Military Lasers Totally Awesome

The terrorists should be scared. Now we're starting to use lasers.

The Laser Avenger is an infrared laser with power levels somewhere in the tens of kilowatts range mounted on a Humvee off-road vehicle. It is designed to take down the smaller variety of UAV, which are hardest for conventional air-defence weapons to target.

The power of its laser has been doubled since 2007, when it was shown off destroying a stationary improvised bomb. Now it has tracked three small UAVs – the exact model has not been given – and shot one of them down. The laser tracks an object and holds fire until the target is close enough for it to cause burning with a single blast.

Late last year, an airborne laser carried by a modified 747 destroyed its first target, albeit from the ground, using an IR laser in the megawatt range.

Neat!