LASERS won't save you from hypersonic missiles
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- čas přidán 3. 08. 2023
- Lasers may be the cure for whatever ails you in science fiction, but if America is looking for a real solution to the myriad problems posed by modern hypersonic weapons, lasers - or directed energy weapons - won't be able to provide the magic bullet that we're looking for.
Let's talk about what lasers can and CAN'T do.
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Citations:
- www.llnl.gov/sites/www/files/...
- www.airforce-technology.com/p...
- web.archive.org/web/200812112...
- web.archive.org/web/201101110...
- www.laserax.com/blog/types-la...
- www.rp-photonics.com/populati...
- sourcetech411.com/how-does-a-....
- www.popularmechanics.com/mili...
- news.lockheedmartin.com/2022-...
- sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/R4417...
- missiledefenseadvocacy.org/mi...
- sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/IF1188...
- www.globalsecurity.org/milita...
- www.armscontrol.org/blog/2018...
As someone who is a laser applications engineer in the aerospace industry, I can say you’re missing one HUGE component of what makes the laser successful and that’s matching the laser wavelength to the material you’re firing it at. You showed a rubber rib boat being shot with a near to mid IR laser. Rubber does not couple with those wavelengths, whereas a ceramic composite or metal missile nose cone would couple extremely well.
aluminium foil will reflect whatever you shine at it
@@trollmcclure1884 850 nm
@@trollmcclure1884and make the missile extremely easy to detect and track.
@@trollmcclure1884You think that aluminum foil isn't going to melt away on a hypersonic? The melting point of aluminum is under 700 Celsius and under 1,300 Fahrenheit.
@@ronmaximilian6953 I wanted to hear about it from this guy. I'm curious if this hack can protect common drones. I dont expect a missile wrapped in foil. A shiny, mirror-polished metal maybe. It should reflect most of the energy if not all of it
Task & Purpose : Why Laser Weapons are About to Change Everything
(two hours later)
Sandboxx : LASERS won't save you from hypersonic missiles
I just saw that video. Cappie and Alex are both right. Within the current limitations, lasers can be very effective, but there's still a lot of room for advancement.
Ya, it does seem to be laser day.
@@petesheppard1709 Honestly Cappie spent more time repeating Raytheon's marketing literature than was entirely seemly.
With that said, yes, it was a reasonable primer on the topic.
@@f1b0nacc1sequence7 His opening comment about Raytheon being the sponsor may have been his way of joking about it.
@@hiimbrandon100 US MIC bumper sticker.
As a retired military analyst I followed laser weapon development for decades. I tend to agree with your view of their limitations. As for the future of the weapon potentiality it is not clear what is technologically possible. It should be noted the military had developed adaptative optics some years ago that uses a technique to precisely deform a mirror hundred a time per second in order to compensate for light distortion enabling the laser to focus on the target in the most destructive intensity and manner. This may not work in rain or snow, but it does have a useful impact.
Hello there, wondering if you'd offer your opinion on rail/coil weapons?
@@damop4420 too expensive. laser is a small fraction of the cost and is more accurate
As an employee at a donut shop there are all kinds of ways to make holes.
Can lasers take down "tic tacs?"
On the other hand, UAPs (probably ours) might work better than lasers to bring down hypersonic missiles.
if it is difficult to intercept hypersonicnmissiles then the only way is to take out the hypersonic missile launchers preemptively....and there you go...the adversary is also thinking on how to intercept your offensive hypersonic missiles , drones or bombers...your problem is also his problem....now on who will be ahead in solving the problem will be the winner...
Right now, the best defense against hypersonic is the lack of depth of the adversaries pockets
Lasers will eventually be the first line of defense against missiles and drones, current technology is just not there yet.
@@calebjohnson6423 Not a likely prediction on future limitations and space based systems will have line of sight that could cover a continent.
it will when someone find out how to use a small fission reactor to power the thing
@@calebjohnson6423 True, missiles are other systems.
consumer drones yes, outdated missiles yes, modern threats no. kinetic weapons like railguns are your best bet against hypersonic glide vehicles or the patriot system/iron dome for conventional missiles
I think that we may need something that is just plain more robust than a laser. Or just a ‘thicker’ and more intense laser., That is pulsed , perhaps!
Two things:
1: Laser power is directly additive. If you put multiple systems on multiple ships, you can very quickly hit your megawatt range.
2: The best defense against hypersonic weapons is a bagful of sand. These are boondoggles, not wunderwaffen.
This makes me think of Battlestar Galactica flak bubbles.
Indeed - velocity is also additive. Just spread dense enough cloud of iron shards in front of it and let physics do the rest.
You will need many 1MW lasers to deal with many threats at the same time. The bag of sand is a nice idea.
I started working with commercial lasers a bit over 20 years ago and back then when I ordered one for an optical network it'd arrive in a steel box, it was the size of a kitchen drawer and was escorted to my door with armed guards because they could cost somewhere in the vicinity of about $100,000-200,000. I'd sign off on it, give them the old part for refurbishment and it was a horrendously costly, complicated beast to set up.
10 years later in the late 2000s
Same output, same capabilities and it was about the size of a large USB storage stick, buy them in bulk for $100 each and they're effectively disposable.
Now this was civil sector which moves at glacial speeds when it comes to R&D or making improvements to a product line and its only really shaped by the demand to be competitive, its in no way nearly as well funded, attracts the smartest or brightest minds in the business. They're all off making the super secret squirrel shit in some vastly better funded military industrial complex, so a lot of what we take for granted today often fell off the back of the 1970's and 1980's wild west arms industry. Especially in regards to things like radar and radio frequency stuff that gives you everything from beam forming antenna tricks all the way through to the digital encryption on a mobile phone that lets it be one of the best secure signals around. All that stuff fell out of the military when they where done with it 40 or more years ago and sold it off for some cash.
This sort of stuff
It moves REAL quick when it comes to the western military industrial complex and so far, from what we've seen with insanely expensive hypersonic's being shot down by Patriot launchers in actual battle, we're still yet to see the 'modern' evasive hypersonic weapons being used anywhere, much less any actual displays of them working. Maybe they do work as they say on the tin, maybe its not and its just a load of bullshit.
@@krissteel4074 fitting the laser itself is not the problem as much as the power source and additional cooling required for a MW laser.
I saw two friends once, in quad-blaster cannon turrets fend off an entire Imperial Squadron, we should just use those!
... just like at beggars canyon (?) back home,...
I remember seeing the YAL-1 when I was on detachment to Edwards AFB. Lots of cool aircraft out there!
Pulse lasers might be a way around the power output problem, they could output a huge amount of kW for a brief pulse to near-instantly damage something through thermal shock. Or the laser could be tuned to create plasma bubbles in the air ahead of a projectile to make it "slip" out of control on the sudden change in air properties like stepping on a banana peel, so the laser doesn't have to burn holes in the target. A third option is electrolasers, which turn the air along the entire beam path into plasma, so an electric discharge can be channeled through the plasma to kill a target with synthetic lightning.
