Here Come the Laser Helicopters
27th May 2016
And about fargin time, too.
When all you have is a gun and a bunch of missiles, every problem looks like something to blow up. The Army’s Apache helicopters are very good at blowing stuff up, but there are times when they need more precision.
On the other hand, blowing shit up works more often than you might think.
Better lasers and more lasers are one way the Pentagon plans to get around the cost imbalance of its weapons. Missiles and precision bombs, released from sophisticated helicopters and planes, are effective, but they’re not cheap, and they’re single-use. The cost of a weapon may make sense against a tank, but not against a truck carrying a machine gun. Lasers are expensive to develop, but their cost of use is expected to be very low, around $1 a shot. At that price, destroying trucks and buildings with lasers suddenly makes a lot more sense than using bombs.