Laser

WHAT'S NEXT FOR THE F-35B? LASERS

The F-35B is the most expensive model from America’s most expensive fighter program in history. Stealthy, full of sensors, and designed so that the Marines flying it can take off and land vertically or in very short distances, each plane is a $134 million bundle of metal and code. What more could the Marine Corps want with its new jet fighter?

Lasers. Freakin’ lasers.

Jacqueline Klimas at the Washington Examiner reports:

Lt. Gen. Robert Walsh, the commanding general of Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said Tuesday that he could "absolutely" see putting a laser on the service's F-35B variant in the future.... "Because of the size and weight requirements for a laser, we'd probably start off with a KC-130," Walsh said at a Defense Writers Group breakfast in Washington. "As soon as we could miniaturize it, we'd put them on F-35s, Cobras [attack helicopters], any of those attack aircraft."