With their new high-energy laser weapon, the U.S. Navy has succeeded in combining buccaneers and Buck Rogers. Called the Maritime Laser Demonstrator, the ray gun quickly disabled a small boat in a recent test. Such lasers could one day protect military vessels from the same kind of tiny boat that almost sunk the destroyer U.S.S. Cole by augmenting the small machine guns already aboard American warships,.
The test, conducted on April 6th by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), marks the first time that a high energy laser has properly functioned as a weapon on the high seas. Offensive lasers often have problems in dynamic environments like the ocean, and have so far proven mostly useless in battle. Due to that dicey history, the lessons learned while developing the laser may prove more valuable than the laser itself
