that laser is more useless than an onion thrower. a mere 20mm gun can outperform it
without the gunner breaking a sweat ^^

on the other hand imagine the conversation:
-hey, u know, we can build this awesome toy laser . would be super funny.
-than do it allready.
-eeerm, it costs a bunch of billions to have it
-god damn it's expensive!
-cill. someone else could pay for it
-some taxpayers, I presume. but I don't think the ****** ones will swallow this, we'll
just have to find some other taxpayers.
-like *********, maybe?
-yeah, something like that
-and we could poke people in boats with it?
-yeah, but what if the boatmens get pi**ed off and point an AKM, or a RPG at u?
-then we'll have to put the laser on a navy ship, have you seen the size of guns and
rockets on those things? NO ONE will retaliete against that
-cool. and then we could boil people's canned sodas, or even brake fire to their engins.
-why not?

some time later a msnbc article cames out, in the "technology'n'stuff" section,
announcing an awesome brake-trough...

Ten years from now.....


....focused plasma beams that will incinerate targets in nanoseconds. Ten years after
that, electron pulse weapons that will vaporize targets at a molecular level.

Meh...Lazors are boring. I want railguns!

Space Lazers!!

Molten mass is probably worse/better depending on how you look at it.

It's worse for who ever it's hitting as now that its molten it can and will melt through
majority of targets as well as causing horrific splash damage, or in the case of those
firing it, better.

> (and I don't think you can track a railgun's shell with a lazer?)

Theoretically possible... but I think Chuck Norris would have to be your trigger man.

not that a laser would do much to a railgun round. Railgun ammo is one or more
solid slugs. There's nothing to explode, and a molten mass impacting the target at
8000 m/s is just as good as a solid mass impacting at 8000 m/s.

Old news indeed. Google "Adaptive Optics Astronomy". They use that stuff to focus
telescopes as if the atmosphere wasn't in the way. The guy who invented it worked
for the US Military on a "shoot down ICBMs with lasers" project. (Starfire Optics
Range, Kirtland AFB) Which means the Military had it for over a decade by the time it
was released to the scientific community.

That was 20 years ago. I wonder what they can do with a laser today.

Just remember when it comes to things like this that by the time you are hearing about it
is probably old news to the people developing it. So they are probably not where they say
they are in terms of actual development and deployment.

bah storm forgot you were on the iowa class, now imagine a Iowa with a railgun + lasers
*drools*

Railguns>lazers?

You cant fire a straight lazer over the horizon, while a high powered rail gun can "out
range" a lazer? (and I don't think you can track a railgun's shell with a lazer?)