US Air Force SOC Commander Proposes AC-130s with Laser Weapons - Polidicks

[IMG]https://chivethebrigade.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/ac-130-spooky-920-16.jpg[/IMG] [QUOTE]The flying branch is replacing the old gunships with a modern AC-130J named Ghostrider starting in 2018. This new version will have a 30-millimeter chain gun, 105-millimeter cannon and precision-strike missiles, making it one of the meanest killers on patrol. But in the future, Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold—the chief of Air Force Special Operations Command—wants install an airborne microwave energy gun on the Ghostrider, similar to the infamous Humvee-mounted heat ray the U.S. deployed briefly to Afghanistan. He also wants to add a big, high-powered laser in place of the 105-millimeter cannon. Instead of blowing things up from the air, the future Ghostrider could zap them into cinders. Heithold revealed this ambitious yet surprisingly real plan at the tail end last month’s Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando, Florida, in response to a question about ways the military industry could help his command in the future.[/QUOTE] [QUOTE]“If we just want to take a comms node out in the middle of the night — nobody hears anything, nobody sees anything. It just quits working because we burn a hole in it.” Sound farfetched? Nope. It turns out, the request is anything but science fiction, and would be doable right now if the government was willing to throw enough money at it. The Navy recently deployed its “LaWS” Laser Weapon System aboard the transport ship USS Ponce in the Arabian Gulf to shoot down drones and missiles. The Army has its own laser weapon system, known as the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator. The Army is upgrading that prototype laser truck with a more powerful laser, which should be able to track and shoot incoming rockets, cruise missiles, artillery and mortars rounds. According to Lockheed Martin’s laser weapons expert Rob Afzal, today’s weapons are essentially sophisticated optical fiber lasers designed originally for welding and cutting metal. They are far less exotic than the massive chemical lasers of the past. At a Lockheed media event in February, Afzal said replacing the 105-millimeter cannon on the AC-130J with a high-energy laser weapon is possible, and in fact has already been done.[/QUOTE] From [URL="http://medium.com/war-is-boring/special-ops-want-to-add-laser-beams-to-its-ghostrider-gunships-7f04b7074bd"]War is Boring[/URL]

Even if these laser weapons are viable, why replace the biggest gun on the thing with one? Surely it'd be cheaper to operate without the missiles than without the 105mm HEAT.

I never thought lasers would take off when they were using chemical lasers. I'm glad we've upgraded since then.

Mount one on either side and turn it into a [url=http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130719130715/starwars/images/c/c5/Low_Altitude_Assault_Transport.png]LAAT[/url] Also wouldn't the laser cannon basically be useless if a cloud gets in the way?

This seems like a good idea for precision strikes. Little to no collateral damage if you're careful.

[QUOTE=archangel125;47278358]Even if these laser weapons are viable, why replace the biggest gun on the thing with one? Surely it'd be cheaper to operate without the missiles than without the 105mm HEAT.[/QUOTE] I think the idea is that this would be a spec-ops only variant, where the silent operation of the weapon would be a serious advantage. Plus this current Air Force brass really likes throwing million-dollar missiles at the problem, which it would still have.

God damn that photo is sexy

[QUOTE=B E A R;47278429]Mount one on either side and turn it into a [url=http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130719130715/starwars/images/c/c5/Low_Altitude_Assault_Transport.png]LAAT[/url] Also wouldn't the laser cannon basically be useless if a cloud gets in the way?[/QUOTE] Nah, the Navy's lasers work quite happily through the ocean air moisture, I shouldn't think clouds would disperse it to any great extent. As to why a laser instead of a cannon: no recoil, so far more precision, less collateral, as already stated, cheaper per shot, and with a sufficient power plant, probably many more shots before "ammo" runs out. Actually, I wonder if it could be lighter with a power plant than bullets/shells/whateverthey'recalled.

