Comment Re:Prototype (Score 2) 126
good question. If you have a laser strong enough to instantly ionize a patch of air between you and an exploding munition [we are talking milliseconds for the whole show here!] that itself must create a shock wave as the super-heated air expands more or less into what we would perceive as an explosion. I am hoping the Boeing Boeing engineers have some proof the cure is better than the disease, so to speak.
If you can shape the surface of the discontinuity in gas density by this method, you could cause a lensing effect that redirected the shock wave but you cannot get rid of energy by adding energy to it. If you manage to create an underpressure that coincides with the overpressure of the munition, that will happen at a certain point and will require an energy density on a par with the munition if you mean to protect by a cancellation of superimposed pressure waves. And watch out for your side lobes...the cancellation would be localized while elsewhere in the battle an addition would occur.
If you can shape the surface of the discontinuity in gas density by this method, you could cause a lensing effect that redirected the shock wave but you cannot get rid of energy by adding energy to it. If you manage to create an underpressure that coincides with the overpressure of the munition, that will happen at a certain point and will require an energy density on a par with the munition if you mean to protect by a cancellation of superimposed pressure waves. And watch out for your side lobes...the cancellation would be localized while elsewhere in the battle an addition would occur.