Questions for proponents of the DEW theory:
What is the required size (MW, physical) of the DEW?
What was the source of energy for the DEW?
Where was the DEW placed?
What is the source of your information?
Why should this source be considered reliable?
Ray Gun Shoots Down Missile," spacedaily.com, June 7, 2000
[Studies and scaling experiments have shown that a liter of a missile's
material can be destroyed in a few seconds with 1 MW of laser power. One
liter corresponds to a hole with the dimension 10cm x 10cm x 10cm which is
generally enough to structurally disable the missile. Missile destruction
can be achieved in different by an explosion of the missile warhead, or an
aerodynamic instability causing the missile to breakup.--Konstantinos
Polykandriotis, "Simulations of the Proposed TJNAF 100kw Free
Electron Laser and Comparison With TJNAF Low Power Experiments,"
Naval Postgraduate School Thesis, December 2001]
[Spectres can circle targets for hours, pulverising areas the size of football pitches
with extraordinary precision.--Sean Rayment, "America's laser of death cleared for
take-off," telegraph.co.uk, February 17, 2002]
"What Really Happened on September 11, 2001,"
2002 - 2012
[Whether Tesla's idea was ever taken seriously is still a matter of
conjecture. Most experts today consider his idea infeasible. . . .
In 1958 the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a
top-secret project code-named "Seesaw" at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to
develop a charged-particle beam weapon. More than ten years and twenty-seven
million dollars later, the project was abandoned "because of the projected
high costs associated with implementation as well as the formidable
technical problems associated with propagating a beam through very long
ranges in the atmosphere." . . .
In the late 1970s, there was fear that the Soviets may have achieved a
technological breakthrough. Some U.S. defense analysts concluded that a
large beam weapon facility was under construction near the Sino-Soviet
border in Southern Russia.
The American response to this "technological surprise" was the Strategic
Defense Initiative announced by President Ronald Reagan in 1983. . . .
Today, after a half-century of research and billions of dollars of
investment, the SDI program is generally considered a failure--"A Weapon to End
[One major problem with laser weapons . . . is their high electric energy
requirements. . . .
This problem could also be lessened if the weapon were mounted either at a
defensive position near a power plant, or on board a large, possibly nuclear
powered, water-going ship. A ship would have the advantage of water for
energy weapon," Wikipedia]
[The three primary technologies being followed as direct energy weapons
include Lasers, Millimeter Waves, and Microwaves. . . . The Department of
Defense (DoD) does not currently advertise the development of any weaponized
microwave systems, however developmental experiments continue. . . .
The Status of Futures Index or SOFI is one method used in future studies to
help predict the path of already existing technologies. . . .
The Navy currently fields an HPM system designed to counter Improvised
Explosive Devises (IEDs). The Navy's Neutralizing IEDs with RF (NIRF) system
is currently in use in Iraq.
. . . HPMs are most useful against electronics,
. . . like chemical lasers it takes multiple truckloads of equipment to
generate that level of power. The US Air Force High Powered Microwave
device, Shiva Star, can generate 1 terawatt of power. However Shiva Star is
a test machine only. Mobile, single shot weapons can generate over 10
Gigawatts, but only have a range of about 500m. . . .
In all the SoFI indications for the current trajectory of Direct Energy
Weapons is positive, but does not indicate a major shift to DE from
Blast/Frag before the year 2035.--Chadwick F. Fager, "Weaponeering
the Future: Direct Energy Weapons Effectiveness Now and Tommorow,"
Air War College, November 10-16, 2007]
Gregory S. Jenkins and Matt Sullivan, "The
Overwhelming Implausibility of Using Directed Energy Beams to Demolish the
World Trade Center Towers," journalof911studies.com, April 12, 2007
[The modeling and test results showed that the metal hydride system can
store the average heat of 4.4kW during the heat storage period of 250
seconds and release the stored heat during the subsequent regeneration
period of 900 seconds.--Joseph Gottschlich and Quinn Leland, "Metal Hydride Heat Storage
Technology for Directed Energy Weapon Systems," Air War College,
[Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are the heir-apparent to lead-acid and NiCd
batteries in many aircraft applications. They are available in several
different chemistries and can be classified as either high power or high
energy batteries. High power Li-ion batteries have high power density (1500
W/kg), moderate energy density (70 Wh/kg), and reasonable cycle life
(2000).--Christopher Eiting, "QynCap
Energy Storage Device for Airborne Directed Energy Weapons,"
Qynergy Corporation, xxx]
[IPG Photonics - US-based world leader in high-power fiber lasers - currently
markets a 50-kilowatt fiber laser with over 25 percent efficiency. In
comparison, the Department of Defense's Joint High Power Solid State Laser
program demonstrated a 100- kilowatt-class laser--David Scott and David
Robie, "Directed Energy: A Look to the Future," Air & Space Power
Journal , December 1, 2009]
[DEW laser weapon could generate high-energy pulses of 25kW, capable enough
to destroy a ballistic missile in its terminal phase within the range of 7km.--"India
Develops Anti-Missile Weapons," army-technology.com, August 10, 2010]
[Currently, the free-electron laser project produces the most-powerful beam
in the world. If it gets up to its ultimate goal, of generating a megawatt's
worth of laser power, it'll be able to burn through 20 feet of steel per
. . . the Navy doesn't yet have the systems to divert the amount of power
from its ships' generators necessary to operate the laser, but anticipates
it will by the 2020s.
There are still a lot of obstacles to getting the free-electron laser onto a
ship. The 240-foot racetrack that Neil built at Jefferson Labs - a scale
model of one that's underground here, seven-eighths-of-a-mile long - is way
too big. Boeing has a contract to build an initial workable prototype by
2012, but by 2015 the racetrack has to be much, much smaller: 50 feet by 20
feet by 10 feet.--Spencer Ackerman, "Unexpectedly, Navy's Superlaser Blasts Away a
Record," wired.com, February 18, 2011]
[All this means that it's not possible, or indeed meaningful, to say exactly
what would be needed in terms of design or cost to get this idea to work.
But Vasile and Maddock do manage to establish that if, say, we discovered in
ten years time that Apophis really was going to strike, it should be
possible to implement a strategy like this based more or less on the
technologies already to hand, without any fear of bankrupting the
economy.--Philip Ball, "Laser treatment for Earth-bound asteroids," BBC News,
June 22, 2012]
[The system, which uses two laser weapons, was also used to cut through a
steel girder more than a mile away. . . .
The 50kW laser weapons system used radar and optical systems to detect and
track two incoming drones--"Rheinmetall demos
laser that can shoot down drones," BBC News, January 8, 2013]
[The idea is to get a laser cannon weighing less than 2500 pounds mounted
onto a Marine Humvee or comparable truck. The cannon needs to provide a "minimum optical
output power" of 25 kilowatts, with an eye toward scaling up to 50 kilowatts, for a
two-minute full-power blast.--Spencer Ackerman, "Navy
Wants Lasers on Marines' Trucks to Shoot Down Drones," wired.com, March 28, 2013]
[ . . . a key step to eventually scale up to a megawatt's worth of power,
which can burn through 20 feet of steel in a second.--Spencer Ackerman, "Watch Navy's New
Laser Cannon, Mounted on a Ship, Kill a Drone," wired.com, April 8, 2013]
[Will emit a short laser burst with an intensity of 1023 watts per square centimetre . . .
Laser bursts will last only 1/100,000th of a billionth of a second--Mark Prigg, "The
real-life DEATH STAR: US researchers developing laser 100,000 times more powerful than
all of Earth's power stations combined," dailymail.co.uk, February 5, 2014]