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Army Moves Ahead With Mobile Laser Cannon |
Fatal Rocko Willis
Fleet Admiral
Fatal Squadron
Joined: March 01, 2003
Posts: 1336
From: Kentucky
|  Posted: 2008-08-19 21:54
The Army is moving ahead with plans to mount a laser cannon on a massive, 35-ton-plus truck. The service just handed Boeing a $36 million contract to "continue developing a truck-mounted, high-energy laser weapon system that will destroy rockets, artillery shells and mortar rounds," according to a company statement.
Under the High Energy Laser Technology Demonstrator (HEL TD) Phase II contract, awarded Aug. 15, Boeing will complete the design of, then build, test and evaluate, a rugged beam control system on a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck. Boeing also will develop the system-engineering requirements for the entire HEL TD laser weapon system. Low power demonstrations are scheduled for 2010, with battlefield-strength laser tests to follow in 2013.
About a year ago, the Army asked Boeing and Northrop Grumman to work up preliminary designs for the HEL beam control system -- and promised to choose a winning model by 2009. So the program appears to be on track. And it's one of a number of energy weapon projects that have been picking up steam, after decades of unfulfilled promise. Relatively easy-to-deploy electric lasers have just about worked their way up to weapons-grade.
Boeing recently test-fired the real-life ray gun on its Advanced Tactical Laser -- a blaster-equipped gunship. Raytheon has worked up a prototype of its Phalanx mortar-shooter that uses fiber lasers, instead of traditional ammo, to knock down targets. Even the eternally-delayed Airborne Laser -- a modified 747, designed to zap ballistic missiles -- may finally get a long-awaited flight test.
It's about darn time!
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Fornax
Marshal
Raven Warriors
Joined: April 30, 2002
Posts: 906
From: Jacksonville, FL
| Posted: 2008-08-19 22:24
Read about this last year - the Israeli's had a working prototype deployed about 12 months ago. The only problem was to get a powerful enough charge, it had to go with a gas "charge" of some kind to release enough energy to be useful. Lot of potential.
Did you read the article about the powered assault armor the US Military is working on? Exoskeleton's with battery powered enhanced strength - their only real issue was battery life. In my opinion, once this type of stuff is perfected, it's only a matter of time before you can start armoring individual soldiers enough to actually matter against small arms fire.
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Sardaukar
Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: October 08, 2002
Posts: 1656
| Posted: 2008-08-19 22:41
Powered armor in actual combat is still pretty far off, though... unless we can make a generator and engine that matches Heinlein's genius synthetic muscle system powered armor. Otherwise, it'll probably be restricted to heavy lifting and squad support. Some heavy support, though...
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