Handheld laser weapons have long been used in combat situations on
planetary surfaces and elsewhere. The phase locked semiconductor Battle
Laser depicted above, a typical
Middletech
example, emits infrared
light at a wavelength of 1 micron with the option to frequency double
to 0.5 micron green. A full power shot draws 10 kJ from the power pack
and emits a 5 kJ beam delivered as a train of a great many ultrashort
pulses lasting no more than a millisecond. This is sufficient
to overpenetrate a human, leaving a hole about the width of that
produced by a .30 caliber hunting bullet, and will punch through all
but the heaviest armor that a person can wear. When used in
an atmosphere, the beam is focused and chirped to begin filamentation
shortly before reaching the target to overcome depth of field focusing
limitations for close targets. Such filamentation does not occur when
firing in vacuum.
The cooling system can dissipate the heat of up to two full
power shots per second; with the cooling system off (or when firing
very rapidly) up to 11 full power shots can be safely fired before
there is any risk of overheating. The air intake for the cooling system
fan can be seen in the stock of the weapon, and the exhaust vents near
the butt of the stock.
The laser can emit lower powered beams for higher rates of sustained
fire - a 1.6 kJ beam, for example, packs about as much punch as a 9 mm
pistol bullet. It can also emit armor-piercing beams, with the energy
and repetition rate of pulses that make up the beam optimized for
drilling through hard materials rather than flesh. In addition, it can
emit fan beams - two or more lower powered beams discharged at the same
time,
incident close enough to each other that their temporary blast cavities
overlap and the tissue between them rips thus "cutting" a wider swath
through the target.
With the pictured 6 cm aperture, the laser can focus on targets out to
500 meters distant to full effect (1 km if a green beam is used).
Beyond that point, the blast effect of the beam is diminished
by the reduced intensity. The primary lens can focus on
targets as close as 1 meter. Any closer and the laser switches to a
secondary close focus beam path - this is visible below the primary
aperture in the pictures. The closest focal point of the secondary beam
path is actually within the secondary beam tube, allowing engagement of
targets at any distance from pressed against the front of the focal
array out to hundreds of meters distant.
On either side of the secondary beam path are two additional beam
channels for projecting a pair of filamented beams. A high voltage is
applied across these beams, allowing the laser to be "set to stun,"
acting like a long range taser. If the voltage is applied at microwave
frequencies, the ionized filamented beams act as a wave guide to
deliver an electromagnetic pulse that shorts out electronics.
The pictured power pack is an
ultracapacitor,
with a mass of 1 kg and
storing enough energy for 20 full powered shots and with enough power
to allow 4 such shots per second. Both the rate of fire and total
number of shots scale with power pack size, so a comparable weapon with
a 0.5 kg power pack can fire 10 shots at 2 shots per second. Fast
discharge batteries store considerably more energy per unit
weight, but can discharge that energy much less rapidly. - heavy packs
are required to handle a reasonable rate
of fire, but this allows many more shots to be fired. Long duration
batteries can store many times the number of shots, but the trickle of
power they provide is not sufficient for powering a laser in combat
without impractically large batteries - these can be used to recharge
the ultracapacitors between firefights, however.
Lasers of this kind are fantastically accurate. Aiming is a simple
matter of aligning the targeting reticule with the image of the target,
and there is no need to correct for windage or bullet drop.
Because the laser needs active focusing and adaptive optics
to work, it is a small matter to also include beam stabilization that
allows a rock-steady aim.
Laser beams are normally silent and when operating at Infrared
frequencies are invisible without special optics (thermographic sensors
will not see them, because it is the wrong frequency of infrared).
There will be a visible white flash of star-hot plasma, flying sparks,
and a loud bang from the explosion where the beam hits but no
indication of where the beam came from. If the cooling fan is active,
it will produce a quiet whir after the laser is fired. The beam will
not penetrate water. If the
laser switches to a green beam, a green line will be visible flashing
through the air at the instant the laser is triggered, and a dazzling
green flash where the beam hits. The visible green trace of
the beam clearly gives away the firer's location. On the plus side,
a green beam can keep a tight focus twice as far away and can shoot
through a couple dozen meters of clear water. If the beam self focuses
into light filaments, the filaments are visible as while light streaks
that flash on for the briefest instant before fading.
Higher-tech handheld laser models use more advanced smart matter
emitters, which are almost twice as efficient at producing light. Such
emitters can double the beam output for the same energy input, while at
the same time vastly reducing the cooling needs (you only need to shed
as heat the energy that does not go into the beam). More advanced laser
weapons also have a greater flexibility in beam color, which can be
adjusted along a continuum from near infrared through the entire
visible range and into the near ultraviolet.Room temperature
superconductor or magmatter storage loops allow hi-tech handheld
lasers to store much more power; a room temperature superconductor loop
typically holds 15 to 20 MJ/kg - compare this to the 0.2 MJ/kg of the
ultracapacitor in the medium-tech laser described above. A magmatter
loop could hold such mind
bogglingly large amounts of energy that effectively unlimited shots are
possible. Of course, not everyone can make or afford a magmatter power
pack, and playing with
magmatter has
its own dangers.
Laser Weapons
Personal
Weapons
Particle Beam
Weapons
