50 Kilowatt Laser.

Not long ago this was Science Fiction.

http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/german...arrelled-50-kilowatt-laser-turret-10-01-2013/

 

That's really neat Dougie, thanks for posting that. I just bought a laser engraver for our engineering department at work. Not quite like gadget in question, but it is pretty cool as well.

 

That is a powerful bit of kit indeed, industrial cutting lasers have been around for quite a long time, but obviously nothing as powerful as that. Makes me wonder about the generator needed to run it though, a 50KW unit is not small and will actually need to be a bit bigger to cover inefficiency losses. I don't know the power in for power out ratio of a laser but think there must be some losses.

 

Pretty clever what the company has built and to be able to lock onto a moving target and destroy it is amazing.
Hard to believe it is capable of cutting through steel at 1000yds
Make me wonder how future Wars will be fought.

 

Yeah, I wondered about that as well. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that thing, that's for sure.

 

What concerns me as production gears up if one of these got into the wrong hands.
The next will be 100 Kilowatts and bigger as time goes on.
Be easy to bring a Jumbo Jet out of the sky.

 

I also thought, what if they fired that thing at a warship. They wouldn't have to use missles or torpedoes, they would just burn a hole in the hull and it would sink. Imagine that.

 

Hum, I can see a small problem with sinking a ship, you need a hole below the water line and suspect a large part of the laser energy would be reflected off the water surface. I don't see torpedoes being relegated to the scrap pile just yet!

Nev.

 

Yeah, this is true. One of my jobs aboard ship was to make sure the torpedoes were ready to go, if and when the button was pushed. Thank God I was only involved in one incident, off Libya. The dictator of that country sent a small fleet after his neighbour. Nato assembled a fleet including the Brits, Canadians, French, USA and spanish. When he saw that armada, he turned tail and ran. We could have made a parking lot out of his country.

 

Even if below water is not possible, you could still make a right mess of everything above, just imagine one mounted on another and fast boat or ship, go round the target and cut the top off the bottom right at the water line. Or start at the top and gradually cut it into small scrap a bit at a time.
Want to fire a gun at me? Oops, sorry I just cut the barrel off your gun.
The imagination tends to go daft given a weapon of that power.

 

You would target the bridge also I would think.That would put the warship out of action pretty quickly.

 

True, we were taught that if we went into battle. Our surface to surface missles would make short work of an enemy because we would fire them at the bridge.

 

The laser does not have to be aimed below the water line. A couple of feet above would do just fine. As the hull melts it WILL breach the water line.

 

Would pose a problem but any major war ship has a secondary bridge or 'war room'. Taking out the main bridge does not mean the ship is disabled.

 

I'm thinking with waves say 15' high you would only have to hit the hull at the right time and the next wave would pour in.

 

This is Starwars.
As these Lasers get stronger it is scary what they will be able to do.
Cut the tracks off a tank in a second even now.
They haven't any defense against Lasers that I am aware of.

 

Mirrors are a defense. Laser beams are light and you know what happens when light hits mirrors.

In a class experiment in college my lab partners and I build a small laser and used mirrors to make it do all sorts of stuff. Later we built a laser site for a bb gun. To think of it now we probably built the first laser sited gun.

 

Here is an interesting read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_laser_applications

Scroll done towards the defense section to see what the military has tested and what they have in use. Seems like we really are entering into the star wars era.

 

Thanks Bob. Amazing what the future holds.
They are already further advanced than I imagined.
Good read.
Some years ago I hired a laser level for a large concrete slab I was pegging out to get the fall right.
Amazingly accurate.

 

Well said Jay and very true. Every Canadian war ship has one, but we call it the "Operations Room" In the event that the bridge is hit or damaged, the ship can be navigated and weapons can be fired from this room. Luckily enough for me, this never happened on any of the ships I served aboard. Thanks Bob for the article you posted, it was a good read as Dougie said. It is amazing how many laser things are out there. I have a laser pointer and my cat loves it.