Yeah. "Lasers can't be used against infantry" my ass. They are going to be cooked / maimed by the lasers just cause soldiers dont care about political agreements. Enemy infantry in between you and the target, a little extra ablative armor to burn through before you hit the target. Also treaties only mean something till someone decides not to follow it. Also PMC arent held to the same standards so can use all those illegal things and do the more politically unpopular things if it gets the job done.
Alternatively low power lasers could be used against infantry as a technically-not-lethal weapon, like the European Federation from Tom Clancy Emdwar uses their "turbotasers" (actually microwave weapons put it's funnier to call them turbotasers).
@@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870 I'm not sure why Spookston avoided talking about masers (microwave lasers) but those exist and ARE used against infantry (see the Active Denial System)
Another negative with lasers are horizons. Lasers don’t arc like bullets do, so despite their range, they’ll never be able to shoot a target that is beyond the horizon or simply behind cover.
To get around that problem, they could do what they did for Excalibur from Ace Combat zero. The Excalibur was a laser system designed to shoot down ICBMs. To be able to fire past the horizon the Belkans used satellite mirrors. It would work like this: Target is detected, Excalibur fires at mirror, mirror redirects laser down to the target. In the Belkan war the belkans used it against aircraft with some success. The Excalibur was destroyed when aircraft came within direct range of the laser.
@@tragedyofdarthplagueis1630 oh no my worst nightmare, but it may not work since the laser must travel to orbital hight then travel back which will have way less energy due to atmospheric dispersion. laser sattelite can be use for boost phase or mid course defense although I seriously doubt if it could melt through the heat shield of the reentering vehicle.
@@tragedyofdarthplagueis1630 I think that laser would be use to defend against anti radar missile, cruise missile and tactical ballistic missile when positioned on the ground.
One anime i watched used this to fight "op" martian mecha with kinetic weapon very nice to see. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Agjl27juqns.html
Lasers are either gonna sound like gunshots, lightning, or nothing at all. Mostly dependent on whether they're absorbed in the air. Pulsed lasers will sound like very sharp impacts whenever they hit something, and gunshots when they hit things like smokescreens and blow holes in the smoke (yes, that's a real thing).
Hah. Imagine a review of something like the Rhino in that game's land campaign. From the Depths has some of the most ridiculously oversized tanks with upwards to 2000mm gauge cannons for the CRAMS. That being said, there are quite a few mechanics that might be interesting to look into. Positioning of ERA armor, the methods of HEAT and HESH protection used. Laser anti-munitions stuff. Yeah, would be interesting to see a review of a few of the tanks, especially the steel empire stuff, which is generally some of the most realistically looking designs.
"A laser cant be used to intentionally harm an enemy combatant" ha, right. There are no rules In a real war, and it just so happens a certain nation isnt a signatory of the Geneva convention, only an observer
@@silverstarofsootclan7507 pretty sure it's the United states. I know it signed some of the conventions but I know that the convention which barred the use of white phosphorus on human beings the united states didnt sign, so I'm assuming that they didnt sign whatever convention(s) barred the use of lasers.
@Maintenance Renegade United States signed the "don't use laser to intentionally permanently blind people" -treaty. That still leaves a lot of freedom on how to use them otherwise.
@@Alpostpone Yeah, it doesn't matter if they're blind if they died before they could testify. I really don't know how to feel about war. I love and hate it for the same reasons.
It's not that lasers don't take a lot of power - they certainly do - it's just that power (compared to other kinds of ammunitions) is really bloody cheap.
@@irugelgumiho5195 It really depends if it is running on nuclear power then it will be pretty darn cheap, but if uses a diesel generator then it may be more expensive.
I'm surprised you didn't mention waste heat: as far as I know, the theoretical max efficiency of a laser is around 30%, with few real-world lasers doing above 15%. This means that all other things being equal, you will melt your own tank before the enemy takes significant damage - not a very effective weapon system. This makes lasers great for firing from big things at small things since you have a much higher heat budget, but would be a death sentence for using against anything larger - such as an anti-materiel rifle being used against a protected jammer or munitions storage. Of course, if making lasers become cheap enough they could be single-use devices that burn out when fired, but it seems like that would negate advantages such as ammunition storage, simpler supply lines, and operations cost - especially as compared to ETC and railguns. As for plasma weapons, I see only one real use: toroid hyper-velocity plasma bolts. The per-shot energy delivered would be much less than a railgun or ETC for the same heat budget, but, in theory, they would stay contained over kilometers and produce directed EMP effects on impact, like firing stun grenades that can ground tanks and trucks and fell fighters and helicopters from the sky (presuming you can hit them). In theory.
