Tag: navy

Tech Level 9 Watch: British government working on laser weapons.

Before you start updating your character sheets, please note: these are almost certainly not going to be hand-portable laser guns.

The Ministry of Defence is finalising the agreement of a £30 million contract with MBDA UK Ltd to produce a Laser Directed Energy Weapon Capability Demonstrator.

The project will assess innovative laser directed energy weapon technologies and approaches, culminating in a demonstration of the system in 2018/19.

The quotes from the British military and the Ministry of Defense are from naval and air guys, which suggests either missile interdiction or something out of Real Genius. …Which is turning out to be a bit dated in its villainy, no?

Oh, btw: the Navy deployed a laser gun for testing.

Like you do.

The U.S. Navy has deployed on a command ship in the Persian Gulf its first laser weapon capable of destroying a target.

The amphibious transport ship USS Poncehas been patrolling with a prototype 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System since late August, according to officials. The laser is mounted facing the bow, and can be fired in several modes — from a dazzling warning flash to a destructive beam — and can set a drone or small boat on fire.

The usual prototype/field test stuff, basically – we’re not at GI Joe levels yet – but the future keeps on keeping on.  Also, that’s just the stuff that we’re willing to talk about.  The stuff that we might have squirreled away… well.  I’m sure that we’ll never need to have that come out as a particularly sudden, and selectively-unpleasant, surprise.

Via Drudge.

Why Hunter Biden will get away with being thrown out of the Navy for cocaine use.

The more I read about Hunter Biden (VP Joe Biden’s son) cocaine-fueled discharge from the Navy, the more it stinks on ice:

…it is worth noting that, while Biden’s summary discharge occurred last February, it did not become public until the Wall Street Journal revealed the story this week. Biden’s statement about “the honor of my life to serve in the U.S. Navy” — for one month! — was issued through his lawyer.

Evidently there was an effort, successful for eight months, to conceal this curious episode. But while the attempted cover-up is, perhaps, understandable from Vice President Biden’s perspective, the real scandal here is not Hunter Biden’s cocaine use, or his father’s protection of an errant son, but the fact that Hunter Biden was commissioned in the naval reserve in the first place.

Well, it’s a scandal but not a surprise: Vice Presidents, believe it or not, actually have a lot of pull. Even Joe Biden.  Enough to get an unqualified and overaged son a commission, at least; and enough to delay a cocaine scandal. Continue reading Why Hunter Biden will get away with being thrown out of the Navy for cocaine use.

NEW QotD, Don’t We All? Edition.

On the latest – successful – tests by the US Navy of a shipboard laser capable of setting other boats on fire…

Yes, I thought that this would get your attention.

Anyway, Office on Naval Research Rear Admiral Nevin Carr has his priorities in order:

“This is an important data point,” the admiral says, “but I still want the Megawatt death ray.”

Continue reading NEW QotD, Don’t We All? Edition.