Frickin' Laser Beams!

How far are we from viable, man-portable laser weaponry, Jow Forums?

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Very far.
Battery technology holds only a tiny fraction of the energy that chemical propellants like gunpowder does.

Laser tech has other huge problems too, like keeping the lens on the gun super clean otherwise it will cook itself when you fire it, not to mention fog, smoke, etc, scattering the beam and rendering it ineffective.

100 years or so.

Let's say we solve the battery issue, what would be the optimal environment for such a weapon?

If the battery issue is solved then there's no reason why we couldn't make a functional laser weapon. Potential downsides:

-it fires in a straight line only, so you can't lob projectiles in a ballistic arc
-particles in the air like smoke, dust, fog, etc, will scatter the beam and reduce its effectiveness. That means depending on the condition of the local air the range could be anywhere from kilometers to just a few meters.
-keeping the "muzzle" of the weapon would become a huge problem, as it is today for industrial cutting lasers. If the lens gets even a little dirty then all that energy from the laser ends up in the gun itself. It would be like firing a normal weapon with a bore obstruction...very bad, and very easy to have happen.
-different materials absorb different wavelengths of light at different rates. That means that laser weapons need to be designed to attack certain materials, and will end up being poor performers against other materials. For example, the shop I work in has a 4 kw CO2 laser for cutting steel. It can cut 3/4-inch steel very cleanly, or a full 1" thick like a gas torch would. On the other hand if you try to cut aluminum with it instead of steel and it can't even cut 1/4" thick. Why is this? Because molten aluminum tends to reflect the wavelength of that particular laser, whereas steel does not. I'm sure someone would have to design the laser to have the right wavelength (or combination of different wavelengths) to be effective against its intended targets. It's an even worse problem than we are seeing know with AP ammo. AP ammo sucks against unarmored troops (ice picking) but it's necessary vs. armor. The laser would have a similar problem.

...continued.
The laser weapon would also lack the ability to load anything inside a projectile or to alter its shape, so you have a one-size-fits-all beam. No options for, say, hollow points vs. AP vs. API, etc. No grenades, no explosive shells.

The advantages the laser would have would be no recoil, nearly instantaneous time to "impact" on target, no moving parts, and reduced weight since there are no longer any projectiles involved.

I think the technology will work best in automated applications, like close range point defense, anti-missile/drone/aircraft, that kind of thing. That said, it's weakness to atmospheric contaminants like smoke, fog, etc, is huge so it will never replace traditional arms in that role.

Good posts

Ah, I see. The real problem is what's in the atmosphere. I think actual laser weaponry would have to be very situational. The problem is, I don't know of any situation where you'd have to use them on the ground. Like you said, the tech makes sense in automated applications. So if we see an increase in drone usage, would ground-to-air laser-based weaponry be viable?

If you want headsplosion like in videogames and movies, very far

But if you are fine with a LOS flamthrower that can do painful and substantial harm to people, we are already there, we just need more durable things for the infantry scale weapon

But putting 2nd and 3rd degree burns on somebody at 500 meters is easily doable

Would sniper lasers be feasible? They do a lot of precise calculation in order to hit their targets. A weapon that fires in a straight line with no falloff and reaches the target at the speed of light would seem incredibly useful.

They could even carry specialized lenses to help them against specific materials.

I can't claim to be an expert, but probably not. Like said, fog, smoke, and other things in the air can have a great effect on the strength of the beam.

laser power guide 101, user:
10kw: slow kill quadcopters at 2km
100-150kw: CRAM, low-altitude AA, fast kills of soft targets
300-500kw: things start exploding now
1MW+: reliably kill supersonic antiship missiles, and ballistic missiles with some luck

That just means you're not using enuff zappa.

Lasers are also subject to the inverse square law. So they lose effectiveness rapidly with increasing distances.
I'd assume, the only way that a laser weapon would work is if it was used only at shorter ranges.

aircraft mounted laser induced plasma channel lightning-redirection weapons have been in use for a while now, but they're used sparingly so as to maintain plausibly deniability. probably not fit for conversion into small arms.

Lasers are not point sources, and do not increase in size and decrease in intensity with the inverse square of distance. Instead, the beam width diverges at an angle which is twice the wavelength divided by the product of pi and the minimum beam width.

russians had some in the 80s, probably meant to fight james bond in space.

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Not for an instant kill, but for quick debilitation its feasible

Instead of holding a power source in the gun, would it be retarded to use expendable battery mags (one for each shot)

Man, if 2 seconds on contact can induce 2nd degree burns and stand of chance at igniting clothing, thats more than good enough to induce severe casualties

And the laser cannons don't need to blast a planes or missile out of the sky themselves, not when you can have dozens of these things in a group concentrating and dividing fire willy nilly

"Disruptive technologies" the battery tech does exist it's just not on any market.

