Late last month, the folks at Boeing test fired a Humvee-mounted laser that can be used to destroy IEDs and unexploded ordnance.
Boeing says the 1-kilowatt solid state laser took out five targets during a test shoot at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama. The laser was mated to an Avenger air defense vehicle, which usually fires Stinger anti-aircraft missile at low flying aircraft.
The company said the Laser Avenger also zapped two stationary UAVs sitting on the ground a long way from proving the system can shoot down airborne drones, but still enough for Boeing to claim the laser could be used for UAVs on the move.
Whether it can blow up flying robots is superfluous at this point. Typical IED disposal in Iraq and Afghanistan is a very high risk proposition, requiring a technician to place charges on the bomb, use a robot to do it or a mechanical arm. I know from experience that one insurgent technique is to allow the EOD personnel to deploy to Buffalo arm on an IED, then detonate it, blowing the complex and vulnerable hydraulic arm off and rendering the vehicle useless.
Boeing wouldnt say how far away the laser works, but even if its a little further than the range of a robot or a Buffalo arm, it could be a better solution than todays options.
Boeing release follows:
The Boeing Company [NYSE: BA] has successfully demonstrated that its Avenger-mounted laser system can neutralize the kinds of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and unexploded ordnance (UXO) that threaten U.S. troops deployed in war zones.
During laser firings Sept. 26–27 at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., the Laser Avenger engaged and destroyed five targets representing IED and UXO threats. Laser Avenger, equipped with a 1-kilowatt solid-state laser, proved its effectiveness at ranges that allowed the system to be operated at safe distances from the target. During the test, the system also took a step toward demonstrating a counter-unmanned aerial vehicle capability by destroying two small unmanned aerial vehicles that were stationary on the ground.
Laser Avenger is a Boeing-funded initiative to show that directed energy weapons are relevant to today’s battlefield and are ready to be fielded.
Boeing developed the system in only eight months, underscoring the company’s ability to rapidly respond to warfighters’ needs.
Laser Avenger also is the latest in a series of Boeing upgrades to expand the Avenger air defense system into an Agile Multi-Role Weapon System (AMWS) with ground-to-ground as well as ground-to-air capability.The laser was added while retaining Avenger’s ability to carry other weapons, including missiles and a machine gun. By building upon the Avenger, of which there are over 600 fielded worldwide, Laser Avenger will take advantage of an existing global logistics network, making it highly supportable.
“Boeing’s investment strategy is to move some of its new directed energy weapon systems into field demonstrations, and Laser Avenger is the first one we’re rolling out,” said Gary Fitzmire, vice president and program director of Boeing Directed Energy Systems. “Laser Avenger provides the speed-of-light and ultra-precision capability that the warfighter needs today to safely neutralize improvised explosive devices and unexploded ordnance.”
“Laser Avenger marries the best of Boeing — our proven Avenger system with the great capabilities of Boeing’s directed energy business unit,“
said Debra Rub-Zenko, vice president of Boeing Integrated Missile Defense. “Adding a laser to the Avenger arsenal expands the capability of this flexible system to meet battlefield requirements today and tomorrow.”The laser segment of Laser Avenger will have uses beyond the counter-IED, counter-UXO mission. For instance, it could be upgraded to have a shoot-on-the-move capability and to destroy other kinds of targets, including low-flying unmanned aerial vehicles.
{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
Sweet ace, were can I get one. I love the idea, but I still like the idea of just shooting em with a .50.
Why not mount this to something that we use to clean up IEDs and the like. Why that anti-air system?
The test they did against UAVs on the ground is a horriable test and I am pretty sure the stingers would do just as good a job on something in the air already.
