A machine gun is a powerful weapon, particularly on board a Navy ship. But it suffers from what some would consider a design flaw: It's not a laser cannon. Until now.

It's the next move in the Navy's dicey long-term mission to protect surface ships with death rays: Two defense giants, Boeing and BAE Systems, have teamed up to combine a solid-state laser weapon with BAE's Mk-38 25-mm machine gun. On Monday, they announced they're developing a demonstration model together for shipboard defense, which a Boeing vice president called a revolutionary one-two punch against enemy ships or small drones.

The next model Mk-38 will have a twin capability: It can keep firing off 180 rounds per minute with an effective range of 2000 yards. Or it can fire off "different levels of laser energy," according to BAE spokeswoman Stephanie Bissell Serkhoshian. And the two can be combined, as the laser can identify and lock on a target for the machine gun to fill with lead.

Right now, the prototype that BAE and Boeing jointly developed – thanks to a $2.8 million Navy contract awarded in March – tops out at a laser blast of 10 kilowatts. That's an order of magnitude below what's considered militarily effective. And there are many other hurdles for the system to overcome: It's a solid-state fiber laser, meaning light has to focus through a crystal medium to create a deadly beam, and all the crud in sea air can diminish the potency of those kinds of lasers.

Still, a solid-state laser not manufactured by Boeing and BAE succeeded in blasting the engine off a small watercraft during an April test off the coast of California. That laser, operated by the eggheads at the Office of Naval Research, used a mere 15-kilowatt beam to disable the boat from a mile away.

Serkhoshian says the team is in discussions with the Navy about when a working laser cannon/machine gun could actually find its way aboard a ship. Boeing and BAE recently tested the system on land, and the results of that test ought to be available by next week.

This is an uncertain time for Navy lasers, though. Some experts question whether the generators on board surface ships can divert enough power to juice up a laser gun. Budget constraints are starting to raise other doubts about the viability of the Navy's laser fetish, which has the support of the service's senior leadership. The Senate Armed Services Committee unexpectedly recommended killing the Navy's prized Free Electron Laser, the most powerful directed-energy weapon it's developing.

BAE isn't sweating the potential cut. The Free Electron Laser is imperiled, but Congress hasn't slashed the rest of the Navy's laser research – yet. Serkoshian says the machine gun/laser hybrid will defend Navy ships against "small boats and unmanned aerial vehicles." That's a rather limited utility, then: no incoming missiles burned out of the sky. And machine guns can shoot up small boats and drones on their own.

But the mashup is yet another sign that the Navy considers the future defense of its fleet to be deadly rays of energy. And if they need to be paired with old-fashioned 25mm guns, sailors probably won't complain.

Photo illustration: BAE Systems

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