Weaponized Electric Lasers - Possibly This Year

[RobRich]

Northrop Grumman claims to be poised to deliver a weapons-grade electric laser system to the United States Department of Defense by year's end.

Northrop's system combines a bunch of smaller lasers into a bigger one -- Death Star-style, sorta. In March, the company announced that it had completed the first of these eight "laser chains." Yesterday, the company said it had joined two of the chains together. What's more, the beam combo ran at peak power -- 30 kW -- "for more than five minutes continuously and more than 40 minutes total; and achieved electrical-to-optical efficiency of greater than 19 percent."

Source: Danger Room (Wired Blog Network)

[KarmaKiller]

My gf's dad works for them too..