Lockheed Martin has developed a battlefield laser weapon to shoot down drones. Here’s video of it in action.
Keep in mind all the caveats of corporate-produced weapon test videos (if a test run was a failure, you wouldn’t be seeing that video), and don’t expect these to be deployed in the battlefield anytime soon. But it’s still promising.
On Saturday, President Donald Trump helped commission the USS Gerald R. Ford, a new aircraft carrier and the first of her class.
The Ford is the first complete carrier redesign since the launch of the Nimitz class in 1975. The Ford has a number of innovative features that distinguish it from Nimitz-class carriers:
Here’s a video of President Trump praising the ship’s namesake President and his naval career.
Here’s President Trump’s entire speech:
Here’s Captain Richard McCormack talking about the Ford’s shakedown cruise and the ship’s many innovations:
Here’s a video showing EMALS being tested:
The next Ford-class aircraft carrier, the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79, not to be confused with the previous, already decommissioned USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) aircraft carrier, the US Navy’s last non-nuclear carrier) has already been laid down, and is scheduled to begin sea trials in 2018 and commissioned in 2020.
Note that in his speech, President Trump called for a 355-ship, 12-carrier navy, which has lead to some talk of bringing the non-nuclear USS Kitty Hawk out of retirement. I think that’s unlikely, though stranger things have happened…