Looks like Rumsfeld's complete remake of the DoD is starting to trickle down. 18 months for such a system would be awesome.
That is one of the huge successes of the Army THEL was that it was done in 1/2 or less the time of past high tech demos.
ABL won't ever happen.
But Army's efforts with THEL a laser on the ground, preceded Rum and in fact are in spite of him. OSD cut excluded its funding and HASC revived it each year.
THEL is the only laser weapon that works.
The amount of money it gets is peanuts compared esp to abl which is a major league joke, a lie and a fraud.
Look here.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-03e.html quote below, but please note
"iron bird" is a laser on the ground not in the air
$500 + 190 millions and no date for an airborne laser; the laser does not fit in the airplane. not even half of it.
"Boeing has been awarded an indefinite delivery indefinite quantity (IDIQ), cost-plus-award-fee letter contract, F33657-03-D-2036, to deliver an Iron Bird test bed in support of the Airborne Laser (ABL) program element.
This test bed will be located at Edwards AFB, California. The period of performance for this award is from April 2003 through April 2013. The value of this contract is not to exceed $500,000,000.
The scope of the initial effort, valued at $190 million, is to develop a permanent ground test facility that may be used to..."