[Styxx]

W00t!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=569&ncid=738&e=2&u=/nm/20021105/tc_nm/arms_usa_laser_dc

[Sandwich]

[q]The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) is being developed by TRW for the Army and the Israeli Defense Ministry. [/q]

S4W337!

[Redfang]

Nice... maybe we'll have FS2-like beams someday.

[Stryke 9]

Inefficient. Lasers make good heating weapons, but they're a bit too slow to be effective ground weapons, and yhou can simply stick a decent heat sink onto a tank to keep it from blowing before it neutralizes the laser.

[Top Gun]

It certainly looks like a fun toy to play with.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Redfang
Nice... maybe we'll have FS2-like beams someday.

i don't know about Beams...  perhaps Lasers, but i don't think beams

it would be awesome, especially like in FS2 where before the beam fires and when it runs-down after firing it does that glow, and you hear that sound of like the energy gathering, then it shoots out, then it powers-down... that's the best part of beams!

that's pretty neat though Styxx, awesome in fact!

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Inefficient. Lasers make good heating weapons, but they're a bit too slow to be effective ground weapons, and yhou can simply stick a decent heat sink onto a tank to keep it from blowing before it neutralizes the laser.

how old are you again?  don't pull a CP on us Stryke

remember people said that when trying to hit Mach I... "it's impossible to make an engine that will run that fast", etc. and look where we are now

i know nothing about lasers thougH

[Stryke 9]

There's a bit of a difference. I'm not saying that lasers will never be useful weapons, but... well, at this point it's analagous to claiming that the Wright flyer will hit Mach 3. It just ain't happenin'.

Lasers are, by definition almost, more useful as heating devices. They'll be great for baking troops and setting fuel tanks and ammunition on fire inside vehicles, but you aren't likely to get an efficient laser system that'll just slash through a tank column or something.

[Styxx]

Unless you can put SO MUCH power through it that it'll bring armour to melting point instantly.

[Stryke 9]

...Which we can't do yet, and aren't particularly close to beign able to do. Once again, it'd be like the Wright flyer topping the speed of sound for a modern laser with a modern power source (and, indeed, modern melting points on all conductive surfaces, including the laser's quite fragile internals) to do that properly...

[CP5670]

This would be a pretty effective use for lasers actually, since they will not have to eat through any tough armor on incoming projectiles and would be thousands of times faster than the shells/missiles, making them a perfect warhead intercept system.

We are still not quite at a point where we can make FS2-like beams, but they will probably come about soon enough. Thing is, I'm not sure how efficient they would be compared to conventional weapons, since they would probably require enormous amounts of energy to activate.

[LtNarol]

not to mention energy wasted by bleedoff through heating air particles instead of target particles

[IceFire]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
...Which we can't do yet, and aren't particularly close to beign able to do. Once again, it'd be like the Wright flyer topping the speed of sound for a modern laser with a modern power source (and, indeed, modern melting points on all conductive surfaces, including the laser's quite fragile internals) to do that properly...

I think its Boeing that is developing a weapons pod for the JSF that will incorporate a high powered laser that could potentially be used against missiles, aircraft, and ground targets.  Still 10-15 years off.

[Carl]

you forget that rapid heating of a a material such as tank armor will cause the air around it to expand rapidly and therefore cause an explosion.