Utopia Talk / Politics / wtf is this

Sam Adams Member	Sun Feb 02 00:23:13 http://pbs...XEAA0wa6?format=jpg&name=large
Dukhat Member	Sun Feb 02 00:59:12 Go-Jira ... Goooo - JIra ... Someone call some experts in from Japan.
Paramount Member	Sun Feb 02 12:23:27 It looks like a warship that doesn’t have a flag?
Seb Member	Sun Feb 02 13:27:34 An IR laser viewed with an IR camera, or Photoshop.
Seb Member	Sun Feb 02 14:10:52 I would guess the Helios 60kw laser system
Sam Adams Member	Sun Feb 02 16:20:17 Thats a visible image seb. It could be an enhanced visible image but its definitely not an IR image.
obaminated Member	Sun Feb 02 16:24:38 Yeah that isn't IR. It's hard to tell what our enemies have developed. It's obviously not lethal. It could be blinding or possibly has something to do with the Cuba sickness.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 01:34:42 Sam: The image is probably a mix of frequencies - some kind of night vision - they often are sensitive into the IR spectrum; if you want to be pedantic. That bright beam is just IR scatter. That's an Arleigh Burke, it's firing from the position where the Helios anti-drone/dazler system is fitted, which is a 60kw fibre laser so probably 1065nm. Unfortunately taking a picture of an effective laser weapon is often rather boring because they are columnated and in this case not visible to the human eye anyway, but using night vision systems that would be saturated by IR scatter from atmospheric particulates is much more dramatic.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 01:41:42 Obaminated: That's an American ship.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 02:07:24 Heh, just saw it on Bluesky. It is indeed USS Preble firing a HELIOS laser system.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 02:12:56 Apparently it might be an upgraded one operating at 300kw. Which means it can work against subsonic cruise missiles. Fibre lasers scale very well. But the problem is they operate at 1065nm or thereabouts - and atmospheric conditions limit their range as a result. About 5 miles. Honestly was expecting these kind of systems to be a lot more common by now.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 02:15:24 However, going back to the wtf, that's not what it looks like "in real life", unless you can see into the infrared spectrum. It would not appear to a third party as a blinding shaft of white hot light lancing through enemy aircraft.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 02:16:34 https://bsky.app/profile/militarynewsua.bsky.social/post/3lhazy4lrp22q
Sam Adams Member	Mon Feb 03 09:59:48 Theres 0 heat plume from the hot parts of the ship. If theres longwave IR going into that image it isnt much. Could be some shortwave IR... but thats not what people mean when they say IR camera. But ya, laser through night vision looks about right. "Honestly was expecting these kind of systems to be a lot more common by now." Europe is morbidly lazy and overrun with socialist mediocrity. China can only steal. Russia has the economy of a shithouse. Only the US and Israel are left to advance tech, and the US is pretty lazy too.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 11:00:35 Sammy Stealing works. As you saw after wwii when you stole every single Germany patent ever issued. The problem in a nutshell with China is production tolerance. It produces precision consumer products, so, well, yes. How do you say "welcome overlords" in mandarin anyway?
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 11:01:54 What the US still has going for it is cultural capital. For now. Hint. We will not enjoy MAGA movies very much. America as it never was hits the entertainment sweetspot.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 11:02:16 "Theres 0 heat plume from the hot parts of the ship" Well a black body with a peak at 1000nm would be about 3000k and visibly glowing, which is a tad hot for a heat plume. It's just not as bright a source as scatter from a laser beam in the bands night vision sensors operate at. Sure, it's not thermal imaging, which would be more like 10um rather than 1um, night vision is just very sensitive to optical and just beyond optical range IR of which there's still plenty of useful amounts scattered through the atmosphere after sundown (think sunset). "Europe is morbidly lazy and overrun with socialist mediocrity" The Germans, French and Brits have fielded similar systems. This isn't particularly special. RNs is called dragon fire, it's done similar trials, they plan for 100+KW systems deployed on t23/26 frigates in a year or so. I was meaning specifically the US Navy. Technically, this stuff has been viable for at least 5 years. The roll out is slooow.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 11:04:22 On topic. That is light amplification imagery.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 11:13:47 Sam: Also China. Fibre lasers are everywhere now, it's the same tech used for fibre optic communication and industrial lasers basically. What's surprising is how long it's taking to ruggedize at that scale. Sure, it's hard, but also not super hard and it's the kind of thing I would have thought they'd massively prioritize. Instead everyone seems to be slow rolling it with a demonstrator going to sea trials every few years with not much sense of urgency. It's possible you need 2-3 years to sort out more reliable optics that won't blow up if water gets on the emitter but I doubt it. Jergul: Fibre lasers are IR, so yes it's amplified, but it's also not purely visible frequency.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 11:52:53 Jergul: "It produces precision consumer products, so, well, yes. " Indeed. Cf. Britain Vs US in the first half of the 20th C. Doesn't matter that the UK was cutting edge on the tech, what mattered was the US ability to churn it out at high manufacturing tolerances. They had to re-do all the drawings for our (really very good) roles-royce piston engines because the UK manufacturing tolerances were too loose for US consumer grade mass production auto manufacturers. UK design was better, but us manufacturing techniques better still. China can end to end churn out hundreds of millions of FPV drones a year, without any real pinch points in its supply chain, and without significantly reducing domestic standards of living. That's what will win a shooting war over a non-existential threat.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 11:53:49 And those big displays of synchronised drone swarms are the equivalent of Russian cold war victory day parades. Only much scarier.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 11:56:42 Seb I get your point, but FPV drones are still adhoc weapons. The designed FPV munitions are going to be horrible until AI returns the field to precision, selfguiding munitions.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 12:00:42 On topic. It looks to me like visible spectrum light is amplified. A shitload of ultraviolet and IR spectrum is simply not in the imagery where you would expect. I am making an image analysis, not a laser analysis. All I can say from the image is that the source has a significant visible spectrum component.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 12:34:51 Jergul: So yes, FPV is a bad nomenclature. I meant that size and class, but AI (likely autonomous AI). The swarming tech is already essentially AI, but potentially vulnerable to EW.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 12:39:20 Jergul: You are incorrect on the image analysis. Night vision is sensitive to near IR - feature not a bug, there's plenty of it around from atmospheric scattering. UV is the other side of visible and won't be very intense. You can check out footage of tests, there's no visible component, certainly not enough for scatter to show up that bright.
Sam Adams Member	Mon Feb 03 13:18:42 Nightvision grabs as much light as it can. At the earths surface, the majority of this is what we call visible(up high you get a bit more UV). Our eyes evolved this way for a reason. This is the fat part of the curve. Sure you add some UV and near IR but its still more a visible image than anything else. Of course if the laser is heavy in the near IR or UV range the NV imager would indeed see it better than our eyes.
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 13:39:41 Seb I am correct on the analysis. The nitpick is invalid for anal retentive reasons. Call it visible+ if you must. I am simply saying a lot of UV and IR spectrum is missing from the image, so it is not an IR image.
Seb Member	Mon Feb 03 14:07:19 Yes I call it nit picking because the salient feature - the saturated white line of scattered laser light - is scattered 1065nm laser light with no visible spectrum component. Re-reading, I assume you mean "source" as in the image rather than the laser source, in which case, fine, it's not an IR camera, and there's no doubt visible light components, merely a night vision system that's sensitive to near IR. You won't get much UV at night (which is when I assume this was taken).
jergul large member	Mon Feb 03 15:28:18 okie, no biggie.
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