We’re just being teased & seduced with all of these modern technologies & weapons.Someone will come up with a reason why we don’t need a laser on an Avenger because”nobody has an air force that would threaten us today……AND…….we haven’t faced threats from an enemy air force since WWII,or…. was it the Korean War,or….. was it Vietnam,but they only had fighter aircraft.” I’m still waiting for the multitudes of TALON SWORDS robots helping our soldiers or all of those other UGVs that we are also being teased & seduced with. Its like looking at the toys in the Sears Christmas catalog knowing that you’ll never get to own anyone of them that you see on those pages.
Haven’t we already developed laser based mine neutralizer in the form of the Zeus?
Didn’t the Zeus already do this(anti-IED via lasers)?
Chemical lasers eh?
And what happens if the Humvee gets blown up? Soldiers in the Humvee will be victims of a small Chemical war….. come on…
Chemical lasers are no where near safe to use on the battlefield.
“Yup. That there is one impressive bit of gee-whiz-bang rocket science, son. Hell, that’d impress the hell out of Hyman G. himself! But, my young and full of piss-and-vinegar Ensign, that there is sorta like developing a better treatment for the clap, rather than figurin’ out a better way to keep yer Sailors from gettin’ it in the first place!”
If we put a tenth of the money, half the effort, and a whisper of spine into defeating this Johnny Jihadi guerilla crap AT ITS SOURCE, we’d no more need HUMVEEs with laser beams than we’d need frickin’ sharks with laser beams on their heads.
Our Pollyanna pas-de-deux with the Saudis, Syrians, Iranians, and the rest of the Cult O’ Death in and around Iraq is dumb. Not just dumb but stunningly dumb. Western governments natter on endlessly about the UN and political solutions to Iraq et. al., Mahmoud Ahmadportajohn gets to speak at Columbia U., our own politicians are engaged in a frenetic game of internecine war on Capitol Hill, the Saudis are funnelling cash and splodeydopes into Iraq at a flank bell, and the rest of us are merrily sucking down Saudi crude at 89 bucks the barrel! Joseph Heller couldn’t have penned this any better. (Could there be a Milo Minderbinder somewhere pulling all the strings?)
Johnny Jihadi does not give a tinker’s dam about political borders are any of our high-falutin liberal ideas about how we should carry out our national strategy to politely kill people and destroy their things.
We are as effed as Hogan’s Goat if we continue to pursue this in the same way we did in Korea and Viet Nam; trying to limit a war to political borders is just plain dumb.
And in combat, dumb gets lots of folks killed.
Unless and until the leadership figures this one out… and then decides to actually do something about it (other than talk) we and our Iraqi allies will just continue to suffer. A fancier treatment for the symptoms is not a cure.
Chief B.
to the person that thinks it would take ‘hours’ for a 1kw laser to cut through steel, apparently you’re wrong:
these two quotes taken from:
http://www.industrial-lasers.com/articles/article_display.html?id=305169
”
In 2003, the Brahmastra (Ultimate Weapon) was introduced, with the first 1kW unit sold to M/s Lancer Lasertech Pvt. Ltd.-a fabrication job shop near Ahmedabad-in March 2005 to cut 8mm mild steel and 6mm stainless steel used in the automobile, electrical panel, textile, pharmaceutical, and construction equipment industries.
”
and
”
A third 1kW fiber laser cutter was installed in December 2006 at ACME Lasertech Pvt Ltd, a laser cutting job shop in Mumbai, for cutting mild steel up to 8-10 mm and stainless steel up to 6 mm. Services are offered to surgical and hospital equipment manufacturers, automobile, retail infrastructure, and pharmaceutical machinery manufacturers.
“
Also, to the idiot that said “Chemical lasers are no where near safe to use on the battlefield”, The article says right at the top that it’s a solid state laser. those are powered by electricity.
see:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/021020-laser1.htm
”
The beam from a solid-state laser is powered by electricity, which can be generated by a gas-powered jet engine or the turbines of a tank.
Chemical lasers are capable of producing much more energy, but because the energy output relies on the quantity of chemicals used, they take up a lot of space.
