US tests Apache helicopters with mounted laser beams

An Apache helicopter has successfully acquired and hit an unmanned target with a laser gun for the first time in history.

Mounted on an Apache AH-64 attack helicopter, the high energy laser tracked and directed energy on the stationary target which was a little less than a mile away.

The achievement proves that laser weapons are no longer the work of science fiction.

Weapon manufacturer Raytheon said that never before has a fully integrated laser system been able to successfully shoot a target from a rotary-wing aircraft over an array of flight regimes, air speeds, and altitudes.

The feat was made possible by combining a variant of the Multi-Spectral Targeting System (MTS) — an advanced, electro-optical, infra-red sensor — with the laser used in the attack.

According to a defense specialist, the MTS was responsible for providing targeting information, situational awareness, and beam control.

Vice president of advanced concepts and technologies for Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems Art Morrish said collecting data such as the impact of vibration, dust, and rotor downwash would help shape future high-energy laser systems.

“Our goal is to pull the future forward,” Morrish said. “This data collection shows we’re on the right track.”

According to the Pentagon, laser weapons bring sharp advantages to the battlefield as they are silent and invisible to the human eye.

Not only does this make them more difficult for enemies to detect, but lasers are more accurate in hitting targets because they have a near-perfectly straight trajectory.

As lasers don’t have the arc flight path of artillery rounds, they are “more effective at addressing rocket, artillery, mortar, or RAM threats, as well as unmanned aircraft systems and cruise missiles.”

Used by the US military since 1986, the Apache helicopters have previously relied on weapons such as a 30-millimeter gun, 70-millimeter rockets, and heavy-duty AGM-114 Hellfire missiles.

As lasers don’t run out of bullets, this discovery could be a cost effective solution for the military seeing as each AGM-114 Hellfire missile costs $110,000.

The test was conducted by Raytheon and the US Army Apache Program Management Office in collaboration with US Special Operations Command at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

Source: http://nypost.com

What is MOAB? 'Mother of All Bombs' GBU-43/B dropped on ISIS is 11-tonnes of pure TNT

It's a weapon that justifies the use of the word 'terrifying' to describe its power and marks a deadly ramping up of America's military initiative abroad.

The GBU-43/B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, nicknamed MOAB, or 'Mother of All Bombs', is a 21,600 pound, GPS-guided munition that is America's most powerful non-nuclear bomb.

Almost 20 feet long, it truly is the queen of the so-called 'bunker busters'.

Deployed from as high as 20,000 feet, the MOAB races to the ground at supersonic speed before slamming its way toward a hardened target through layered subterranean defenses such as native rock, reinforced concrete, and steel plates.

The 11-tonnes of TNT warhead then bursts about 6 feet (1.8 meters) above the ground.

The idea behind an 'air burst' weapon, as opposed to a weapon that explodes on impact with the ground, is to increase its destructive range.

A bomb that penetrates the ground and then bursts tends to send all of its energy either down into the ground or straight up into the air.

An air burst weapon sends a great deal of its energy out to the side.

As a precision-guided 'smart bomb' the MOAB is designed to cause maximum damage to bunkers, tunnels and other areas that can typically withstand even large standard bombs or artillery strikes.

It can kill people within several hundred metres of the point of detonation, and cause lung damage and other injuries over an even wider area.

“The most amazing thing about MOAB is it’s the most powerful bomb ever built and has done its job—deterring the enemy—simply because they know about it,” Robert Hammack, a team chief for the bomb’s development, was quoted as saying in an Air Force article in 2008.

The bomb, dropped at 7pm local time (4pm UK time) today in Afghanistan, was operated by an Air Force Special Operations Command.

It was deployed by an MC-130 aircraft to target ISIS and extremists.

The bomb had to be "kicked" out the back of the cargo plane due to its colossal size, according to military sources.

The US Air Force targeted a cave complex in the Achin district of Nangarhar province after a US special forces 'Green Beret' was killed fighting the terror group in the country, according to Fox News .

In terms of destructive capability, it can be said to be the most fearsome explosive weapon among a range of massive-blast ordnance developed by the Pentagon over the past decade.

It replaces the Vietnam-era "Daisy Cutter," a 15,000-pound bomb with 12,600 pounds of the less-powerful GSX explosives.

Gen. John Nicholson, commander of US forces in Afghanistan, signed off on the use of the bomb, according to U.S. sources.

As [ISIS'] losses have mounted, they are using IEDs, bunkers and tunnels to thicken their defense," General Nicholson said in a statement.

"This is the right munition to reduce these obstacles and maintain the momentum of our offensive against [ISIS]."

This is the first time a MOAB is believed to have been used in battlefield after first being developed during the Iraq War.

Military officials told CNN in 2003 that the MOAB was mainly conceived as a weapon employed for "psychological operations."

They said they hoped the MOAB would create such a huge blast that it would rattle Iraq troops and pressure them into surrendering or not even fighting.

Officials suggested that perhaps the Iraqis might have even mistaken a MOAB blast for a nuclear detonation.

Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk