Surely the rationale for the microwave weapons is that people run away if they get hit by it. But if you're on a speedboat, you can't get away unless you're the driver. And even then, it'd be pretty trivial to put a metal mesh in front of your windscreen and so shield yourself! Just like in a microwave oven, it's pretty easy to see through.

Altogether, that sounds to me like a recipe for cooking any folk on the deck of the speedboat, as well as any innocent sailors encroaching on the ship who simply don't understand what's happening to them.

Why not develop a ray that sends the targets into a blissful sleep? Or makes them groggy and peaceable? It's always the pain option. I rather fancy a speedboat full of babbling, bubble-blowing grown-up babies coming back from a hararssment attack, to the amusement of their colleagues. It can be macho to bear pain, but no warrior looks good cooing and counting his toes.

You can call me a dreamer, but I'm not the only one...

...the loneliness of service, the tension of a warzone, and the intense camaraderie of shared duty. With all these factors at play on a young man's spirit, and the close, almost intimate contact of his fellow sailors, who could blame a young man, in the deepest depths of the long lonely night, from turning to his bunkmates and suggesting that which in the light of day would be unthinkable but here and now, with these men who are so much more than just friends, seems almost inevitable....

"Lads, lets go topside and poach some dolphins!"

Well, lets just declare a no go area around the ship, and assuming the beam is directional ! leave it on all the time, get to close to the ship you get fried, end of story.

Be great on the big carriers as they have plenty of free electricity due to the reactors,

If the navy can microwave an enemy to shoo away, why not just microwave the explosives!

I suppose a warning shot across the bow is just too 19th century.

.. of this raygun rubbish where are my type X phasers and photon torpedos!

A smallish laser way under what is required to be used as a weapon in ground warfare can happily turn anyone driving a speedboat into a blind bat.

Except that blinding weapons are against the Geneva convention. Mind you, that doesn't apply to Americans does it?

... who thinks that when a speed boat of possible suicide bombers is racing towards your military vessel you should just send out a helicopter; have the helicopter give them one audible warning / shot across the bow and if they don't stop you kill them.... it'll make their friends think twice if they never get close to the boat.

>Surely the rationale for the microwave weapons is that people run away if they get hit by it. But if you're on a speedboat, you can't get away unless you're the driver. And even then, it'd be pretty trivial to put a metal mesh in front of your windscreen and so shield yourself! Just like in a microwave oven, it's pretty easy to see through.

>Altogether, that sounds to me like a recipe for cooking any folk on the deck of the speedboat, as well as any innocent sailors encroaching on the ship who simply don't understand what's happening to them.

But if the speedboat just keeps coming despite the ray then you could make a good case for it to have displayed hostile intent and _then_ you could switch those CIWS (Close-In Weapon Stations) from standby to auto...

Useful to filter out the false positive idiot sightseers. And belive me, there are those stupid enough to make a high-speed approach on a warship in a narrow strait 'just for lulz'. Seen it myself. Although the escorting patrolboat with a very visible .50 cal. on the bow tried to intercept, the small speedboat evaded with ease and kept playing.. Good candidate for this 'piss off-ray'.

As the article states it's nice to have some more steps on the ladder of escalation than a loud-hailer and a .50 cal, so I'm all for it on naval vessels.

If the navy did just shred anything that came within a mile of it I suspect that people would catch on and stop coming within a mile of it.

Oh no... more 'in the box' thinking.

Nice cream world you live in, but the pirates in the middle east don't give a rats about the fact you may not be military. they're willing to steal, kill, whatever because it's easy for them to do if there's nobody really to stop them.

Paul,

How about a bacon gun?

Imagine being taken out by a few rounds of Danish!

Can't be done I'm afraid. The Navy's thought of this one and had secured a ready supply of bacon.

But it was a cunning plan by the enemy. The bacon tree turned out to be a hambush.