I laughed my head off (well, almost) after seeing a news report yesterday, and an almost immediate response to it on MeWe.
The report concerned the USS Preble, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, testing its new laser weapon. The article included this photograph (click it for a larger view):
I was delighted to see this response on MeWe minutes later (sorry, I can't link to individual posts on that social medium):
Talk about a snappy response that perfectly fits the photograph . . .
Peter
8 comments:
Interesting that the beam is visible in that photo. The HELIOS is an IR laser. Is the pic photoshopped (it was been process with PS), or was the image taken with a IR night vision camera?
It's black and white, so I would guess it was taken at night with a night vision camera. I remember seeing about a decade ago videos where they were testing lasers against drones, and you couldn't see the laser, but you could see the drone catching fire. (This was in the daytime with a normal video recorder.)
- W
My only contribution is that my Dad served aboard the Preble, and was involved on the fringes of something in the Gulf of Tonkin.
There's got to be a cheaper way to do this. A drastically cheaper but less sexy way than a laser. They have been working on lasers on ships for at least thirty-five forty years or so. The trouble is every year anti-ship systems get better and cheaper and ships stay the same.
The power requirements mentioned made no sense to me. The writer said it used 60 kw, the equivalent to 60 houses. If only my place only required 1,000 watts. My microwave requires 1.2 times that. That and 60 kw is not much aboard a ship.
Maybe 60kW was used to charge the capacitors and the pulse was much higher than that. I don't expect reporters to actually know what they are talking about.
A long while ago, there was a report regarding problems with the Airborne Laser with the caption "Silent but Not So Deadly" (powerful lasers ionize the air and are not silent)
SWIR camera.
Your Dad was on the Farragut-class guided missile DD Preble; the ship in the article is an Arleigh Burke class.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Preble_(DDG-46)
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