That emphasis on targeting the enemy’s stuff rather than enemy troops was the case on Wednesday. Lt. Gen. Marshall B. Webb, the head of Air Force Special Operations Command, laid out an operational scenario: pilots on a dangerous raid might use a laser mounted on an orbiting gunship to take out an enemy truck and a drone. Webb has said that he wants to test a laser aboard an AC-130J within a year. Webb, who was speaking at the Direct Energy Summit in downtown Washington, D.C., was asked about targeting humans. “My intent right now is to prove we can do a demo and do some specific things with this: control the beam; contain jitter,” he said.
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