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Navy Unveils First Active Laser Weapon In Persian Gulf (cnn.com)
schwit1 shares a report from CNN: In the sometimes hostile waters of the Persian Gulf looms the U.S. Navy's first -- in fact, the world's first -- active laser weapon. The LaWS, an acronym for Laser Weapons System, is not science fiction. It is not experimental. It is deployed on board the USS Ponce amphibious transport ship, ready to be fired at targets today and every day by Capt. Christopher Wells and his crew. It costs "about a dollar a shot" to fire, said Lt. Cale Hughes, laser weapons system officer. LaWS begins with an advantage no other weapon ever invented comes even close to matching. It moves, by definition, at the speed of light. For comparison, that is 50,000 times the speed of an incoming ICBM. For the test, the USS Ponce crew launched the target -- a drone aircraft, a weapon in increasing use by Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and other adversaries. In an instant, the drone's wing lit up, heated to a temperature of thousands of degrees, lethally damaging the aircraft and sending it hurtling down to the sea. "It operates in an invisible part of the electromagnetic spectrum so you don't see the beam, it doesn't make any sound, it's completely silent and it's incredibly effective at what it does," said Hughes.
Who the hell named that ship?! Are the sister ships the USS Wanker and USS Berk?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Hi Kent. Have you been touching yourself?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Why let them get that far inland? Wouldn't it be better if you had some of them stationed off the coastline, patrolling? Ideally, something relatively small (compared to a ship), fully autonomous, self-sustaining, and that blends in with the ocean? Sharks, for instance..
The "dollar a shot" plan is included with your $35m/month premium.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
They should be banned for two simple reasons:
1. "Lasers"
2. Sharks
Enough said.
#DeleteFacebook
Good point. All we need to do is target a truck driver, and sit back and watch while every other member of the army drags the bodies out of the way to keep that truck moving.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Can we shoehorn an L in there somewhere so it's the LAWLS?
So .. you go to the Persian gulf... which has not a bloody thing to do with you, entice civil war in middle east ,and then declare every country that is actually in rightfull place in the gulf as adversaries ? you mental blood oil sucking parasitic country.
and will make a BWEEM noise.
That is SO wrong. It needs to go PEW, PEW, PEW.