Lockheed Martin's laser weapon can sink a boat from a mile away

Its funny... i watched an old QED episode about lasers over 30 years ago where they were shooting down slow moving wooden 'drones' with a laser...

Seems we've gotten no where in that time, except for not having to have the target painted red to absorb the laser light.

Still not impressed with any of this, that being said one day it will get to the point where we can shoot anything anywhere instantly and destroy it... and then War will become defunct since you couldnt start one without all your toys being fried before they even leave the hanger or the dock.

Might be a good day actually when it finally happens... ending all War by making starting the act of war completely futile.

a reply to: andy06shake

Yeah, Lockheed Rocks.
No doubt about it.

China has the laser that can sink a sub. So what is the big deal here.

a reply to: musicismagic

That's interesting, can't seem to find anything regarding China's underwater Laser capabilities, any links?

I would have thought firing a laser beam through our oceans would be even more problematic than through our atmosphere.

The limitation of lasers is that they're line of sight only so probably more suited to ground-air defenses for attacking aircraft or incoming high altitude missiles. Anti-ship missiles can be launched from over the horizon and types like the Exocet hug the surface to avoid detection until it's somewhat late to do much about it. Even the old tech naval guns can 'snipe' you from over the horizon.

a reply to: Silcone Synapse

I was thinking the same thing about the Zodiac.

Even when this tech becomes much more powerful and can indeed slice through a metal hull like a hot knife through butter, if it isn't already that powerful of course, it probably won't be long before adaptive defensive systems are fitted to ships, and ground units to counter the laser, at least most of its energy.

A mirror will deflect a laser...needing refinements of course, but a hull and superstructure fitted with smallish scale like glass plates, mirrored on the bottom layer, with polarising glass on the top layer, can have both adaptive camouflage (various polarlisation levels) and a laser defense with the mirror layers.

Think Shiny-shiny mirror boat one moment, then black as night the next moment, then grey -mottled sea coloured ship the next.

Or something like this.

Rail guns would be more effective than lasers. A mirrored or highly reflective ship or tank will counter a laser..but it's mirror coat won't have any effect against a lump of massive metal hurled at supersonic speeds towards them.