American company Lockheed Martin has finally managed to bring to life the invention of engineer Garin from the novel A.N. Tolstoy. She managed to create a small-size ground-based laser, designed to intercept missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles directly over the battlefield. It will be necessary to protect operating bases and command posts.

"The first blow of the beam fell on trumpet factory " she hesitated, cracked in the middle and fell... Almost immediately to the left of the pipe up a column of vapor over the long roof of the building, flushed, mixed with black smoke. Another left standing five-storey building. Suddenly all the Windows had struck. From top to bottom, around the facade, ran fire zigzag, more and more... the Building collapsed, collapsed, its skeleton wrapped clouds of smoke".

So in a fantasy novel by Alexei Tolstoy "the Hyperboloid of engineer Garin" described the use of quantum emitter, and many in the USSR, after reading a popular book, tried to build is good even the scheme had. However, it took years before science really came to create such a generator, and most importantly, to ensure that he could not only cut smokestacks and to drill the earth, how to intercept the flight of the missile.

Interestingly, in the same USSR there were attempts to establish a combat laser even on the ships of the Navy, and as the aircraft - carriers laser weapons subsequently wrote repeatedly. In the United States was tested several combat lasers, including onboard heavy transport aircraft "Boeing-747-400F". The device was a "laser cannon" with a capacity of one megawatt (10 thousand light bulbs of 100 watts each!) with a range of 100 kilometers.

It was a chemical laser type, working on oxygen-iodine mixture; in the trials he successfully burned body missiles. However, creating such "monsters" proved to be difficult and expensive. That's why at first, the military took laser into service in less "bloody" variant - within systems of targeting and weapon guidance systems, etc.,

Widespread laser rangefinders and heads of homing missiles and bombs, and a little later - guided artillery shells with guidance on a laser beam. In order to bring the laser to the battlefield as it weapons and not committed AIDS, designers, firstly, it was necessary to create reliably acting high power lasers, and secondly, to significantly reduce its dimensions.

And finally, the us company Lockheed Martin it seems to be managed - it has created a compact surface laser, designed to intercept missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles directly over the battlefield, not up in the air, where it helps the thin atmosphere.

New killer device was named Area Defense Anti-Munitions (ADAM) - System protect the area from flying ammunition", and mounted it on a trailer the size of a small "home"inside combat high-energy laser and electron-optical guidance system with a thermal imaging camera.

In a series of test firings ADAM successfully struck a small drone Osprey ("Kestrel"), taking out the engines. Judging by the video, the new combat laser is not very powerful - up to 10 kW (Lockheed indicate precisely this capacity), but this energy was enough, for example, to burn through the thin lining of the rocket.

First of all, ADAM is intended for defense of the operational bases, command posts and other similar facilities, as it has a low range up to 2 kilometers. However, at this distance it provides surgical precision-guided beam and is able to burn out the optical system of small UAVs or damage the engine.

Also it is possible to use a new weapon to defeat observation devices of armored vehicles and sniper fire at enemy infantry. It is noted that the laser system can operate automatically and immediately creates the radars of various types. The guidance system ADAM provides reliable capture and tracking of air targets at a distance of more than 5 kilometers, even in difficult urban environment where conventional breeding purposes difficult. During the tests, conducted from August of this year, a prototype of ADAM successfully destroyed from a distance of 1.5 kilometers one drone aircraft, and also four smaller missiles at the distance of about 2 kilometers.

The most interesting thing in this case is how the U.S. military are going to use design. The fact that they liked the relatively small size (3 x 2.4 x 3.6 m) and the autonomy of ADAM, which, in their opinion, allows to use the new laser cannon... most Afghan bases and advanced reference points. There's a new weapon will find the application for the interception of rockets and mortars, although about effective destruction of the latter, as the case they have a considerable thickness, has some doubts.

At the same time, even 10-kilowatt laser beam can be very effective in repelling the attacks of the militants, as it allows you to hit the infantry almost instantly and with absolute accuracy. For a moment the beam cannot kill, but to deprive of view or cause severe burns easily, so the psychological effect of such weapons is going to be very powerful. The cost of laser shot by orders of magnitude lower than the price of the guided missile.

Of course, there are a number of questions, answers to which yet. For example, whether to hit the beam of the laser rocket, which in flight is spinning like a bullet? Indeed, in this case destructive heating of the surface may not occur. And what if such a missile would cover the mirror reflecting layer? Since then a significant part of the laser radiation on it will be recorded, and the whole effect of the application ADAM will be reduced to "the grass Bunny". Finally, if he can't catch a mortar, and the body of the rocket adequate thickness may be his teeth and then again the question arises whether the game candles.

Critics say about relatively short-range interception, however, this circumstance is essential role can not play, if... add this setting gun system "Vulcan-Phalanx". In this case, you could end up with an expensive and complicated, but very effective air defense complex object capable of intercepting various types of flying up to him and ammunition successfully to destroy them or their laser weapons, or at the very least fire 20-mm cannon artillery installations with the rate of 6 thousand rounds per minute. Still we all just wait for the results of further tests in the eternal struggle between the sword and the shield.