Electrolasers probably won’t work over a distance of many miles, I’d say a pulse laser/beam laser combo where it starts with the pulse laser blasting a hole and the then switching to the beam laser would work
I can't help but feel the same way. At least till we can sustain the required output continuously. I'm sure those smarter than myself have worked on the same thing. As long as the will to improve is there..we will find our way 💪💪
I like the way you think. Pulsed lasers can have peak powers orders of magnitude greater than the average power. If you can't blast a hole in the missile, maybe you can create an air-pressure gradient that effectively gives it a whack in the head. I also like the idea of interceptor missiles with sand-bag warheads- create a cloud of sand in the path of a hypersonic missile and it probably won't survive.
Further, an array of lasers working in unison to strike the same target could increase power and improve line of sight coverage.
See my Excimer Laser comment = pulse gas Lasers, tried decades ago.
1. Maneuverability may affect intercepts by THAAD, as they tend to intercept much higher up in the missile's flight path. Patriot against a hypersonic is so close to the target that there is no appreciable change in course by the missile left without also missing its intended target.
2. When it comes to laser based missile defense, realistically you are better off talking to the Space Force than even the Navy. Not only is the energy of the laser undiminished in vacuum, but the field of view is so much greater. Reagan wasn't wrong.
The laser's strength does diminish by the square root of distance whether in air or not but I see your point, it would still diminish less than in the air.
@@TheTeehee11111 Much less when dealing with clouds.
THAAD is a terminal defense system. It will not be affected by the maneuverability.
@@TheTeehee11111 That should not be interpreted to mean that we can't cook an egg on the moon with a terrestrial laser.
@@DarkenedOne55 Good to know. I haven't dug that deeply into the system. I suppose that it makes even less sense then to even care about hypersonics, unless someone figures out one that can fly at those speeds at low altitudes.
Some of the issues that you are describing can be addressed with "hive" based laser weapons and targeting systems. I don't think anyone is suggesting that a single laser cannon will be sent into battle. So, for a strike group that combines land, sea, air, and space, it is conceivable that there would be over 50 laser cannons for any given attack formation. With network based targeting, each target could be taken out much quicker when focused one at a time. It is possible to get this under a few seconds with the combined targeting. This is especially true for defense based lasers installed on US soil.
China can't build a workable hypersonic missile. The only way they will get one, is if the US solves the problems, builds one, then China steals the blueprints. All of China's weapons are made from American weapons.
Alex, I'd like to see a video on the potential options that would work to counter hypersonics.
Hypersonic suicide shield drones
Mutant Morphing Missiles
@@JamesStreet-tp1vb You mean like Teenage Muntant Morphing Missiles? Or regular Mutant Morphing Missiles?
Dude didn't you hear the p.a.t.r.i.o.t. Batteries in Ukraine have shot down 10 to 15 Hypersonic missiles already, and the Russian scientists that made the kinzhal were arrested for treason.
There is no defense against such weapons. Only lasers like in star wars can shoot it down
Today's theme from the military video producing Community has been lasers. Anybody else notice that?
Finally! Someone who uses the word "myriad" both grammatically and contextually correct. This was a great video with an honest breakdown of lasers limitations in combat.
Is that rare?
I guess it would be, in general I mean.
I tend to 'expect' good grammar and language skills in the aerospace field though hehe.
"myriad" may be used as either a noun or an adjective, so what is the incorrect usage you have seen?
as a sci-fi nerd, I don't think it will fully replace Gatling guns either. Their still countermeasures to lasers such as mirrors, sloped angles, material thickness, composite materials, rolling the missile, passive cooling, ultra white paint, etc. while these might only provide about as much as milliseconds to maybe possibly a few seconds of extra survival time for the missiles time they still can make a big difference between life and death since we could still put shielding on the missiles as you said in this vid which I am glad you mentioned. Then again lasers also could suffer from massive amounts of heat if they are not cooled properly and other factors but that shouldn't be a problem if their used in the atmosphere including difraction and such. Then again it honestly depends. Lasers are still gonna revolutionize warfare no doubt and don't have a limited ammo supply as long as you have power. Then again I'm not an expert but doing something like this as simple on missiles could still make a difference. I should also mention if the wavelength of the material matches that of the laser it can also affect it's effectiveness apologize if I got that wrong as I study kinetic weapons not lasers but I am catching up on energy weapons. Correct me or please tell me more please I like to hear your criticism on what I did get wrong then again everything that I said here should be taken with a pitch of salt.
DOD revolutionary Excimer Lasers never shot anything down, but did revolutionize chip manufacturing (DUV Lithography) and the invention of Lasix eye surgery. Worth every dime!
Also a patriot launcher can hold up to 16 missiles. A patriot battery as many as 128 missiles.(Alex knows this, this info is for other's)
Thank you, Alex. Very cool topic. Lasers were the first science thing that I became interested in. I remember having fun conversations with my grandfather about lasers and nuclear power as a kid. The subject still fascinates me.
I have a question for everyone. Given the high speed of an HGV, wouldn’t the vehicle be enveloped in an ionized plasma at lower altitudes? And wouldn’t that plasma envelope interfere with a laser’s efficiency and effectiveness? If you watch a Sprint ABM launch or watch inbound dummy MIRVs descend to the target area on CZcams you’ll see examples of this plasma envelope. I may be way off base but it would have to factor into the engineering of the laser.
sort of, while hypersonic are built to travel in low altitudes, the heat of the friction would disrupt the electronics in the guidance systems, the missiles have to be cooled or they cannot function, and that cooling will make them easier to disrupt using lasers.. Ironic
Yeah those plasma envelopes are really good at absorbing specific wavelengths as well... the right color laser can add an enormous amount of thermal energy to the plasma around a moving target and destabilize it.
Most efficient types will sweep pulse frequency until a resonance is found
Great vid Sanddbox! Keep 'em coming!
You skipped an early part of the development of laser weapons. The Airborne Laser Lab. A product of the Air Force Weapons Lab at Kirtland AFB. Built in a C135 airframe with the laser in a sealed compartment just behind the flight crew.
If you think that the chemicals in the COIL laser are hazardous, the laser in the ALL was terrifying. Hydrogen and Fluorine.
Sirry, you are incorrect in saying the ALL (NKC-135) used a hydrogen fluoride laser. The original ALL used a gas-dynamic CO2 laser. MIRACL used the HF laser. [I worked on both those programs.]
Thanks for giving out straight in formation Alex; even if it's not what we'd like to hear. The silver lining is that the understanding of this just makes it easier to identify when we need to change our change our efforts related to specific threats. Pleased keep it up.
