http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/11/onr_mld_boat_burn/
Star wars goes to sea. Really? Tax money is still going to a dead wet dream like this?
“From a science and technology point of view, the marriage of directed energy and kinetic energy weapon systems opens up a new level of deterrence into scalable options for the commander," says ONR boss Rear-admiral Navin Carr - effectively confirming that the idea is to tickle up pirates, smugglers, suicide boats etc with relatively gentle sizzle-beams as an alternative to blasting them to scrap with regular guns straight off.
Yep, tickle away the suicide boats. Can it do anything useful like pop a bag of pop secret?