Upgrade
The U.S. Navy installed a deadly Laser on their destroyers
The “USS Preble” is equipped as the first ship with a deadly HELIOS Laser.
© Wikipedia / Commons
Hypersonic weapons and drone swarms are a threat to the ships of the U.S. Navy. Lethal laser weapons to pick up the attackers from the sky.
American Power is based on the fact that the carrier groups of the Navy to dominate the seas of the world. But the mighty ships look forward to new threats. You can far-reaching hypersonic be rocket attacks, which are approaching so quickly, that the missiles could not reach them. Another danger of the attack of a drone swarm. Small drones can be identified for the conventional weapons only difficult, but most of all they can overwhelm a ship with their mere number. Anti-aircraft missiles, which were developed for the defense of aircraft, are helpless, when dozens of drones approach.
Laser with the ability to shoot down
Laser weapons have the potential to cope with those threats. Even now, the Navy is equipping more and more destructive with the ODIN System (for Optical Dazzling Interdictor). Three guided missile destroyers of the Arleigh Burke-class have already received such a System until the end of the year, six other destroyers to follow. However, the ODIN Laser is too weak to destroy a target. His laser beam can only turn off the cameras and Sensors of a drone – once “blind” since the drones are no longer a danger. The advantage is that such a Laser requires little energy.
End of the year is to be used, the stronger the HELIOS System on the “USS Preble”. HELIOS can also hide Sensors, in addition, this Laser should be able to destroy targets, but also. The HELIOS is to be able to shoot subsonic cruise missiles such as the Russian SS-N-27 “Sizzler” or the Chinese YJ-18. When the Laser is focused on the warhead, the Sensors or the control surfaces, which would bring the heat to the cruise missiles to crash.
Wetterfühlige Weapon
The Problem is that the Laser requires a lot of energy when he is required to act on a long distance in a certain amount of time to the target. And this may be even in this weather. Tends to be a “nice weather”-a weapon, whose effect wears off in heavy seas or strong rain in the extreme.
“One thing about lasers is that they will be on the basis of the atmospheric weather never the only solution. You will always have a mixture of cannon, missile and Laser,” said General John Murray, commander of Army Futures Command, the Portal “National Interest”.
However, the Laser will have to rocket an invaluable advantage: their “shots” need not start boxes of the ship. Each of the air defense missile blocked a Box. A ship more equip to missiles, the less offensive weapons it can carry. A destroyer of the Arleigh Burke class has a maximum of 96-Start-cells.
In addition to the unresolved bad weather problems, the question of whether the Sensors and the surface of attacking cruise missiles against laser radiation hardening remains – for example, by a highly reflective coating or a Coating of heat sensitive ceramic.
Source: Popular Mechanics, National Interest
Also read:
China’s giant laser to vaporize satellite scrap and the United States are alarmed
This Laser to shoot down five drones in a row
Putin’s new Laser to destroy US missiles and Jets
