The Register ^ | 13th December 2013 | Iain Thomson
In month-long tests at the White Sands missile range in new Mexico, the High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator (HELMD) blew up 90 mortar rounds and several aerial drones using a 10kW-class laser mounted on an armored vehicle.
"We had considerable success," Terry Bauer, Army program manager for HELMD told the Christian Science Monitor.
The HELMD system uses radar (or as the military calls it "Enhanced Multi Mode Radar") to track targets and focus the laser on them. Once locked, the laser raises the temperature of mortar shells to the point where the explosives they contain combust.
"It falls as a single piece of metal with a little bit of shrapnel. It basically falls where it was going to fall, but it doesn’t explode when it hits the ground," Bauer said. “We turn it into a rock, basically.”
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