First Operational Deployment of Lasers

[LongBlade]

I can see it now.  The navies of the world start buying up Bedazzlers in bulk.  Sparkly My Little Pony stickers cover every square centimetre of ship's hulls.  Chaff dispensers are replaced with glitter.

I believe the Royal Navy has mounted 'Laser Dazzlers' on some of their warships for a long time.  Supposedly to blind enemy aircraft pilots with them. 

So you may not be too far off.


Also.. there's this:

Don't forget the nefarious plot coming out of Israel:

[GDS_Starfury]

Laser sharks are so 20th century.  Israel uses particle accelerators now.

[Staggerwing]

I thought Star had been working on some sort of direct-to-living room stripper home delivery service? 

(I heard there were still a few kinks to work out.)

Actually, the kinks are being worked in, available a la carte, like paid DLC.

[Nefaro]

Laser sharks are so 20th century.  Israel uses particle accelerators now.

I thought it was Israeli birds with spy cameras and laser microphones? 




What next?!


Turkey will have to build whole aviaries dedicated to interrogation!

[JasonPratt]

Huh. $40 million over several years development seems pretty cheap.

Right now it's more of a tech experiment, though, I'd say. It can only set small boats on fire, but unless there's a significant improvement in aiming by using this I would think direct shelling would set small boats on fire much more cost-efficiently.

Wait: USS PONCE?? {checking to see if this is Duffleblog}

[bayonetbrant]

Laser sharks are so 20th century.  Israel uses particle accelerators now.

I thought it was Israeli birds with spy cameras and laser microphones? 




What next?!


Turkey will have to build whole aviaries dedicated to interrogation!

That was sooooo 6 years ago!

http://grognews.blogspot.com/2008/10/attack-of-espionage-pigeons.html

[Nefaro]

Laser sharks are so 20th century.  Israel uses particle accelerators now.

I thought it was Israeli birds with spy cameras and laser microphones? 




What next?!


Turkey will have to build whole aviaries dedicated to interrogation!

That was sooooo 6 years ago!

http://grognews.blogspot.com/2008/10/attack-of-espionage-pigeons.html

When does Muslim xenophobia go out of style these days?  Hmm?  ;)


Seems to be a regular thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-related_animal_conspiracy_theories

(Most recently last year)

Huh. $40 million over several years development seems pretty cheap.

Right now it's more of a tech experiment, though, I'd say. It can only set small boats on fire, but unless there's a significant improvement in aiming by using this I would think direct shelling would set small boats on fire much more cost-efficiently.

Wait: USS PONCE?? {checking to see if this is Duffleblog}

Last I checked, they planned on using it for missile and air defense on ships.  Not sure what kinda range they'd get out of it, or whether they hoped to replace the CIWS systems with it eventually.