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No. 110768
ID: d64ad6
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Defense contractor General Atomics has developed a 150 kilowatt laser, the Gen 3 High Energy Laser, that is entirely self-contained in a 12-by-4-by-2-foot box. Such a system could be sled-loaded onto a AC-130 or KC-130, which would provide power for the laser. The Air Force Research Laboratory is working on an even smaller version, required to be the size of a 600 gallon fuel drop tank—also about twelve feet long, but narrower.
There are a number of advantages to laser weapons. One, is that they can be fired for pennies per shot—as opposed to a cost of $420,000 per AIM-9X Sidewinder—with power provided by the aircraft itself. Lasers are also silent and, under good weather conditions virtually invisible, making the attacking plane more difficult to detect from the ground. Finally, lasers can be used to disable rather than destroy, burning out a truck, helicopter or boat's engine and rendering it inoperable.
It's important to point out, as Breaking Defense does, that there's no money for the Marines' laser dreams. Neither is there a timetable. But weapons under development for the Air Force, which does have the money, could be rapidly assimilated by the Marines once fully developed. If the Air Force gets its gunship laser by 2020, the Marines would merely have to adapt it to their version of the C-130—a process that likely won't take long at all. Ditto for the drop tank-sized laser.
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