SHAH ALAM: Lasers on the way. Lasers once the purview of science fiction books, comics and movies are rapidly becoming reality. From akward huge devices in sterile labs, the latest laser devices are now small enough to be mounted on shipping containers, ships and 8X8 vehicles. The biggest obstacle in the realisation of hand held laser weapons are the power packs. That is why whenever I meet up with local industry or university people was to recommend the research and development of palm size battery packs that it is easily rechargeable and have enough juice to power up hand held laser devices or in the movie parlance, blasters. Of course they were not interested, they would rather reinvent the wheel.
From Rheinmetall.
Rheinmetall presses ahead with laser weapon technology: new weapon station successfully tested
Rheinmetall continues to make steady headway in the world of laser weapons, having recently completed a successful serious of comprehensive trials with a weapon station. In combination with a laser, the weapon station demonstrated its speed and precision in tests conducted in December 2018. The weapon station can be armed with lasers in the 100 kW output power range.
During the tests, which were conducted in Switzerland at the company’s Ochsenboden test centre near Zürich, drones and mortar rounds were successfully engaged at operationally relevant ranges.
The laser weapon station is the latest stage and logical continuation of the process in which Rheinmetall has transformed laser weapon technology into a fully functional weapon system. It consists of four main components: the laser source, beam director with the telescope, and coarse tracker (weapon station).
The mobile weapon station performs the task of mechanically aiming the laser toward the target. Now that a weapon station specially designed to meet the requirements of a laser weapon station has been successfully realized, Rheinmetall has all of the principal assemblies for a future laser weapon system at its own disposal.
The laser weapon station was combined with a beam director – successfully employed in multiple tests – and high-performance Rheinmetall lasers. It is also designed to be combined with a soon-to-be-available 20 kW laser source, likewise made by Rheinmetall.
Equally suitable for ground, air and naval operations, the assemblies are modular and scalable in design, and can be deployed regardless of the threat situation on military platforms of all types.
Among the laser weapon station’s outstanding performance parameters are its extremely accurate mechanical aiming function, coupled with an unlimited, 360° traversing zone and an elevation range in excess of 270°. The system architecture (EN DIN 61508) is closely oriented to the MANTIS air defence system now in service with the Bundeswehr, and thus also offers interfaces for connecting it to higher-echelon air defence systems
— Malaysian Defence
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The problem with anything electrical is that they have MTBF, and failures can be as simple as a loose connection or software crash.
That is why bullets are “bulletproof”
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Until someone find a better mouse trap..
This is particularly useful for defense posture. A game changer technology thst will render many other technology obsolete.
Lasers on ISO containers? LMS with ISO module slots? Yes please.
And we haven’t even touched on the topic of power supply and storage. Can a laser gun have the firing rate of say an oerlikon 35mm AA gun? Right now storing energy in explosive form safely in the shape of ammunition is easy, and rarely bettered. IMO if civilian tasks like blasting a quarry is moving from TNT to lazer energy, then we will know that the time has come for lazers to be used in battle.
advance technology always play a role of game changer