The Taliban may prefer improvised bombs to ray guns, today. But that isn't stopping the U.S. military from getting ready to defend against lasers and other so-called "directed energy weapons."
The Office of Naval Research recently asked scientists and gadget-makers to send in their ideas for projects that will "form the foundation" for tomorrow's "Counter Directed Energy Weapons (CDEW)." High energy lasers, "high power microwave transmitters, particle beam weapons [and] high power electromagnetic frequency pulsed weapons systems" are all on the Navy's list of blasters that might need to be stopped, some day. But, as you'd expect, the Navy's geeks are particularly keen on trying to stop the ray guns that might "threat[en] ... naval ship platforms, underwater systems, aviation systems and/or weapons systems." The Navy is also looking to "counte[r] or negat[e]" the blasters' effects on "troops or civilian personnel."
Energy weapons have been promised for decades. But in the last two years, Pentagon-backed engineers have made huge strides in bringing these straight-outta-sci-fi devices into the real world. During tests this summer at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, a Boeing-built laser gunship blasted a hole in a truck. Electric-powered lasers have now been brought up to weapons grade. And the Navy is working on the so-called "holy grail" of lasers – a blaster that can adjust the kind of light it sends out, depending on the target and the environment. The idea is to equip the all-electric ships of decades-hence with the ray guns, to blast incoming rockets and missiles.
Other big military groups are also reputed to be dabbling in energy weapon tech. So the Office of Naval Research wants to figure out how to laser-proof its own missiles – and design software simulations of how the whole laser-and-microwave-warfare thing might work. "The entire decision chain can and should be considered – from initial planning, detection and tagging, through threat countering to dismissal and restoration of previous activities. This also includes the localization and identification of suspected DEW sites that may be used against Navy or Marine Corps personnel or platforms – which may be themselves defeated by either kinetic or non-kinetic (including DEW) means." In other words, ray guns zapping other ray guns.
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