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Reprinted from NewsMax.com Missile Defense Is CrucialCharles R. SmithThursday, Aug. 17, 2006 The summer of 2006 has been quite a show. The wave of missiles and missile threats has left us with a major turning point in modern military history. First, the global concern over Iran and its fledgling nuclear weapons program reached the United Nations. The diplomats seem to have few options to control the wild-eyed leadership in Tehran. The Iranians, meanwhile, are using the time to continue their nuclear option along with a robust missile development. A reaction to this was easily visible inside Israel, the number one...

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Tracking the MTHEL Laser By Sam Jaffe May 9, 2005 After more than ten years and several billion dollars of development, one of the most promising experimental weapons in the history of the Pentagon seemed to have fired its last shot. "The Army has no funding for MTHEL," says Lt.Col. Jeff Souder, the project manager of directed energy applications program at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. The Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) was a program to develop a defensive laser weapon powered by the combustion of highly volatile chemicals that shoots down artillery projectiles. They system works by...

(Source: Northrop Grumman Corp.; issued May 6, 2004) [With thanks to www.defense-aerospace.com ] REDONDO BEACH, Calif. --- The U.S. Army's Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) test bed destroyed a rocket on May 4 that's larger, faster and that flies higher than previous threats destroyed by the laser weapon demonstrator. Northrop Grumman Corporation built the demonstrator for the Army and the Israel Ministry of Defence (IMoD). Tuesday's successful intercept and destruction of the large-caliber rocket carrying a live warhead took place at 12:45 p.m. MDT during a live-fire test of the MTHEL test-bed at the Army's White Sands Missile Range,...

The U.S. Army and the Israeli Ministry of Defense (IMoD) have selected a Northrop Grumman Corporation design concept for the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser (MTHEL) prototype, a laser weapon capable of shooting down short-range rockets and artillery projectiles in flight. ``MTHEL represents a transformational weapon system -- the first mobile directed energy weapon that will be able to destroy tactical airborne threats in midair,'' said Pat Caruana, Northrop Grumman Space Technology vice president for missile defense. ``The system meets critical air and missile defense needs for both the U.S. Army and IMoD and represents the culmination of over 30 years...

Northrop Grumman has disclosed a new directed-energy laser weapon system that it has conceived to defeat small, supersonic missiles targeted at aircraft landing at and taking off from military airfields and civilian airports. The Hazardous Ordnance Engagement Toolkit (HORNET) is an outgrowth of the company's continued work on the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser (MTHEL) system for Israel and the US. Like MTHEL, the HORNET would be based on a megawatt-class deuterium-fluoride chemical laser that can shoot a lethal energy beam at the speed of light at a target, said Pat Caruana, vice president of Missile Defense in Northrop Grumman's...