Now, the Death Ray?

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But other properties of the laser give military strategists powerful incentives to overcome these difficulties. Ordinary bullets and missiles follow arcing trajectories that must be carefully calculated in advance; laser beams are virtually unaffected by the pull of the earth's gravity or by winds, and fly as straight as the proverbial arrow. Traveling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second), they reach their targets literally in a flash; even a computer-controlled ICBM could not maneuver fast enough to get out of their path.

Such sophisticated weaponry is probably at least a decade away, but more down-to-earth military uses of the laser may be much closer at hand. TRW Systems in Redondo Beach, Calif., for instance, is working on a portable chemical laser (which produces a beam from the energy released in the reaction of two or more chemicals) that could be carried into battle by a unit of only three men. Aimed like a rifle, it would silently burn a fatal, quarter-inch-wide hole in the body of an enemy soldier up to five miles away. "Once you've got him in your sights," says a TRW engineer, "you've got him. There are no misses."

One of the more immediate goals of Air Force researchers is a laser that could blind the tracking and fire-control mechanisms of enemy antiaircraft guns, which have accounted for the bulk of U.S. plane losses over North Viet Nam. Work is also under way on a laser that could be fitted as a tail gun aboard the proposed B-1 supersonic bomber. The Navy, for its part, is experimenting with shipboard lasers that could, for example, meet the threat posed by the Soviets' new extremely accurate Styx surface-to-surface missiles. Perhaps the most imaginative concept considered by Pentagon advanced-weaponry planners is a laser defense against enemy missiles. Once the system's long-range sensors picked up the ICBMS, batteries of lasers would unleash a barrage of beams. Packing millions upon millions of megawatts, the rays would destroy every one of the ICBMs, and give the U.S. a virtually impenetrable shield across its skies.