Alex GOT ME with the fact that a Laser, continuously pointing in one direction, starts to break up the air around the beam. I never knew that one!
Your video created some interesting discussions. My favorites being the discussions regarding the popular belief that a reflective coating was all you needed to defeat a laser.
It takes very little to cause a hypersonic system to burn up in the atmosphere. One tile falls off the space shuttle, and the flight is over. You only need to heat one spot on the heat shield to much hotter than it was designed to endure, which is not so difficult when re-entry already puts it near the upper limit of its tolerances. Also, all the problems of thermal blooming and atmospheric diffusion disappear if the laser is emitted from LEO. I suspect masers are also much less affected by the atmosphere. Nor is it inconceivable that we could put one of those lasers that runs on rocket fuel on, you guessed it, a rocket.
@@cancermcaids7688 There is virtually no room for error in the design of a hypersonic system in the atmosphere. If you create a small assymetry, it will burn up. If you cause uneven ablation on one side or another, it will burn up. If you cause a failure in 1 cm2 of the heat shield, it will burn up. If you fry the sensors used to guide it, it will miss. If you fry the comms systems used to guide it, it will miss. There is a reason why so few countries have maneuvering hypersonic vehicles that can change course while in the atmosphere. It's because nothing can go wrong, or the system will fail
Well, lasers need time to destroy things through heating them up. Hypersonics are designed to not give you time. And might even just have kinetic energy and no warhead to blow up. And even then, they have heatshields to not blow up through friction heat.
But it is that exact thing that is their weakness, that is the heat produced while traveling fast. And since it's not considered a modern hypersonic without movement, specifically maneuverability underpower, I suspect that the requirements of a megawatt laser is incorrect. What is needed is a way to get to the weapon system at a long enough distance which is a weakness for the laser, but any localized heating on top of the heat that it already is producing for the hypersonic, could in fact destroy it or render it unmaneoeuverable... Therefore at that point hitable by more traditional kinetic weapons. It is the distance problem, within the atmosphere for a laser that's the real problem especially if you include things like fog banks
@@marcm. if you can get through the plasma that'll form around it. We don't know about that yet. It seems you can't make them stealthy because they'll produce plasma anyways, you can't even properly communicate with them through the plasma sometimes. And maybe you can punch through with a laser, maybe you can't.
@@marcm.Higher power lasers are pretty much your only option for improving their range without changing the medium they're traveling through to reduce attenuation.
Its a bit of a misconception that these lasers 'burn' through a target. It's more accurate to say they 'hit' a target. The energy density is high enough that it is almost more like a physical impact, like a small explosion right on the surface of the target. Or maybe a better analogy would be the plasma jet from a shaped charge warhead.
Yeah, and hypersonics need to have good heat shielding. I'd say a laser damaging the heat shield to complete destruction of the missile would be fractions of a second. So no, even the current lasers being trialed are powerful enough to wipe out a hypersonic, the only issue is targeting and firing fast enough.
Terrific video, Alex.
Something you didn't mention is that an object moving very fast through the atmosphere creates a sort of plasma cushion in front of it which might significantly diffuse the laser energy.
Except a pulse laser is ideal for distorting that envelope in a way that it might disrupt the missile's trajectory - possibly even sending it into an recoverable tumble.
@@paulwhite6648 Distorting part of the shockwave around the vehicle won't necessarily have any effect on it because it's moving at such high speed that disturbance in the air flow can't propagate upstream. It's like how you could put an object near to the nozzle of a rocket engine and it wouldn't have any effect on the gas flow upstream of the bow shock just in front of the object.
@@trolleriffic That's a good point. That said, you might be able to affect the air flow in front of it. If you created a series of lower pressure 'voids' on only one side directly in it's flight path, you may be able to impact it's ability to maneuver.
There isn't an aircraft that's ever flown that wasn't vulnerable to jet wash from another aircraft. The turbulence created by jet wash is unfocused, partially dissipated, and less potent than the actual column of thrust as it leaves the source aircraft. And it's nowhere near as potent as the actual thrust of the aircraft that's the unfortunate recipient.
Just because something is hypersonic doesn't mean it isn't vulnerable to turbulence - especially turbulence that is specifically designed to destabilize the vehicle in it's flight path in the lowest energy, most efficient, minimum effective duration way possible. And a laser would be ideal for creating that sort of hazard.
If your laser isn't stopping missiles then you aren't using a big enough laser.
What about…. Now hear me out…. Sharks with lasers! 😂
....mounted on top of a hollowed out volcanooo
Very nice, well researched video. Keep up the good work!!
I guess I can agree with Sandboxx that lasers can’t save you from hypersonic missiles. There’s also another thing about lasers: they’re not just used for defensive purposes but also for offensive purposes. I can potentially see lasers being used as an extremely practical offensive and hostile firearm in my lifetime. People often think that lasers are defensive because they can stop attacks like drones and missiles, but that isn’t always the case. Lasers are also known for destroying houses and infrastructure; there was an actual case in Chile for that. It is probable, if not inevitable, that a laser equivalent of an atomic bomb, such as the Death Star Superlaser from Star Wars, could exist during my lifetime. Superlasers tend to require extremely thick beams. Hell, there are already some Star Wars-related weapons in real life right now.
There are actually international laws that restrict the offensive use of laser weapons.
Einstein formula is E= MCsquare... Energy can be turned into matter....at the point of impact....I think I've seen that on a ROBOTECH anime... However, I think the lack of understanding and research in this area...is due to lack of advance STEM people with real US accredited advance degrees especially in the military and veterans... For example, look at that Congress lying about his degrees...Many senior officer have lied about their advance degree...
Our brightest minds think that lasers in the future will at best be useful at a few miles yet you think it is “inevitable” that in your lifetime “death star super lasers” will exist?
I'm not impressed by your poo experience 😂😂😂😂😂
I don’t doubt the capability of human destructive minds. I just wonder why we are so? What’s the purpose of being advanced beings if all we do is more killing of human? No wonder we have mass shootings so frequently nowadays. Everyone wants their part of killing…before no one is left?
Alex, thanks for continuing to educate us; the advertised capabilities of maneuvering hypersonics are daunting in scope. How well they really work, IMO, is a lot of smoke and mirrors. But, couple this segment with your previous one on the ground-launched Tomahawks, THAT could be a real game-changer.
Imagine a modernized "Airborne Laser" platform. (Airforce made a 747 into a giant laser with advances made since then or over next 20 years, I can't imagine lasers NOT being effective on ONLY hypersonic missiles.(at least in next 20 yrs)
Did you even watch this video or did you just imagine it?
That's what they said in the early-80s as well. Some technologies are incredibly difficult to get right, and there may be power levels that will never be reached by any usable laser.
I think there are some dots that are not connected.
