The laser gun of the US Navy achieves the status of operational weapon – Linformatique.org

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[Video] <- - Easy AdSense Pro V7.30!> After four months of testing in the Persian Gulf, the laser cannon mounted on a ship of the US Navy passed the prototype stage to operational weapon.

A laser gun might seem like a simple idea preposterous outcome of science fiction. In fact, not at all!

The US Navy had already tested the ground a laser cannon. This time it was on a ship that was tested. It was aboard the USS Ponce, an operation deployed landing craft transport ship in the Persian Gulf, the weapon was evaluated for four months.

While this weapon had experimental status, this test campaign has helped raise its status fully operational weapon capable of destroying invisibly and silently flying and floating targets.

Called Laws (Laser Weapon System), that laser 30 kilowatts allows grilling in seconds onboard electronics of a small flying drone, as shown in a video of the Naval Research Office (ONR) for the US Navy. This weapon is also able to remotely destroy the explosive charge of a rocket placed on a floating barge or touch only one of the two dummies in a speedboat.

As issued in the spectrum infrared, the laser beam of the gun is not visible. The shooting operator just has to select his target on a screen with a joystick that looks like a simple video game joystick.

against Admiral Matthew Klunder, head of the Office of Naval Research, says that “Everything worked well. And besides we never missed our target. “

The power of Laws is only 30 kW, making this weapon particularly suited to defending the ship against small targets size such as stars or semi-rigid drones within 2 km. Its advantage is that draws only costs a dollar.

The barrel is however not perfect laser weapon she saw, for example, depends on the weather, clouds and rain, will not be able to replace all conventional weapons.

It is still clear that the US Navy is now in the process of developing a more powerful laser from 100 to 150 kW. In 2017 it should be able to shoot down a missile launched against a fast ship.