50 kw, solid state, almost assuredly pulsed and its tied to the same radars and such that the Phalanx point defense system uses. This has a lot more short term promise than the Laser Avenger. The LA was only a one kilowatt laser (now 2): that makes burn through time on anything more than balsa wood or cheap plastic take far too long.
That pointer-tracker looks smaller than THEL's to me, but I could be sizing that up poorly.
I wonder if this is at HELSTF or not.
Oh, note, some of the countermeasures that are present on the THEL wikipedia page don't work: they have been testing some of them (such as reflective coatings AND rotating bodies) for over two decades. The HELs win every time. Huh, who'd over thunk it. Wikipedia has something wrong. Ah well.
Clancy isn't always a great source of accurate militaria, but this quote about rotational countermeasures is spot on:
ReplyDelete"Yeah, I like that one. A ballet dancer can pirouette in front of a shotgun and it'll do her about as much good. What happens is that the energy has to go somewhere, and that can only be into the missile body."
Mmmm, liquid fuel.
Reflective countermeasures are similar: it's fairly hard to make a perfect mirror. A huge slab of glass can act as a heat sink. Rocket fuel, and millimeters of pressurized aluminum? Not so much.
Clancy's a horrible source of militaria. I worked at the laser facility that he had in Cardinal of the Kremlin.
ReplyDeleteHe. Couldn't. Have. Been. More. WRONG.
I can't read his work anymore. Even the oldie-goodies.
Yeah, I know. :)
ReplyDeleteSimilar vein -- I read Angels and Demons sitting on site at CERN. I just kept slapping my forehead.