Your mention of waste heat is most likely why lasers won’t be used in space. By firing a laser in space, you inflict more heat upon yourself than your target, and since you can only dissipate heat via radiation, by firing a laser you risk boiling yourself in your own spacecraft. As for lasers as single use devices, a good example could be the halo spartan laser. The reason why you only have a few shots is probably because of the energy cost and the massive heat damage to the gun.
depends. Active heat sinking can be used to cool your own weapon, while it´s harder for the enemy to cool the point of impact (although I suppose that some sort of active armor cooling system isn´t too hard to construct. still, outboard mounted equipment would be vulnerable). also, you could use disposable coolant that would be vaporized and vented out of the vehicle to get rid of heat.
@@cristianmartinez5612 Yes, my background in the subject is mostly sci fi space engineering. But according to a professor we have at campus who used to work with weapons, the primary limitation of the autocannons carried aboard Swedish fighters and IFVs is heat dissipation. Granted, technology marches forward all the time and cooling could be significantly better today or simply an area we're behind in.
@starshipeleven I were unaware of diode lasers. However, 65% is still more than the virtually nothing that can be achieved with cased ammunition since the vast majority of the thermal energy is absorbed by the case which is then ejected. Similarly for the railguns that are being considered for actual service rather than proof-of-concept, the lubricants the projectile is coated in acts as a single-use self-dispensed heat sink that absorbs most if not all heat. As for plasma weapons, I'd like to reiterate what I stated in the original comment: due to the inherent electromagnetic charge and energy, a toroid hypervelocity plasma bold _by definition_ produces directed EMP effects that resonate with the impacted material. Direct damage is nill, but how many modern aircraft can even say airborne if you burn out the electronics? How many missiles can find their targets if you burn out their sensors and guidance systems? And how effective do you imagine automated infantry being if the whole platoon has their CPUs fried? Granted, the last would in terms of required power be more on par with a ship-carried nuclear reactor than the powerplants found on tanks and IFVs, but so is a laser that can melt through a modern tank fast enough to be useful.
@@cosmic_cupcake Agreed. Well, if that is all I had to say I would have just liked your comment and left... Being the firing platform lets you control what the laser heats on you and on the target. Placing the laser in a cooling system that circulates heat through your mass would make the effect negligible compared to the effect of even a fraction of that on a vulnerable, concentrated area of a target. It's still a good trade, even though it would struggle with armor in any case. Active cooling would take power but probably not much compared to the laser, and could possibly utilize expanded variants of existing systems on the vehicle rather than needing its own thing.
I dont think energy weapons Will ever replace bullet based weapons simply because theres no reason to, manufacturing a laser rifle Will definetly be alot more expensive than Just making another AR, for no real benefit in my eyes, and infantry engagements dont often happen at such long distances that a laser's speed would be useful So while lasers migth be used for some specialist roles i dont think they Will ever fully replace conventional weapons, there are just too good and compared to lasers, much cheaper
@@stingray2223 Laser melts through armor, and heat is the thing that every spacecraft can get rid of the best. The heat given by the laser will be dwarfed by the reactors you'd need to power them. Also, diffusion will make it very hard to focus them on a spot at the ranges we are talking about.
@@stingray2223 bullets theoretically have infinite range in space and if we have the technology to make spaceships we probably will have the technology to make faster bullets so that the speed for power trade off makes bullets clearly superior for space combat
@@highgrounder5238 Spaceships are good at diffusing heat WITHIN THEIR INTERNAL SYSTEMS. They're not really that good at diffusing heat pointed at some random spot on the hull. Beam diffusion applies *a lot* less in space. The primary source of diffusion that Spookston is reffering to is atmospheric diffusion - which is pretty much the primary source of diffusion, period. "Laser bulelt spread", so to speak, is the only source of diffusion that applies in space, and it's quite minimal.
