Does the Unites States already have laser guns?

[tony_j15]

The government always lets you in on things 5-30 years after the fact. The G-11 rifle was in production in the 60's, and is truly a unique weapon. To me, it makes perfect sense that we already have some sort of next-gen laser weapons system. Heck, rumour has it they were used in Iraq War 1. I predict that by 2030, we will have full knowledge of such a system.

Alright, lets see how long before I get burned at the stake.

Commercially produced laser weapons small enough to be truck mounted are currently available from China and Russia, so we can reason that the US military is probably already in possession of a light arms style laser weapon.

Of particular interest, the University of Tasmania in Hobart sells a CO2 laser system for controlling forest undergrowth that can ignite logging debris from distances of 100 to 1,500 meters. The cost for this truck mounted unit is a mere $86,500.

Check this old news post from ealier this year....

http://www.techimo.com/newsapp/index.pl?photo=8704

[Epidemic]

Ya know what sucks about a laser It goes effectively for ever. Firing a shot low on the horizon would continue on 200 foot off ground at 100 miles 2 or 3 thousand feet at 500 to 1000 miles. and so on. So a shot taken at a ground hugging target such as a cruise missile will be smacking commercial airliners 2,000 or 3000 miles out of theater. Energy might be disapated a bit due to diffraction and all that other rot. But I am sure it still might well be dangerous to a pilots eyes or such.

Shooting em straight up is not much better as it could poke a hole in the hubble only a few hundred miles straight up. Whooopsi.

Bullets are nice because you know with in a mile or two it is gonna plow into the ground Artillary 20 to 40 miles it is coming down. Lasers will be on their way out of our solar system an might just smack a race and make them hostile to us.

[tony_j15]

we can reason that the US military is probably already in possession of a light arms style laser weapon.

Exactly! Most people think of a large-vehicle mounted firing platform. They wont consider a light arms because its too Sci-Fi ish. And what comes next? If we already have laser weapons, what secret devices are they working on now?

[nomaxim]

Well, If you knew it won't be a secret. sshhhhhh

[tony_j15]

Originally posted by Epidemic
Ya know what sucks about a laser It goes effectively for ever. Firing a shot low on the horizon would continue on 200 foot off ground at 100 miles 2 or 3 thousand feet at 500 to 1000 miles. and so on. So a shot taken at a ground hugging target such as a cruise missile will be smacking commercial airliners 2,000 or 3000 miles out of theater. Energy might be disapated a bit due to diffraction and all that other rot. But I am sure it still might well be dangerous to a pilots eyes or such.

Shooting em straight up is not much better as it could poke a hole in the hubble only a few hundred miles straight up. Whooopsi.

Bullets are nice because you know with in a mile or two it is gonna plow into the ground Artillary 20 to 40 miles it is coming down. Lasers will be on their way out of our solar system an might just smack a race and make them hostile to us.

Good points, Epi. I believe those can be solved by adjusting the frequency and color range of the laser. Yeah, I dont expect them to be issued to ground troops as the next m-16, you would need a specialist to wield one.

[Epidemic]

AFAIK the power pack to do any kind of instant kill damage would need to be enormous.

You need to damage the target within an instant 700 watt to 1000 watt range might do some damage but it is not going to punch through a man with as fast as shooting him with a piece of lead. Besides you need to make a pretty big hole in them to kill them because there would probably be little shock value.

I know we had shoulder held blinding weapons which are effective but not exactly what you would call nice.

A power supply that can be carried by a soldier reasonably could not provide an extremely long burst of 1000 watts. You might be able to up the power by capacitively storing the shots but that would reduce the firing rate. I would guess you would need a beam like a half inch across at like 10kw for a few seconds to chop someone in half.

I doubt we could produce a shoulder fired weapon nearly as effective as lead projectiles yet. maybe one of them plutonium power cells.

Who has some good details of cutting power at a given wattage.

Give me a few minutes, I have the power specifications for a chemical-based laser system capable of destroying an ICBM in one of my FOIA archives. Might be useful for comparison....

Excuse the poor quality images. The US goverment is not well known for providing quality documentation to FOIA request.

Usual information disclosure....

This report was labeled "National Air Intelligence Center" and is cataloged under heading "NAIC-ID(RS)T-0152-96". Publication date code is "19960618 135." Microfiche code is "96C000320." 44 pages total for public release. Country of origin is China, author is Jiguang Jishu, and translation services by Leo Kanner Associates. Document prepared by Translation Services, National Air Intelligence Center, WPAFB, Ohio.

Enough with the formalities, here is the text describing the power levels needed to disrupt an ICBM in flight. These numbers are in reference to piercing (or atleast overheating in some cases) the outer casing of an ICBM with a 7mm (TBMK, long non-searchable document!) hardened shell.

http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia1.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia2.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia3.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia4.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia5.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia6.gif
http://www.techimo.com/images/img2/p...aser/foia7.gif

I probably have further information detaling power requirements for mobile/vehicle laser configurations, and possibly light arms type. However, I do not have the time right now to read through 800+ technical pages of non-searchable text. I will try to take a quick skim of the texts for futher info later tonight if possible.

[Epidemic]

RobRich,

neet info but I think we need to know the power required to take out a human target.

Cut a hole 3 to 12 inches deep in a millisecond burst.