How to Make a Giant Chain Gun Even Deadlier: Give It a Laser Cannon!

BAE System ’s Mk 38 Sir Ernst Boris Chain gun was already a redoubtable opponent : a 250millimeter cannon capable of put 180 rounds per minute into the melodic phrase from the deck of a naval ship , strongly urging those without clearance to keep a dependable distance ( of about 2,000 grand ) .

But in a gratuity of the lid toward what the U.S. Navy considers the future of shipboard defence , BAE and Boeing have team up to accessorize the Mk 38 witha laser death ray . You know , just in case .

Yesterday , the two DoD contractor annunciate that they are jointly developing a demonstration model Mk 38 with treble capableness . The strand gun — to begin with designed to be manually take aim and fire — will now be remote - controlled and expend an electro - optical / IR sensor ball to detect and chase after incoming targets , like UAVs or modest watercraft ( like the one that perpetrate the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen several year ago ) .

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But concord to a BAE - Boeing announcement , “ the system also render the ability to deliver dissimilar level of laser vigor , depending on the target and mission objectives . ”Danger elbow room

say us that the fiber optical maser organization can throng up to 10 kilowatts of punch , far below what the U.S. military has antecedently considered weapon grade but nonetheless in force — just a few month ago an Office of Naval Research laserfried the engineof a small watercraft with a 15 kW beam ( though that was designed to be scaled up to a more telling 100 kilowatts ) .

presumptively , the Mk 38 ’s optical maser package could be upgraded as well , make the death ray part of the system quite a bit virulent . Which is good , considering that ocean air — rife with wet and particulate clobber that degrade focus laser ray of light — compounds the many problems underlying in laser artillery systems .

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