a reply to: andy06shake
Interesting but you know this is old technology, they have had laser's using pulsed emission for some time that can do this, other projected energy
weapons they have developed are far superior and they tend to radio frequency devices based on sympathetic resonance, the advantage of a laser though
is there is no real need to identify hull composition so it has a minor use in this state.
Very powerful laser devices are alway's limited due to atmospheric thermal plasma feedback which would cause a potential damage to the emitter in
dense atmospheric or particularly water vapor rich environment's but so far no lasers have acheived the level of energy output to put that theory to
the test (that we know of).
The other advantage is the narrow beam and concealed focus of a laser leave very little that could be used to trace back to it's source but as you
know a climate scientist and physicist in tokyo was working on a laser based method of dissipating lightning to prevent lighting strikes to large
buildings and thuse reduce costs as well as trying to find a way to harvest the energy of the lighting,. This was done by firing a high energy laser
beam at the energy laden cloud layer and this in turn would ionise a stream of atmospheric particle's creating a conductive pathway through the
atmosphere with the potential to provide a lower resistance path to earth and allow the pent up energy to discharge.
This means that a laser with that capability can be detected back to it's source using ion emission detection and thus the apparent advantage is not
really there except when used against third world somalie pirate's in there skiff's as any technologized nation could adapt rather quickly to
Also the test craft is a nice target soft hulled and dark energy absorbant material which paint's a positive picture of the that white elephant,
someone is being robbed and it is the taxpayers.
Lasers have a potential to be clean weapons in that they do not leave spent round's or chemical pollutants (Except at there energy source) but they
are currently inferior to less expensive and more easily deployed weapon systems offering little or no advantage over them.
Now the rail gun that they developed on the other hand is another kettle of fish entirely.
Crystal ceramic tiles on a warhead to protect against laser based weapons at the expense of higher radar signature.
Angled deflective panels on ships and boats to bounce or deflect the majority of the laser energy.
Sympathetic resonance generators to created electromagnetic reinforcement of material's to prevent the usual atomic excitation that is resultant
form high energy absorbption such as laser or heat can also extend the life of standard metals though as far as I know no on is working on these
openly but it should theoretically be possible with known types of excitation and the resultant radio thermal emissions to rig up a device with could
apply an inverse energy to dampen that excitation using low energy small compact emitters which could be built with extant technology's.
Back in the 1970's to the 1980's the russians were successfully developing a radar based anti missile, anti aircraft technology based on a high
energy radar array which would output a broad radio combined spectrum pulse and then they would analyze the returned signal to identify radio
saturation and absorbption.
The absorbption would be used to identify the material's the object was made from and then the inverse complex conjugate of that absorbption
waveform was amplified with the entire output of a nuclear powerstation (Chernobyl - was that sabotage) and the extremely powerful array was used to
transmit a narrow beam emission back at the aircraft/missile(s) (it could handle entire formations) and litterally disolve them in flight by causing
there atom's to vibrate and heat up in a matter of mere second's, it could also be used on satellites.
Now you have to ask yourself this, the states knew all about that, so they must have superior technology's at least in the upper black wing of the
secret governmental department's and of course they only reveal such technology's as this toy to melt a boat when they are no longer top secret or
for public relations.
S+F for an interesting thread.