Didn't one of the Weathermen win an Academy Award for a film about the Panamanian invasion in the 80's showing experimental laser devastation?

If not, I've no idea how that thought-string got into my head.

Friends involved with this kind of "stuff" always assert whatever the American military says it's testing is 50 years behind what it's actually testing.

These look suspiciously like giant nipplebeams.

@92BuickLeSabre: Good call.

@92BuickLeSabre: I think that sending out nipplebeam producers (naked women) across the open sea would be far more effective at stopping the enemy.

(translated from Arabic)

"Ahmed... look floating laser virgins, it is a sign!!!"

"Mahmoud, why are we in the ocean?! We're terrorists from the desert with no organized Navy!!"

Electron laser, proton laser, quasitron laser, whatever -- I don't think we should be giving any of these away for free.

Laser Blasters huh?

do the operators get trophy screen shot after they destroy 1,000,000 points worth of targets :D

and does that take 3 hours of continuous play like Activision's Laser Blast 2600 game? XD

...need one of those for the crib...

Don't hold your breath on this one. randallnathaniel is right about the 50 years behind/ahead comment. Not to mention that it will be another 20 years before it get's put on a single ship as a testing site. I love the way the DOD can shell out cash for weapons but the navigational equipment in the fleet is probably 15 years old. Yea American Navy!!!

@Surreality: Does the U.S. Navy vessels have difficulty knowing where they are and where they are going? Just wondering.

@Surreality: Don't think we have had great strides in navigation tech in some time. We have been able to park a carrier on a dime for some time now.

And I was just getting used to the idea of railguns, but who in thier right mind would try and mount one of those on a boob?

Nipplebeams FTW!

Ugh, and then I misspell their, I am Jacks total lack of concentration, and it's all due to Nipplebeams.

@mattclary: When the equipment is antiquated it sure does get interesting.

@mattclary: Plotting a few fixed points on radar to park isn't the hard part. When your out in the big blue is when it matters. What's out there works good enough. But it could be so much more.

oops. my first reply was @gybryant:

@Surreality: Like, a widget so you could pilot the carrier from your iPhone?

@Surreality: GPS is old tech and works pretty darn well out in the middle of the "big blue". Navigation is a very mature technology. We can fly a missile up a camel's ass if we want, it's not where we need to invest money.

@moff: that would be awesome.

@mattclary: Then where should that money go? I think handling giant weapons that make big booms is bad ass, don't get me wrong. But they could have done something better with that money.

Lasers... what happened to rail guns? The NAVY is getting a little ahead of itself isn't it?

Rail weapons are scary. Lasers are scary. Come to think of it, when was the last time US warships had to engage (in combat) another sea faring craft? Operation Just Cause? Desert Storm (Gulf War I)?

Perhaps this is all futile. Isn't it a waste to mount a laser on a sea ship?

@mattclary: Exactly.

Why would a navy need laser blasters when they've been able to

When we think of military development that end up helping society as a whole, it more often is with technology like navigation equipment than larger, more efficient weapons.

@Guizzy: Should have read:

@mattclary: Exactly.

Why would a navy need laser blasters when they've been able to blow themselves up from pretty much any distance they can detect one another from. Really, improvement in weaponry is useless for navies at this point; the "bottleneck" is in detection, not firepower. The second a ship is able to detect and lock on a target, it's pretty much already toast.

When we think of military development that end up helping society as a whole, it more often is with technology like navigation equipment than larger, more efficient weapons.

The Air Force already has a airborne version of a similar weapon
[en.wikipedia.org]

@mattclary:
GPS, anyone? A CEP of less than 2 meters is pretty dang good.

Pfft, Chris and Mitch built a 5 megawatt laser back in 1985. These guys are WAY behind the learning curve.

[www.imdb.com]

@GenXCub: You make an excellent point. But where can we get that much popcorn.

Missiles can be shot down by... guess what? Lasers! You can't shoot down a laser. You can't see a laser on your radar screen.

And yeah, rail guns are a good tech to use too.

My point is, saying they should invest in better navigation is just downright silly.

Did you know some howitzer shells have GPS units in them? We pretty much have navigation nailed.

@lazyeight: If you meant to talk to me, you are preaching to the choir. And 30cm seems to be the resolution of GPS, at least for military.

@mattclary: That the technology exist doesn't mean the DOD is spending the money on making it seaworthy. And if it is seaworthy it's not on all Navy ships. You wouldn't believe some of the things the Navy still uses because it does well enough. I agree with CmdrHunt. The military is getting way ahead of themselves. You think navigation is silly because of all the cool gadgets that are already exist. Fair enough. Then how about some decent equipment to do repairs? Doesn't have to be designed specifically for the military. Whatever is out there would be great. Or how about improving quality of life? Sleeping on a 6' x 2 ½' mattress that's only 6" thick for 9 months sucks.

@Surreality: OK dude, whatever you say.

@Guizzy:Unless you're using lasers for point-defense. If the enemy can't hit you, you're navy becomes nigh invulnerable.

They've used CWIS for decades now....time to upgrade.

Sigh. The Pentagon brass never learn do they? Despite legions of physicists explaining it to them over and over again: It's hard to top the damage efficiency of chunks of metal traveling at high rates of speed or a nuclear weapon.

Trying to vaporize a target with a particle beam or laser is always going to take a lot more energy than just shooting at it with a bullet or rocket.

Allow me to make a prediction: the marines of the late 21st century will be using slugs of metal just like marines of the early 21st. These slugs of metal might be caseless and hurled with electromagnetic fields, they might by guided smart bullets with little tiny steering jets, or dense lead encased in a diamond-alloy skin, or bizarre shotguns that can shoot out shaped clouds of shrapnel or something still more exotic but, they'll still be shooting hunks of dense, sharp material at high rates of speed.

There are just so many cheap, clever ways to render a laser or particle beam weapons ineffective--decoys, mirrored finishes, ablative coatings, etc, etc. Bullets and warheads will reign supreme for another 50 to 100 years, I'll betcha.

That said, we are depressingly clever when it comes to inventing better ways to kill people and break sh*t.

Missiles can be shot down by... guess what? Lasers! You can't shoot down a laser. You can't see a laser on your radar screen.

And you can't shoot a laser at something that's over the horizon.

@corpore-metal: Yeah, when Star Wars (the lame Reagan thing, not the painfully diminishing Lucas thing) first came up my NASA buddy said that a mirrored surface and an out ablative coating could defeat any laser-like weapon. He also thought it would probably be possible to reflect the beams back directly at their source.

Just like the Picard knew in First Contact--the best weapon is good old fashioned projectiles.

Where's the five year plan to create light sabers?
Doesn't the military care about my burning desire to slice anything they put in front of me into two?