The Future Is Now
War has changed...
I'm not about to delve into some nostalgia on video game quotes. However, the subject matter here certainly will sound like something from video games or movies to some.
I've touched on this matter previously in one of my posts last year. But today it became official. The U.S Navy is getting set to, later this year, deploy laser weaponry aboard their ships. They went on to announce they hope to be able to work towards deploying workable railguns in the next two years.
These two projects have been ongoing for some time. Unless you are interested in military activity at that level or happen across the publicly released progress reports. It hasn't so much been that the program has been kept secret, as it is they don't talk about it much.
While saying the Navy plans on using lasers sounds like some sci-fi dream story with bright displays and whatnot, the reality is a lot less (pardon the pun) flashy. The laser isn't the burning destructive thing most imagine at the word. Rather, it is all about heat. These lasers focus on heating up the target. As such, they aren't luminous, so don't expect to see any light - different technology.
As such these lasers are not classical offensive weapons. They are used mainly for targeting threats to the ship such as drones and small vessels like speedboats. Focusing the laser on the target, the idea is to overheat sensitive engine parts, etc., thereby disabling, not explicitly "destroying" it. It's similar to the idea that the Air Force is working on for defending against missiles - overheating the warhead or the propulsion system causing it to fall out the sky or prematurely detonate.
The rail gun is another energy dependent weapon. It's elegance comes from the fact that the munitions it fires don't need to be explosive. Rail guns function by accelerating their projectile multiple times the speed of sound. In essence, it is a crude device that just strives for speed. Why? Because speed is power. A projectile can inflict massive amount of damage as long as it's going at a high rate of speed, even without being packed with dynamite and the like.
So why does the Navy want these weapons? The ones who think the military are only about power think it's all about having the next biggest, baddest, most powerful, weapon. That certainly is part of it. There is then the conspiracy theorists who think this has just been an endeavor taken up to support the military industrial complex. That could be true, but not likely.
The issue is cost. Missiles, bombs, explosives are exhaustive and costly to build. You fire them and they're gone and done, as well as the thousands upon hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to build them.
The rail gun relies on lots of electricity to power the projectiles to the required speed. But because the projectiles are more often than not, if not exclusively, solid mass objects, the cost of ammunition is a mere fraction of a traditional gun or missile launcher per shot fired.
With the laser it is even less. The laser fires only energy, not projectiles, so the cost of ammunition is near zero. More or less, once the weapon system is deployed the only significant costs associated with it are maintenance.
If these two weapons are successfully developed and deployed such that they can be deployed across the entire military theater, the cost of maintaining the Navy on deployment will be cut rather dramatically.
What are the problems? Aside from real technical issues, such as the fact lasers have varying effectiveness in varying weather conditions, war changes. A deterrent to war, though rarely taken into account anymore and very rarely discussed, is financial cost. An army that can't afford bullets can't fight, and if they can't fight, then there's no war. It's not that we are quite at the stage yet, but we are near the precipice where the financial cost is nearly negligible. Should that happen that deterrent would vanish.
So, good news is that tax payers can at least hope to eventually see a drop in annual military spending as costs directed towards ammunition and missiles decreases. But we will need to develop an even stronger aversion to war if we hope to avoid entering an age of perpetual ones.
I'm not about to delve into some nostalgia on video game quotes. However, the subject matter here certainly will sound like something from video games or movies to some.
I've touched on this matter previously in one of my posts last year. But today it became official. The U.S Navy is getting set to, later this year, deploy laser weaponry aboard their ships. They went on to announce they hope to be able to work towards deploying workable railguns in the next two years.
These two projects have been ongoing for some time. Unless you are interested in military activity at that level or happen across the publicly released progress reports. It hasn't so much been that the program has been kept secret, as it is they don't talk about it much.
While saying the Navy plans on using lasers sounds like some sci-fi dream story with bright displays and whatnot, the reality is a lot less (pardon the pun) flashy. The laser isn't the burning destructive thing most imagine at the word. Rather, it is all about heat. These lasers focus on heating up the target. As such, they aren't luminous, so don't expect to see any light - different technology.
As such these lasers are not classical offensive weapons. They are used mainly for targeting threats to the ship such as drones and small vessels like speedboats. Focusing the laser on the target, the idea is to overheat sensitive engine parts, etc., thereby disabling, not explicitly "destroying" it. It's similar to the idea that the Air Force is working on for defending against missiles - overheating the warhead or the propulsion system causing it to fall out the sky or prematurely detonate.
The rail gun is another energy dependent weapon. It's elegance comes from the fact that the munitions it fires don't need to be explosive. Rail guns function by accelerating their projectile multiple times the speed of sound. In essence, it is a crude device that just strives for speed. Why? Because speed is power. A projectile can inflict massive amount of damage as long as it's going at a high rate of speed, even without being packed with dynamite and the like.
So why does the Navy want these weapons? The ones who think the military are only about power think it's all about having the next biggest, baddest, most powerful, weapon. That certainly is part of it. There is then the conspiracy theorists who think this has just been an endeavor taken up to support the military industrial complex. That could be true, but not likely.
The issue is cost. Missiles, bombs, explosives are exhaustive and costly to build. You fire them and they're gone and done, as well as the thousands upon hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to build them.
The rail gun relies on lots of electricity to power the projectiles to the required speed. But because the projectiles are more often than not, if not exclusively, solid mass objects, the cost of ammunition is a mere fraction of a traditional gun or missile launcher per shot fired.
With the laser it is even less. The laser fires only energy, not projectiles, so the cost of ammunition is near zero. More or less, once the weapon system is deployed the only significant costs associated with it are maintenance.
If these two weapons are successfully developed and deployed such that they can be deployed across the entire military theater, the cost of maintaining the Navy on deployment will be cut rather dramatically.
What are the problems? Aside from real technical issues, such as the fact lasers have varying effectiveness in varying weather conditions, war changes. A deterrent to war, though rarely taken into account anymore and very rarely discussed, is financial cost. An army that can't afford bullets can't fight, and if they can't fight, then there's no war. It's not that we are quite at the stage yet, but we are near the precipice where the financial cost is nearly negligible. Should that happen that deterrent would vanish.
So, good news is that tax payers can at least hope to eventually see a drop in annual military spending as costs directed towards ammunition and missiles decreases. But we will need to develop an even stronger aversion to war if we hope to avoid entering an age of perpetual ones.
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