No kidding, our troops are getting genuine ray guns to use against an enemy attack. They are not the kind that Buck Rogers had back in the day; they are sophisticated defensive laser weapons.
Lt. Gen. Paul Ostrowski recently revealed that by 2022 the Army will add a 50-kilowatt mobile laser weapon to its active duty arsenal. Ostrowski is the principal military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics and technology. He says the lasers will be mounted on Stryker vehicles that combine the battlefield power of a tank and the speed and mobility of a Humvee. They’ll be capable of shooting down armed rockets and drones.
The Navy, too, is deploying laser weapons and “expects to have eight warships, in total, equipped with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, or ODIN, a laser directed energy weapon system, within the next three years,” according to The War Zone. In fact, the online publication also reported that “One Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Dewey, is already equipped with ODIN.”
The major benefit of laser weaponry is that it requires no ammunition, says Dean Weingarten, a 30-year veteran of the Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation unit. As he explained it in an Ammoland report: “Lasers don’t need to haul a lot of large cartridges around to be effective. Instead, you need power. Lasers take a lot of electrical power. If you can generate the power, you have a viable weapon. Much like tanks or aircraft, lasers need fuel. Run out of fuel, they do not work. Fuel is easier to transport and more versatile than artillery ammunition. It takes a much smaller weight of fuel for a laser shot than a round of artillery ammunition.”
In the same article, Weingarten noted that our military had already made strides in the development of what was known in 2010 as the Airborne Laser system but funding was withdrawn in 2011. The system would have had the “ability to shoot down incoming ICBMs from tens or hundreds of miles away, at the edge of space.” Two years later North Korea’s Kim Jong-un was threatening to fire missiles on our bases in the Pacific.
President Trump restored funding for laser defense development in order “to ensure that we can detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States, anywhere, anytime, anyplace.”
It is notable that the mainstream media tends to downplay America’s military might these days resulting in a lack of knowledge about our country’s defensive capabilities. A recent online Google search for stories about the strides our armed services are making in developing defensive laser weapons resulted in many reports published in military and specialty publications. With the exception of Fox News, few – if any other – mainstream news organizations have reported on this critical defensive development.
Rebecca Weber is the Chief Executive Officer for the Association of Mature American Citizens. The 2 million member AMAC is a senior advocacy organization that takes its marching orders from its members. They act and speak on their behalf, protecting their interests and offering a practical insight on how to best solve the problems they face today. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
