However, to develop and mass-produce directed energy weapons requires an industrial capacity for the fabrication of the necessary laser diodes and high-quality optics, which does not exist in Australia. There are companies in Australia with the expertise to make such devices. Even then, to manufacture them in quantity we will face significant supply chain and infrastructure challenges. Directed energy weapons will need a whole industryīut suppose all the technical problems of directed energy weapons are overcome. Having said this, technologies to overcome all of these obstacles continue to improve. Add to this the difficulty of holding the energy in the same location on a fast-moving target for tens of seconds, and the practical difficulties become apparent. Nor is it easy to focus a laser on a spot the size of a 10 cent piece tens of kilometres away, through atmospheric turbulence and dust or rain. This has proved difficult, though laser technologies with more efficient heat transfer have gradually increased the amount of light energy that can reliably be produced.Īnother side effect of dealing with such large amounts of energy is that any imperfections in the optical systems used to focus and direct the light can easily cause catastrophic damage to the laser system. Jim Sheppard / US ArmyĪlso, all that heat needs to be removed from the delicate optical equipment that produces the light very rapidly, or it will damage the laser itself. The US’s Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense, or DE M-SHORAD, is a 50kW laser system mounted on an armoured vehicle. (It’s only recently that the US has been able to make a relatively low-power 50kW laser compact enough to fit on an armoured vehicle, although devices operating at powers up to 300kW have been developed.)
Infinite tanks profile portable#
For this reason, even portable directed energy devices are very large. We are well into megawatt territory here – that’s the kind of power consumed by a small town.
And these devices are only around 20% efficient, so we would require five times as much power to run the device itself. To destroy something of this size requires lasers with hundreds of kilowatts or even megawatts of power. One problem faced by laser weapons is the huge amount of power required to destroy useful targets such as missiles.
So why doesn’t everyone use directed energy weapons?Īlthough directed energy weapons have all these advantages over conventional weapons, useful ones have proven difficult to build. This makes aiming and targeting easier and more reliable.Īnd because directed energy weapons cause damage by heating up a target area, they have less potential to hit nearby objects or send shrapnel flying. This also means ammunition does not have to be manufactured in a factory and transported to the weapon.ĭirected energy is not affected by gravity like missiles and bullets are, so it travels in a straight line. What’s more, because these weapons project light rather than munitions, they will never run out of ammunition. It would have moved only about 10 centimetres by the time the directed light energy from a high-power laser would have reached the target. Take a hypersonic missile travelling at ten times the speed of sound towards a target 10 kilometres away. APīecause electromagnetic waves travel at the speed of light, they are much faster than even the fastest traditional weapons. The US tested experimental laser weapon systems in the 1980s. In the interest of brevity, we’ll concentrate on laser-based directed energy weapons here, but much of the argument also applies to the other types.ĭepending on how much energy is focused on the target, these weapons can damage the delicate electronic systems that control devices and the people who operate them, or melt or burn sturdier hardware. This energy might be in the form of light (a laser), but microwaves or radio waves can also be used.
What is directed energy?Ī directed energy weapon concentrates large amounts of electromagnetic energy on a remote target. In April, the Defence Science and Technology group announced a A$13 million deal with British defence technology company QinetiQ to develop a prototype defensive laser.Īnd directed energy technology is a priority in the new A$3.4 billion Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator (ASCA) program. In March this year, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles launched Australian startup AIM Defence’s new directed energy testing range on the outskirts of Melbourne.
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