[zeestephen]

[Flavius]

with or without sharks

[deweyfrank]

Good thing they’re on our side. Hope the bummer doesn’t change that.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Why is it perched atop porta-potties and refrigerators?

[BipolarBob]

“I’ll take a phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range”.

[Seizethecarp]

Thanks for posting. I always follow drone stories (see my tag line).

From the “source” of the MSN story:

http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/23/3794814/rheinmetall-50kw-laser-weapon

This isn’t the first time that the company has demonstrated a turret-mounted laser weapon. Last year, a 10 kW version performed similar feats, and Rheinmetall says that it plans to produce a device capable of 100 kW output in the immediate future. Still, it faces competition from rivals in the space — as far back as 2010, US firm Raytheon demonstrated a 50 kW weapon with comparable capabilities, including the ability to shoot down a drone from a moving warship.

[andyk]

Then I guess we can remove our bases and stop subsidizing their defense.

[ClearCase_guy]

Once all the Germans were warlike and mean,
But that couldn’t happen again.
We taught them a lesson in nineteen eighteen,
And they’ve hardly bothered us since then.

— Tom Lehrer

[bmwcyle]

I hope they use it against the French.

[tumblindice]

Die laser ausschneiden eine stihl girdle?

[mikrofon]

Ich bin ein Biglaser

[KoRn]

Knowing the Germans, the plans were probably from the 1940s, and they would have won the war had they used it, but Hitler didn’t like it so they shelved the plans. lol

I saw a documentary on some of the stuff the Germans were doing back then, and it was amazing to consider they were doing it during that time period. They were working on many things that were well ahead of their time. I’m just glad we got to most of their best scientists before the Russians did!

[toddausauras]

Good thing they didn’t have these at Rostov in late ‘41!

[LibWhacker]

I want a laser pistol that can slice through a steel girder at 1,000 yards... Time for DARPA to offer a big prize to all our starving university inventor teams out there! Just as such teams got busy and came up with self-navigating dune buggies that could successfully traverse a vast stretch of desert without human intervention about 50 years before anyone predicted it’d be done, maybe someone could quickly come up with the aforementioned pistol (or rifle — either one would be cool with me), if the reward was sufficiently great. God knows we need it.

[Windflier]

"...can slice through a steel girder at about 1,000 yards."

Holy smokes (no pun intended). Never thought I'd live to see ray guns developed, but here they are. Wow.

[skinkinthegrass]

does it come in desert camo?..I'll take 2.

[mosesdapoet]

Where do you plug it in ? All these comments and nobody brings up how it gets the juice to fire up .

[Joe Boucher]

I want one of these for my back yard.
Would love to have the ability to shoot down drones.

[jmcenanly]

I am certain that the next Ford Class aircraft carrier, CVN-80 Enterprise, will have a full complement.

[Hot Tabasco]

Unfortunately their portability is only as effective as the nearest electrical outlet....

[outofsalt]

So why don’t we put mirrors on our UAV’s?