That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] Thank you General for the input on the topic. You should tell Pentagon about these things that you figured out, after all they are no match to you for their knowledge on the matter.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] Would it really be used against people though? Wouldn't it be way more effective against stationary targets? Like vehicles, caches and such.

[QUOTE=archangel125;47278358]Even if these laser weapons are viable, why replace the biggest gun on the thing with one? Surely it'd be cheaper to operate without the missiles than without the 105mm HEAT.[/QUOTE] Last I heard about it the equipment required to produce a laser of sufficient strength took up the entire cargo bay, so it's possible they don't have much of a choice. This was several years ago though.

[QUOTE] But in the future, Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold—the chief of Air Force Special Operations Command—wants install an airborne microwave energy gun on the Ghostrider, similar to the infamous Humvee-mounted heat ray the U.S. deployed briefly to Afghanistan.[/QUOTE] Laser guns on a AC-130 called Ghostriders, I could not approve more.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] I'd rather have the ability to pin point a single person and toast them, than a 105 blowing apart the whole block, or a 30mm chaingun turning 100 square yards into swiss cheese for a few baddies. [editline]7th March 2015[/editline] War is nasty, but my vote goes to the thing that can kill the least amount of bystanders.

Didn't they already try this before? Maybe they've made the lasers a bit more viable.

[QUOTE=cucumber;47278758]Thank you General for the input on the topic. You should tell Pentagon about these things that you figured out, after all they are no match to you for their knowledge on the matter.[/QUOTE] Like the Pentagon has never sunk ridiculous amounts of money into bad ideas before...

This type of laser would more likely be used for taking down incoming rockets and missiles rather than actually shooting anything on the ground

[QUOTE=Alrækinn;47278903]Didn't they already try this before? Maybe they've made the lasers a bit more viable.[/QUOTE] They have, Lockheed Martin managed to stop a car by boring a hole clean into the engine block with a laser from a distance of 1 mile, so yeah, lasers don't suck anymore.

[QUOTE=B E A R;47278429]Mount one on either side and turn it into a [url=http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130719130715/starwars/images/c/c5/Low_Altitude_Assault_Transport.png]LAAT[/url] Also wouldn't the laser cannon basically be useless if a cloud gets in the way?[/QUOTE] Not necessarily. Different wavelengths of light refract differently through different substances.

[QUOTE=Alrækinn;47278903]Didn't they already try this before? Maybe they've made the lasers a bit more viable.[/QUOTE] I don't know about gunships, but a while back they made a laser anti-missile system mounted on the nose of Boeing 747. [t]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/YAL-1A_Airborne_Laser_unstowed_crop.jpg/1920px-YAL-1A_Airborne_Laser_unstowed_crop.jpg[/t]

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] Read the full article with their reasons why before complaining about it. [quote]“You’re going to find this very hard to believe, but we don’t want to kill everybody that we have in our sights,” Heithold said. “There’s times, actually, where we would like to have non-lethal means to force them to stop what they’re doing, things like microwave energy guns.”[/quote]

[QUOTE=Trooper0315;47279048]Read the full article with their reasons why before complaining about it.[/QUOTE] He was talking mounting either one, a high-powered laser or a microwave gun. That said, I acknowledge that it definitely would do less wholesale collateral damage than the AC130's usual armament. Though, I think I remember reading that the AC130 already has the lowest collateral damage rate of virtually any weapons system in the USAF. Probably because they only get called in when everything has gone to shit. Still not a big fan of zapping people with lasers.

