The Navy gets very excited about this idea (and about lasers) because they may be the only ones who can use it, since the only way to make it mobile is to stick it somewhere in several thousand tons of grey steel and make it float.
They also love it because it could mean a ship doesn't have to carry large amounts of gun propellant, which has been a factor in too many cases to count of rapid auto-disassembly affecting naval vessels.
On the other hand, they have a hell of a long way to go to turn this into a weapon, and the power requirements could force them into a new ship.
Update: Why in the name of Cthulhu does this board's SW render the acronym formed by "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation" as "l@ser"?
Last edited by LowObservable; 1st Mar 2012 at 13:36.