Russell Coker wrote:
Apparently a battery powered LASER pointer can burn a hole in the retina almost immediately if operating outside of Australian safety standards (people have been hospitalised for this). If you were designing a LASER weapon you wouldn't use hearing-aid batteries or AAA, you would use something a lot bigger. A 6V lantern battery would provide a lot more power while still fitting into a jacket pocket and a car battery wouldn't be ruled out for a portable weapon system (soldiers carry heavier things as parts of weapons).
As a quick comparison, * an infantry rifle (to kill humans) weighs around 2.5kg to 4kg, plus ammo (3 to 6 magazines). * an M72 LAW (to kill light armor) weighs 2.5kg/shot * an 9K38 Igla (to kill helicopters) weighs 11kg + 1kg/shot * a FIM-92 Stinger (to kill helicopters) weighs 15kg + 3kg/shot * an FGM-148 Javelin (to kill heavy armor) weighs 22kg + -6kg/extra shot So if your goal is to kill an helicopter, your target weight is around 10kg for the complete unit. The FGM-148 includes lasers, but it's primarily infrared-guided (heat-seeking). An actual fielded laser for laser-guided is the AN/PED-1 LLDR, but I can't see how heavy that is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_designator#Ground-based The AN/PEQ-2 and AN/PEQ-5 (rifle) and AN/PEQ-6 (pistol) are fielded lasers used for aiming and to designate targets to other infantry. They attach to the existing infantry rifle/pistol, so they probably weigh much less than 1kg. I think they are powered by AA or AAA batteries. Looking at their homepage, I can see actual target designators (as opposed to aiming devices): http://www.insighttechnology.com/l3-products/scarab-ground-laser-target-desi... https://www2.l3t.com/alst/products/r_multi_function_laser_systems.htm https://www2.l3t.com/alst/pdfs/datasheets/SCARAB-TILD-A.pdf That says the unit is 12kg. Someone who understands optics better than me can work out whether it's viable for shooting out the eyeballs of enemy pilots. Oh, PS, a lead-acid car battery apparently weighs somewhere between 6kg and 25kg.
A quick scan of Wikipedia suggests that something less than 1W/cm^2 can give a 50% chance of damage in a millisecond for some frequencies. A 2.3cm target at 100m would be a 13.8cm target at 600m which is about 150cm^2. So 150W of LASER light (a small fraction of the power a car battery can provide even when considering LASER inefficiencies) would allow serious eye injury (maybe not permanent but definitely enough to stop someone flying a plane) in 1ms. To make an effective weapon you would probably want more power and a wider beam so that accurate aim is not required. Also with a 1ms damage time it shouldn't be difficult for the soldier to just wave it around until it gets a hit, should be much easier than aiming a machine gun.