Laser Gunship Fires; 'Deniable' Strikes Ahead?
US boasts of laser weapon's 'plausible deniability'
12 August 2008
by David Hambling
An airborne laser weapon dubbed the "long-range blowtorch" has the added benefit that the US could convincingly deny any involvement with the destruction it causes, say senior officials of the US Air Force (USAF).
The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is to be mounted on a Hercules military transport plane. Boeing announced the first test firing of the laser, from a plane on the ground, earlier this summer.
Cynthia Kaiser, chief engineer of the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, used the phrase "plausible deniability" to describe the weapon's benefits in a briefing (powerpoint format) on laser weapons to the New Mexico Optics Industry Association in June.
Plausibly deniable
John Corley, director of USAF's Capabilities Integration Directorate, used the same phrase to describe the weapon's benefits at an Air Armament Symposium in Florida in October 2007 (see page 15, pdf format).
As the term suggests, "plausible deniability" is used to describe situations where those responsible for an event could plausibly claim to have had no involvement in it.
Corley and Kaiser did not respond to requests from New Scientist to expand on their comments. But John Pike, analyst with defence think-tank Global Security, based in Virginia, says the implications are clear.
"The target would never know what hit them," says Pike. "Further, there would be no munition fragments that could be used to identify the source of the strike."
Silent strike
A laser beam is silent and invisible. An ATL can deliver the heat of a blowtorch with a range of 20 kilometres, depending on conditions. That range is great enough that the aircraft carrying it might not be seen, especially at night.
With no previous examples for comparison, it may be difficult to discern whether damage to a vehicle or person was the result of a laser strike.
The 5.5-tonne ATL combines chlorine and hydrogen peroxide molecules to release energy, which is used in turn to stimulate iodine into releasing intense infra-red light.
The US uses Hercules aircraft for accurate cannon strikes on moving vehicles. The ATL is touted as bringing a new level of accuracy to such attacks, for example being able to pinpoint a vehicle's tyres to disable it safely.
A second, larger version of the laser is also nearing initial testing. The much larger Airborne Laser is intended for missile defence and will be carried by a Boeing 747.
http://tinyurl.com/63ha4u
Laser Gunship Fires; 'Deniable' Strikes Ahead?
August 13, 2008
By David Hambling
Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability."
In tests earlier this month at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser -- a modified C-130H aircraft -- "fired its high-energy chemical laser through its beam control system. The beam control system acquired a ground target and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system."
"By firing the laser through the beam control system for the first time, the ATL team has begun to demonstrate the functionality of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft," Boeing exec Scott Fancher said, in a statement.
But what Fancher didn't mention (and what I explore over on the New Scientist web site) is that this capability will allow Special Forces to strike with maximum precision, from long distances -- without being blamed from the attacks. "Plausible deniability" is how the presentation put it.
The claim that a laser strike could be carried out without attribution appears in two separate briefing documents by Air Force personnel, describing the benefits of the new directed energy weapon.
The Advanced Tactical Laser, weighing twelve thousand pounds and mounted in a Hercules transport plane, is intended to give Special Forces Command "ultra-precision strike capability" against a wide range of ground targets. Its power is somewhere in the hundred-kilowatt range.
According to the developers, the accuracy of this weapon is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys "32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns" -- while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them. It reminds me of how the Lone Ranger could always shoot the gun out an opponent's hand without injuring them; if that could really be done from an aircraft circling overhead, it would certainly be an impressive feat.
This precision should make the ATL a highly effective anti-personnel weapon, able to target (or "assassinate," depending on your politics) a specific individual in a group with sniper-like precision. A request for the Advanced Tactical Laser to be deployed to Iraq lays out the benefits:
Precision engagement of a PID [Positively Identified] insurgent by a DEW [Directed Energy Weapon] will be a highly surgical and impressively violent event. Target effects will include instantaneous burst-combustion of insurgent clothing, a rapid death through violent trauma, and more probably a morbid combination of both. It is estimated that the aftermath of a sub-second engagement by PASDEW [Precision Airborne Standoff Directed Energy Weapon] will also be an observable event leaving an impression of terrifyingly precise CF [Coalition Force] attribution in the minds of all witnesses.
While covert strike is a key part of the justification for the ATL (the budget document specifies "extremely precise covert strike"), would such an action be deniable? The attack described would seem to have quite a distinct signature, and no other nation has similar lasers ready to deploy (as far as we know).The laser is silent and invisible, and can strike at long range in darkness, so witnesses need to be aware there was a US aircraft in the area. Without any previous cases to go on, no pathologist could definitely say that a laser was involved. The injury might resemble a lightning strike more than anything else.
The second question of course is whether deniability should ever be an issue. Providing this kind of capability may encourage exactly the sort of questionable clandestine operations that have caused so much trouble in the past. And what happens when everyone starts doing it?
Of course there are other ways of carrying out covert strikes. But this is a case where advancing technology may hurl us into a future which nobody is prepared for.
http://tinyurl.com/5flgol
12 August 2008
by David Hambling
An airborne laser weapon dubbed the "long-range blowtorch" has the added benefit that the US could convincingly deny any involvement with the destruction it causes, say senior officials of the US Air Force (USAF).
The Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) is to be mounted on a Hercules military transport plane. Boeing announced the first test firing of the laser, from a plane on the ground, earlier this summer.