@@irugelgumiho5195 With the power density the actual combat laser brings to bear, mirror won't do jackshit. Any tiniest imperfection will instantly compromise the entire reflecting layer and then it just goes melting all the way through from here. Within the laser, beam is diffused and specially-manufactured mirrors can (barely) withstand it. Once the main mirror focuses it into a pinpoint of destruction, mirror armor no longer works.
@Thumli Koben you know lazers are always weapons maybe we need laser guided weapons. lazers can burn through armor. sure they would be expensive but mitary equiments is already expensive. plus Im not saying they need to make Lazar weapons that are so powerful they could destroy things with one blast more like a tool to break metal.
As a 70s to 80s kid, I well remember SDI (the Strategic Defense Initiative), which involved satellite laser systems that could shoot down ICBMs, proposed by Reagan.
@@Sir_Budginton The main idea was to bankrupt the soviet union - and the soviets bought it. So it worked. The computers had all the processing power they needed, even though it's a total of nothing.
@@Sir_Budginton Tracking was not a problem. NORAD has had the ability to track individual missiles since the 70s, at least. There were a bunch of other technical hurdles, though, which is why missile defense is just ballistic systems these days. X-Ray lasers were proposed as early as the 60s, I believe, as defense measure against ICBMs.
@@Alpostpone Well, ICBMs have their warheads encased in depleted uranium, which isn't exactly a very easy thing to melt through, and you would need to do it fast considering that ICBMs are also capable of deploying decoys. Then again, x-ray lasers need a nuclear device to be activated in order to be used, which exponentially increases the cost of the project - since deploying nuclear weapons in space would break a bunch of international agreements and probably provoke a nuclear attack straight away, you'd need to deploy them during the enemy's attack, which means you have to have thousands of carrier rockets on stand by.
Bro when's the Destiny vid coming ? I haven't seen this vid yet obviously but I'm sure it's gonna be great! edit; I finished the vid, and as I predicted, it was great! Keep up the good work!
I guarantee you that the “no use against human targets” for lasers will eventually be thrown out entirely once whoever writes these treaties comes around to realizing that one, the major powers are going to abuse the hell out of every loophole they can find (or just straight-up ignore it in the event of another world war), two, the ban is almost impossible to enforce (you could always claim that you were trying to melt the cover the targets were hiding behind), three, it’s not really any less humane than shooting somebody with a bullet, and four, space warfare finally becomes a thing despite treaties intended to curtail it (since lasers will likely be the default weapon used in space combat).
@@HungryHunter Or better yet, "it's not a laser, it's an infrared flashlight!"...which in the strictest sense would actually be true, and such tech has been used in military applications since the 1940s. The bit about radio beam emmitters would be more plausible for maser (microwave) weapons...which are, functionally, just really powerful, highly focused radar equipment (radar itself was originally developed as an attempt at creating a directed energy weapon for anti-air defense).
Why the fuck Does it concern international treatise!! U kill a person either way with a chainsaw or a grenade, it’s suppose to be war where the only thing that matters is killing enemies faster than they do the same,why does feelings come into play?
@@creepadept If a weapon causes "unnecessary suffering" in the view of the Geneva Protocols, it's inhumane for use in warfare. Know what's on the list of banned weapons? Hollow-point bullets, even though they kill faster than FMJ (generally speaking) and they're not too useful in symmetrical warfare due to the proliferation of body armor. Lasers, in my view, are no different than killing somebody with a flamethrower (which AREN'T banned, it's just that nobody uses them anymore because they're considered obsolete, and more of a liability than an asset)...actually, scratch that, a laser is more humane than a flamethrower. A laser can be dialed back to nonlethal settings if needed, it's WAY easier to take cover from one, and you generally have a few seconds' warning between when you feel the beam hitting you and when you start being cooked, giving you time to find cover.
I believe its a thing called marauder project - its like your typical vaper, but insted of shooting smoke rings its shoots plasma rings. I dont remember exact specifics so feel free to read it ypurself
Lasers also have minimal area of affect. This is desirable in scenarios where collateral damage and risk to friendlies needs to be minimised. However this also makes them incapable of being an area weapon. A laser beam cannot carry ‘cargo’ either - so no HE, cluster munitions, airbusting charges, gas, bio, incendiary or nuclear etc. This is why Directed Energy Weapons will never completely supplant conventional weaponry. Instead they will supplement them 😎
The lasers used in most current military demonstrations are continuous wave lasers i.e. the beam is steady in power output. However if you pulse the laser, it is possible to apply much greater damage to a surface through shock heating, even leading to ablation and spalling, while still employing the same average power use.
