Free Republic

A Navy crew might only have seconds to react to an incoming missile before it rips a hole into a ship. Existing anti-missile systems include rapid-fire guns designed to shoot down missiles at close range. But a reliable laser weapon could do the same job with higher precision, speed-of-light engagement and without running out of ammunition. It's an idea that's been in development at the U.S. Office of Naval Research since the 1980s. The goal is to create a megawatt, or 1 million-watt, laser weapon. Last month, scientists at the Los Alamos National Lab demonstrated they are capable of producing...

The Navy has been seeking its “Holy Grail” free electron laser (FEL) weapon for a while now, but it would rather you think of it more as a multipurpose laser platform than a death ray. While the Navy’s ship-borne FEL, currently under development at Boeing, will certainly be used to knock incoming threats out of the sky, naval officers really want a platform that can also be used for tracking, communications, target designation, disruption, time-of-flight location, and a variety of other tasks. Such a multipurpose tool certainly makes the Navy’s laser system seem a more practical use of funding, and...

The Boeing Company has successfully completed the preliminary design of the U.S. Navy's Free Electron Laser (FEL) weapon system, a key step toward building a FEL prototype for realistic tests at sea. During the preliminary design review held March 9 to March 11 at a Boeing facility in Arlington, Va., the company presented its design to more than 30 U.S. government and National Laboratory representatives. This electric laser will operate by passing a beam of high-energy electrons through a series of powerful magnetic fields, generating an intense emission of laser light that can disable or destroy targets. "The Free Electron...