Northrop Grumman believes a good defense against Unmanned Aerial System (aka drones) Threats requires a comprehensive, end-to-end approach. They have a uniquely capable of providing an integrated, layered solution across the kill chain. The C-UAS architecture and system of systems approach starts with sensing and tracking. It delivers a layered defense that includes a full complement of kinetic (bullets, missiles) and non-kinetic (lasers) effects, aerial and ground sensors and the battle-hardened, proven and deployed Forward Area Air Defense Command and Control (FAAD C2) system. FAAD C2 was recently selected by the Department of Defense (DoD) as the system of choice for Counter-small UAS. Ultimately, their approach creates a fully networked battlespace that connects, integrates and optimizes every-sensor/best-effector operations.
Northrop’s Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS), which detects, engages and shoots down drones with a combination of “directed energy and kinetic effectors,” is in operation today. It is likely being used in Ukraine.
In August,2023, Northrop Grumman Corporation has delivered a miniaturized high-energy laser source to the U.S. government. The laser is ruggedized for field use and miniaturizing it allows for rapid placement in tactical situations.
* The 10kW class high-energy laser, known as Phantom, is about 12 cubic feet (nearly the size of a mini fridge).
* Weighing less than 200 pounds, it enables lift, carry and installation by as few as two personnel.
* The Phantom customer will integrate it with other subsystems for testing and delivery to military customers.
How about rockets, artillery shell and mortar rounds. Northrop’s Counter Rockets, Artillery and Mortar (C-RAM) is able to fire its ray gun from a turret mounted on a Humvee.
A 150 kW laser weapon system demonstrator was deployed on the USS Portland and saw action in December 2021 with the U.S. 5th Fleet. Northrop Grumman has a 300 kW high-energy laser prototype that can be scaled up to more than a megawatt.
Northrop Grumman’s all-seeing radars – AN/TPS-80 G/ATOR, HAMMR, and the AN/TPS-80 Long Range Radar provide a complete, operational picture and unambiguous view of the battlespace to help warfighters make better decisions when it matters most.
Northrop Grumman has integrated medium caliber gun and ammunition system for land, air, sea-based combat platforms.
Northrop Grumman is a leader in high-power directed energy (combat lasers) technology for a variety of platforms operating in multiple domains. Their advance high-energy laser weapon system enables on-the-move, rapid, precise target engagements.
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Laser defense is great until they start chrome plating things again.
Billion dollar laser systems defeated by a 99¢ mirror from the cosmetics counter at Walmart.
Smart.
Even a mirror that reflects 95% of a lethal laser beam will still absorb enough heat to burn. This causes the reflectivity to be gone almost instantly, but a scattered burst of light from the point of impact could still blind the shooter or his allies.
Most combat lasers will be pulsed, firing dozens if not hundreds of small pulses per “shot” within fractions of a second and each pulse vaporizes a small bit of the target surface. This digs into the target. This is more efficient due to how less energy will be used to further heat the vaporized matter, and more energy will be used to vaporize the next matter behind it. The mirror would protect against just the first pulse before burning through and then the next pulses burn deeper.
I’d say use those tools to remotely power commercial space launch activities. Chemical rockets are starting to punch holes in the ionosphere, a problem which will only get worse as exhaust chemicals continue to build up.
Likely is being used in Ukraine, Hold on. Well alrighty then, carry on.
But we do need Skynet over Russia.
Very nice, but I’m interested in technology we are giving Ukraine now. It turns out your tech really doesn’t matter, Joe Biden is withholding help for Ukraine.
We are a legion of lions, led by a sheep.
Speak for yourself. I think every tax dollar sent to continue the conflict in the russian province of ukraine is a crime, and I have as much say in the matter as you do.
This is similar like funding a police or letting the mafia do what a stronger can do. We should opt for the first.
Russia will not stop until forced to, if successfully annexing Ukraine, Russian leaders will see this as best way to strengthen their hold over their position.
America doesn’t owe Ukraine jack s••t!!! Do you can come down off your high horse and fight your own battles!
America was beyond nice and now you want to talk s••t about our president???
It’s not our problem that you call yourselves a country yet you can’t defend yourselves???
President Biden should let the wolves have all of you!!!!
The only thing that your country can offer to the world is wheat and fake ungrateful tears!!! How dare you???
Well I guess that it was only a matter of time until war became fully remote, proxy, unmanned, and possibly-somewhat autonomous. It will be interesting to see how war maneuvers, military formations, and traditional defensive/ offensive strategies work going forward. Do we need trenches and pill boxes or any land fortifications when there are nearly no humans involved? From a vast array of -from the bottom up- burrowing, rolling, crawling, sprinting, hovering, gliding, loitering, flying, orbiting war mechanisms all with varied protective, offensive, autonomous/ reconnaissance performance characteristics. Do we go small, simple, and disposable en masse in swarms with kamikaze mission objectives? Do we need robot field medics to fix, recover, and retrieve technology or do we assume fields of abandoned wreckage, now part of the post-apocalyptic landscape? Do we have large complex ‘mechs’ as the main battle tech, where versatility, survivability, and position dominance matter? Is there any ‘field clearing’ technology such as EMP where all mechanistic war systems, no matter how autonomous, hardened, or free of delicate electronics, can be destroyed/ deactivated within a significant radius? Are we all lasers now, or does ballistics and explosives matter? Do huge war budgets with vast military laboratories rule the next war era or can home-made, improvised drones and explosives dominate? I suppose if Russia, and to a lesser degree China, are cut off from the latest semiconductor, laser/optics, and supercomputer-AI-strategy tech, it wil be a one-sided military world, indeed. I suppose that it would be a good time to get a Mechatronics Degree.
It would be epic to see a fully non-human, live-fire war game, division-scale (8 – 15k elements per side) at the Yuma Proving Grounds with all the ground, air, and armored drone systems coordinated in conflict – though, I doubt the public would hear about it and we’re likely 5+ years away from that.
More about effective power projection.
The timing, distance, logisitics, and set-up of an entire division of drone components must surely be less than, by many orders of magnitude, through the boats, planes, and other transport, as compared to traditional infantry, armored, and air support.
And the US is the One to sell NATO (and the pacific theatre equivalent) that tech circa 2030ish.
‘Accidentally’ fire one of these against a trench or tree line in Ukraine and a whole platoon of troops will be blinded and rendered hardly. It’s perfectly legal do long as you were really targeting the mortar shells.
I mean sure it could blind you while melting the flesh off your face and igniting your hair and clothes but sure lets focus on how the non-visible light spectrum will “blind” you.
Done in a sci-fi story decades ago.. the idea was not to kill the enemy, you blinded them so the cost of looking after them broke the enemy’s economy.
Another good one was the fast-evolving battle robots using crippled children robots with robot teddy bears as they hunted down the last humans.
..and I don’t think Russia and China and the BRICS will suffer any loss from developing their own weapons, they are way ahead in lots of fields already.
Skynet is pleased