Could you make a future video on 1. Tanks and ifvs used in End war 2. Tanks and ifvs used fuel of war Frontline 3. Tau vehicles from 40k namely the hammerhead gunships and it's variants.
Investigate pulse lasers. It is possible for a pulse laser to be configured to create an resonance like effect, causing targeted material to shatter and spall. Also pulse lasers prevent the heat from the laser from becoming diffused through a material, keeping the heating effects from spreading out from where the laser is hitting.
Could you perhaps expand the series to include far future of warfare? I'm talking vacuum ready tanks, how will they be powered, what guns will they use etc. Also, Deserts of Kharak pretty please.
Good old VC. Love the Edelweiss although it should have a gunner in adition to the commander and driver. Hafen is also a good design that suffers from this same drawback. The Imperial tanks are also interesting as they have a mix of russian and german inspired designs.
@@nathandamaren2093 the imperial tanks are crasy artworks of a tank. They look in part like a m3 lee with the hull and turret gun. Some have even MGs on the back there turrets. Edelweiss is a enigma for me: HOW is this thing not taken away from the RnD department for massproduction? How is galizia even able to muster tanks if tanks are handcrafted by the darksen and in part by the darksen alone. Edelweiss starts as a panzer 3 becomes a panzer 4 and is in the end a panzer 6 but this can be played out as playerprogression or will lead us the the "Ship of Theseus" problem. Funny how in VC2 edelweiss is just... gone and no mention on the invention of plains (beside the giant ass airfortress)
@@HungryHunter its said in various places that the tank was used by General Gunther in the last war meaning it is old and its also mentioned in the post war tanks that they are modified versions of edelweiss for mass production. For the thing about Valkyria Chronicles 2... idk, my guess is that it was mentioned due either to the main characters not being related to the original ones or just laziness. I do agree that the imperial tanks are a bit too medieval looking and obsolete looking for what is said in story.
@@nathandamaren2093 I didn't really like the Hafen due to it literally being just a warped m4 sherman, I would have liked it if it had been something like a mix between various vehicles as was in the first game, something like a mix between the Hellcat, T23, and the M4 would have been interesting. The imperial vehicles are the really the only ones which I feel look moved backwards from the game's setting of roughly WW2 setting. I feel the german element mainly falls on the Gallians while the Imperial tanks are just Russian T28 and T35 tanks with medieval design.
@@t26e44 I imagen that after Isara death edelwiese condition got worse and worse. With luck and isaras and her fathers papers it got maintained to the end of the war. After that (where VC2 begins) noone had an idea how to maintain it for long and got left in a barn for VC5 or something. To your comment to Nathan VC4 imperials tanks are still the german legostacks of tanks and only the spacial tank unit was russian. It was explained but not well. Hafen was just ally tank of many. They boxed themself in with the early "we are just one of many units" and the late "we are limited supplies" thing. The only way they had in my view is to add stolen parts to it to make it a crasy frankenstein of a tank. But VC didnt play by the VC rules it just played it save.
I just find it funny how the laser tank has to point at the conventional enemy tank for ages and tell themselves "come on come on burn up already, any second now", while the other tank slowly traverses its turret and shoots at the the laser tank who has to stay in a direct line of sight the whole time.
Something else important to consider is that versatility of tank ammunition is lost when switching from a traditional cannon to a DEW (directed energy weapon). Most tanks carry a variety of ammunition designed to do a variety of tasks, including, but not limited to, eliminating large groups of infantry, softening up stationary enemy defenses and positions, destroying enemy vehicles ranging from ordinary pickup trucks to other tanks, and also dropping smoke to cover allied troop movements. DEWs can't do a majority of those tasks. On my own designs for sci-fi tanks, I originally had the tanks mounted with a powerful DEW until I realized that a traditional cannon was actually better for most tasks. After that, I redesigned the tanks to use a normal cannon, except for the dedicated tank hunters (think the Sherman Firefly), which kept the DEW, since it was stronger against vehicles.