1 - Given the price of hypersonic weapons, there are only about 25 targets in the Asia-Pacific that are rational. Thus, Air Defense doesn't have to guard everything against them - only those targets (11 Fleet Carriers, 9 Small Carriers, Major Bases). This means that maneuvering around AD bubbles is interesting, but point defense is what is going to be important here. Can you detect/track these weapons to get good solutions for your local defenses?
2 - Laser weapons, even if not good against hypersonic weapons, should be effective against everything else. This should simplify defense against the rest of the saturation attack leaving more resources to go after the hypersonic weapon. This should be a great simplification for defenders in planning an AD bubble around a Carrier Strike Group.
3 - It might be even more important to regularly target these weapons to cause them to maneuver before reaching their target. They will have a fixed amount of energy to spend after their boost phase. The more that you can make one turn, the shorter the reach will be. You will also slow the terminal velocity. This is not as true with SCRAM jets based cruise missiles, but nobody has one yet. That means mobile systems capable of targeting these weapons could be useful on their own.
4 - Back to that maneuvering around AD bubble videos. This makes one of two assumptions. Either that such bubbles are static, thus the maneuvers shown are pre-programmed. Or that the weapon actively detects and avoids such bubbles. Both of these scenarios provide some interesting defensive options. In the first case, that means that somewhat mobile AD bubbles are good. In the second case, it means that EW platforms can be a valid defense.
@alex could you make a video about what defenses we DO have against hypersonic cruise missiles? Or ones that are feasibly possible.
Yes they will but you have to heat it more than once. Also remember, hypersonic vehicles want fall apart at the speeds they are moving through a thick atmosphere. A little more heat under such conditions and you are gonna break the hypersonic vehicle.
Just unevenly mar the surface, and let aerodynamics do the rest.
laser is more likely going to damage the electronics inside before the case. While I suspect the electronics to be insulated, they can only go so far without designing something that cannot fly
You don’t have to destroy the missile you just need to alter its flight path a little to get a big difference in where it hits.
Couldn't two lasers focus on the same spot to double the energy? What if you had multiple ships focus their lasers on the target? Or have an array of lasers designed to target other lasers targets. Effectively using laser targeting for the array of other lasers.
Edit(to add more of my thoughts): By using multiple lasers that are designed to work together the whole system can decide to use only the necessary amount of resources to take down an individual object. If a target is hard to take down use 3 lasers for that target while the others can take out softer ones. It splits the concentration of resources as well so if one system is lost it can still fight with a small reduction in capability. The only problem with multiple lasers is the amount scattering experienced in the atmosphere is multiplied by the number of lasers. But the pros should more than make up for it.
I had that idea also, and it needs to be answered! Thank you.
Yr right he’s wrong u don’t need two
See he is saying one thing and saying something else he is saying if you have more power of cause u got have power what do u think these lasers that cost. Millions are there for show give me a break you better read up a bit more disappointed in your comments
The problem is the energy of the laser pulse, not the power. If the pulse has MJ, it will generate a shock wave similar to a regular explosive.
the problem is range, these weapons will only have a range of less then a mile to a few miles at most because of atmospheric scattering, meaning on a target, multiple systems will have a big variety of angle of attack meaning most likely they will not be able to target the same spot,
Hey Alex, I dunno if anyone mentioned it down below already, but lasers are a springboard into another type of directed energy weapon using laser-induced plasma channels as long distance charge carriers-essentially, it is making your own lightning bolt.
I know that an Army video showed something like a LIPC strike on an SUV, and it was quickly taken down and buried, but it's enough to let you know that DARPA has at least messed around with it in the past if not made it a #1 priority going forward into the future. It makes me wonder when you look at some of the new ship designs that have double or even triple the power plants they need for SOP steaming around their fishbowl. Could it be for charging up capacitors for LIPC shots? Who knows? Are they that much more superior to a laser, really?
The answer to that is a _resounding_ YES. Why? The answer was given away in one video of the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy that was taken down and lost shortly after being posted online. This video showed the Challenger screaming down through the atmosphere at roughly Mach 20 at the time. It was burning a plasma tail through the atmosphere it was so hot. In this video, it appears that a positively charged, upper atmosphere 'clear sky' lightning bolt which was purple in the image struck the plasma tail behind the shuttle, which was blueish. Well, the purple bolt went hard to port, followed the plasma tail to the Challenger and hit it. You just had a split second to process what you just saw before the Challenger just...disintigrated.
So this brings us to why the physics behind the LIPC are so far superior to a simple hot laser discharge, IF you can get the energy storage needs met:
1. Short burst, medium power laser shot-you only need to induce the air in the laser shot to a plasma state for this to function,
2. Capacitive discharge vs. sustained power-ultra high power discharge over milliseconds, then however long to recharge the capacitor banks for the next shot. Laser gets to cool.
3. Overcoming LoS issues-IF these guys paid attention in Electronics, then they would also deduce that you don't need to even hit the target for a LIPC shot to take out the target; all you need to do is hit the plasma tail of that mach 10+ bird and you will smoke it.
And this isn't to say that this unit would be Sierra-Hotel against just birds, either. As the Army was able to show, that LIPC they played with in that video was able to overcome the resistance of the air between the wheels of that SUV they shot at, and the discharge that hit up on top of the vehicle found the ground and the bolt discharged into the dirt, cooking the SUV like a low voltage resistor in a high voltage circuit.
Now me, I'm just an old electronics guy who was out of the Navy by '90, so don't try bugging me about "show your sources!" 'cause I ain't got any. But if you have a brain and can do 2+2, you can see how this tech marries up and could be used the way I suggested above. I ain't breaking any oaths, clearances, or whatnot. Just talking about possibilities both technological and practical for keeping our people safe on the battlefields and seas, and in the skies and beyond going into this 21st Century.
As always, I have to shout out ⚓GO NAVY⚓
thanks for mentioning this, I've never read about this before. Seems like something that could have significant hurdles to being used 'in the field', but I don't know enough to say either way and most tech does and that gets overcome in prototyping if enough money gets thrown around for long enough.
Well, hypersonics also have limitations. Most important one is altitude. To fly at that speed and manouver, they only can use high altitude. In terminal phase they can't dodge anymore as dense air would break them apart. So if you have missile defense with proper sensors and effectors near the target, you do have a chance to shoot it down. Even with current tech. But you don't have much margin of error. You have window to launch of like 10 seconds at most
Yeah. To me it makes more sense to use very many cheaper missiles from different directions at around the same time. Then the lasers and interceptors might get some of them but the rest could still sink the aircraft carrier.
Hypersonics come down at extreme speeds (ex: 1.6 miles per SECOND) and the air around them breaks into a plasma. The descending warhead has no trouble traveling through this cocoon. The plasma (ripped apart air molecules) hide the missile from RADAR detection since the plasma contains an electric wave absorption element.
@@CuteLethalPuppy But this could trigger an arms race where the other side just decides to bring more ships/planes/drones with more lasers/interceptors.
