This is the word on the street about the laser weapon:
The Navy will deploy a laser weapon designed to counter small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles to the Middle East in 2014, chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Matthew Klunder and Naval Sea Systems Command chief engineer Rear Adm. Tom Eccles said in a joint Monday briefing at the Navy League Sea Air Space Exposition 2013 at National Harbor, Md.
The solid-state Laser Weapon System (LaWS) will be deployed onboard the USS Ponce in 2014, a former amphibious warship that has been reassigned to serve as an Afloat Forward Staging Base in U.S. Central Command.
This will be on Ponce, which I mentioned in the context of being an afloat forward staging base and in light of our experience battling Iranian sea-going irregulars in the late 1980s in the northern Gulf.
The laser will be a nice weapon out to the horizon to take out Iranian small craft. As long as it isn't foggy, of course.
UPDATE: More on the laser. Countering UAVs is not a big deal, but dealing with small boats and missiles is.