As far as plasma weapons go there's actually an interesting video on RU-vid of a guy with a homemade "plasma rifle" that's actually a homemade railgun. What makes it a "plasma rifle" is the round it's firing; he took a glass tube, filled it with a noble gas, (I believe it was Xenon), and then added a copper band around the glass tube in order to allow the projectile to be fired by the rails. As the glass tube moved down the rails the massive magnetic forces of the gun ionized the gas inside the tube, turning them into plasma. When the projectile struck the target the glass shattered but the plasma inside continued through the steel plate he was shooting. The shot made in the video was extremely short, probably about 15-20 feet (about 5-7 meters), but it might be a potential avenue for future plasma weaponry.
You make very good points, all of which I honestly agree with, as far as I'm concerned tried and tested is better than cutting edge. Just because a piece of technology looks cool on screen, doesn't mean it's practical.
Em, actually laser cant used against human targets only as blinding weapon, if you are intending to blind them, there is no penalty against weapon which will boil them and explode.
They are banned against human targets because it uses heat to kill the target which is why flamethrowers aren't used anymore. If your target doesn't burn alive then they become a burn victim or blind.
I don't know about laser tanks, but if it was on a jet fighter it would be real damn cool. It's even better when the pilot believes in world without borders.
High energy lasers are great, but providing them with compact portable power is the major problem. Oh and um..... I know for a fact that high powered IR lasers have been used to blind enemies instantly and they never knew what hit them. This happens often. That's all I'm going to say about it.
A lot of people imagine lasers working like kinetic weapons but actually they are more like a flamethrower with massive range and travel speed and insane accurracy to be considered as a flamethrower
Didn't have the funds at that point, and needed to take out the SCUD storm quickly. I usually load up Humvees with two pathfinders and three missile guys.
@@Spookston I used to do it too, but then I realized it's impractical to confine the overwhelming value (2000+) to a single fragile vehicle. So, now it's a Pathfinder per Humvee with an optional Ranger w/ Flash Bangs if there are buildings to clear.
I think one of the biggest problems with lasers being used as a weapon is that most people think of it as a continuous beam, which is the LEAST most practical way of weaponizing lasers. We don't have the means (yet) to do this but I think eventually we could see pulsed lasers in the future of directed energy weapons. Massive amounts of energy would be dumped into one short burst so powerful that it would literally cause a chunk of surface material on a target (say a tank) to literally explode. If a pulse laser was powerful enough it could have the potential to create an explosion with enough force to vaporize all the surface material and rip through the ceramic layers of tank armor with the resulting explosive energy, but that would take an incredibly powerful laser and a feat of engineering to pull off. There is no way to pump that much energy into a pulse laser large enough as of today though, the technology doesn't exist (yet). It also would have to be the size of a building to house all the equipment required to make it work with today's technology. With new materials, techniques, and ways of scaling down the equipment required to make it work it could be a reality one day though. It would make lasers used in particle accelerators look like BB-guns though that much is for sure.
Can we maybe have a video where you explain the advantages/disadvantages and uses of differently sized vehicles? Because a small tank can oneshot a big tank just as well asy any other tank can. So what is a big tank's use?
Actually it specifically says you can't use a laser as a means to permanently blind an enemy combatant. It doesn't specifically say you can't shoot them with one designed to make them burst into Flames. Though that's probably because we have no laser that could consistently used in such a manner
A major distinction needs to be made here. Pulsed lasers might fire 100 pulses per shot each a nanosecond long and a microsecond apart, with each pulse being a hundred kilojoules and focused down to as small a point as possible with a large lens. A weak laser rangefinder might well activate for under a millisecond before firing so that the lens can be autofocused, but nobody would have time to react, as the pulse train would come immediately afterward. The impact of the pulse would flash the surface of the target into a million degree plasma which would expand in nanoseconds and create an intense shockwave, which would blast through air and steel alike. This million degree plasma would emit a broadband light spectrum, including ionizing radiation that would be absorbed and re-emitted until a fireball had formed. Within a microsecond or so, most or all debris is cleared from the crater and the next pulse hits the crater floor, drilling into the vehicle. The impact flashes are broadband. Only a small percentage of light actually gets reflected, and almost none is reflected off the million degree plasma itself. The million degree blackbody radiation is absorbed by surrounding air and re-emitted in a 10000-degree fireball which is more transparent to visible light. Overall, the energetic efficiency would be similar to tank penetrators of similar thickness.
chemical lasers are the key here, chemical lasers also have hundreds of times higher energy density than electric laser systems, plus they are continous and not pulsed
Directing a laser against metal thick enough to be called armor has an interesting effect: the metal at the point of contact vaporizes and then continues absorbing the laser, reducing its effectiveness even further. A thick plate can also sink the heat away.