>the battery tech does exist it's just not on any market
proof??

Why not a weapon that triggers static discharge/lightening when activated, like a land mine or grenade that triggers a focal point of already present +charge atmosphere

Have a dig through US patent listings
I'll share a link to some interesting off topic
ones however I don't have the battery tech patents

usa-anti-communist.com/ard/US_PatentedMindControl.php

The electric and oil companies would be useless overnight hence the label disruptive tech , too many politicians with investments in those big monopolys

ok your just pure autistic

nice man how about proving to me that we have super advnce battery tech you know this is real life
this isint no wakanda shit

>A weapon that fires in a straight line with no falloff and reaches the target at the speed of light would seem incredibly useful.

And it is, assuming the laser is powerful enough. Remember that a laser takes time to do damage. It's just like starting a fire with a magnifying glass. If you have a small magnifying glass it takes a long time of heating in the same exact spot. If you have a really big one you can do it much faster. Even though the beam travels at the speed of light, it still needs to be held on target for a moment in order to transfer enough energy to kill or incapacitate.

It doesn't really matter how powerful your laser is. Particles in the air absorb a % of it, not a fixed amount.

Lolno, they wouldn't. Where are you gonna get electricity from to charge those super batteries? Electric companies. Batteries are just a container. They don't create energy, they only store it. You still have to get your power from somewhere before you put it in the battery.

>copyright 2018
>for an image I've seen floating around since nearly the inception of this site

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So, ya'll be saying lasers would proof more viable in space? Either way anti laser coating on clothing/objects would be easier to have than a laser gun.

Yes and Yes.

Those are all legitimate patents
Prove me wrong

My favorite is this one. Alamy stock photo claims this image, yet it was taken in 1944, was widely published all over the world, and this one even bears the watermark of the Imperial War Museum on it...

Something doesn't have to work in order for it to be patentable. A patent isn't proof of anything other than the idea being "yours". It has nothing whatsoever to do with the thing actually functioning.

>anti laser coating
Small Glass/acryllic/polycarbonate spheres with hemisphere aluminum backing studded into a flat surface in a hexagonal packing arrangement would not only reflect a significant fraction of incoming light, it would retroreflect it, potentially damaging the laser system firing.

mckinsey.com/business-functions/sustainability/our-insights/battery-storage-the-next-disruptive-technology-in-the-power-sector

Anti-laser defenses can be remarkably low-tech. Something like sugar syrup or honey works. The laser hits it, that heats it up which boils off the water and burns the sugar. That results in it turning black (burnt) as the burning sugar yeilds carbon, and puffing up into a sponge because of the steam from the boiling water. It turns out that a carbon sponge does a great job blocking light and insulating as well. It's fragile as hell and it only works once in the same spot but it can block a surprising amount of laser energy

t. bored tech working in a college physics lab with way too much time on his hands

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you sure it was that exact image you've seen before?

they may have bought the rights to the image.

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Use buttloads of multiple lasers on single targets. Concentrate the fire.

An intumescent coating, essentially

Just fire air blasted electricity. You would still need a large energy and air source as well as a medium to "burn up" and hold the "ball of electricity" but it is possible.

tests with the LawS show that fog or mist thick enough to stop a laser would alsp reduce visibility low enough to stop anything that isnt radar guided

maybe law enforcement?
since the laser dissipates over a short range and cant over penetrate, you are less likely to hit civilians
the flat trajectory wouldn't be so bad at such close range
the lack of noise and recoil makes it good in case you are indoors

and you can flick a switch to set modes
lethal laser mode, non-lethal face dazzling mode, and war crime permanent blindness mode

different wavelength settings, maybe? could use a selector-switch interface like on modern automatic weapons.

in Battletech lore, the Clan uses 'ER' laser weapons (extended range) which fires a series of beams in close succession with each trigger-pull (such close succession as to be indistinguishable from a single discharge). The first beams were meant to vaporize particles in the firing-path before the main 'payload' beam was fired at the target. Would something like that work?

Anyone have that post about the anti-laser reflective armor thing that always reflects the laser back at its point of origin?

it wouldn't really work, since mirrors or reflective coatings would be vaporized by a laser

Batteries are expensive, require lots of maintainence, and already store dangerous levels of energy
Watch what happens when batteries 'slode in a phone and then bump that up to house levels

Deep Space.

Even better
Seriously though, what about backpack flow batteries for powering electric handheld weaponry? Could easily be designed to be interchangeable for a wide range of required output powers by simply attaching to a different sized catalyst, and recharging is as easy as pumping electrolyte and thus shit fast. Terrible energy density though.

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Batteries get horribly hot. Especially large groups.