@@firstnamerequiredlastnameo3473 Plasma mainly alters detection angles, afaik. It doesn't really prevent the radio waves from reflecting.
I wonder if there will one day be a way to quickly collect, consolidate and hold particles of matter firmly in a specific point in space for a few seconds at a time, potentially in the path of an incoming missile. Not exactly a classic deflector shield, but effectively the same...?
u can just produce a iron dusk cloud in the way, its called flak lol and yes it would be highly effective in front of a hypersonic missile.
I can't remember all the details but I thought the military had developed a new way to boost the power of laser weapons that involved cycling the laser on and off quickly! Does anyone know what I'm referring to?
Yeah, you are talking about pulsing the laser.
Yep, Google USPLWs or ultra short pulsed laser weapons they are absolutely the future of hypersonic defense. They may never get small enough to deal with a hypersonic missile from the air. However, they'll definitely be developing them as strategic assets to protect HVTs like bases, command and control nodes, aircraft carriers, etc. These things reach obscene levels of power and actually ionize the air, creating a tunnel that helps with beam coherence over long distances kinda like how fiber optic cables work. Honestly, I can't believe he left these out in a video on laser weapons.
@@tylerbancroft4820 Those extreme power levels tend to cause the beam to self-focus and turn the air to opaque plasma, which blocks and dissipates the laser light. The last thing you want a laser weapon to do is create plasma along it beam.
@trolleriffic The white paper I read clearly stated that ionization of the air along the weapons path helped beam coherence. It didn't hinder the weapons performance. Plasma build up at the point of impact. Forming a shield was of concern. However, allowing the plasma to dissipate by pulsing at increased intervals remedied the problem. According to that white paper, USPL are the next gen leap needed to intercept ballistic/hypersonic missiles at range.
@@tylerbancroft4820 thanks this was very details and helped answer to our best knowledge the steps been taken.
From Sri Lanka. Thank you very much for a SUPERB EXPERT analysis presentation. Look forward for more.
How about using tactics from the past to get the most out of weapons of the future? Build large cruiser or even battleship side ship that form a picket line around the carrier so the missile is not being hit nose on. A nuclear powered battleship would be awesome.
You addressed some things I’ve wondered about. I think if we could make lasers actually effective on the target, it would be possible have a web of the them on the ground and in the air that could intercept missiles at the necessary ranges.
Excellent presentation on High Energy Laser Weapons, their history, the different types and their strengths & weaknesses of these Directed Energy Weapon Systems. As you know, this was what I was in charge of at the Air Force Research Laboratory and still teach courses on for the Department of Defense. You get an A+ for this presentation, Alex!!! 💯👏👏👏👏👏👍😎
Your information was well researched and your conclusions were spot on. We’re not going to burn through a nose cone that can withstand sustained exposure to plasma for a very long time.
Hi Alex- hypersonic missles seem a real threat to modern carriers. So, please post more on what seem to be workable solutions to this threat.
How about a cloud of tungsten dust/particulates.....that should do the trick!
How to deploy it?
@@piotrjasielski something that could get in close proximity very quickly.... maybe a missile
@@byronjohnson9700 So you need a hypersonic missile to fight a hypersonic missile...
I think just exploding a hypersonic missile will do the trick then.
Can you do some more in-depth content about Chinese anti-ship missiles and the US Navy’s strategy against them?
Also I love the new music at the beginning of the video
Shot the launch aircraft. Not the missile.
Maybe some sort of atmospheric energy disturbance weapon to disrupt the potential area the missle will travel through.
The US Army just chose General Dynamics and Rheinmetall as finalists for the 4000 Bradley replacement IFVs.
Could you do a video about this program, the two finalists and the other three that dropped out. Or more generally the current state of IFVs (Bradley, CV90, Puma, Lynx) and their most likely future. Maybe even including anti air IFVs like some CV90 variants and SkyRanger.
I say don't give up our secrets, no video of any sort!
@@prophetforprofit1431This is stuff you can look up, what harm would a video do?
@@prophetforprofit1431 they literally just arrested 2 US service members for spying because they handed over complete ship manuals to the chinese. What kind of magic information and educated guesses do you expect that a country who is literally spying and stealing information couldn't get otherwise?
I want Rheinmetall to win.
Maybe you could target the air/plasma in front/behind the HSM to mess up its steering - causing turbulence or regions of sudden low/pressure. Or maybe you could have drones with targeting mirrors that could redirect ground beams to the flank of a target or that could be used to combine multiple beams on one point of focus death star style.
Yeah so that's a pretty good technique, plasma is incredibly opaque to particular frequencies and thus will absorb a ton of energy from the right colored laser. Pulse frequency can even be modified to sweep through likely resonances with the aero envelope
Sustained tracking by those mirrors of weapons traveling in mach10, mach20, grossly perpendicular to the deflected beam, will be virtually impossible!
even if u have lasers that can hit the hypersonic missile, you aint got the tech to track the missile like that.
What you are saying is correct, If you are thinking of having to burn through and destroy a target, But it doesn't take that much power or time to blind a targets sensors, A missile that can no longer see targets isn't much of a threat...
At hypersonic speeds, they're not seeing anything either.
The problem is the energy of the laser pulse, not the power. If the pulse has MJ, it will generate a shock wave similar to a regular explosive.
Absolutely perfect report here. One area that you mention is LASER pointing, this problem dates back hundreds of years to ships of the line rocking about on the waves while trying to get precision out of smoothbore cannons. Modern fire control systems are very good at pointing and will get better yet. While this is an engineering challenge, this is well within our current technology level.
that is WW2 technology, that is no longer an issue, they only issue now is if they use guns, which they mostly don't, the recoil used to rock the ship. The weight of the ship and speed now almost completely eliminate the rocking by the sea, except under conditions that both sides would not want to battle in. Most "guns" have been replaced by missiles. when you think of how unstable flying wings are and that they would be impossible for a human pilot to fly, and how computers can make micro adjustments, shooting missiles at targets do not need to account for the sea. And lasers would adjust at the speed of light
As always clear and cogent explanations Alex.
what is required to make laser missile defense work to protect ships is a large number of sharks with lasers
Once laser technology advances a bit more they will absolutely be able to defend against hypersonics. Right now lasers need a bit of time to heat their target. But once we get to a point where lasers don't need as much time, or any at all, it's a LIGHT SPEED response to whatever threat they're engaging.
China will get there first tho
The problem is the energy of the laser pulse, not the power. If the pulse has MJ, it will generate a shock wave similar to a regular explosive.
Stop trying to comfort yourself and be delusional. The invention of hypersonic missiles pretty much made all US missile defenses obsolete.
@@vladdumitrica849 If it has that much energy in a short pulse the beam will self-focus and turn the air to plasma which dissipates and blocks the laser radiation from hitting the target.