[QUOTE=TheRealRudy;47279092]Soon... [/QUOTE] Lasers are never going to be a truly practical weapon for anything other than defensive counter-measures, killing unarmored combatants/civilians, or use as secondary weapons to damage soft-spots on vehicles or materiel items Basic reflective and refractory materials can dissipate like 90+% of the energy any laser could transfer. Even the silicon carbide and aluminum oxide composites that most body and vehicle armors are made of can withstand temperatures of up to 2000+ degrees, and have refractory properties for temperatures any lower than that. That's not including any specifically designed ablative and reflective coatings they'd likely slap on top of that in the event that any infantry or vehicles started using lasers as primary weapons. Directed energy weapons in general are unlikely to ever surpass kinetic weapons, far too many hurdles to get over, the costs will always be higher, etc. Accelerating pieces of metal with gas expansion or magnetism will always be more appealing, cost effective and deadly than trying to use light, plasma or electrolasers to transmit stored electric energy. Simply put, even when small batteries and super-capacitors are good enough to power a deadly laser, that energy would still be better and more efficiently spent on a gauss rifle or a rail gun.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] I can probably tell if you said that on r/scifi, you would've gotten shot down in seconds...

[QUOTE=Deathtrooper2;47279416]I can probably tell if you said that on r/scifi, you would've gotten shot down in seconds...[/QUOTE] Hey, I didn't say anything about being opposed to using lasers in space.

I imagine the psychological effect of watching someone melt in front of you would be remarkably potent.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278916]Like the Pentagon has never sunk ridiculous amounts of money into bad ideas before...[/QUOTE] Please cite me all those projects the Pentagon has been going on that is literally unable to kill anything or do its job. The worst thing you can say against Pentagon's research projects is they're woefully inefficient and sometimes unnecessary.

[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;47278718]That doesn't seem like a very good idea. Lasers have virtually no area of effect. The most powerful battlefield laser currently in existence could miss me by a couple inches and I'd barely feel warm. The 105 just needs to land reasonably close to a target. Plus, I'm still kind of ambivalent about deploying lasers in a battlefield role where they'd actually be used against people. The Geneva Convention already bans use of lasers intended to blind people. Do we really want to get around that by saying "Well, it isn't [I]intended[/I] to blind people, it's intended to roast them alive"? Granted, getting blown apart by a 105 shell sucks too, but I guess I'm just not in a big hurry to live in a world where my country's military is in the business of charring people alive with lasers and blinding everyone that happens to look up at the wrong time. Artillery is cheap and it doesn't break. IMO, save the lasers for shooting down missiles and mortars and clearing unexploded ordinance.[/QUOTE] Have you seen what happens to a tank crew when the crew compartment takes a penetrating hit from a high-explosive anti-tank warhead(AKA every man-portable rocket launcher and ATGM warhead made in the past sixty years)? Lemme tell ya: It ain't pretty. Guys climbing out of T-72s with half a leg blown off and most of their clothes/skin roasted off only to die to small arms fire as they fall off the tank is not an uncommon sight in Syria right now. Lasers won't be any different. [QUOTE=booster;47278760]Would it really be used against people though? Wouldn't it be way more effective against stationary targets? Like vehicles, caches and such.[/QUOTE] Tank crews are people too, ya know. [QUOTE=Amfleet;47278437]I think the idea is that this would be a spec-ops only variant, where the silent operation of the weapon would be a serious advantage. Plus this current Air Force brass really likes throwing million-dollar missiles at the problem, which it would still have.[/QUOTE] Have you ever been within three square miles of an operational C-130? They're the [i]opposite[/i] of stealthy. You can hear those fuckin' things flying over a Metallica concert from the front row. Come to think of it I don't think there's ever been a quiet turboprop aircraft built yet, they're all incredibly noisy. And, with regard to the AC130, that noise is a large part of why the damned thing is so effective at making the enemy duck for cover. When the enemy hears those distinctive turboprops overhead they know several thousand pounds of freedom are about to rain down on their head. Sometimes they'll just outright give up as soon as it arrives, if they don't they run for cover. It's not a craft for stealth missions.

[QUOTE=ImperialGuard;47279586]Please cite me all those projects the Pentagon has been going on that is literally unable to kill anything or do its job. The worst thing you can say against Pentagon's research projects is they're woefully inefficient and sometimes unnecessary.[/QUOTE] F-35.

time to mirror up