Flow batteries can use the electrolyte as a coolant, and the only electron flow happens through the catalyst and weapon to which the catalyst would be attached, the supply current is the electrolyte flow.
Imagine those old flamethrower backpack tanks, but with electrolyte instead

I'm afraid different frequencies/wavelengths of light would require multiple lasing media.
Except for one, a free-electron laser, which has a tunable frequency.

it's still gonna all get hot
you can only keep the heat so low
without a bunch a dudes with firehoses filling you up and cooling you off

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>keeping the "muzzle" of the weapon would become a huge problem, as it is today for industrial cutting lasers. If the lens gets even a little dirty then all that energy from the laser ends up in the gun itself. It would be like firing a normal weapon with a bore obstruction...very bad, and very easy to have happen.
Maybe employ some kind of hinged cover over the 'muzzle,' similar to a dust-shield, only levered open before firing and then closed again when not in use. Possibly even a mechanism to uncover the lens during the sequence of a trigger-pull, uncovering only in the moment before firing.

Any ideas on what a hypothetical laser-weapon would do to a modern plate-carrier vest?

depends on the power
a laser with the energy of a 9mm would only heat a thin surface layer without much damage
a laser with the energy of a 7.62x51 still wont penetrate, because it dumps all its energy in the top layer making an unholy racket and a small explosion but still not go through

however, you could set the laser to a widebeam, blinding but not permanently hurting the enemy, then running while they are distracted

wouldn't the explosion from the vaporizing top-layer at least give the guy a decent little punch of pressure, maybe break a rib or knock him over? also, what about follow-up shots to the same area?

fuck lasers, we need plasma and rail guns asap

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That's functionally what a pulsed laser is.
Lasers do not penetrate. When a laser hits something, all its energy is dumped into the surface of the target and propogates from there. Dump a lot of energy into the surface and you vaporize the top layer. The problem with this is that now you have a haze of particulates hovering over the target and soaking up energy that then flies off and away instead of transferring heat to the target. To solve this, they shoot the laser in pulses instead of a continual beam and allow the haze to scatter for an instant between pulses.

SPESS

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>it fires in a straight line only, so you can't lob projectiles in a ballistic arc
>Implying

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>>bouncing off a mirror is the same thing as a lob
Nice try, but I'm far too pedantic for that.

The Cold War idea of choice was titanium dioxide (white paint/dye for a high albedo) suspended in a pool of water. It made good armor against orbital laser strikes.

Retroreflectors are a bit of a meme.

Something like that could work, sure. Though I'm sure there are still kinks to work out. Industrial lasers for cutting metal or engraving use a blast of compressed air (sometimes other gases) to keep the lens clean.

I didn't mean to imply that it was an insurmountable problem, rather it was an important concern that needs attention.

Some kind of armored shutter is important to stop other lasers from counter-battery-firing the lens and mirrors.

You can patent things that don't work or are complete absurdities, even. It's about intellectual property, not legitimacy.

Being granted a patent means you can sue people who try to sell an AIDS cure that is 60% chickpeas, 40% gecko dicks and doesn't cure AIDS, as described in your patent.

This 2bh

A giant, computer operated laser cannon on tanks, planes, satellites, point-defense statics, and ships, to discombobulate incoming enemy missiles and detonate their explosives before reaching their intended target.

Massive, two-man (or one man) cannons to be fired at tanks, APCs, and other such vehicles to fry delicate sensor equipment and rob them of 3-dimensional awareness/vision. If a man gets in the way of it, they'll get charred to fucking barbecue, but it's not designed to be anti-personnel.

It'll also probably use gamma rays too, just fyi, since gamma is much more powerful than lasers. It'll probably use infrared or some shit for visual confirmation though.

>Massive, two-man (or one man) cannons
>fry delicate sensor equipment

Still seems less optimal than, say, an RPG or conventional AT something. IDK.

Honestly that concept has a lot of appeal to it: have one or two very high power laser systems mounted on the ground, then just have drones with reflectors/beam splitters on them to distribute those lasers across the battlefield.

Laser communism!

Also, if that's the route laser weaponry takes, tanks will probably have some sort of particulate cloud dispenser to defract the laser weaponry, all the while throwing white phosphorous in your face for trying to fuck with its electronic equipment.

I don't know what to tell you, dude. Unless you're in space, lasers don't really do anything. In the far future, ship based DEWs will be used to destroy incoming projectiles and fry enemy electronics, but as for small arms, it's just not worth it.

A ship MIGHT be able to fry humans the same way a magnifying glass will be used to fry ants, but that's such a gross misuse of a fusion reactor powered weapon that it'd be like putting a cold cup of water in a crematorium just to warm it up for instant coffee. You're expending more energy than you need to be efficient. Just launch a used plate out of the rail cannon and kill them through sheer kinetic energy alone.