@@trolleriffic then you use laser clusters on one target at a time
I’m not sure I fully buy into the theory that the missiles are designed to handle the high heat of hypersonic speeds. I’m sure it’s shielding is adequate but that heat combined with the heat generated from a HEL is likely more than the shielding was designed for.
It's just a question of time. If the missile is only in range of your laser for a few seconds, can you generate enough extra heat on the target to overwhelm the thermal shielding and to cause a critical failure before the missile hits you? It depends on the design of the missile, the output of your laser, and dozens of other factors, but it's not a given.
@@elmateo77 for sure. If they can’t get them into the megawatts it’ll change significantly.
@@spartancrown They are currently close to that output and the Israelis just fielded the iron beam
Since the DF-ZF is specifically mentioned, there are some caveats that seem like they might not apply. Like, would it ever be beyond line of sight with its target in the glide phase? And if not, the quoted range doesn't seem like it would apply either, as I'd assume "one mile" would be horizontal at sea level, and the range would be a lot longer when pointed upwards, as atmospheric density decreases with elevation.
Actually, that is the reason the DF-17 is mentioned. The boost vehicle is specifically designed to maintain the missile on a very flat trajectory. That means it never achieves the altitude you are assuming. This is actually why the missiles are considered stealthy - not because of some fantasy of a low radar cross section. If they hug the horizon, they become far more difficult to detect at range. Simple physics - not fancy stealth secrets.
Also, when released at lower altitudes, the hypersonic glide vehicle decelerates rapidly. So the missile actually releases it as close to the target as possible without exposing the glide vehicle to excessive intercept risk before it begins terminal maneuvering. And that is a huge point. Hypersonic glide vehicles only maneuver in the terminal phase. They aren't going to circle the enemy or do anything similar. At best, they might manage five or ten degrees of lateral and/or horizontal random displacement before they have to correct in order to close on the target unless they are carrying a nuke.
In other words, the closer they get to the target, the more constrained they are in their maneuvering and the easier it is to use traditional ballistic algorithms to intercept them. That said, what they are good at is dramatically abbreviation the time window in which such an opportunity exists. And the do that VERY well. That's why the missiles are a significant problem.
It all boils down to just how maneuverable the DF-17 glide vehicle actually is. If it's only as maneuverable as the Russian Kinzhal (which is about as maneuverable as the moon), then they may not be much of a threat after all.
Oh, and also the DF-17 has a dramatically improved range over other Chinese missiles. That is perhaps the biggest issue of all. It expands the threat envelope significantly. It's why the Navy version of the NGAD has such a huge range requirement associated with it. When that range is deployed, the carriers will be able to operate at relatively safe ranges compared to how they have to operate today, even WITH the MQ-25 stealthy refueling drone.
While I agree with the general argument that lasers will not soon have sufficient range to be effective against hypersonic weapons due to atmospheric scattering and thermal blooming, I do have to nitpick that adding more heat shielding to a missile is not likely to be nearly as problematic a factor for laser-interception.
Adding more heat shielding to a missile not only means adding monetary cost, but also means adding mass, which brings with it a whole host of other physical complications and ensuing monetary costs to overcome or mitigate them.
First off, you'd need to add a *LOT* of heat shielding to fend off a laser _on top_ off all the aerodynamic heating the normal heat-shield is for. Even fairly minor damage to a heat shield can produce catastrophic damage while effectively experiencing re-entry. A laser over-taxing a small piece of the heat shield can lead to a cascade failure that ultimately destroys the hypersonic object. Pulse lasers, which rely on thermal shock rather than simple overheating, would likely reek even more havoc on heat shields. The amount of heat shielding an object would need to survive a high-power laser would be absurd.
Second, more heat shielding means more weight you need to get off the ground, requiring more powerful and expensive launch vehicles and re-invoking, among other technical nightmares, the Tyrannical Rocket Fuel Equation. More heat shielding means _everything_ about the weapon gets more expensive, not just the warhead itself.
Third, that extra mass would increase the hypersonic object's inertia which would massively inhibit maneuverability, especially when traveling at these speeds. For a hypersonic cruise missile, this might be less of an issue since you could just give it more powerful flight rockets, but for a glide-vehicle this would likely be nearly deal-breaking. An HGV with too much heat-shielding might be so unmaneuverable that it might as well not be considered a "modern" hypersonic weapon at all, sacrificing the main advantage "modern" hypersonic weapons have over just a typical ballistic missile. Plus, its range would suffer as heavier objects require more lift to glide the same distance.
Of course, they could redesign the missile's shape to make it more aerobatic, but that requires building a whole new glide-vehicle and probably accompanying launch-vehicle to account for new size and shape. But that just runs into the second problem all over again, and any increased surface area to allow greater interaction with the air would require _even more_ additional heat shielding to protect from aerodynamic heating _and enemy lasers_, which puts you back at the start of this problem in the first place.
So I don't think effectively "armoring" (because that's essentially what these heat shields would be) hypersonic missiles is an effective way of countering lasers. It's just not a cost-effective way of ensuring your missiles can last long enough to reach their target, because _even if_ someone could make it work without sacrificing significant maneuverability or range, it would probably still be cheaper and about as effective to just lob twice as many missiles at the target instead.
Unlike a ballistic, where you do need to blow up the side of the missile, for an HGV you just need to mess up the electronics through resonance so that its guidance fails before the terminal phase. Use HGV's strength as its weakness. Scalpel, not hammer.
Discalimer: im not in the military, this is just my guess
How would a beam of photons induce resonance in a circuit?
@@elmateo77 what is an electromagnetic wave?
Just slap 10 300KW lasers onto the ship. All of that space being occupied by other weapon platforms could just be a bank of lasers. Ability to track and burn through multiple targets at the same time or one target from multiple angles. Another option could be to develop Star Trek force shields. Then you won't need lasers at all and the captain can legit say, "Shields to maximum!"
😂
PLEASE - Get Real ......!!!
What a lot of people forget about is counter measures, eg laser reflectors , etc
Screw the lasers we need phasers and quantum torpedoes
For the next few years I expect to see lasers as a replacement CWIS and as something that can blind optical sensors. Baring the military doesn't reverse engineer a phaser from a crashed UAP of course 🙂
In 1965 there was a news release on a thing called a gas dynamic laser. The very first prototype of the device put out a 65KW continuous laser beam. Not one more word on that device was ever printed. It ran on jet fuel, and was very easy to build. It is easy to understand why nobody talked about that.
Would be wild if one were to google “gas dynamic laser” or “Gasdynamic laser” and completely refute this assertion
So often times when employing a laser it flicks of many many times a second. This creates an rapid expansion and contraction cycle causing fracturing an ablation.
I wonder how catastrophic ablation on high speed bodies in atmosphere is?
