[Dilmah G]

Or rather, you blokes over the pond are.

THE US Navy has a raygun - and it's a big one.

In a red-letter week for the US military, its Naval Sea Systems command "successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed” several unmanned aircraft with its Laser Weapon System, otherwise known as LaWS.

On the ground, iRobot unveiled its gift to the Pentagon - the 710 Warrior designed to clear an entire 45 square metre minefield in one blow.

But first, the raygun.

According to The Register, "it represents the first Detect-Thru-Engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario".

LaWS is fitted to the Navy's "R2-D2" robotic gun turret and looks every bit like what you'd expect a raygun to look like.



In normal operations, R2-D2 would support the Navy's Phalanx 20mm cannon, which automatically locks onto incoming missiles and blasts them out of the sky.

Unfortunately for anyone in the impact zone, that ususally results in a shower of shrapnel or the 20mm shell itself if it fails to explode.

The LaWS system simply vapourises the target.

Naval spokesman Captain David Kiel said the success test "validates the military utility of (rayguns) in a maritime environment".

"Further development and integration of increasingly more powerful lasers into Surface Navy LaWS will increase both the engagement range and target sets that can be successfully engaged and destroyed," he said.

As for iRobot's Warrior, an extremely convincing video shows how it can roll into a minefield and deploy a set of grenades to clear a large chunk of turf.

iRobot co-founder had previously told Wired that his company wasn't in the business of making weaponised robots, and it's probably sticking to its guns, so to speak.

But obviously iRobot can't tell the US military how to use its devastating metal marine...

[Snail]

Didn't they have something like this already?

[iamzack]

shut up man, be cool

[FreeSpaceFreak]

ZAPPP!

[Snail]

shut up man, be cool

Ok. Sorry.

[mxlm]

I'm too lazy to research, and by research I mean read the article.

So what happens to the LAZOR in bad weather?

[Nuclear1]

I can already see the "I AM THE LaW" unit patches.

[SpardaSon21]

That would be awesome.

[Wanderer]

Heh - apart from the lazors... iRobot Warrior is pretty much reinvented Bangalore torpedo... Takes some balls to call it a 'new' invention

[Nuke]

what? no sharks?

[Thaeris]

what? no sharks?

Indeed - Screw the lasers!

...I want SEAL teams to ride into battle on the backs of minigun-wielding dolphins!

(think of the end of that "Machete" movie trailer when reading this.)

[IceFire]

I'm too lazy to research, and by research I mean read the article.

So what happens to the LAZOR in bad weather?

I could be wrong but this one has enough power to burn through bad weather at short distances.  And given that it's supposed to be a point defense weapon it doesn't matter too much.  The Phalanx 20mm is meant as a last ditch effort.  If the laser can do it better, then... literally fire away

[Klaustrophobia]

the mine thing looks to me like just a really long string of detcord

[FUBAR-BDHR]

We've had this for quite awhile.  The big problem was making it small enough to fit on things like airplanes and tanks.  Ships have plenty of room.  No when they get it down to where they can fit it on an airborne platform then I'll be impressed (assuming we don't have it already and just aren't telling anyone). 

[Klaustrophobia]

they've had a 747-mounted one for a while now haven't they?

[SpardaSon21]

That one is for ICBM's.

[Klaustrophobia]

ok so they point it at something different, but still pretty much the same technology.

[Kosh]

And ir was canned.

[General Battuta]

ok so they point it at something different, but still pretty much the same technology.

Actually I imagine this is a different sort of laser, though I could be wrong. The ABL was a big chemical laser; I can't see how anything this small could be a chemical laser. It's probably some kind of solid state thing? Anyone have info?

[Bobboau]

I would imagine that the programming for the two systems could have some substantial overlap.