“
Oh, we should definitely write fat checks to Boeing. I gotta admire the chutzpah, the raw moxie, of even bothering to shoot at UAV’s while they’re on the ground, and then claiming that it represents some kind of “capability”. We shouldn’t even ask the good folks at Boeing to build hardware. We should grant them fat contracts for performance art.
They mounted this on an Avenger because they’re using their own money to pay for the project and thought they’d save some dough by using a pre-existing turreted weapon system rather than building one from scratch. As for shooting at immobile UAVS, they could easily have shot at buckets. The demonstration was meant to show the beam’s ability to disable military equipment, the targets were representative of such.
1kw may not be much but I know some people have developed solid state lasers that are approaching 30 and 40 kw. So while this story is not big news, it won’t be long until a platform like this can do some real damage.
Why the anti-air platform? Because once they work the existing tracking system to work with the laser, it can start knocking UAVs, helicopters, and maybe even mortors and artillery shells out of the sky. And that would be very useful.
Mount a system like this on a hybrid HMMWV where the engines can be used as generators and you get mobile functional total air protection.
I don’t see lasers helping much with ground warfare because a laser could be countered by typical armour. However, with air threats, heavy armour is not practical.
Detonating IDEs from a distance is okay but like one person said, it should be mounted on an IDE destroying vehicle like the Buffalo or Cougar. Maybe the Avenger had better electricity output right now and that is why they mounted it on that platform.
cool!
now thats what i thought early 21st century stuff would look like when i was a kid!
b – The inverse square law applies to a source that radiates evenly.
The whole point of a laser is that it is a coherent beam of light. All the photons are in phase and PARALLEL. That is why a laser beam is strait, and does not suffer from the inverse square law.
That is why industrial IR lasers are so dangerous. Unlike an oxy-acetalene torch, which is visible and has a short, defined range, IR lasers are invisible and travel hundreds of meters with little appreciable reduction in power.
re: Demophilus
I rather fancied myself as fairly well immunized but, hey, I won’t hesitate to say I’m still just an ignorant sod.
If I apprehend your meaning, then no, I don’t like it one damned bit when we skylarking with blood and treasure. Which is probably why I hit terminal paygrade so early. The Boys Club don’t cotton to upstarts who foul the deck and ruin their chances to suck at the teat for the rest of their lives. Eyes closed, mouths puckered, and content with never another passing thought about the military-industrial sow suckling them.
We’ve got a damned fine military that can whip the snot outta anyone, anywhere, anytime. Unfortunately the political and military leadership does the halfstep most of the time with CNN, the UN, and MoveOn.org calling the cadence.
How we arrived at the intersection of Gutless Ave and Stupid Street is pretty clear. Ike warned us fifty years ago. Why we did it is less so. But here we are, scratching our heads, fiddling the buttons on the GPS, calling OnStar, and listening to the satellite radio telling us about the latest gadget. And we’ll go around the block, buy a few more billion bucks in crap from Boeing, and arrive at the same intersection more confused than ever about just where the hell it is that we’re going.
So, no, they don’t like assholes like me who say “Nice laser. Don’t need it.”
Cheers,
Chief B.
b, apparently you listened to your high school teacher but didn’t quite grasp the logic behind the ‘laws’.
Frankly,I believe a laser like this is a brilliant “out-of-the-box” idea.I also think that the people against this idea the most are the globalists who don’t want a strong America able to defend herself.That is the strong heartfelt idea I get when I hear or read people criticizing inventive ideas concerning new weapons being considered,tested,&/or about to be put into the field.Sorry for the cliche,but its nice to have a weapon & not need it(like the Pershing Missile for instance) than to need a weapon & not have it.
If terrorists are still watching and waiting to detonate anything, while you are trying to neutralize an IED is this not the problem? the area should have been cleared and the terrorists neutralized Or am I missing it.