I would consider the laser weaponry a secondary tech tree to the arsenal of war. In many sci-fi based games, lasers exists parallel to solid formed kinetic weapons as an anti armor/anti hull while kinetic is used for bombardment and shield destruction. It would never replace, only to raise to a place where it coexists.
You only covered the less effective form of laser weapons. The Laser Beam Cannon. As you pointed out it is only effective with a large power source and its role is limmited to combat against easily trackable targets for a long period of time that can't fire back. What would work on a tank is a Pulse Laser Cannon. Instead of firing continuosly, it fires in cycles of charging and releasing a charged laser, which resembles the operation of normal pulse lasers, hence the name. The reason it would work is that it uses thousands of times less power to deliver an almost instantaneous single burst with the same intensity as a beam laser or the same power for a thousands of times more powerfull burst. Its power comes from the use of an amplifier. The amplifier is essentially a long chamber with a one way mirror on the entry side that lets a laser in but not out and a phase mirror on the exit side that becomes transparent to the lasers frequency when phased to let out the amplified laser. The reason the amplification works is that if you have a half a meter long chamber and you charge the laser for 1 second before release, you would have amplified the laser 300 000 000 times(Amplification=2*0.5m*1s*Speed-Of-Light-C). On theory. On practice you'll shatter the mirrors of the amplifier as the energy becomes high enough to separate the electrons of the mirrors from their atoms essentially turning them into glass/crystal plasma.
Basicaly lasers can only be used as efficient anti-air or anti-missile defense weapon. But what if in the future the find a way to miniaturize a laser sistem to the size of a bazooka ? Like in Akira. Immagine a squad of soldier equipped with those.
tbh for plasma weaponry to work you're best bet might be to combine the idea with some form of railgun setup where you're creating the plasma then capturing it around a hyper magnetic slug and using that as the carrier for the payload
I think heat would also be an issue. I'd guess that a laser capable of melting metal would heat up quite a bit. This could potentially affect the optics themselves, making the laser less concentrated and thus less effective, or even outright disable the laser if it overheats.
Laser weapons have a lot of advantages and the main guns could shoot down incoming missles. We just lack the tech or power to make them feasible to tanks or Infantry in the near future.
As I have been pointing-out pretty much everywhere for the last decade: Lasers as “Weapons” have both a VERY LIMITED application, AND a VERY LIMITED WINDOW of technological usefulness. This is because of the development of two separate technologies that by 2030 will make current Laser Weapons for shooting-down ICBMs, or any other “Ballistic” weapon, utterly useless for this purpose, as well as making them useless for any other applications. And one of these technologies is also going to royally screw the utility of Radar as well. The first such technology is the humble “Aerogel.” This is a material that contains roughly 99% Air, or, to put it another way, it contains around 1,000,000,000x the “Surface Area” throughout its structure as the APPARENT surface area of its shape. Aerogels are ferocious insulators. You could put a single millimeter of aerogel around your hand, and dip it in Lava and not even feel warm (at least not on the part covered in Aerogel). While older aerogels were and are very fragile, newer “Hardened Aerogels” have been developed that would be able to create an insulating armor against a Laser of pretty much any power we’ll be able to generate in a “Mobile” Laser of any kind for the next decade or two. Then comes the real “Laser Killer” (As well as Radar, Lidar, Maser, or ANY OTHER form of EM detection, or energy projection). These are called “Super-Reflective” or “Super-Refractive” Metamaterials. The former has a nearly infinite index of reflection (a perfect reflector, such that any Laser would be unable to transfer enough “energy” via the “Unreflected” portion of coherent light to eventually damage the material. But it is the Super-Refractive Metamaterials that are the real killers of Lasers for any purpose at all (no weapon, no “target designation,” no “Lidar detection,” as well as “No Radar Detection” either, much less being able to detect an object covered with such a material by just looking at it). Super-Refractive Metamaterials have an Index of Refraction that can be altered to be anywhere from +infinity to -infinity. Your “laser” is refracted away from the target, and by arranging the refractivity of the covering, the object will just seem to be “not there.” The beam would hit one side, be refracted around the object, and out the other side as if the object were not there. Technically the Super-Reflective Metamaterials can create a similar property, in that they can be made