US Navy to Deploy Laser weapon on ship in 2014

[Natan]

10000 per missile? This seems unlikely.

I used his lower range. Make it 100.000 and you can still buy 310.

 

[catsmate]

True, and even if a smoke grenade was effective, there are a lot targets for which that wouldn't be practical. Would an incoming cruise missile need to deploy a string of smoke grenades ahead of itself?

More likely an ablative surface coating.

I'd be more concerned about the smoke/fog being sufficent to interfere with optical tracking of the target. I'm not sure that radar tracking is sufficiently accurate for laser targeting.

That would depend on the beam energy/duration; a sufficiently powerful continuous-wave laser could be steered onto the target.
Of course the effect of mist/fog, sea spray on the deliverable laser energy would depend on the operating frequency, which I believe is in in the IR region.

The 'additional effect,' IMO, is that there is no single naval weapon that works against every threat and is immune to countermeasures, so we shouldn't hold the laser to that standard.

Correct.

Deck guns are useless against submerged subs, torpedoes are ineffective against aircraft, cruise missiles are ineffective against TBMs, etc.

Exactly. Plus the nature of the target ans well as it's location; gunfire is more useful against large shore targets than missiles for cost reasons, for example.
And as a minor nitick, the development of super-cavitating ammunition allows guns to engage sub-surface targets, though this is intended to be used against torpedoes, mines or divers in general.

So, sure, there are targets for which the laser will be ineffective, and sure there are countermeasures or environmental effects that will reduce its effectiveness. But will the laser be effective often enough to justify the cost, or would the ship be more effective if it had, for example, another CIWS* mounted instead of the laser?

Well the prototype *should* help determine this.

*FWIW, I have no idea whether the laser system takes comparable space, weight, etc, to a CIWS installation.

Judging from some pictures it seems larger than the Phalanx installation. I'll drop an email to a friend in the USN and see what he can reveal.

Are you factoring all the costs associated with the missile system? Launchers, armour and fire protection for the magazines and the increase in vessel size associated with their storage, computers and radars and resupply costs?

Not having explosives and propellants stored all over the ship can only be good from a damage control perspective.

There is a concern about the energy storage system for the laser, high density systems can be quite explosive in their own right.

 

[Natan]

There is a concern about the energy storage system for the laser, high density systems can be quite explosive in their own right.

The prototype didn't seem to use any storage but power straight from a generator, if I remember correctly.

 

[Hellbound]

The prototype didn't seem to use any storage but power straight from a generator, if I remember correctly.

Internally it will use some sort of high-capacity, rapid-discharge storage system that the generator charges up for each shot...most likely some sort of capcitor bank, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's the only option. I don't think a generator by itself could put out enough power (in the physics sense) to fire it.

Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong.

 

[Natan]

Internally it will use some sort of high-capacity, rapid-discharge storage system that the generator charges up for each shot...most likely some sort of capcitor bank, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to know if that's the only option. I don't think a generator by itself could put out enough power (in the physics sense) to fire it.

Of course, I reserve the right to be wrong.

This is the LaWS (Laser Weapon System), a solid-state laser which uses six commercial welding lasers to produce a 33 kilowatt laser beam. The laser is about 25% efficient meaning a projected operational version with a 100 kW beam would require 400 kW of total electrical power (and a whole lot of cooling). Compare the above image to this:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=15951​

A hundred kW to a few hundred kW for an operational system is perfectly within range of generators. My car engine is 77 kW.

 

[Hellbound]

Fair enough. That's much less power than I expected.

 

[Natan]

Fair enough. That's much less power than I expected.

This laser is not all that powerful. In the 80s they had much more powerful, albeit chemical lasers. This laser takes some time to set a drone on fire or fry a speed boat. Maybe in the future they'll be able to do better, but right now it looks as it isn't ready yet for anything other than testing.

 

[Toontown]

Research and development does cost money. I recall that it wasn't so long ago that I was berated and browbeaten at length by internet hacks who assured me with supreme confidence that ABM technology was a costly Reagan pipe dream. Now ABM batteries are proliferating as rogues work feverishly to develop their targets.

 

[Grashtel]

I used his lower range. Make it 100.000 and you can still buy 310.

Make it 440,000 and you are looking at the cost of a RIM-116 missile (the short range anti-aircraft missile used by the US Navy). So the laser costs ~75 times as much as a single missile, which doesn't seem like a bad deal for a prototype non-expendable weapon.

One Mk-15 Block 1 costs about $5.6 million.

Which considering that the laser is a prototype and therefore expected to be more expensive than a production weapon means it doesn't look bad price wise.

Based on the above I would say that the USN has the right idea in giving the laser a test deployment to study its performance under real world conditions and what issues need fixing before its ready for wider deployment.

 

[Natan]

Research and development does cost money. I recall that it wasn't so long ago that I was berated and browbeaten at length by internet hacks who assured me with supreme confidence that ABM technology was a costly Reagan pipe dream. Now ABM batteries are proliferating as rogues work feverishly to develop their targets.

Are ABM batteries already working well or still under controlled circumstances? At the time of Reagan it wasn't possible, now it is starting to look possible but there are still a ton of limitations, some of which will not be overcome in the near future either.

 

[Natan]

Based on the above I would say that the USN has the right idea in giving the laser a test deployment to study its performance under real world conditions and what issues need fixing before its ready for wider deployment.

How are you going to test it under real world conditions? Hope an Iranian drone flies by close enough? Set a Somali pirate speed boat on fire without warning (with warning they'll probably stop anyway at the sight of such a warship)?

 

[Checkmite]

Somali pirates have actually attacked (attempted, anyway) warships.

 

[Natan]

You're right. Amazing. Apparently they're more stupid than I thought possible.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...ter-attempting-to-hijack-Spanish-warship.html

 

[Andy_Ross]

Patino is an Auxiliary Oiler and Supply Ship, not a Warship. It has a pair of 20mm Cannon for self defence and 3 Sea King Helicopters for Resupply. It looks like a big Cargo Ship.

It's not like they tried to attack a Destroyer.

 

[Ziggurat]

How are you going to test it under real world conditions? Hope an Iranian drone flies by close enough? Set a Somali pirate speed boat on fire without warning (with warning they'll probably stop anyway at the sight of such a warship)?

I think you misunderstand what needs testing. The point is not to put it in actual combat, the point is to subject it to deployment conditions. See how it handles the weather, wear and tear, maintenance... all the stuff that makes actual ship-board use different than a laboratory environment. You don't need combat for that, but you do need to put it in service.

 

[Toontown]

Are ABM batteries already working well or still under controlled circumstances? At the time of Reagan it wasn't possible, now it is starting to look possible but there are still a ton of limitations, some of which will not be overcome in the near future either.

You don't get it, rolleyes. The internet hacks were browbeating me long after the time of Reagan, calling ABM defense a Reagan pipe dream even after successful intercepts, which were laboriously explained away.

That's what internet hacks do, under a false flag they call skepticism.

 

[Cuddles]

Pretty much anything is cheaper than missiles. If they'd compare the price to bullets of an anti aircraft gun or ship turret, it might be a bit different.

But why would anyone be so stupid as to compare the cost of a system intended to replace missiles against anything other than missiles?

 

[Natan]

Where did you read it is intended to replace missiles or what its proper dedicated role should be as a matter of fact?

 

[Andy_Ross]

On the new Royal Navy Type 45 Destroyers the Sea Vixan Anti Aircraft Missile System and the 2 Phalanx Systems (that includes all their fire control) are almost half the cost of the ship.
This is a single prototype experimental laser system we are talking about. How much do you think it should cost when it has been hand made rather than coming from a production line?