The military is testing battlefield laser weapons, but a leading defense scientist said a tactical weapon is many years away and poses so many problems that a GI may never fire a futuristic "death ray."
"The idea of a Buck Rogers-type weapon blasting away left and right is years and years away - if ever," said Lee Buchanan, director of the defense sciences office of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.Buchanan said defense scientists have been unable to overcome major hurdles facing a battlefield laser gun, and more research and testing may determine that such a device is simply not viable.
"What may make sense in the end is just more ammunition" for GIs, he said. "That's the easy way out. My gut tells me that's not the right answer, but I can't defend any other at the moment. We just don't have enough experience."
The more powerful the searing light beam, the larger, heavier, expensive and complicated the laser. Therein lies part of the problem, Buchanan said.
"What we have been unable to do is to build (tactical) lasers big enough, powerful enough to burn holes in victims at long range. That's been a problem for 30 years since lasers were invented," he said.
The Army's Roadrunner program to build a device called the Close Combat Laser Assault Weapon or C-CLAW to blind enemy soldiers was canceled in 1984 because the weapon was so big it had to be carted around on a flatbed truck and its performance was "touchy," Buchanan said.
A tactical laser weapon to maim or kill enemy soldiers is not feasible today, he said. "The name of the game in the Army is maneuver, they've got to move around. That means big, lumbering, fragile instruments - and lasers are all of those - become less attractive."
So defense scientists are developing low-power "speed of light" laser weapons that might cripple the sensor "eye" or targeting device in high-speed enemy missiles and tanks.
"What we are trying to do is determine whether lower-powered lasers, that is, lasers that have power that is too small to burn holes in something, have a utility in the battlefield in denying the threat (enemy) his ability to do his mission.
"In the case of an incoming rocket that is guided by an infrared seeker, you hope to blind that seeker or that electro-optic guidance such that the rocket can't hit its target. If you can do that, you buy yourself time," he said.
The Army is experimenting with several such devices to blind enemy optical equipment, including the smaller Dazer that soldiers can carry and the larger Stingray to be mounted on Bradley armored vehicles.