Cynthia Kaiser, chief engineer of the US Air Force Research Laboratory's Directed Energy Directorate, used the phrase "plausible deniability" to describe the weapon's benefits in a briefing (powerpoint format) on laser weapons to the New Mexico Optics Industry Association in June.
Plausibly deniable
John Corley, director of USAF's Capabilities Integration Directorate, used the same phrase to describe the weapon's benefits at an Air Armament Symposium in Florida in October 2007 (see page 15, pdf format).
As the term suggests, "plausible deniability" is used to describe situations where those responsible for an event could plausibly claim to have had no involvement in it.
Corley and Kaiser did not respond to requests from New Scientist to expand on their comments. But John Pike, analyst with defence think-tank Global Security, based in Virginia, says the implications are clear.
"The target would never know what hit them," says Pike. "Further, there would be no munition fragments that could be used to identify the source of the strike."
Silent strike
A laser beam is silent and invisible. An ATL can deliver the heat of a blowtorch with a range of 20 kilometres, depending on conditions. That range is great enough that the aircraft carrying it might not be seen, especially at night.
With no previous examples for comparison, it may be difficult to discern whether damage to a vehicle or person was the result of a laser strike.
The 5.5-tonne ATL combines chlorine and hydrogen peroxide molecules to release energy, which is used in turn to stimulate iodine into releasing intense infra-red light.
The US uses Hercules aircraft for accurate cannon strikes on moving vehicles. The ATL is touted as bringing a new level of accuracy to such attacks, for example being able to pinpoint a vehicle's tyres to disable it safely.
A second, larger version of the laser is also nearing initial testing. The much larger Airborne Laser is intended for missile defence and will be carried by a Boeing 747.
http://tinyurl.com/63ha4u
Laser Gunship Fires; 'Deniable' Strikes Ahead?
August 13, 2008
By David Hambling
Boeing announced today the first ever test firing of a real-life ray gun that could become US special forces' way to carry out covert strikes with "plausible deniability."
In tests earlier this month at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, Boeing's Advanced Tactical Laser -- a modified C-130H aircraft -- "fired its high-energy chemical laser through its beam control system. The beam control system acquired a ground target and guided the laser beam to the target, as directed by ATL's battle management system."
"By firing the laser through the beam control system for the first time, the ATL team has begun to demonstrate the functionality of the entire weapon system integrated aboard the aircraft," Boeing exec Scott Fancher said, in a statement.
But what Fancher didn't mention (and what I explore over on the New Scientist web site) is that this capability will allow Special Forces to strike with maximum precision, from long distances -- without being blamed from the attacks. "Plausible deniability" is how the presentation put it.
The claim that a laser strike could be carried out without attribution appears in two separate briefing documents by Air Force personnel, describing the benefits of the new directed energy weapon.
The Advanced Tactical Laser, weighing twelve thousand pounds and mounted in a Hercules transport plane, is intended to give Special Forces Command "ultra-precision strike capability" against a wide range of ground targets. Its power is somewhere in the hundred-kilowatt range.
According to the developers, the accuracy of this weapon is little short of supernatural. They claim that the pinpoint precision can make it lethal or non-lethal at will. For example, they say it can either destroy a vehicle completely, or just damage the tires to immobilize it. The illustration shows a theoretical 26-second engagement in which the beam deftly destroys "32 tires, 11 Antennae, 3 Missile Launchers, 11 EO devices, 4 Mortars, 5 Machine Guns" -- while avoiding harming a truckload of refugees and the soldiers guarding them. It reminds me of how the Lone Ranger could always shoot the gun out an opponent's hand without injuring them; if that could really be done from an aircraft circling overhead, it would certainly be an impressive feat.
This precision should make the ATL a highly effective anti-personnel weapon, able to target (or "assassinate," depending on your politics) a specific individual in a group with sniper-like precision. A request for the Advanced Tactical Laser to be deployed to Iraq lays out the benefits:
Precision engagement of a PID [Positively Identified] insurgent by a DEW [Directed Energy Weapon] will be a highly surgical and impressively violent event. Target effects will include instantaneous burst-combustion of insurgent clothing, a rapid death through violent trauma, and more probably a morbid combination of both. It is estimated that the aftermath of a sub-second engagement by PASDEW [Precision Airborne Standoff Directed Energy Weapon] will also be an observable event leaving an impression of terrifyingly precise CF [Coalition Force] attribution in the minds of all witnesses.
While covert strike is a key part of the justification for the ATL (the budget document specifies "extremely precise covert strike"), would such an action be deniable? The attack described would seem to have quite a distinct signature, and no other nation has similar lasers ready to deploy (as far as we know).The laser is silent and invisible, and can strike at long range in darkness, so witnesses need to be aware there was a US aircraft in the area. Without any previous cases to go on, no pathologist could definitely say that a laser was involved. The injury might resemble a lightning strike more than anything else.
The second question of course is whether deniability should ever be an issue. Providing this kind of capability may encourage exactly the sort of questionable clandestine operations that have caused so much trouble in the past. And what happens when everyone starts doing it?
Of course there are other ways of carrying out covert strikes. But this is a case where advancing technology may hurl us into a future which nobody is prepared for.
http://tinyurl.com/5flgol
bin66 - 14. Aug, 06:09
