Maritime Laser Demonstration

The Office of Naval Research successfully disables a small target vessel using a solid-state, high-energy laser (HEL), mounted onto the deck of the Navy's self-defense test ship, the former USS Paul Foster (DD 964).

• Category

  Science & Technology

[alikabuk29]

No audio? I was hoping they'd have "pew pew pew" sounds. And all the dislikes from this video is probably China, Iran, N. Korea and Mitt Romney.

[SickPandaStudios]

shoot the mirror with a gun then use the laser

[TilDeathWeThrashard]

Soooo it just burns a whole through plastic.

[echomedia]

Did you really have to spend 40 million dollars to use lasers to accomplish the same thing conventional weapons could do (and quicker)?

[fdgod2]

Thing is though im guessing that the military wants a no casualty kind of weapon to stop boats and vehicles. Or else they would have made the laser more powerful to actually do the same as a missile.

[Luis García]

Here, take my "like"

[Thedutchjelle]

Well, they got to start somewhere. They might be exploring this field to see if it's viable (and it seems it is) and then start perfecting it later. Doing it the other way around wouldn't really be cost effective.

Also, I'd think that the operational cost of a laser is cheaper than missiles, seeing as you can reuse the former.

Though even if they decide not to use these as weapons, atleast we get better lasers out of it, which could be useful to certain fields of science

I see your point though

[dakunssd]

Actually, according to some, we are currently staging world war 4, the cold war having been 3 and this current asymetrical fracas that the West calls the War on Terror being the newest global conflict 

[dakunssd]

You'd need a fairly expensive mirror to deflect a high energy LASER properly. Still, I can already see Somali pirates sticking little bits of broken mirrorglass to their boat engines. So I guess you have given the world a small bit of absurdity, and for that, I thank you.

[dakunssd]

Yes, but: High cost, susceptible to poor weather (blooming effect), and takes up a considerable bit of room on a ship. As for anti-missile purposes, I can still see other systems being as effective at less cost and a lot less r&d. So I would think that this is concept-testing and field exploration research, and less that actual systems are soon to be implemented by the US Navy

[Thedutchjelle]

But the speed of a laser is insta-hit and it doesn't drop with height or in wind, so it can be far more accurate.