"In an age plagued by terrorism"
Absolutely the funniest lead in statement I have read in quite a while.

@Rt1583 — I don't understand why you find the statement funny. In the late 20th century and into the 21st, terrorism is a fact of life on land, air and sea. Need I bring the obvious examples at sea (piracy on a daily basis in the Gulf of Aden, off Somalia and elsewhere, the 1985 PLO hijacking of the MS Achille Lauro, the October 2000 terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole, then refueling in Yemen, etc. etc.)? You have one very strange sense of humor. Maybe you want to check with the victims to see if they find terrorism funny?

I'll bet that claymore mines mounted on the ships hulls above the water line would work too and be cheaper.

@slowburn - no doubt that approach would help with regard to pirate issues, but for the dinghy-laden-with-C4 sidling up to the hull carrying a couple of death-loving jihadists it wouldn't help.

I know that nobody in defense industry want to openly talk about it. But it's only matter of time, before one is directly deployed and used against a "Human Being". Better SOONER than LATER. Laser Defense Systems. Because, I can guarantee the Enemy will use it against us, without hesitation, if they have one available too them. Something worth thinking about.

Is anyone else nervous about a sentence that contains both "autonomously" and "destroy"?

@Danny Allman - First, Piracy != terrorism, its piracy. Second, 'plagued'. I do not think this word means what you think it means.

Autonomous robots searching out and attacking enemy vessels? Dear God.. I thought this kind of madness was still relegated to the fields of xcience fiction, knowing the obvious ramifications of such technology. Perhaps these designers ought to be strapped in to watch the last few episodes of Stargateunivers..

and for a moment there I was reading.."...could protect a whale from being hunted down and killed..."

@ f8lee If they keep coming after you hit them with a water-cannon blow them to hell.