OPINION:
LASERS, DEATH RAYS AND THE LONG, STRANGE QUEST FOR THE ULTIMATE WEAPON
By Jeff Hecht
Prometheus Books, $25, 295 pages
According to ancient — and highly dubious — mythology, a laser beam was first used as a weapon around 215 BCE, when Roman invaders threatened the Grecian city of Syracuse. The legendary Archimedes, a renowned engineer, supposedly deployed a defensive array of weapons, including an array of mirrors that focused sunlight on Roman ships and set them ablaze.
Such was not enough to save Syracuse. The Romans captured and killed Archimedes and sacked the city. Nonetheless, despite debunking by historians, the “Archimedes yarn” inspired uncountable generations of aspiring scientists to develop a modern “death weapon.”
Pulp magazines feasted on “death ray” articles for decades, describing lasers as “invisible rays of heat that ignited anything they touched.” No such weapons appeared. But now military reality seems to be catching up with science fiction.
Science writer Jeff Hecht has pursued laser research for some 40 years. By his account, lasers have served many non-weapon purposes, ranging from television transmissions and drilling oil wells to eye surgery.
The United States made its first serious steps towards developing a military laser during the Eisenhower administration, the aim being a “speed-of-light” defense against Soviet intercontinental missiles. “If lasers could shatter the protective shells of nuclear warheads, they would become the ultimate defensive weapon, trumping nuclear missiles,” Mr. Hecht writes. But try as they might, scientists produced lasers that “could not have killed anything much larger than a fly.” In 1987, the Soviet Union even tried to use laser power to launch a space craft but failed.
The U.S. military is understandably close-mouthed about its development of laser weaponry. But what information has seeped out is encouraging. Henry Obering III, formerly a Pentagon missile defense expert, reports the that Laser Weapons System aboard the USS Ponce has “already shown that lasers can shoot down drones and collect surveillance data at long range.” (One can envision such deployment around North Korea.)
The Army is concentrating on lasers mounted on Stryker combat vehicles. A five-kilowatt laser replacing the usual heavy gun armaments “shot down over one hundred drones” during tests, and Boeing is working on a 50 KW version
The Air Force’s Shield program wants lasers to be on fighter planes by 2021. They would be used both for air-to-air combat and against ground targets. According to Mr. Hecht, one hope is that laser weapons could reduce the “collateral deaths” resulting from terrorists surrounding their positions with innocent civilians. Laser warheads would explode only if they hit a specific target.
Development costs for such sophisticated weaponry is enormous, but such costs could be off-set in operations. Laser weapons run on power from diesel generators. But according to Janet Fender, chief scientist for the Air Combat Command, lasers have greater “persistence” than conventional weapons.
As she states, “Bullets, bombs and rockets can run out, but the laser keeps on firing as long as the diesel holds out A dollar’s worth of diesel fed into a generator will provide enough power for a modern electric laser to zap an insurgent rocket or drone.”
To be sure, America’s adversaries — especially China — recognize the importance of laser weapons. Defense writer Bill Gertz has frequently reported in these pages about the Chinese military directing beams at the cockpits of American aircraft — to hamper the vision of pilots, to be sure, but also to test the range and accuracy of their laser gear.
Time-on-target portends to be a crucial element of laser warfare. Although laser beams hit a target at the speed of light, “the beam has to dwell for a while to deliver a lethal dose of energy, Mr. Hecht writes.
The target does not experience the “instant blast” depicted in science fiction. “Instead, the laser spot glows before it blows. Lock a laser weapon onto a rocket, and the rocket keeps moving, with the focal point getting hotter and brighter, and only after a matter of seconds does the explosive payload reach the detonation point and explode.”
As Mr. Hecht points out, many scientists involved in laser research have qualms about introducing a new and very potent weapon into the world’s arsenals. Several commented to him, in effect, that lasers “are the new nuclear weapon.”
But former Sen. Malcolm Wallop, before his retirement, envisioned lasers as a great peace-maker. He envisioned an armada of 18 or so orbiting laser battle stations, each with the fuel for a thousand shots, and a range of 3,000 miles.
As he commented, “There is no ultimate weapon, but this one holds great promise for a generation or two of real protection for Americans.”
• Joseph C. Goulden writes frequently on intelligence and military matters.
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