such that any form of EM radiation that is aimed at it is reflected perfectly in a direction OTHER THAN THAT of where that radiation originated. That would also make “Radar” pretty useless, as there would be no “reflected energy” for the antennae to receive out of which to get information about the objects position and/or velocity. And a Laser Weapon might also wind-up being reflected randomly off a Target such that it damages something that is not the intended target. Lastly... Super-Reflective/Refractive Metamaterials gain these properties NOT via the traditional “Polished” surface, or the “Optical” properties of a Lens, but rather via the arrangement of the atoms or molecules in the material (or, rather “Metamaterial”). So you could take sandpaper to the surface, paint it, or otherwise damage the material and the properties are retained (much like how when you cut-up a mirror or a hologram does not destroy the image reflected, or with the hologram, but just produces parts that contain the entire properties of the original). Something like paint over a super-Refractive or Super-Reflective surface would present a means to optically identify an object. But the paint, if a Laser was aimed at it, would just burn off the surface, which would then reflect/refract the light as if the paint wasn’t there. And by 2030 we are likely to find a way to scale the production of these Metamaterials, making it possible to cover the surfaces of ships, aircraft, tanks, or even soldiers with them. There are some additional problems with these materials, as if you wrap a tank in such materials, the crew is still going to need some way to see “Out” of the metamaterial, because it works in both directions (the inside would make the outside just as invisible as the inside is invisible to those outside). When these become commonplace, our ability to “wage war” is going to suffer a return to pre-WWII doctrines and methods due to the loss of the utility of things like Radar, Laser Designators and Targeting, and evening some visual identification methods. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamaterial The Wikipedia article covers the basics of Metamaterials, including things like having a negative index of refraction, or perfect reflectivity. There are specific articles available, but they are all behind paywalls in Scientific Academic and Professional Journals that are kind of expensive to access.
Please make a video on missile tanks, not only they can be seen in video games but also majority of the modern tanks use missiles along with traditional munitions like HEAT, HESH, APFSDS etc.
One other disadvantage of lasers is that they are strictly a direct fire weapon unless you can set up some complicated system of mirrors, which is a technological hurdle unto itself (and the mirrors would be extremely vulnerable to damage). Oh, yeah, lasers are also pretty useless against all but the thinnest of concrete, masonry, or earthwork fortifications. Even if it penetrates, there is no way to send an explosive through to destroy what’s inside like with an AP shell or bunker buster.
Another HUGE thing to consider with lasers is that they can blind your friends. As in literally, just looking at a visible laser beam that is strong enough to do damage when targeted can straight up blind someone who isn't wearing eye protection.
You're forgetting that a laser tank doesn't need a big heavy turret. A laser can be redirected by an adjustable aperture though the longer the range you need the wider the aperture has to be.
Imagine some sort of system that uses a potent laser to ping a target and soften them up while some sort of kinetic missile follows shortly after, I think those would work in tandem beautifully
What?! The standard ammunition used by modern tank is a HEAT warhead, it superheats copper, into plasma! Admittedly it only turns to plasma after it hits the target but saying we don't have plasma weapons is ridiculous. Good video though.
Another hard part about using a laser against a tank is that targeting the turret is pretty much out of the question because it can be turned to mitigate hotspots so easily. However, even a tank’s hull can be turned pretty easily to take the heat off of a spot being targeted.
Lasers could be effective against light targets such as civilian helicopters (modified for miliatry use), cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, etc. They'd be wonderful for a tank to defend themselves against a VBIED
As a planeboi lasers are scary. The apparent impossibility of evading a laser makes me wonder how an aircraft, or even a standoff weapon it launches, isn't going to get instantly yeeted. How are aircraft even gonna be relevant against that?
Well a Laser built to kill armor would probably be best used in the single pulse fire capacity as opposed to the more traditional continuous wave fire (pulse looks like a single discharge whilst wave is akin to a continuous beam). A good example of a pulse laser in fiction would be the Lascannon from Warhammer 40k and the Obelisk of Light from Command & Conquer and as a bonus both are designed to kill tanks.
