The Navy's Got a New Laser Gun -- and It's a Blast!

What looks like a video game, works like a flashlight, and explodes targets with a "bang"?

Video still: U.S. Navy.

Answer: the U.S. Navy's new Laser Weapon System, or "LaWS," a $40 million prototype laser gun that recently deployed for at-sea trials off the coast of Iran.

In multiple demonstrations, filmed by the Navy and posted on YouTube, this laser gun is first shown exploding ordnance aboard a towed barge and a fast-moving speedboat.

Video still: U.S. Navy.

For an encore, the Navy launched -- then blasted -- one of its own ScanEagle drones, showing LaWS can serve as an anti-aircraft laser gun as well.

Video still: U.S. Navy.

All this was accomplished from the control center of Afloat Forward Staging Base USS Ponce (a refurbished amphibious transport dock), by an officer usingwhat appears to be avideo game controller operating a laser gun not much bigger than your average CIWS Phalanx Gatling gun.

Video still: U.S. Navy.

A quick reviewTogether, these elements form LaWS, which the Pentagon said cost only $40 millionto develop -- and which could reinvent the way the Navy fights battles in the future. With silent, invisible, unjammable laser beams, LaWS destroys targets in a (literal) flash, killing targets with pure energy and light. At a cost of just $0.59 per shot, LaWS is 2 million times cheaper than a $1.5 million Tomahawk missile.

It is also, as shown in the video, surprisingly effective for a technology still in its infancy. According to website BreakingDefense, the actual shooting end of LaWS is just six industrial welding lasers "strapped together" and focusing 33 kilowatts of energy at the target. It gets the job done already. Future iterations would aim to ramp up rapidly to 60 kilowatts, then 100, and then perhaps even a full megawatt of power -- enough to destroy a fast-moving ballistic missile from miles away.

What it means to investorsEncouraged by early success, the Navy is planning to equip warships with "cost-effective, combat-ready laser prototypes," says the Office of Naval Researchas early as the 2020s -- which should sound a wake-up call for investors in the defense industry. Things are changing fast.

Here at The Motley Fool, we love reading about cutting-edge military tech -- but what wereally enjoy is translating defense news intocold, hard profits in our portfolios. With that end in mind, let's take a quick look at what this news could mean for defense investors.

Size doesn't matter...Cost and space savings on laser gun-equipped ships will be enormous -- but the boats won't have to be. This is because laser guns eliminate the need for hulking missile cruisers and destroyers stacked to the rafters with artillery shells.

In today's Navy, once a warship runs out of "bullets," it is combat-ineffective. But in a laser gun-armed vessel, the ship's engine is the "magazine," creating near-free "bullets" for the laser gun to fire.

In future years, investors might want to supplement investments in traditional munitions makers such as General Dynamicswith those in engine makers includingRolls-Royce (which powers the Zumwalt-class missile destroyer) or United Technologies(which packs an amazing amount of power into a small engine aboard the F-35 fighter jet).

...efficiency and scale do IPG Photonicsand Rofin-Sinar Technologiesare also worth keeping your eyes on. Among the world's leading specialists in laser tech, they are logical places for the Navy to look as it upgrades its laser guns.

And don't forget the large, integrated defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, which recently won a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contract to improve laser guns' accuracy. Whether by work in-house or through acquisitions of smaller players winning Pentagon contracts, they're certain to claim their pieces of the laser gun pie.

Lockheed Martin played a leading role in the U.S. Air Force's airborne laser program. Photo source:Wikimedia Commons.

The article The Navy's Got a New Laser Gun -- and It's a Blast! originally appeared on Fool.com.

Rich Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned, but The Motley Fool recommends IPG Photonics and Rofin-Sinar Technologies and owns shares of IPG Photonics. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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