Star Wars Is Now Upon Us

[KJ_Lesnick]

How much damage could a 100 kW or a 100 MW Laser do?

[GTX]

How much damage could a 100 kW or a 100 MW Laser do?

To what?  Under what conditions??


Greg

[coops213]

How much damage could a 100 kW or a 100 MW Laser do?

Does a 100MW laser even exist? How on earth would something like that be powered?

As far as damage goes, lasers on the order of 1kW are used to cut steel up to ~3cm thick. A 100MW laser would be 100,000 times stronger.

Chris

[Jschmus]

How much damage could a 100 kW or a 100 MW Laser do?

The 100 kW machine is for proof-of-concept.

[KJ_Lesnick]

So a 100 kW laser could through 3 meters of steel, and 100 MW would cut through 3,000 meters?  I assume the beam characteristics would not be configured to just punch a small hole through a thick bit of metal like a needle through a piece of plastic but instead to cause the energy to absorb and spread through the object to produce an explosion/vaporization...


KJ Lesnick
BTW:  Why is the ABL given the YAL designation and instead not something like FC (Such an airplane would arguably be a type of interceptor, and interceptors do get fighter designations)

[Hobbes]

How much damage could a 100 kW or a 100 MW Laser do?

Does a 100MW laser even exist? How on earth would something like that be powered?

As far as damage goes, lasers on the order of 1kW are used to cut steel up to ~3cm thick. A 100MW laser would be 100,000 times stronger.

Chris

So a 100 kW laser could through 3 meters of steel, and 100 MW would cut through 3,000 meters?

Industrial cutting lasers are built to output a continuous beam. This weapon fires brief pulses. Its peak power output is much higher, but not the average output. It'll make a small hole quickly, then has to recharge.

[Jschmus]

BTW:  Why is the ABL given the YAL designation and instead not something like FC (Such an airplane would arguably be a type of interceptor, and interceptors do get fighter designations)

I refer you to Mr. Parsch:

http://www.designation-systems.net/usmilav/nonstandard-mds.html#_MDS_AL1

In other words, once again they tossed the established designation system out the window.

[coops213]

So a 100 kW laser could through 3 meters of steel, and 100 MW would cut through 3,000 meters?

It probably doesn't scale linearly.

Chris

[jcf]

In other words, once again they tossed the established designation system out the window.

An "established designation system" that Parsch, and other designation anoraks, seem to forget was arbitrary in its origins and
only conceived for ease of record keeping, it ain't 'Holy Writ'.  Sheesh.

[GTX]

An "established designation system" that Parsch, and other designation anoraks, seem to forget was arbitrary in its origins and
only conceived for ease of record keeping, it ain't 'Holy Writ'.  Sheesh.

Here, here!!!

Regards,

Greg

[Army of One]

The 'Dogfights' series has an episode 2hrs long and titled 'Dogfights of the future' and it features the ABL system vapourising some SU30's great graphics......sorry can't add anything to the tech side of this conversation....same programme had a version of the B1 (B1R i think) that looked really cool.......H

[KJ_Lesnick]

Just for the record, I don't believe the designation systems to be Holy Writ, I just figure if you can stick within the already existent designation system you should unless there is a good reason to change it.

KJL