Security

Israel's Military Shoots Down Laser Cannon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V1pkTMCZ0MDespite lobbying by American defense giants and leading hometown newspapers, despite angry lawsuits from scared locals, the Israeli government is not about to install a chemical laser cannon to shoot down enemy rockets. In the last two years, Hezbaollah and Hamas militants have launched thousands and thousands of rockets at Israeli towns. With every attack, […]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V1pkTMCZ0MDespite lobbying by American defense giants and leading hometown newspapers, despite angry lawsuits from scared locals, the Israeli government is not about to install a chemical laser cannon to shoot down enemy rockets.

In the last two years, Hezbaollah and Hamas militants have launched thousands and thousands of rockets at Israeli towns. With every attack, it seemed, there was another call to bring back "Nautilus," a joint U.S.-Israeli laser system. The energy weapon successfully blasted all sorts of mortars, rockets, and artillery shells out of the sky. But Nautilus was abandoned in 2005, after logistical and reliability concerns piled up. The laser had trouble handling large salvos of rockets, or cloudy conditions. It also required vats of toxic chemicals to zap.

But Northrop Grumman, the weapon's maker, swore many of these problems were fixable. Finally, after "intense pressure by [the] arms giant" and many, many others, Defense Minister Director-General Pinchas Buchris flew to New Mexico "to reexamine the system," Ha'Aretz reports. Buchris was not impressed.

"We were told that it would take several months to prepare the system for an interception," a source in the Defense
Ministry said. "The visit of the director general was scheduled three months ago. We were told that the system was improved in recent years, and we wanted to see it. We did not see a significant improvement in its abilities..."

"We wanted to reexamine the effectiveness of the system and we asked for a timetable for the production of a mobile version of
Nautilus [Sky Guard] and we wanted cost estimates. We did not receive these," a defense source said.

But the calls to put some sort of ray gun defense in place still won't die. Ha'Aretz quotes "Doctor Oded Amichai, a world-renowned expert on laser beams and an associate of Northrop Grumman," who "argues that Nautilus systems should be purchased without delay."

*A source in the security forces said yesterday that the laser beam-based systems will, in any case, be complementary to the missile-based interceptors.

"Neither the missile interceptors nor the lasers will provide
100-percent coverage, which is why they will have to both be in use,"
the source said."*

ALSO: