Army's new mobile laser can shoot down mortar rounds.

[Dark Jezter]

Considering that a lot of ENWorlders like to read about new technology, I thought I'd link to this recent article about the Army's new laser.

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-04r.html

Pretty neat stuff.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I want one on my Saturn.

I hate it when people pass on the right.

 

[Umbran]

Hm. Note that the article does not give us any information on the nature fo the tests. Most importantly - did the weapon's operators know the path the mortar shell (or any of the other targets) would be taking beforehand? It is one thing to be able to deliver enough energy to knock the thing down. It is another to see it coming from an unknown sourse, track it, and then shoot it down.

 

[Archon]

Are we entering PL 6?

Hm. Note that the article does not give us any information on the nature fo the tests. Most importantly - did the weapon's operators know the path the mortar shell (or any of the other targets) would be taking beforehand? It is one thing to be able to deliver enough energy to knock the thing down. It is another to see it coming from an unknown sourse, track it, and then shoot it down.

After reading the article it seems like they tested the weapon in various "real" world" scenarios. Which leads me to believe that they can knock down the projectiles even if they were surprised by the attack (although they would be flat-footed). And as an Infantry soldier in the U.S. Honorguard i hope my platoon gets a chance to test out future ground assault verisons of MTHEL like we did the Land Warrior gear.
anyway, cool article, thanks for posting it.
mik
aka "Archon"

 

[Dark Jezter]

Hm. Note that the article does not give us any information on the nature fo the tests. Most importantly - did the weapon's operators know the path the mortar shell (or any of the other targets) would be taking beforehand? It is one thing to be able to deliver enough energy to knock the thing down. It is another to see it coming from an unknown sourse, track it, and then shoot it down.

I'm assuming they used radar to track the incoming artillary shells; incoming mortar fire is visible on certain types of radar, and the arc of the rounds can be used to determine the point of origin of the shell, marking it for counterbattery fire. My guess is that the incoming fire was tracked by radar, and the information was forwarded to the MTHEL which promptly zapped the shells out of the sky.

A system like this would have to be completely automated, because targeting and destroying incoming mortar rounds would take too long to do manually. It would be similar to certain navy ships that have fully automated high-speed chainguns designed to destroy incoming anti-ship missiles.

 

[tarchon]

This is probably using radar tracking, but there's quite a bit of interest in laser tracking systems for this application.

 

[Umbran]

The point, folks, is that "probably" and "I guess" are not good enough. Remember what hapens when you assume?

In the past, incomplete reporting of system abilities has been used to get the government to spend billions on systems that didn't work. And let's not forget the propaganda value of news about big, impressive weapons systems.

It is easy to mislead a reader who assumes things because they seem reasonable. But the artcle doesn't say it, so you should not assume it is true. Be a critical reader.

 

[tarchon]

The point, folks, is that "probably" and "I guess" are not good enough. Remember what hapens when you assume?

In the past, incomplete reporting of system abilities has been used to get the government to spend billions on systems that didn't work. And let's not forget the propaganda value of news about big, impressive weapons systems.

It is easy to mislead a reader who assumes things because they seem reasonable. But the artcle doesn't say it, so you should not assume it is true. Be a critical reader.

I actually work in the field, so my guesses have some substantial basis. A "critical reader" would understand that a press release conventionally doesn't contain a lot of technical details, many of which are either proprietary or classified to begin with. I happen to know that steering a laser beam and tracking a mortar with radar are much easier to do than precisely directing a mortar into the beam of a pulsed laser, so I ASSUME that they probably did the easiest thing, it being a bench test and all. Really, this is mostly a "feel good" test IMO - all the components are known to be workable anyway. Now a truly critical view of this technology looks not at the sensing system but at the semi-tractor trailer that carries the apparatus around. They won't be putting this in a backpack anytime soon.
If you really must know exactly how they did the tracking, rather than complain about what uncritical dufuses we are, I would suggest you google MTHEL and find relevant papers.

 

[Dark Jezter]

The point, folks, is that "probably" and "I guess" are not good enough. Remember what hapens when you assume?

In the past, incomplete reporting of system abilities has been used to get the government to spend billions on systems that didn't work. And let's not forget the propaganda value of news about big, impressive weapons systems.

It is easy to mislead a reader who assumes things because they seem reasonable. But the artcle doesn't say it, so you should not assume it is true. Be a critical reader.

Thank you, Tarchon, for the THEL factsheet. I skimmed it, and it looks like an interesting (if highly-technical) read. I won't bother responding to Umbran's rude and patronizing post, because it looks like you already refuted most of it.

 

[Derren]

From looking over the technical information (not that I understood much of it) it looks to me that this system isn't designed for close range mortar protection but for long range missile protection.
It also looks like, even in the future variant shown in the information, that it would be ineffective in mortar defense as mortar round fly at much lower heigh (uneducated guess) and this system needs a clear radar lock to be effective (nothing you really have in the battlefields of the present like various cities in Irak)

How fast do you think can this thing lock on and destroy a bullet? Enough time for a mortar to shoot another round?

Also, if the army really uses this system, they imo have to equip all of their missiles and rounds with friend or foe emitter so that it doesn't shoots down the wrong projectiles.

If anything what I said is wrong, please correct me as I have no technical understanding and I'm just guessing.