U.S. Navy laser could be used to disable small boats used by Somali pirates

For the first time, the U.S. Navy has successfully 'blown up' a boat with a laser.
In what may seem like a scene out of an Austin Powers movie, the Office of Naval Research and its industry partner, Northrop Grumman, mounted the laser to the deck of a Navy test ship off the coast of California and aimed it at a small vessel on April 6.
As is shown in the video below, a small fire starts in the front of one of the outboard engines and that fire grows until both 200-horsepower outboards are burning.Continued