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US Navy Plans to Deploy Laser Weapon

posted by Dopefish on Wednesday February 19 2014, @10:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the shoop-da-woop dept.

Sir Garlon writes:

"According to the Associated Press, the US Navy has announced plans to actually deploy an operational laser weapon aboard the USS Ponce later this year.

The solid-state laser weapon system is designed to target what the Navy describes as 'asymmetrical threats.' Those include aerial drones, speed boats and swarm boats, all potential threats to warships in the Persian Gulf, where the Ponce, a floating staging base, is set to be deployed.

'It fundamentally changes the way we fight,' said Capt. Mike Ziv, program manager for directed energy and electric weapon systems for the Naval Sea Systems Command."

 
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  • (Score: 1) by el_oscuro on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:19AM

    by el_oscuro (1711) on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:19AM (#2999)

    We know you would need one big assed shark to hook this bad boy up. But what if you hooked it up to a space probe heading towards the sun? If you fired it towards the sun, would it arrive at the sun slightly FTL, since the observer (shooter?) is already travelling towards it? If on the other hand, light travels out at a constant rate regardless of the "shooter", doesn't that mean if you shot it away from the sun, it would travel FTL from the probe? Either way something is travelling FTL from or to something else, or the Space/Time continuum is not merely curved but in fact totally bent.
     

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