Great analysis
Alex, please do a piece on the tactical ultra-short pulse laser currently being developed by the Army and the Air Force. If the little which has been publicly presented about this new concept is accurate, the problems with lasers which you speak of will be solved in short order.
OK, I am just going to say it. Your assumptions are incorrect, what we see is not what we have. They are just test beds. In 1983 I witnessed a LASER mounted on an APC, the generator was packed into it as well. It was capable of shooting down drones back then. Now 40 years later who knows what they really have.
Just put the laser in space. Come on Star Wars!
Wouldn't the the plasma bubble the missile sits in limit the ability for a laser to damage it?
This was a highly informed, authoritative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of laser technology. Many thanks for this interesting presentation. Warmest compliments. :)
I'm kinda curious to know if rail guns could be used to intercept hypersonics, and if so, why the USN didn't continue research on that side of things.
Not if it's got any maneuvering: you're going to have to make course corrections on approach if you're going to kill them at any meaningful distance where the debris doesn't hit you at mach 3 (after slowing down from mach 5). Patriot and Thaad really are the right answers here.
You can't use them to launch guided warheads because of the massive EMP they produce.
@@wilfdarr First off, why didn't you just edit your previous comment? Second, you do know that we have ways around that, right?
@@thedabblingwarlock Nothing feasible in the foreseeable future: they tried, they failed.
@@wilfdarr The problem with rail guns (supposedly) was they fried themselves after a few firings. And even if they did generate an EMP that could would fry properly designed circuits (doubtful), nothing is preventing you from having a Faraday cage in the sabot for the projectile.
Stopping a hypersonic nuclear missile with a lazer is impossible since the casing for the nuclear warhead is a heat and radiation resistant alloy and can only be incinerated by a nuclear of hydro thermal explosion.
Thanks!
Sounds like the navy would need a nuclear powered destroyer/cruiser with Ford levels of power to have enough juice to power a sufficiently powerful laser or would need to coordinate multiple laser systems to hit the same target.
Also, LK99 might pan out as a room temp & ambient pressure superconductor which would be a huge boost to how much juice you can give a laser.
Hypersonic weapons are actually pretty fragile. Any imperfection in the casing caused would cause the missile tiling break apart. Also ... in the case of aircraft carriers it wouldn't be one laser hitting the missile. It would be a dozen. Each ship will eventually have more than one.
missiles arent tiled in any materials they are made out of solid material to begin with. missiles arent the space shuttle
@@nomercyinc6783 I'm assuming hypersonic weapons would have additional protection from heat given the whole plasma sheathing thing. Regardless, they're still fragile.
@@nomercyinc6783 Yes and no. The correct answer is, 'it depends'. For example, the Kinzhal is solid metal - no tiles. The Chinese glide vehicles have publicly unknown construction (although I doubt China's been able to protect their secrets there). US missiles instead use higher quality lightweight materials and thermal management systems for greater performance and range, so they might behave like they're tiled. Their speed and greater maneuverability with the ability to change velocity under power instead of just glide makes them far, far harder to hit than the Chinese weapons. So even though they are probably more fragile, they are probably more survivable - at least for now.
@@jeremybrowand5941 Something like a re-entry vehicle is much stronger and thicker than the skin or an aircraft.
Shooting clays is another great example to intercepting missiles
Or use a super wide laser beam to detect stealth aircraft. It would see it's shadow and easily pinpoint the exact location, speed, heading...basically what you need to track it
For hypersonic and missile defense in general we will probably need a distributed space and near space based point defense systems with thousands of satellites and airships that can shoot projectiles/energy weapons.
Wake up call! You don't need destructive lasers if that would work at all someday, somehow. Hence: A 1972 introduced by Holland Signaal "Goal Keeper" anti missile and shell system, detects and stops any hypersonic missile or artillery shell, with a hit percentage of 100%. So called undetectable non-vulnerable Russian / Chinese / Iranian hypersonic missiles are shot down by the Kiev / Ukraine air defence with a hit or success rate of more then 90%. Including with the late 1960's designed AA panzer 'Gepard' system rounds!!!!!????!!! Fact check please!
@@PulledPorkGarage Goalkeeper doesn't shoot down hypersonic missiles as it was never intended to, the Russian Kinzhal missile was shot down by a Ukrainian Patriot system. But this is irrelevant since that isn't the type of hypersonic missile we're talking about. While "hypersonic" refers to speeds above Mach 5, the hypersonic weapons centered in this discussion are hypersonic gliders and ramjet/scramjet hypersonic cruise missiles. While the Kinzhal is technically hypersonic as it travels above Mach 5, it's really just a modernized air-launched ballistic missile. Ballistic missiles have set trajectories and predictable path, allowing them to easily be intercepted by missile defense systems like the Patriot. Hypersonic gliders/cruise missiles on the other hand have far more manuverability making them difficult to track and shoot down
If it was just a laser or two firing, that probably would not work very well, but if you have several dozen firing at a target from various ships, planes and drones, then that should do the trick.
And you think only 1 hypersonic missile will arrive at a time? lmao
@@anerptceipter5032
How long does it take for several dozen lasers to take out one target? A second or less? How many times can a laser fire? How fast can several dozen laser keep firing? Yea I think it would work. Not to mention lasers would not be the only weapons being used.
@@fgrillo239
Russia's kinzhal Footage:
watch?v=5x-hiR1ejGw
Hypersonic missile at mach 10 speed or higher travels more than 2mile/sec, and it will hit its target within seconds upon visual sight. The current most advanced laser system only has the capacity to beam down slow moving target like drones or outdated cruise missile(below mach 3) at short range and it takes more than 10sec to burn thru depending on the distance and material made of the target.
US Laser in action:
watch?v=WT3wjK9Jj6Q
You must be extremely delusional to be needing self comforting lies/bullshit to think that these primitive lasers(in your head, star wars pew pew lasers?) can take out something like a hypersonic missile. even if you would amplify the current output of the most advanced laser by 10x or more it still wouldn't be enough to stop a hypersonic missile. Remember, hypersonic missiles are build to withstand the blistering heat of sustained hypersonic flight and re-entry from space ,and while midflight they are coated in plasma which further helps disperse and scatter the effectiveness of laser weapons. So good luck shooting one down. Oh and as mentioned in the video, if high powered laser do actually get that powerful in the future(Not happening in the near future during hypersonic reigns), hypersonic missile can easily negate such threat by adding rotational capability like a bullet as mentioned in the video. so Good luck focusing the beam on a spot.
Either way laser has too little range(less than 1km to be effective) and due to thermal blooming can never be effective against something like the hypersonic missile. You may continue to come out with bullshit theories and self comforting lies but the reality is that if 10 or more hypersonic missiles comes barrelling in your direction, there is no stopping it. Not even god can save you
How much power to you have available?
Lasers do not have to destroy the hypersonic weapon. It just have to cause enough damage to let the atmosphere friction take over and destroy it. Range is an issue though.
