Marines Want Lasers to Shoot Down Drones
If there was any doubt that the military has new confidence in its forthcoming laser arsenal, the Navy's top geeks want to outfit Marines with a laser cannon to shoot small drones out of the sky.
Specifically, the Office of Naval Research thinks that Marine air-ground task forces are too vulnerable to adversaries flying cheap, small spy drones overhead, like the four-pound Raven the Marines themselves used in Iraq. Its answer: outfit Marine ground vehicles with laser guns.
It's all part of a new Office of Naval Research program, formally unveiled Thursday, with the clunky name of Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy on the Move. For the time being, it's just a research effort, but the office expects to award grants and contracts for it worth up to $400,000. And it's doable.
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