Dawn of the Airborne Laser

Yonzie writes "As you may have heard, there are a number of competing franchises working on a functional laser weapon. Popular Science has an interesting story about `The Wall of Fire', an airborne laser designed to fit in the belly of a 747. Apparently, this is powerful and precise enough to destroy enemy intercontinental and intermediate-range missiles in mid-flight. I can imagine the use of laser turrets as protection against missiles, but I really can't see the use of a laser mounted in a 747. IMHO, it's way too slow compared to the missiles, and will not be able to scramble fast enough." This is the big daddy of the JSF laser that we've mentioned before.

Comments

Re:Size..

[TheRaven64]

Pacifism can be more evil than killing people in some circumstances.

Mind you, you have to wonder about the mentality of a society which considers shooting someone in the leg so they die slowly and painfully on the battlefield to be 'acceptable' but not gassing them, or hitting them with biological weapons. Actually using biological weapons is more stupid than unethical, since they have a habit of mutating and killing your own imunised troops. Oh, but what about weapons that blind enemy troops, so you can take them prisoner with no loss of life on either side? Sorry. Unethical.

We seem to be fixated on the fact that war must be bloody and painful. Even though we have the technology to design weapons capable of ensuring a decisive victory without casualties we persist in using designs hundred of years old, and tactics predating the mechanised battlefield.