US Military Stepping Up Use of Directed Energy Weapons

An anonymous reader writes: At a conference on Tuesday, U.S. officials explained that all branches of the military would be increasing their use of lasers and other directed energy weapons. Lieutenant General William Etter said, "Directed energy brings the dawn of an entirely new era in defense." The Navy's laser deployment test has gone well, and they're working on a new prototype laser in the 100-150 kilowatt range. "[Navy Secretary Ray] Mabus said Iran and other countries were already using lasers to target ships and commercial airliners, and the U.S. military needed to accelerate often cumbersome acquisition processes to ensure that it stayed ahead of potential foes."

Comments

Re:Existential threat is more likely

[Viol8]

When you've done the amount of ham fisted nation building and interfering as the USA has done since WW2 you're going to make enemies that you need to defend yourself against.

Anyway, a common enemy either real of imaginary is an age old method of taking the mind of the people off of internal matters. The Romans were doing it, never mind the USA, and todays best practitioners are Putin and the fat kid running north korea.

Re:Other kinds of energy weapons

[Ihlosi]

Undirected energy weapons? You mean like Radars?

No, more like nuclear bombs. Even if you're outside the zone of blast effects, you'll still receive plenty of undirected thermal radiation.