Coward: Yeah, part of the problem is that terrorists don’t wear big neon signs that say “jihad” on them. They dress like everybody else. So how do you distinguish the terrorist hiding in a building three blocks away from the normal guy standing on the streetcorner three blocks away?
Crusty ol Chief: You can rant and rave about how your “keepin’ it real” hurt your career and how you have the guts to “tell it like it is”. You’re just an anonymous guy on the internet — facts, logic, and clear thinking are what will earn you respect here, not emotional ranting. The fact is, Boeing can spend their money on whatever they want. They can spend 14 billion dollars on building a better taiwanese hooker for all I care. This money comes from their own company coffers — not a cent financed by the taxpayer. Now, if its gonna save lives, great. If its not needed, fine. But it IS an impressive technological achievement. It IS something Boeing should be proud of. It’s something that would have been impossible ten years ago.
b: It’s become readily apparent over the few years I’ve read this site, that 75% of the posters don’t know half of what they’re talking about. You’re threatening to push that number higher. The inverse square law has already been explained. As to your other points, 100kW HAS been identified as the minimum level for “laser weapons”. If this was a weapon we were talking about, I’m sure that would matter. There’s a damn big difference between firing a laser at an immobile target and firing it at an armored tank moving at 40 mph. A 1kW laser is great for cutting through metal as long as you can focus the beam on it for five minutes. But try keeping a laser focused on a moving enemy vehicle (in the same spot, no less) for five minutes. Much more difficult. That explains the discrepancy in power output.
Hey Brian – YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!
The posts that talk about using laser weapons to cut through metal don’t have the basic concept firmly in hand.
All current and realistically near term laser weapons cause something that is already inherently explosive (like IEDs, airborne munitions, UAV fuel tanks or ballistic missile booster sections) and make them blow up prior to planned detonation, or have an inherently fragile target (like avionics or a pilot’s eyes).
These are modern versions of Archimedes weapon of 241 BC.
any device that is being developed by the weapon corporations that does business with the pentagon should be evaluated and put in the field to save our young soldiers lives…. and limbs…
IED’s are the biggest killer of our soldiers…so the arm chair retired none serving cynical aces should get with the program of helping our armed forces… not trying to stop weapons production that will help them…please check out the evaluation of the weapons for it’s realistic effectiveness and save your high school b.s. theories….if you were brillant… you would have come up with a better idea to help…
The main point to all of this is that Directed Energy Weapons are only getting better…While conventional delivery systems, (ie; Missles, IED, Artillery and Aircraft) are in their “mature” phase.
I have not followed this chat and perhaps I shouldn’t comment with my two cents but here goes. Prior to my retirement from the army(air defence artillery) I attended a laser warfare course. At the time (1992) the idea with laser based weapons was to destroy sensitive electronics which the enemy weapons and or intelligence gathering assets were dependant on. Heating to an appropriate temperature in the general area in which these components exist would suffice. Treated,mirrored eye covering was offered as protection. I don’t believe shredding armored plated vehicles and cutting people in half was the idea. My apologies if I’m off topic or my input is out of date. Thanks, Anvil85
eye protection was passed around and offered as protection
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Hey, all you out there, i just researched the crap out of lasers, and for those who don’t know, you need some liquid nitrogen and a lot of other crap to cool these things. If they can’t make these things more powerful,they can’t do $hiz.cool idea, but boeing needs to go back to 747′s and leave this alone, or they can try to get better ideas.
Also, our current president wants to remove missile defense systems for “peace reasons”. bull$hit.I thought everyone should know and I’m hoping this is a conservative site.
I think we should, like anvil 85 said, be more concerned about it’s potential as defense. all it takes is one nuke to take out the U.S. the EMP could disable most cars and anything electric. Iran can win. It is imperitive that we develop weapons like this, but not like boeing’s new laser humvees. this cannot help us. Yes, you might say that the best defense is a good offense, but in nuclear war, you need a defense. or you can just die.
Crust old clown!
Your retired why spend your day posting on shit go to the beach!!!