Video of Humvee-Mounted Laser Avenger Killing Bombs

Gizmodo.com ^ | 1/22/10 | Jesus Diaz

[Reaganesque]

Watch as this bad boy—the Humvee-mounted Laser Avenger that destroyed a drone in January 2009—obliterates bomb after bomb during a test at the Army's Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. It just takes a few seconds, and boom.

Not exactly Star Wars material, but this will save a lot of lives in the future—and destroy others too, I'm sure.

Click here to watch video.

[Reaganesque]

I imagine the EOD guys are happy with their new toy. And much higher power, solid-state lasers are on the way so the burnthrough time will be greatly diminished.

[JRios1968]

Can you imagine the size of the shark it would need?

[Brett66]

Bump for l8r viewing.

[Rio]

What sort of power supply does it take to run that thing?

[tet68]

Jiffy POP.

[omega4179]

a 20mm with incendiary rounds would do the job a lot cheaper.

[lacrew]

I’d be curious to know if burying the ied stops the laser.

[1st I.D Vet]

Thats what I’m talking about!

I used to pull guard duty in one of those in Bosnia in ‘96.

Nice to see the upgrade. silent...

Now I wonder if we can catch any bad guys sleeping on guard duty. :-)

[rahbert]

classified info

[VRW Conspirator]

Place and time. TOT.

[Venturer]

I dont think it will be used on too many bombs that are sitting still waiting to be cooked.

[Reaganesque]

Its a solid state laser so it runs off either the Humvee’s engine or it’s own generator.

[fish hawk]

I presume then that the terrorists are going to have all their bombs laying around in plain sight. And in my opinion, it took too long to blow up a bomb. Good start though, now to improve it for a realistic use.

[Big Giant Head]

Imagine using that right before a chinese ICBM launch....

[Ladysmith]

I imagine the EOD guys are happy with their new toy.

It'll make us family members of those EOD soldiers pretty darn happy, too.

[xone]

Video of Humvee-Mounted Laser Avenger Killing Bombs

Been cooler if they had been falling bombs.

[Reaganesque]

This system has also shot down a drone in flight and a similar system in Israel has already shot down short range rockets and mortar shells. So, hitting falling bombs shouldn’t be much trouble in the future.

[tallyhoe]

That is a big ten four! One Barrett 50 Cal sniper could do it also!!!!!!!

[Tucson Jim]

But, will it work on hemorrhoids?

[MIchaelTArchangel]

The problem is that most of the IEDs are not so obviously placed. Finding the damn things among the rubble in the streets and along roadways and buried alongside roads or in vehicles is much more difficult than cooking them with a high-powered laser.