Seafaring Doom Patrol Outfitted With New Death Ray
As Rob commented to me, the headline on this story reads like the cover of a 1950s science fiction mag! Still, a directed-energy weapon mounted on a ship that "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed" a flying drone is, er, pretty damn scary cool. From CNN/Wired:
It's certainly not the first time lasers have shot down an unmanned aerial vehicle -- last year, the Air Force zapped several drones with beam weapons in a series of tests at China Lake, California, -- but this test brings an additional bit of realism -- and an extra technical challenge."Navy's drone death ray takes out targets"
Laser beams can lose strength as they move through the moist, salty sea atmosphere above the sea, so the Navy needs directed-energy weapons that can work effectively on ships.
The LaWS is essentially a laser upgrade to the MK 15 Close In Weapon System (CIWS), a.k.a. the Phalanx gun, a radar-guided autocannon that is already installed on Navy surface combatants.
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