La Oficina de Investigación y Desarrollo de la US NAVY, continúa con una serie de proyectos de avanzada relacionados con Armas de Energía Directa (LASER) y el Cañón Electromagnético. Este organismo ha tenido en algún momento, cerca de 10.000 proyectos de investigación relacionados con el perfeccionamiento de las Armas de Energía Directa (LASER) o cañones electromagnéticos, capaces de disparar sus proyectiles a velocidades enormemente mayores y a más distancia que los cañones convencionales con pólvora. Cabe destacar, que el buque USS PONCE desplegado en Medio oriente, tiene como dotación el primer “Combat ready” LASER capaz de perforar la coraza de otro buques o derribar drones.
China is expanding its influence in the Pacific Ocean to the chagrin of U.S. allies, but the Office of Naval Research aims to keep the technological edge of America’s fleets by developing new laser weapons and electromagnetic rail gun cannons.
Robert Freeman, a spokesman for the Office of Naval Research, says “at any given moment we have 10,000 research projects going on,” including research to perfect directed energy lasers with unlimited ammunition to shoot down waves of missiles or rail guns that can launch a simple projectile farther and faster than any gunpowder cannon. The USS Ponce deployed in the Middle East is carrying the first “combat-ready” laser weapon that has proved capable of melting holes in boats and shooting down drones, but Freeman says “we want better,” noting that it’s a work in progress.
Rear Adm. Mathias Winter on Friday said during an event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington, D.C., that more work needs to be done but that the laser on the Ponce is “ready” to shoot down aerial adversaries if needed.
“Deterrence is sometimes as good as the actual use,” Winter, the chief of the Office of Naval Research, said of the laser deployed on the Ponce.
Winter said he is “excited” about the Navy’s next steps to research “energy density, energy storage … and high-resolution optics” to make directed energy weapons more effective.” If all goes well, he aims to add directed-energy technologies “on aircraft carriers, destroyers and other ships as soon as possible.”
Rail guns have also reached the “engineering prototype stage,” he said, noting that Navy engineers are trying to design materials, projectiles and a ship-based aiming platform for the electromagnetic pulse-powered cannon that can withstand the intense heat it generates.
Freeman says the electromagnetic cannon could be a powerful weapon for combat against ships and planes because “it can tear through sheets of metal,” but it is most promising because “it uses no chemical propulsion,” and could eliminate the risk of a ship’s ammunition stockpile exploding.
“Our need to carry gunpowder with us is a big vulnerability to our ships,” he says. “A rail gun could eliminate that need.”
Winter says the Navy is also researching “Star Wars”–style deflector shields to protect against the new field of energy weapons, adding “that is years away, but we have to be working on that” to complement the advancement of laser technology.
Freeman had few unclassified details on the potential to develop the shields but confirmed the military “is interested in electromagnetic warfare,” including possible defenses to protect a ship’s electronics from an energy pulse that could knock them offline.
The Pentagon has already funded an unrelated shield prototype developed by Stellar Photonics of Redmond, Washington, which could evolve to defend American units by absorbing directed energy blasts, Popular Mechanics reports.
Rail guns and laser weapons “could start to come on line in a meaningful way in the 2020s and 2030s,” says Elbridge Colby, a national defense analyst with the Center for a New American Security think tank.
“The Navy is basically trying to deal with some significant operational military challenges as potential adversaries like China build up large stocks of ship-killing ballistic and cruise missiles,” Colby says.
Peter Singer, a strategist and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, says the Navy is investing in these new weapons as nations like China catch up with its once-unchallenged technological superiority.
“Our worry is that we are on the wrong side of the costs equation, spending more to defend than an enemy needs to spend to attack,” Singer says.
Fuente: http://www.usnews.com
