against multiple types of threats in multiple environments (other lasers are fixed to a specific light wavelength). Secondly, it can remain in standby mode, but once powered, its power consumption and reliability are such that it can constantly fire a beam 24/7.
So, think of it as a 5 inch gun that fires projectiles at the speed of light and at a unlimited rate of fire. Unlike a 5 inch gun, it is line of sight only.
The downside: Chinese intelligence will have its design within a year or so, if not already.
Do lasers in space come before lasers on dinosaurs? Is science holding out on us? Making us perfect the laser before they bring back dinosaurs so they know the dinosaurs won’t go to waste?
Lasers would be cool on Navy ships, but only as back up weapons to the real guns, the 16″ cannons. Maybe as a defensive weapon against missiles and airplanes. I mean, “pew, pew, pew?” Good grief! How’s that even comparable to the beyond awesome KABOOOM! the mighty 16″ cannon bellows? Didn’t you see “Under Siege?” You can’t even stand outside when the mighty 16″ gun fires or you loose your hearing and get thrown 50 ft by the concussion! And that’s just for starters, ’cause when that big shell finds it’s target it’s a whole new level of hurt.
Nothing compares to the sight of an Iowa class battleship slowly swinging it’s 16″ cannons getting ready to fire. Just hope and pray they don’t swing your way.
Obama must be pissed. Here he just spent all that time trying to disarm our nukes in a bogus Russian treaty, and now our military comes up with a new laser he’ll have to find a way to destroy.
That’s why I’m not so sure I’m upset at the Red Chinese building their new stealth fighter plane based on technology reverse-engineered from crash parts left over from a wrecked F-117 Nighthawk. I hope they spend trillions of dollars to build thousands of them – only for us to melt them to slag in the air with our mighty megawatt laser when they attack and blast the ash into outer space.
Clearly, this is all part of Darth Cheney’s secret master plan to shipwreck the Chinese economy. Well played.
If they would put the lasers on the backs of flying dinosaurs, and launch them from an aircraft carrier it would be awesome.
Burmashave,
I respect you enough to inform you that I fear you’re turning into a space nerd.
Don’t forget, they already got the
Rail gun.
I’m starting to wonder if they’re expecting some sort of “Doom” scenario.
That’s right. Lasers seem ghey to me compared to the total awesomeness of the rail gun!!! We need more rail guns!!! I need a rail gun that I can conceal and carry to blast the bad guys with!!! They will pull out their puny .50 caliber 6 shooter to which I will respond “Muwahahahah”, as I pull out my Rail Gun and watch them disintegrate!!!
I think we should all have lasers. I want my spouse and I to build a house out in the country with a turret that rotates. On this turret I would like a machine gun and a laser .
I wish I could tell you I’m kidding………………….I’m not.
Advanced civilization vs Cavemen is how most of my games of Civilization turn out. This whole “giant space lazors” thing would be so much easier if Real Life was running on Settler difficulty. I guess we could always start a new round of Real Life in order to do that, but going back to 4000BC would be such a pain in the neck.
Laze the Moon!!
Finally! So all we need now are the dinosaurs. Come on wooly mammoths, wait are wooly mammoths good swimmers?
Come on terradactyl or Lochness type dinosaur thingies.
Now just to develop a peaceful application. Like using it to heat the Kremlin or some other friendly structure.
@Marko: In my defense, the best science that FoxNews could come up with was that this is the “Holy Grail” of lasers. When I hear “Holy Grail,” I think, “You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.” So, I watched the video, but no laser beams at all — zero laser beams, just a few cartoons of laser beams. I thought I’d spare anyone else from wasting time with it.
Lemme try to make a better comparison. This system would obsolete many of our current naval anti-missile systems.
That said, dinosaurs with railguns: lame. Dinosaurs with tunable lasers: cool.
Burmashave, I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I rarely, if ever, waste time here because I rarely, if ever, click on any of the links Frank posts.
I was thinking about how we could all help seanmahair build her castle w/turret in the country somewhere… with a machine gun and a laser. And a big potato garden!
One small problem with lasers on ships (unless your only target is an airplane or satellite): EARTH’S CURVATURE.
When you lob a big 16″ projectile out there it WILL fall back to earth. And according to wikipedia the big 16’s easily reached out to 24 miles or more.
A laser cannot directly reach past the visible horizon. And I learned from sailing school that the distance to the horizon in miles is = SquareRoot(feet above surface / 0.5736). SO a laser 50 feet above the ocean’s surface could see about 9 miles out. You could fry a lot of fish at that spot, but beyond that the beam just goes off into space. To equal that 24 mile range of the 16’s you’d have to put the laser up on a big pole over 350 feet in the air.
Now if you mount the laser on a giant pterodactyl or similar flying dinosaur THEN we’ve got a project worthy of the US Navy! Let’s keep our priorities in order, OK?
When I think of ‘the Holy Grail Of Lasers’, I think of Sir Gallahad being attracted to Castle Anthrax. I think Zoot used a Laser Projected Holy Grail to attract unsuspecting Knights. Zoot should be spanked for that.
While I appreciate the thought Jimmy-lad, potatoes are not my favorite thing to eat. Growing up with in an Irish house hold one either grew to love them or hate them. We had potatoes every day except when we had spagetti (my dad made that, he wasn’t all Irish), so potatoes and I have a hate-love- hate relationship. But when we build our castle with turret you are welcome to stop on by. I’ll make some venison stew and home baked bread.