Alex, the issue is not the cost of the interceptor , but the value of the target.
Basically lasers aren't strong enough to get through the missile in the seconds it would have to do so. At best it gets one but the rest get through. Maybe particle weapons can advance enough but we are a long ways from that. Catching them is space would be ideal. All this being wildly oversimplified by a layman, so let's see how it plays out lol
One day I'll learn to proof read.... That is a lie .
You know you can hit a target with multiple lasers all at once. Something like 20 different lasers converging at one point. This would exceed almost all realistic counter measures.
Except a saturation attack. How about defending against 20 missiles
From what I have read, in order to become an effective point missile defense system (like self defense of a ship) you need to get to the 500kw level, but that was probably for existing subsonic-type anti-ship cruise missiles. For something faster you'd probably need more power to deliver the energy in a shorter time. 1MW doesn't sound unreasonable That's a lot of power. The the question is, how do you generate it where you need it? Maybe you generate it over a period of time, and store it in some sort of mega-capacitor for short bursts of extreme power?
Also, I wonder if unmanned mirror or lens drones could be used to achieve altitude in order to extend range beyond the horizon, as well as provide a non-direct intercept angle to avoid the air heating problem. You could also distribute these defense lasers across escorts in a dispersed flotilla such that each ship is tasked with defending another ship, to be able to take shots from the side.
That would take some networked computer automation and distribution to control the system and automatically engage incoming targets, as it would quickly become too complex for a human operator to manage.
If I was a missile designer I would look at placing a reflective layer beneath the paint. Make that paint burn easy and completely when hit by a laser (maybe use vinyl instead of paint?), so as to expose the reflective layer. Beneath that, put some heat resistant, or possibly heat spreading material. Might make missiles more expensive and heavier. Which would make them slower, or force designers to reduce the size of the warhead. But I don't see lasers as an unavoidable insurmountable problem, even for subsonic missiles.
Hypersonic missiles will protect us from hypersonic missiles
Yea sort of but not really at least technically. An interceptor may reach _hypersonic speeds_ but it's still not a hypersonic missile.(in military parlance) In my layman's opinion lasers WILL _also_ be used against hypersonic missiles, certainly in the next 20 yrs when these threats actually become functional.
@@jdogdarknessmaybe they meant something in terms of mutually assured destruction. Idk
No they wont
As I see it, the only defense against these hypersonic missiles is area saturation. That means lots of cheap, agile interceptors capable of forcing the inbound missile to maneuver outside of its target area. They may even be able to kill the missile, though that would be a bonus in this scenario.
@@narvalin5905Agreed. A whole ton of nasty in the flight path is a good strategy. Personally, I think speed is the trick here. There's a massive difference between hypersonic and light speed. A layered defense using lasers with networked targeting systems seems like the best approach. Example. The first line misses, sends it info to the second line and so on.
Granted, it's easy for me to say this, making it reality is entirely a different challenge.
Have a great day buddy 👍
We can already intercept hypersonic maneuverables with 100% accuracy. The lasers will just decrease cost.
If you're talking about Kinzhals, they're not manoeuvrable. They're ballistic.
@@dgthe3 so they absolutely are maneuverable, this is beyond question and unfortunately the media has struck again on making people unsure about this. But generally speaking so long as they are in a short distance from a specific type of system they can be destroyed but the distance to target is quite short.
i think you're off base here. if you hit a hypersonic missile with a laser beam and don't manage to melt though anything, you just manage to introduce a small surface defect in its hull it (according to numerous other sources i've seen) will introduce a drag instability that will cause the missile to lose navigational control, tumble and be torn apart by drag.
Using a RTG nuclear reactor in a satellite defense system with a 1MW laser would absolutely be effective. It eliminates all of the impossible challenges like diffusion and range. They could even be used as planetary defense from asteroids, and even space junk.
This was basically the idea behind Reagan’s “Star Wars” plan. But they only had chemical lasers at the time.
Lasers are getting smaller and more powerful every year. That said, I haven't seen a real hypersonic missile that can change it flight path rapidly enough.
Do the math, don't forget waste heat and requisite precision.
@@piotrd.4850 Well the efficiency already went up from 10 percent to 33.
Nobody could foresee quantum computing and AI 20 years ago...
Im no physics expert but I know for sure if I run at full sprint and try to turn, I will turn but at the cost of my momentum. Hypersonic cruise missiles rely on their speed to hit the target, not maneuverability. That maneuverability is probably referring to their ICBMs and the glide vehicles they use. Russian and Chinese disinformation at its finest. 😂
@@Man_of_Various_Cultures Ballistic missiles have been hypersonic since the sixties. The old Patriot system has shown to pluck the 'hypersonic' Kinzhal out of the sky.
Maybe we don't have to come up with lasers as the hypersonic threat could just be a hype.
@@pjhgerlach I know that, I was just agreeing and offering my opinion on what the original comment was talking about.
I must disagree with you..... If every ship in an aircraft carrier group had 1 or 2 of these laser systems all 20+ could fire at the same target and obliterate it in less than a second and be ready to fire again and just a few moments...
More likely, in less than 0,01 second - and care to caclulate, using basic tigonometry and high school phyiscs synchronisation required?
@@piotrd.4850 Even if you don't synchronize perfectly, you're still hitting the target 10 times in about the same spot with very powerful lasers within milliseconds of each other
@@piotrd.4850
Sounds far easier to overcome than trying to design even more powerful lasers.
Multiple LASERs will not be coherent with each other unless they are phase conjugate.
@@jamestyrer907
With each laser source coming from a slightly different angle I don't think that's going to matter much.
The impossibility of a hypersonic missile is what will protect us. A missile that fast in atmosphere will become so ionized it loses communication with controllers that can tell it where it is. It's also blinded by the firey plume around it.
Not just that, they are extremely unstable as well so small deviations from a megawatt laser pointing at it will cause it to be more unstable destroying itself quickly.
Patriot wasn't supposed to handle Kinzhals.
Real world: Patriot intercepts the "unstoppable" Kinzhals.
So much for hypersonic hype.
Kinzal is an air launched ballistic missle, no matter what Russian propaganda call it. North Korea could make a mortar and call it 50th gen ultrasonic technology, but it will still be a mortar.
I believe the technology the US and China are developing will be far more interesting.
Don't believe the Hyper Sonic B/S in our News Media..!!
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
There is literally zero proof that Kinzhal was intercepted lol
@@eessaumer3225 Just like the Russians told us Moskva sank in a "storm?"
Which I know you believe. Hahaha
This seems to be lacking nuance. There's no way to say lasers can't be made powerful enough to be effective.
He said lasers with todays technology aren't powerful enough. But he also details why lasers of tomorrow will still have problemsv beam dispersion, thermal blooming, and beam control.