Navy Lasers Burn Ships

Once only things of science fiction, weaponized lasers are finally being shown to have real world potential. Only just a couple of weeks ago, off the coast of central California, the Office of Naval Research put their Maritime Laser Demonstrator (creative name I know), aboard decommissioned destroyer, the USS Paul. The solid-state laser (meaning it uses a solid medium to create the laser as opposed to a liquid or gas medium) fired a 15-killowat beam at an inflatable boat about a mile away with both ships bobbing out in the sea. Flames suddenly appeared on the boats outboard engines as the boat’s engines began to burst into flames. (Check out the video below for a better look.)

This is a big step for laser development as before, laser testing was only done on steady ground. But this is the first success for being able to do a test on a dynamically changing target. In addition, this isn’t the first successful test of a weaponized laser. Previously, lasers have been used as incapacitation weapons by temporarily inducing vision loss. The US Air Force is developing the YAL-1 airborne laser which is designed to shoot down enemy ballistic missiles from a Boeing 747, though testing has been rather unpromising. However, development for lasers used for direction destruction has been fairly recent. In 2009, Northrop Grumman developed an electric CO2 laser powerful enough to create a 100 kilowatt beam, capable of destroying an airplane or tank.


I’m thinking that once they get this further developed, all you need to do is put the laser and a powerful railgun onto a US destroyer and you’ll have one unbeatable warship.

No not a Gundam.