Fiber laser shoots incoming rounds

Wired-Danger Room:

Are we actually starting to close in on laser weapons? Could be. For years, ray gun researchers have been saying that 100 kilowatts is the minimum power required for battlefield-strength blasters -- a level that hasn't been hit (yet). But Navy officials now claim they've got the makings of a workable ray gun that uses only a fraction of that power.

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....

But these weren't just isolated tests, Capt. Kiel, with Naval Sea Systems Command, insists. By fiscal year 2009, he believes he can have a fiber laser-powered version of the Phalanx mortar-shooting system -- already deployed in Iraq -- ready to demonstrate.

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The Israelis have also been looking at a system like this to protect them from the rocket attacks of Hezballah and the Palestinians. The system looks like it might be feasible for a fixed defensive position, but as this image shows, it is still too large to be portable. Still it is a very interesting advance that could protect the fleet and forward operating bases in the near future.