Navy sees the WB8 as power supply for direct energy weapons

If polywell fusion is developed, in what ways will the world change for better or worse? Discuss.

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ladajo
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Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

And the scan rate for the E2 is? But please note that I did not include the E2 in my earlier volume search comment. For the record I think Hawkeye 2000 is a rockstar.
I believe in CEC, it is a great concept. But you still have to see the target with something. If E2 is pushing it, the update is slow. About 5nm slow. But at least you know something is there. The fundamental issue remains, whatever platform takes the shot against a high speed manuevering sea skimmer needs line of sight from the engaging platform to have the best chance of a kill. The choice being illumination over mid-course updates. Granted CEC and SPY helps, but I am not sure how much we can put on the table in this forum.
SM-6 test shot using CEC and E-2D:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -nns01.htm

Hawkeye with APS-145 and APY-9:
http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Rad ... tates.html
the ADS-18 antenna is scanned electronically in elevation and both electronically (offering instantaneous 120° sector coverage) and mechanically in azimuth


http://www.lockheedmartin.com/data/asse ... 9-1209.pdf
The rotodome rotates at rates of 4, 5 or 6 RPM. The
array can electronically scan in both stationary and
rotating mode
- so maybe better than 5nm slow, but still slow.

SPY:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... -spy-1.htm

CEC:
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/weaps/cec.htm
http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/docUploaded/Ca ... arfare.pdf

and for SM2: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... s/sm-2.htm

SM3 is addressing the BMD problem. SM2 has some nice variants that help the problem. Especially Block III a/b and IV. Throw in ESSM and RAM with CIWS as the final layer. Plus countermeasures popping in various flavors all the way down the engagement timeline, and you have a VERY robust defense, even without point defense lasers. My point here, is that lasers will not replace all that. Again, no one system is the panacea.
Also, please remember we are still talking Standard Navy Day, not a stormy one.

edit: added more depth on Hawkeye 2000
Last edited by ladajo on Fri Aug 13, 2010 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ltgbrown
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Post by ltgbrown »

quote]And the scan rate for the E2 is?[/quote]

From wikipedia (just to make sure I don't say something I shouldn't),

"The APY-9 radar features an Active Electronically Scanned Array, which adds electronic scanning to the mechanical rotation of the radar in its radome." (APY-9 is the radar in the E-2D)

As I said, detection and TRACKING is not the problem.

I guess I should read your entire post first. Still, detection and tracking are not problems.
Famous last words, "Hey, watch this!"

Roger
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Location: Metro NY

Post by Roger »

A US carrier group maintains about a 200 mile CAP. Imagine a pair of F-18s out 120 miles and the get a fix on the inbound.. And of course a cloud of cheaper missles could be used to has up the I'd process. The Russian 555 can be launched from an aircraft, the S-300 has a somewhat modern tracker. 125+ mile range can maneauver hard and dive @ mach 3.5+, designed to bull rush the Phalynx gun. The 400 is badder and newer veersion 400's are reputed to be the baddest bunny in the valley. Though there designed to go against the Aegis\Phalynx combo.
Imagine (iirc) c-200\300 criuse missle being fired, 500 of them- then out of this cloud comes 10-12 mach 3 bad boys. It could get confusing.

But energy weapons change the game board, for now, as someone said upthread carriers are quite vulnerable. Even those crated pt defense missles are only sop good.
I like the p-B11 resonance peak at 50 KV acceleration. In2 years we'll know.

zapkitty
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Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2010 8:13 pm

Post by zapkitty »

Given that the power to field megawatts in defensive beams is a given in these discussions then guest starring in the defense lineup will be ~10kW solid-state sighting beams from both air, sea and even ground resources.

The 100kW and larger mounts will have this capability built-in by just triggering only a portion of their laser chains and both ships and aircraft will be able to field such modest beams in independent mounts in quantity... in fact a variety of 10kW and under units were already roughed-in as part of various plans for the equipment of future aircraft and ships before the heavier beams were even queued up... and such a sighting beam is already integrated with the ABL.

Call it the LIDAR from hell... once a hostile is believed inbound the sighting beams will begin sweeping the suspect area and if even one 10kW beam sweeps across the volume of space occupied by a supersonic shipkiller and locks on then that should be that. The target could not escape the lock of even a 10kW beam and that's not even mentioning the heavies when they get a piece of the target.

An updated AEGIS-like system will then devote sufficient megawattage from the combined laser mounts in the area to kill the target quickly and move on. And again. And again. The Roman phalanx shredding regime extended to line-of-sight at the speed of light. This should take out swarm attacks as well and any targets suddenly lunging towards the fleet will simply be attended to first.

Can such a system be overloaded? Sure.
Any system can be overloaded.

But the availability of fusion power and the lasers to deliver that power plus a combat system geared to take advantage of that power means that an attack that would swamp a radar-Phalanx combo may be shredded before it's even within Phalanx range.

As for reptile brain antics... although the advent of fusion power should decrease the actual causes for war (as opposed to the oligarchs just manipulating their markets) it would not be wise to omit from consideration the changes in combat capability that will arise from that same paradigm shift.

ladajo
Posts: 6258
Joined: Thu Sep 17, 2009 11:18 pm
Location: North East Coast

Post by ladajo »

ltgbrown wrote:quote]And the scan rate for the E2 is?
From wikipedia (just to make sure I don't say something I shouldn't),

"The APY-9 radar features an Active Electronically Scanned Array, which adds electronic scanning to the mechanical rotation of the radar in its radome." (APY-9 is the radar in the E-2D)

As I said, detection and TRACKING is not the problem.

I guess I should read your entire post first. Still, detection and tracking are not problems.[/quote]

Yes I agree, detect and nominal track are much better with CEC. But the kinetic phase is still an issue for a High G terminal.
Point defense directed energy will help, for sure. But I do not see a final solution. In fact, I do not think there wil lever be a "final solution" for this problem. It will always be a point, counter point issue.
Like I quoted earlier, "I want what they will have in ten years.".

I really can not comment with further depth without getting in trouble.

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