CAPITOL HILL: Lasers that can shoot down incoming missiles have been a work in progress since Ronald Reagan’s “Star Wars” days. Now, the Army and Navy not only have working demonstration models but ambitions to field real-world weapons circa 2021. This time, insisted Pentagon science advisor Howard Meyer this morning, it’s really going to happen.… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: What homemade roadside bombs could do to Army and Marine ground vehicles was the ugly surprise of the last decade. What sophisticated long-range missiles could do to Navy aircraft carriers could be the ugly surprise of the next. “I think it would almost follow like the night to the day,” Rep. Randy Forbes told… Keep reading →

“Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle” is arguably the most awesome name on record for a Pentagon program. Technologically, the Raytheon-built EKV is pretty impressive, able to hit an incoming missile head-on at over 15,000 miles per hour. Some background: The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is the business end of the missile defense system now based in Alaska and… Keep reading →

There’s been a fair bit of buzz online of late over experiments with a technology called a “laser-induced plasma channel” – essentially, laser-guided, artificially generated lightning bolts – at the Army’s Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. But, militarily, what’s it good for? The problem, one well-informed source told Breaking Defense, is short range. If you… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Lasers are déclassé even in science-fiction nowadays – the guys in Avatar and Mass Effect shoot bullets – and the big Air Force and Army laser programs of the last decade were ignominiously cancelled. So I was surprised at last week’s Navy League Sea-Air-Space conference to hear “directed energy” technology mentioned by no less… Keep reading →