Laser gunship hits moving ground target
The Advanced Tactical Laser in an undated flight over Albuquerque, N.M.
(Credit: Ed Turner, Boeing)Boeing continues to carve notches in its directed-energy bandolier.
The defense contractor said Tuesday that its Advanced Tactical Laser aircraft in mid-September fired from the air and hit a vehicle moving on the ground. That bull's-eye marks the first time the modified C-130H has used its onboard chemical laser to strike a moving target. Boeing didn't offer specifics on the type of vehicle, other than to say it was remote-controlled, or how fast it was moving, nor did it give the airspeed or altitude for the aircraft.
The actual damage was minimal: the laser beam put a hole in the fender of the vehicle. But it does go another small step toward demonstrating the potential of directed-energy weapons. A few weeks earlier, the ATL had made a laser strike on a stationary ground target that Boeing describes as "tactically representative." On that occasion, Boeing said in a September 1 press release, "the laser beam's energy defeated the vehicle"--"defeated" in this case meaning that the vehicle was made temporarily or permanently unavailable for its intended use.
So don't expect Hollywood pyrotechnics. Check out the several videos from the summer in which Boeing shows the ATL carving a gash, blowtorch-style, in the hood of what looks like a pickup truck. (Boeing says those videos are separate from the ATL defeating a ground vehicle.)
The September test took place at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, with the aircraft flying out of Kirtland Air Force Base, located near Albuquerque. Boeing is working the kinks out of the ATL for the U.S. Air Force, as it is with the bigger Airborne Laser, a modified 747 that's intended to target ballistic missiles. Where the Airborne Laser fires its high-energy chemical laser through the aircraft's nose, the ATL shoots from a ball turret in the belly of its fuselage.
In a case of what goes down must also go up, Boeing is also working on a Humvee-mounted laser weapon that has shown it can shoot down an unmanned aerial vehicle.
Jonathan Skillings is managing editor of CNET News, based in the Boston bureau. He's been with CNET since 2000, after a decade in tech journalism at the IDG News Service, PC Week, and an AS/400 magazine. He's also been a soldier and a schoolteacher. E-mail Jon. 
its the accuracy they were interested in testing.. they already know how much damage they can do
A Single A10 or AH-64 with a rack of missiles could wipe out an enemy tank or supply convoy with near impunity for significantly less cost than a laser armed aircraft. It could also do it from longer range, and it can fire and evade enemy fire at the same time. It's missile systems are also more reliable than a laser and they can be reloaded in under 15 minutes by a good ground crew, whereas a laser armed aircraft will get only a handful of bursts out of its laser before it burns out its internal workings/chemical source, which will require a day or more to refit.
Lasers also don't work in the rain, in sand storms, in snow, or in fog. Which means that they will be great if your shooting at slow moving pick up trucks in on a sunny day in California, but that they won't work a lot of the time in the middle East, Europe or Eastern Europe.
I can just see it. There's a coup in Russia.The cold war reignites, US forces rush into action to prevent a new Soviet Union from over running Poland and Germany, laser armed aircraft are mobilized to destroy 1,000 strong soviet tank army heading for down town Berlin ...... but it's a rainy day so they can't fight. Soviets win, the western world falls, and the Soviets refuse to let Hillary Clinton be president of the new USSA because she's too Communist even for them.
Tactical lasers aren't meant to replace conventional weapons -- we already have those. Lasers are meant to contribute where conventional weapons can't be used, especially in Special Ops type of situation.
For example, with a tactical laser you could take out specific individuals 10km away, in a fraction of a second. You could take out all comm equipment (cell towers, antennas, etc) within a 20km range without notice. You could silently disable cars, trucks, boats and other vehicles before a special-ops raid.
These are all capabilities the current AC130 doesn't have. In a hostage-rescue situation, tactical lasers could be the difference between mission success or failure: the combination of its speed, stealth and precision is lethal. You could take out a high-value target while leaving those around him unharmed, avoiding collateral damage.
Your A10 or AH64 would be useless in these scenarios. The type of laser used is not visible to the eye, and does not make any sound. The system would be a fearsome "sniper in the sky".
In addition to taking down "high value targets", I would imagine the ATL would be useful for detonating IED's and car bombs from a safe distance and in a safe location.
- by panthecat October 14, 2009 7:45 PM PDT
- If that turret is raised and lowered hydraulically, the first time that airplane has a massive hydraulic failure, it'll be just like the old B-24, but without a crewmen in the turret. That must have been a hell of a way to die, crushed, scraped and squashed alive and knowing in advance it was going to happen. The first time this bird can't raise it's landing gear and that expensive new toy is worn down to a nub, someone will scream like a wounded banshee about the cost of that thing.
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- by October 25, 2009 6:45 PM PDT
- If the plane has a massive hydraulic failure, the last thing anyone will care about is whether they scraped the turret off the belly. They'll care about whether the plane and crew got back on the ground safely. The military drops multi-million dollar aircraft all the time--it's the cost of doing business.
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