Not yet. I've been following laser development, and we've been making big strides recently. Battlefield AA and anti munition for the nearish future, with railguns pursued as their counter since they lack warheads to detonate.
Projectile Weapons are governed by kinematics (aka Ke=M/2*V^2). Energy weapons are governed by the Inverse Square Law. Also, Mechanicus Soundtrack Awesome.
So spook, I love your content and you are one of my favorite youtubers, but I think your content needs to be delivered a little differently. It feels like I am listening to a PowerPoint sometimes and I know you can make awesome content. A combination of adding in your own opinions in an enthusiastic manner, and maybe longer videos could help a lot. No matter what tho, keep making your awesome content! PS, I design tanks for a video game called space engineers, a review of like 6 of the top workshop creations of 'tanks' where you then build your perfect tank in a more conversatuonal feeling video would be freakin awesome.
Minor correction: Blinding lasers can't be used against soldiers, because they are designed to cripple, not kill, but 'set their skin on fire' lasers or 'turn their blood to explosive steam' pulse lasers are perfectly legal, since they are clearly intended to kill their target.
Next time , speak about the Desert of Kharak vehicles , and if they are plausible/possible (in their own universe AND if its the same in our reality/planet) would be so great !
Spookston went full Colgate. Reminds me of Styropyro's 2020 super laser. It's tiny and could probably be fitted to a tank to protect it now. Paladin tanks soon!
1:50 careful high power laser are often chemical based especially the very high power ones or the ones on low power high mobility plateforms. I expect its still cheaper but it not free.
The limitations of lasers as weapons fall off a fair bit if the conflict moves to space. Ranges extend to tens to hundreds of kilometers, or further, and a laser can likely hit a maneuvering target at such ranges with reasonable accuracy. Beam attenuation does start to become an issue at these ranges - basically the focus of the beam causes its diameter to widen far enough to limit the weapon's effects. Kinetic weaponry in space deals with a much harder firing solution, as the travel time of even a hyper-velocity rail gun projectile becomes significant very quickly. Today's rail guns can achieve some 2.5 km/s velocity - but that's still a ten-second travel time to hit a target at 25 km range, which a laser can trivially hit. Contrariwise, kinetic projectiles do a lot more damage if they *do* hit. A likely outcome of this is that space warships may end up mounting weapons of both types.
I won't expect energy weapons to be as or more effective tham kinetic/chemical weapons inside a planet atmosphere until we phaser tech level territory, and at that point ground warfare itself would be in the backseat regardless. The dissipation is just too strong. But if we were to figure out an energy-kinetic/chemical weapon hybrid, then maybe that's how they could be used as an MBT's main weapons.
There are other methods though with lasers that mimic traditional projectile methods: if you had one very high powered discharge as a "shot" it would cause a surface explosion depending what it the target has on/in it (think steam explosions, etc.), that could be a basic method; a more complex version of the same principle could in theory liquefy the impact area to a smaller or greater degree and again have explosive side effects (might start igniting the air a little at this point and have a more sci-fi like laser). A pulse laser in short, verging on plasma weapon (unless you're in space).
The biggest problem with laser weaponry is efficiency. An extremely efficient system will only convert 30% of the input energy into laser light. Now imagine the remaining 70% of the exact same energy you are trying to destroy your target with being converted into thermal energy in a very small area of your tank. It would be entirely infeasible to expect a vehicle with less than twice the mass of its target to be effective as a weapons platform. The thermal load on the firing vehicle is going to be vastly greater than the vehicle you want to destroy. Something we normally avoid through ejection of the superheated component (gas and brass). Infantry weapons suffer from the same problems.
Have you heard of Project Marauder, it was attempt at a plasma railgun apparently it's test fire was successful but information on the project goes dark after that. Also it uses the whole word marauder as an acronym which I find funny.
Can you also do a video on the ground base vehicles in Star Wars Empire at War Forces of Corruption of the Empire, Rebellion, and Zann Consortium please?
I think whenever we make space travel and eventual space warfare commonplace, I bet Lasers will be the go to weapon. That way you don't have to worry about all the extra weight all the rounds for your cannons will add when transferring them from the ground to space, the laser can just use the ship's core powerplant as its energy source. Plus this way you don't have to worry about missed shells hurdling through space for eternity. (insert Mass Effect 2 reference)
