Mounting laser weapons on a Humvee to shoot down drones might seem like a military pipe dream, but the US Navy has now awarded contracts for just that. It figures that unfriendly armies will soon be equipped with inexpensive camera- or bomb-equipped UAVs, and wants a highly portable way to counter them.
Though its 50kW ADAM HEL laser is powerful enough to down most drones by firing 50 laser bursts in a millisecond, the mounting platform for that weapon is a battleship. The Navy's confident that more efficient 30kW lasers could still do the job, however, and given recent progress, shrunk down enough to fit on a Hummer. It will trial a 10kW system against targets later this year as a step toward the 30kW system, which it hopes will be test-ready by 2016. Meanwhile, watch the ADAM laser destroy hapless drones, missiles and boats in the videos below.
