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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office and dated 31 March 2010. It was produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program. It reviews chemical, solid-state, fiber, ultra-short pulse and free-electron lasers, as well as beam control, atmospheric propagation, DoD laser history and how spacecraft could be damaged by lasers. It projects that electrically powered lasers could enable MW-class weapons and spacecraft laser weapons within 20 years. It ends with shielding recommendations for spacecraft.
From the source: Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/31/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys the development of high-energy laser weapons and notes that, although lasers had already become important military tools for ranging, guidance, and other lower-power uses, true weapon-class systems remained limited by power generation, beam control, atmospheric propagation, and logistics. The report reviews major laser types along with the optical, tracking, and thermal-management systems needed to make them militarily useful. It argues that high-energy lasers can offer important advantages over kinetic weapons in speed, precision, and low collateral damage, especially against softer or fast-moving targets, while also emphasizing that practical deployment has long been hindered by hazardous chemical fuels, thermal blooming in the atmosphere, power-supply constraints for mobile systems, and waste-heat removal.
------------------ -------------------- -------- ---------------------------------------- -- ---- ----------------- ----- ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- UNCLASSIFIED/ fFOA OFFl&I.t.k YSE &P•tv HEL and Kinetic Weapons offer complementary capabilities Soft/Smal l/Fast Moving/tactical Missiles & Hardened or E/O sensors Vehicles Satellites Large Area (Dazzle or Destroy) Cell towers & comm nodes ICBMs Tanks Target Types Target tagging Fire starting Small UAVs Radar antennas Power grids Ceramic RF radornes IRBMs TheaterBMs Cruise missiles Armored vehicles Bridges Buildings Manpads MilitaryUAVs Individual persons Satellites Groups of people Rockets, artillery & mortars - Laser Power Increasing Laser Power or Increasing Range for Same Effect ---+ Laser 1 kW Weapon Effectiveness Easy 10kW 100kW Medium 111Ni Difficult Impractical Medium EasyKE Impractical Weapon if stationary Difficult If stationary if isolatedEffectiveness if isolated Figure 1. Utility of KE and H EL Weapons ELEMENTS OF AN HEL WEAPON The purpose of an HEL weapon system is to place and maintain the focused laser beam on a target aim point for sufficient time to cause the desired heating effect. To accomplish this, the weapon beam is generated by the laser device, then shaped and relayed to the input of a pointing te lescope (Figure 2). Laser beam sensors and steering mirrors are required to maintain the HEL beam centered as it traverses the optical train. The pointing telescope, which typical ly sits on azimuth and elevation gimbals, then expands the beam to the diameter of its primary mirror and focuses it to the range of the target while an imag ing system (which can use a separate telescope or share the transmitting telescope) acquires the target, tracks it, and points the transmitti ng telescope's beam at the desired aim point. If the HEL beam's propaga t ion path from t he weapon to the target includes the earth's atmosphere, it can have a significant deleterious effect. Absorption and scattering of the beam, which reduce its strength at the target, are caused by molecular constituents of the atmosphere and aerosols such as haze or dust. Additionally, atmospheric turbulence spreads the focused spot and further reduces its effectiveness. All of these factors must be taken into account when designing a laser weapon. UNCLASSIFIED/ fFOA QFFI&I.t.k YSE 8,.L\f 2
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 31 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.