The U.S. Navy's Rail Gun and Super Laser plans? Terminated!

[Feuer Frei!]

Remember these plans?

The Senate just drove a stake into the Navy’s high-tech heart. The directed energy and electromagnetic weapons intended to protect the surface ships of the future? Terminated. The Free Electron Laser and the Electromagnetic Railgun are experimental weapons that the Navy hope will one day burn missiles careening toward their ships out of the sky and fire bullets at hypersonic speeds at targets thousands of miles away. Neither will be ready until at least the 2020s, the Navy estimates. But the Senate Armed Services Committee has a better delivery date in mind: never.
The committee approved its version of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill on Friday, priced to move at $664.5 billion, some $6.4 billion less than what the Obama administration wanted. The bill “terminates” the Free Electron Laser and the railgun, a summary released by the committee gleefully reports.
“The determination was that the Free Electron Laser has the highest technical risk in terms of being ultimately able to field on a ship, so we thought the Navy could better concentrate on other laser programs,” explains Rick DeBobes, the chief of staff for the committee. “With the Electromagnetic Railgun, the committee felt the technical challenges to developing and fielding the weapon would be daunting, particularly [related to] the power required and the barrel of the gun having limited life.”
Both weapons are apples in the eye of the Office of Naval Research, the mad scientists of the Navy. “We’re fast approaching the limits of our ability to hit maneuvering pieces of metal in the sky with other maneuvering pieces of metal,” its leader, Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, told me in February. The answer, he thinks, is hypersonics and directed energy weapons, hastening “the end of the dominance of the missile,” Adm. Gary Roughead, the top officer in the Navy, told me last month. With China developing carrier-killer missiles and smaller missiles proliferating widely, both weapons would allow the Navy to blunt the missile threat and attack adversaries from vast distances.




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[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Its easier to justify cuts from "high risk" projects so this is hardly surprising cost cutting location.

[TLAM Strike]

This coming from the folks who canned the USAF's ABM laser mounted on a 747 as it was making substantial progress. That was a weapon with insane possibilities: if it could destroy missiles a thousand miles away it could destroy fighters and bombers hundreds of miles away becoming one plane that could wipe out entire air forces.

WTF congress?

Better start to lean how to speak Chinese....

[Oberon]

Great job Congress, great job...

When the nukes fall I hope they land on you first.

[Skybird]

Cancellations like this are said to happen when one is running out of money. It'S a question of affordability.

[Rockstar]

Another is if these high tech projects are so devastating what options would there be in answer to such weapons? Maybe another reason to stop it.

[Takeda Shingen]

You've got to make the cuts somewhere. Times are tough all around now; the defense industry should be no exception.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

You've got to make the cuts somewhere. Times are tough all around now; the defense industry should be no exception.

Rgr that....we've certainly had more than our fair share here in the UK.

[Bakkels]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

You've got to make the cuts somewhere. Times are tough all around now; the defense industry should be no exception.

Exactly this. Over here there also major cuts in every sector. Be it defense, health care, education, or cultural. You name it they're faced with major cuts. The irony is that everybody says: "Well of course if there are huge cuts, we shouldn't be an exception, but the way they're cutting costs now is irresponsible! If they do this, then ... *enter sector-specific doom-scenario*"

On the one hand I can understand it, I mean of course you try to defend your own shop so to speak, but everybody knows deep down that it's a argument that won't help them anyway. As they are all using the same one. It's just a variation of the 'not in my backyard' reflex.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

...but the lasers ? I'll bet they still get developed, by a third party or or under the disguise of a different project.

Officer X in Congress: "As you propably know laser sights widely used in our M-16s are going to need replacement in coming years. When considering specifications for their replacement we tought we should increase their power a bit..."

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by MaddogK

...but the lasers ? I'll bet they still get developed, by a third party or or under the disguise of a different project.

During a meeting with the CNO......

Ahem. Dr. Evil, it's about the sharks. When you were frozen, they were put on the endangered species list. We tried to get some, but it would've taken months to clear up the red tape.

You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done. Ah, would you remind me what I pay you people for, honestly?