Army Looks to Strike Foes with Lightning Weapon | laser-induced plasma channel | LiveScience
A guided lightning bolt travels horizontally, then hits a car when it finds the lower resistance path to ground in a U.S. Army test.
CREDIT: U.S. Army | Picatinny Arsenal
Today's military lasers can blind spy satellites or burn enemy vehicles, but tomorrow's could guide lightning bolts to strike and destroy battlefield targets.
A U.S. Army lab is testing how lasers can create an energized plasma channel in the air — an invisible pathway for electricity to follow. The laser-guided lightning weapon could precisely hit targets such as enemy tanks or unexploded roadside bombs, because such targets represent better conductors for electricity than the ground.
"We never got tired of the lightning bolts zapping our simulated (targets)," said [...]
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Remember when video-phones were sci-fi claptrap? :D
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