Zitat:Attack at the Speed of Light

After decades of expensive, well-publicized failures, laser weapons may finally be on the horizon. Can scientists end the era of bombs and bullets?

By Noah Shachtman | April 2006

For a vision of war, it was almost elegant. The smoke and stink and deafening crack of munitions would be replaced by invisible beams of focused light. Modified 747 jets, equipped with laser weapons, would blast ballistic missiles while they were still hundreds of miles from striking our soil. “Directed-energy” cannons would intercept incoming rockets at the speed of light, heating up the explosives inside and causing them to burst apart in midair. And this wasn’t some relic of Reagan-era Star Wars visionaries. These were modern plans, initiated barely a decade ago, that would be realized not in some far-off future, but soon. Out in the New Mexico desert at the White Sands Missile Range, the U.S. Army’s Tactical High Energy Laser shot down dozens of Katyusha rockets and mortars. In 2004, Air Force contractors began test-firing the chemically powered beam weapon for a retrofitted 747, the Airborne Laser.

Then reality set in, and these recent efforts to wield battlefield lasers suddenly began looking as doomed as Star Wars. ...

Zitat:Antimissile Weapon
U.S. and Israel Shelved Laser as a Defense

By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: July 30, 2006

Ten years ago, in a preview of the current Middle East crisis, Hezbollah guerrillas fired hundreds of Katyusha rockets into Israel. The attacks prompted President Bill Clinton and the Israeli prime minister, Shimon Peres, to agree to develop a futuristic laser meant to destroy the rockets in flight.

But last September, after spending more than $300 million, the United States and Israel quietly shelved the experimental weapon, mainly because of its bulkiness, high costs and poor anticipated results on the battlefield. ...

Zitat:Lasers Blowing Up

There's a bit of a magic number, when it comes to lasers. A threshold at which beams of coherent light stop being tools for welding or analysis... and start becoming weapons. That level is generally considered to be around 100 kilowatts.

For years, solid state, electric lasers could only operate at a tiny fraction of that 100 kw mark. But the beams are getting stronger. Take Bob Yamamoto's Solid State Heat Capacity Laser, at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. In March, 2005, it hit 45 kw, a new record -- and more than triple what it could do just three years before. ...

Zitat:
Northrop opens first US laser weapons plant
Andrea Shalal-Esa, Reuters | Jan 17, 2007

WASHINGTON: Northrop Grumman Corp. on Tuesday opened the first U.S. production facility for high-energy laser weapons, saying it hoped to benefit from rapid growth in the new class of weapons that are cheaper to operate than traditional missiles. ...

Zitat:Das US-Militär macht Ernst mit seinen Plänen zum Einsatz von Energiewaffen. Eine Mikrowellen-Kanone, die bei Menschen unerträgliche Schmerzen verursacht, soll künftig in Krisengebieten - etwa im Irak - Demonstranten und potentielle Angreifer in Schach halten.