Missiles are cool. What’s one step better? Try lasers.
No, these aren’t the type of lasers you’re used to seeing in video games and Star Wars, but they're real--and can blast a drone out of the sky. The US Navy has developed a new weapons system which uses a six-laser cannon that focuses a beam on to a target. In the the case of the Navy’s newly released video, it’s a drone. The laser takes a few moments to inflict some major damage, but when it does, the drone explodes and crashes into the ocean. What’s interesting about the video in particular is that you get a first hand view from the drone itself as it looks death right in it’s bright, shimmering eye.
“The future is here,” said Peter Morrison, program officer at the Office of Naval Research. “The solid-state laser is a big step forward to revolutionizing modern warfare with directed energy, just as gunpowder did in the era of knives and swords.”
[via Gizmodo]
