The United States Navy has deployed and fired its first fully functional laser. The laser weapon system—or LaWS,—was fired from the USS Ponce in the first ever successful test of a military laser. During a series of live-fire tests, the weapon locked on to and destroyed multiple moving targets, including drones and other targets affixed to small boats. Also, the whole system is controlled via what looks suspiciously like an Xbox Controller. Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder, chief of naval research, told reporters at the Pentagon,
"This is the first time in recorded history that a directed energy weapons system has ever deployed on anything. A lot of people talk about it—we decided to go do it.”
The development of the project, cost the Navy at around $40 million, took seven years, and the weapon has an effective combat range of up to about a mile. It even comes with three different settings: distract, disable, and destroy. The laser weapons of the future are here and we want one.
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