Detect-Thru-Engage Laser
Posted on 05/29/2010 9:38:57 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Dahlgren, for the second time successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a threat representative Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) while in flight, May 24, at San Nicholas Island, Calif.
This marks the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario.
A total of two UAV targets were engaged and destroyed in a maritime environment during the testing, the second series of successes for the U.S. Navy's Laser Weapon System (LaWS) Program. Members of NAVSEA's Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems (DE&EWS) Program Office (PMS 405), Program Executive Office for Integrated Warfare Systems (PEO IWS), Raytheon Missile Systems, and NSWC Dahlgren fired a laser through a beam director on a KINETO Tracking Mount, controlled by a MK 15 Close In Weapon System (CIWS). This brings to a total of seven UAVs destroyed by the Surface Navy's first tactical development for fielding a Directed Energy weapon system.
"The success of this effort validates the military utility of DE&EWS in a maritime environment. Further development and integration of increasingly more powerful lasers into Surface Navy LaWS will increase both the engagement range and target sets that can be successfully engaged and destroyed," said Program Manager Capt. David Kiel.
NAVSEA's DE&EWS Program Office is responsible for managing the research, development, integration, and acquisition initiation of DE&EWS for the Navy's surface forces. PEO IWS 3BC is the Program Office responsible for all aspects of the CIWS Program with Raytheon serving as the Navy's prime contractor for CIWS. NSWC Dahlgren, as the LaWS Technical Direction Agent (TDA), focuses on the technology development and test and evaluation for directed energy.
(Excerpt) Read more at navsea.navy.mil ...
Ping
I bet Dale Brown is smiling.
Fire phasers Mr. Sulu!
(NAVSEA)(NSWC)(UAV)(LaWS)(DE&EWS)(PMS 405)(PEO IWS)KINETO (CIWS)(TDA)... That is a lot of acronyms for one article! Sounds like defensive missiles will become a thing of the past in the next 10-20 years.
We will know them all soon.
Very Funny movie
One of my favorites.
Funny. Thanks.
Gotta watch it again now.
Hopefully, Obama doesn’t spike this technology too. It’s not too long before bad guys are fielding RPV’s and cheap ballistic missiles that threaten aircraft carriers and stationery US troop installations. Being able to neutralize these threats is utterly key to continuing to have a military power of significance. Being able to neutralize them with a cheap shot from a laser is even better. Suddenly, the exchange is assymettric in our favor.
The threat to Obama is two fold: (1) On the one hand, he really doesn’t want us to have the upper hand against folks engaging in assymetric warfare against us. It seems unfair and as they are usually cute little people of color, they ought to have a sporting chance to win; and (2) Get this deployed and operational, it will quickly expand to the ability to destroy whole squadrons of say, Chinese fighters and cruise and ballistic missiles, again at an assymetric cost. I’m quite sure Obama has “giving away the Western Pacific to China” as a to-do item he hasn’t been able to check off yet. Having effective weapons systems in this regard will make it very difficult to abandon the Western pacific.
Hopefully, yes, because the problem with missiles is you run out of them fairly quickly.
Problem with lasers is what weather conditions they work in. With various combinations of wavelengths, etc. you can sort of get around this problem. Or so the laser people say.
A competing technology is a smaller railgun for close-in defense, like the General Atomics Blitzer:
http://www.ga.com/news.php?read=1&id=275
All weather, and the projectiles themselves are really small, so while you have to worry about ammo it’s not as bad as a missile system.
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