Zionsake: In an interview last night, 23 Feb., on Israeli TV a specialist was interviewed about the baffling situation that the Israeli government is not deploying a laser gun system that Israel and the USA have jointly developed, to neutralize kassam rockets from Gaza. He said four batteries of these laser guns, at a cost of about $200 million, can protect all areas around Gaza against short range rockets. These systems can be deployed in six months from now. Instead, the Olmert government has decided on the Iron Dome anti-missile missile system that would only be ready by 2010, while a solution needs to be found as soon as possible for kassams that have been raining down on Negev population centers for the last seven years. One missile in the Iron Dome system will cost $100 million and can take out one kassam that costs a few thousand Dollars.
Instead of installing a system that has already proved to effective (see below), Olmert and co. are now spending a token NIS 327 Million to protect Gaza Belt Communities, while Olmert still says, "we will not fortify ourselves to death."
Obviously, Israel's liberal leaders have reasons of
their own not to want to solve the rocket problem!
Dr. Aaron Lerner tries to analyze the selfish reasons behind the development of the Iron Dome in the following article:
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- U.S.-Israeli laser knocks out rockets in arms test
Foreign Affairs Extended News News Keywords: RAY-GUN LASER ANTI-MISSILE TRW THEL
Source: Excite.com
Published: 30 Aug 00 Author: Jim Wolf - Reuters
Posted on 08/30/2000 11:23:30 PDT by RightWhale
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A high-energy laser weapon designed to defend Israel's northern border with Lebanon has successfully shot down two Russian-built test rockets at once, the U.S. Army said Wednesday.
The test Monday at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico marked the first trial of the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) against multiple rockets in the air at the same time. The THEL "technology demonstrator" -- the world's first high-energy laser designed for operational use -- shot down a lone Katyusha rocket at White Sands for the first time on June 6.
"We've just turned science fiction into reality," Lt. Gen. John Costello, head of the Huntsville, Ala.-based Army Space and Missile Defense Command (SMDC), said of the first shooting down of a 10-foot-long 122 mm unguided rocket.
In Monday's test, the rockets, similar to those that Hizbollah fundamentalist guerrillas have fired at Israel from Lebanon, were traveling 16-km (10-mile) trajectories at more than 330 meters (1,000 feet) a second when destroyed by the laser, SMDC spokeswoman Gerda Sherrill said. The system, which destroys targets with beams of intense light, is tentatively scheduled to be delivered to Israel by the end of February in the absence of further funding, she said.
The handover could be delayed for another year or more if Israel and the United States reach agreement on the proposed joint development of a more mobile version dubbed MTHEL, SMDC officials said. In that case, the THEL -- which includes a fire-control radar, pointer-tracker and command center that take up several truck-sized shipping containers -- would remain at White Sands for additional development, testing and evaluation, SMDC said.
TRW Inc., the program's prime contractor, had no comment on the test-firings or on talks about a possible mobile version, said Brooks McKinney, a spokesman for the company's Redondo Beach, Ca.-based Space and Electronics Group. In any case, an unspecified number of additional tests against multiple armed targets are to be carried out before the system is delivered to Israel, the SMDC said. The next are scheduled for Sept. 8 or 11, depending on the weather at White Sands.
The test on Wednesday marked a major milestone in the four-year-old, $250-million THEL program. Originally, it had been scheduled for July 17 but was postponed to avoid complicating the Middle East peace talks then under way at the U.S. presidential retreat at Camp David, Md., SMDC officials said.
^ REUTERS@
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Northrop Grumman readies laser-based anti-missile system for operational deployment
REDONDO BEACH, Calif. - Engineers at the Northrop Grumman Corp. Directed Energy Systems segment in Redondo Beach, Calif., are readying mobile high-power laser technology for deployment in the U.S. and abroad against short-range ballistic missiles, short- and long-range rockets, artillery shells, mortars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and cruise missiles.
The Skyguard laser defense system is based on technology that Northrop Grumman experts developed for the Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) test bed, the Mobile THEL prototype, and its predecessors, which Northrop Grumman developed for the U.S. Army and the Israel Ministry of Defence.
The Tactical High Energy Laser was designed with a high-energy, deuterium fluoride chemical laser to protect against attack by short-range ballistic missiles and similar airborne threats.
Skyguard has higher power and a larger beam than its predecessors. Like earlier prototype systems from Northrop Grumman, Skyguard is a multimission, soldier-operated, compact and transportable laser weapon system designed for field deployment and operations.
One Skyguard system can defend deployed forces, a large military installation, a large civilian population, or industrial area, Northrop Grumman officials say. One Skyguard system is capable of generating a protective shield of about six miles in diameter.
“We believe that no other weapon of any kind, or any system being developed today, can offer the kind of protection we’ve proven Skyguard can provide,” says Alexis Livanos, president, Northrop Grumman Space Technology. “Skyguard offers the earliest possible implementation of an operational laser weapon system for defense against a wide range of threats.” rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
| This artist’s rendering shows the Skyguard laser weapon as it destroys incoming ballistic missiles, artillery shells, and mortar rounds. |
In use at the Army’s White Sands Missile Range, N.M., since it was developed between 1996 and 2000, the THEL test bed has shown that laser weapons can protect troops on the ground, company officials say.
During testing, for example, the system shot down 25 Katyusha rockets, which were developed in the former Soviet Union, and are in wide use in the Middle East. In 2004 the Mobile THEL system shot down several mortar rounds in actual mortar-threat scenarios. The THEL prototype intercepted and destroyed single mortar rounds and salvos of mortars.
“The THEL test bed has demonstrated unequivocally that lasers can engage and destroy rocket, artillery, and mortar threats in flight,” says Mike McVey, vice president of Northrop Grumman’s Directed Energy Systems.
“This test bed has been remarkably successful,” McVey says. “To date, it has shot down dozens of live threats, including long- and short-range rockets, mortars and artillery projectiles, in very realistic attack scenarios, and under simulated operational conditions such as surprise attacks and mixed threats.”
The THEL prototype used fire-control radar to establish trajectory information about incoming rockets, and handed off targeting information to the pointer-tracker subsystem (PTS), which included a beam director. The PTS tracks the target optically, then begins a fine tracking process for THEL’s beam director, which places the high-energy laser on target.
The laser’s energy heats the target, which causes its warhead to explode. Like the THEL test bed, Skyguard is a modular and flexible system that will support future spiral developments and can accommodate improved laser and beam-control technologies as they become available.
Military & Aerospace Electronics August, 2006
Boeing demonstrates a Hummer-mounted laser weapon
Posted Oct 18th 2007 3:06PM by Nilay Patel
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
We first heard of Boeing's plan to mount a laser on a Humvee in July, but we weren't expecting results so soon -- yet here we are just a few months later and the company is already blowing stuff up with a truck-based "directed energy weapon." The one-kilowatt laser is retrofitted on Boeing's existing Humvee-mounted Avenger missile system, and tests have already demonstrated its effectiveness at taking out IEDs from a safe distance. More excitingly for the boom-boom crowd, the Laser Avenger has also managed to eliminate grounded UAVs, and Boeing says it's working on being able to target low-flying drones as well. That's all well and good, but we just want to know: how is it at making popcorn?
Another round of goal-less fighting has drawn to an end in Gaza. The government had to do something to give Israel's citizens the feeling that it is 'doing something' for their security. But as the mother of the soldier killed in the fighting said at her son's funeral, "If I would know that my son's death had stopped the Kassams, I would be able to deal with it. But it did not." 
