Laser Weapons Closing in on Reality

http://blog.wired.com/defense/images/2007/07/03/laserphalanx_2.jpg" width=374 border=0> In a presentation and white paper given last week at a meeting of the American Society of Naval Engineers, Captain David Kiel said that lasers using as little as 10 and 20 kilowatts were used to blast mortars and zap small watercraft.  Neither the Navy -- nor its corporate partner, Raytheon -- is saying exactly how they pulled it off.  But the key, according to Kiel, is fiber lasers, which (to oversimplify) use optical threads -- instead of crystal slabs or vats of chemicals -- as the ray's power source.   They're considered some of the simplest kinds of lasers to use -- and to combine into even stronger beams.

In a proof-of-principle demonstration of a fiber laser at Sandia National Laboratory in June 2006, Raytheon destroyed mortar rounds, at ranges of interest, using a commercially purchased fiber laser, thus showing the effectiveness of this type of laser, with low beam quality, against targets of interest. Furthermore, in late summer of 2006, a series of static field tests conducted at NSWC [Naval Surface Warfare Center] Crane, Indiana, against a variety of missile seekers at tactically significant range, demonstrated again the reliability and utility of a commercial fiber laser. These demonstrations validated the lethality model and engagement simulation and paved the way to a deployable near-term fiber laser weapon.