LASER HUMMER IN IRAQ

The Armys first and only bat­tle­field laser sys­tem is back.
In 2003, the Army sent ZEUS, a Humvee armed with a 10kw solid-​​state laser, to Afghanistan, to blast mines and other explo­sives left over from years of war. In the six months ZEUS spent there, the laser-​​hummer zapped over 200 pieces of unex­ploded ord­nance, accord­ing to the Army, “at one point set­ting a record for ord­nance dis­posal by negat­ing 51 pieces in less than 100 min­utes.“
Now, ZEUS “is being for­ward deployed” again, Army Space and Missile Defense Command Lt. Gen. Larry Dodgen tells Defense Daily.
“According to spokesman at Headquarters, Department of the Army, ZEUS is in Iraq as part of a three-​​vehicle con­voy pro­tec­tion con­cept being eval­u­ated now,” DD adds.
ZEUS uses a pair of lasers to siz­zle its tar­gets, accord­ing to Sparta, Inc., the vehicle’s maker. A joystick-​​controlled green Nd:YAG laser is used to des­ig­nate the tar­get. One it’s locked, an invis­i­ble high-​​power Nd:YAG laser swerves around, to heat the sucker up.

The sys­tem uses diesel fuel to cre­ate the laser beam, which focuses energy on the outer cas­ing of the tar­get, which heats up until it det­o­nates, [trig­ger­ing] a less vio­lent explo­sion than if the explo­sive was acti­vated, caus­ing less dam­age to the sur­round­ing area…
Its power level and util­ity is new and is not for aer­ial tar­gets, its for unex­ploded ord­nance, Dodgen said. It is a sys­tem that works, and we cer­tainly would like to use it when­ever possible.

March 16th, 2005 | Lasers and Ray Guns | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.