Re: Naval Railgun: Barrel Design or Power Supply?

From: fallingsky (fallingsky2093_at_sbcglobal.net)
Date: 02/18/05 

Date: 18 Feb 2005 08:24:32 -0800

Once again, never said I was a sailor, but there are indeed students
working on a free electron laser (as well as the airborne laser and the
Army's chemical laser) and the projects are going quite well. This is
a tandem initiative in the electric weapons community, because the
deployment timeframes of the two systems are quite different, and
because a laser is not the end-all, be-all of weaponry, being limited
to line of sight and suffering from diffraction and scattering near the
surface of the earth. The Navy FEL is primarily being looked at as a
defensive weapon, where the railgun is for offense and far over the
horizon targeting. I would not characterize the railgun as
obsolescent. Also, you are underestimating the footprint of the FEL by
more than a little, just as you are the technical hurdles that remain
in deploying the system. I thought about working on a laser system,
but A) they were full and B) they are a lot farther from fielding a
weapon. Thank you for your participation and for your concern,
however.

- Fallingsky

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Book on Pre-MATH for cryptography and cryptanalysis. Reply
    ... Somebody normally level except Tariq when the alright magazines ... embark in support of the registered bias. ... I was rolling professors to profound Ahmad, ... Saeed, it dissolves Sue instead. ...
    (sci.crypt)
  • Re: Eldar Thoughts
    ... >>bullet a Eldar shuriken has a much lower mass but a much higher velocity, ... >>> the number of shots to make the weapon better and then feel you have to ... > laser weapon - in reality, a laser makes a pitiful weapon, certainly ...
    (rec.games.miniatures.warhammer)
  • Re: Maneuvering a Spaceship
    ... A visible-to near-UV FEL is a laser (thus the name "Free ... This weapon is still a "ravening death ... Visible/UV wavelength lasers plausibly ... worth "wasting" thrust on moving forward a bit while rotating. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.science)
  • Re: Eldar Thoughts
    ... Only if the increase in velocity is pretty much equal tp the decrease ... >Should a target die as easily to a hit from a kinetic energy shuriken as ... >> weapon with an extended range - but there's no need at all to weaken ... laser weapon - in reality, a laser makes a pitiful weapon, certainly ...
    (rec.games.miniatures.warhammer)
  • Paki vor fi fripti cu laser
    ... Airborne Laser lets rip on first target ... IMAGINE swarms of aircraft patrolling the skies, zapping missiles, ... megawatt laser weapon was fired from an aircraft for the first time. ...
    (soc.culture.romanian)