Makes me think then what is the point of designating a target to your wingman when you might aswell get the kill yourself because your only going to wareout your own laser. Hum! Im not a happy chappy.
Actually, this is
exactly why one passes on the target information.
The ED guys have a syntax problem with their quote about the "rangefinder" limitations; while it's the same laser, it's used in different modes of energy use and heat output. The modes are sufficiently different that back in a previous life I worked with a Ground/Vehicular Laser Locater Designator (G/VLLD, or "Glid") that actually had the distinction in the title. And let me tell you, the energy use (and heat) was radically different between simple range finding and target location versus active laser designation for munitions.
I might be a little off in my understanding, but if it's like most laser systems:
The laser in the nose of the aircraft is really used in three ways and at different power settings.
The first is simple range determination. It's very low wattage and is the standard "o" mode of the laser. Since it doesn't take a lot of energy (and the heat generated) to make a small beam that goes out and comes back to a receiver, we can do this all day long. After a bit one can slew the Shkval around and see that the distances are all wrong - because we've not told the laser to range for a long time.
Second is the fixed (locked) laser, or the "TA" laser. It's a constant pinging onto a fixed point; the main difference with the simple range finding laser is the way it's tied to the helicopter's navigation computers.
The sweetness of the whole locking and sending location information isn't really so much in the nose of the aircraft (though there is some sweet gimble setups), it's in knowing the precise location of the helicopter in three dimensions. If one the vertical angle of the laser, the direction, the distance of the laser to target AND the
exact location (including altitude) of the helicopter, one can fix the target's location on the big blue ball in space. The error in location of the target is solely a function of the error range of the helicopter's self locating gear.
The Ka-50 uses inertial tracking from a known point, much like the old PADS system in the US Army. Today it's all GPS with inertial backup. Except the Russians aren't in on the military frequencies of our GPS satellites, which is why they're so keen on the system the EU is putting up (and they're partnered in). Further back, us forward observers used a flippin' map, compass and skill gained through experience to manually plug into our bulky digital message devices to determine target location based on laser information.
In Artillery terms, it's a Polar Plot to a target. The geometry is really straight forward. Knowing the precised location of the observer is the part that makes it really skillful. It's often easier to know the eight digit grid of a distant thing than oneself's grid reference, particularly when on the move.
In fact once the location of a thing is determined it doesn't need to be lased any more until it's time to be shot. This is the heart of the whole target ID and storage function. "Based on what I think is was my location at the time, there is Tank Target ID Number One at this place."
Anyhow, this is still low powered laser stuff that doesn't generate a lot of heat.
Third is the designation laser mode. Now we're talking high power, as before we were just looking for a tiny reflection a few times - but this time we're guiding something in, literally "painting" the target in laser light so the seeker can see it.
It's a super fast frequency pulsed laser (the pulses being fast - light is pretty consistent in speed here on Earth) that is keyed to a recepter looking for that exact same frequency pulse. Every helicopter has it's unique frequency, btw, so that your missiles don't follow my laser (and vice versa), the enemy can't spoof it, etc., that is set on the ground by the ammo guys and ground crew (and is part of the mission brief or SOP IRL).
Before we were just slapping a smallish spot (no more than a few inches wide at the target) onto a distant object to get range, but now we're putting a big cone of laser light out there that makes a nice constant circle about three feet in diameter and is as bright as we can possibly make it. That missile is looking for the center (or best reflectiveness) of that circle to follow in, and at the speeds of missiles there can't be any interruption.
This is the laser that threat monitors looks for. If the luminosity of a laser on a recepter is sufficiently high in the designation frequency range (most designators are in one frequency band of light for reasons of resistance to environmental interference), bells and whistles go off - there's only one reason one would be painted with a designation intensity of a laser, and that's for guidance of munitions.
The power required isn't the issue so much as the flippin' heat designation lasers make as a byproduct.
The designation laser isn't fired until the missile is fired, btw. We might be designating targets for our friends on the map with a locater/ranging laser, but it's only using the word in it's synomym form; the designating mode of the laser is reserved solely for our missiles.
So letterboy can "lock" targets all day long (or as long as he has fuel) and see a "TA" on the hud without fear of losing the laser, since it's not actually in designation mode. Rockets and guns are cheap in terms of laser heat - it's those missiles on the outside that are costly.
The Kamov guys had to balance weight for cooling against the requirements of munitions, and made a pretty good compromise. Time of flight for the guided missiles the Ka-50 carries at max range is around nine seconds, so they fudged and made the single designation cycle ten seconds, followed by a five second pause to let the metal, ceramic, and glass bits in the laser head cool down from critical heat.
That's get
cooler from max heat, though, not really "cooled down." They're not getting rid of heat so much as letting it move around the targeting/designation head in a generalized way. The whole assembly is heating up with every designation, and is much slower to lose that heat once it's gained.
The Ka-50 carries twelve laser guided missiles (counting in my head, visualizing the bird, so I might be off), so they ensured they built in a little extra in case there's a misfire and a target has to be designated again, for a total of sixteen. If one has to refire four of one's missiles in order to get launched it's time to whup somebody on the ground when we get back.
At sixteen
designations the whole thing is ready to have the pack of hotdogs we taped to the outside of the assembly removed and served (nicely cooked), and it needs thirty minutes for the whole mess to come back down to the ambient temperature (give or take, depending on environmental conditions). We can't fault ED for not modelling ambient air temperature against cooling time for the laser locater/designator assembly; I'll bet that half an hour is the median time for 68 degrees at sea level in a hanger as written down in some manual.
It's really not a terrible compromise, and some fine engineering when one thinks about it. By the time the laser locater/designator assembly becomes too hot to designate the pilot has expended all the munitons that require a designator and he'd return to base.
Figure that it takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to get back to a really forwardly placed FARP and another 15 to refuel and re-arm - and yet another fifteen back to the front, and forty five minutes has passed, more than enough time for stuff to cool down. But truthfully, if the front is fifteen minutes away or less by helicopter and requires multiple quick turn arounds in rearming the FARP is going to be either heavily shelled or overrun in the very near future.