{"id":40060,"date":"2017-09-07T03:00:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T07:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=40060"},"modified":"2017-09-05T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T15:36:11","slug":"argentina-expresses-interest-in-laser-death-beam-equipped-uss-ponce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2017\/09\/07\/argentina-expresses-interest-in-laser-death-beam-equipped-uss-ponce\/","title":{"rendered":"Argentina expresses interest in laser death-beam-equipped USS Ponce<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those sneaky Argentines, trying to grab some surplus seagoing laser switchblade technology<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

The U.S. Navy Afloat Forward Staging Base (Interim) USS Ponce<\/em> (AFSB(I)-15) conducts an operational demonstration of the Office of Naval Research (ONR)-sponsored Laser Weapon System (LaWS) while deployed to the Arabian Gulf.
Date. 16 November 2014 (via Wikimedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

Argentina reportedly wants to buy the US Navy\u2019s laser death ray testbed warship, the fearsomely named USS Ponce<\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to the Mail on Sunday<\/em>, the Argentinians are interested<\/a> in buying the 46-year-old former landing platform (dock) from the American Navy when she is decommissioned next year.<\/p>\n

\u201cSenior Pentagon sources have confirmed talks are ongoing with the Argentinians over a Landing Platform Dock vessel capable of launching 800 troops, six helicopters and 2,000 tons of equipment into a war zone,\u201d reported the paper, contrasting this with the Royal Navy\u2019s HMS Ocean<\/em>, which is very similar to the Ponce\u2019s original configuration.<\/p>\n

As regular readers know, the mighty Ponce<\/em> has spent the last few years blasting various targets into bits using a shiny new $40m laser cannon<\/a> and the US Navy even deployed her to the Gulf a few years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To North American readers: if you’re wondering why this reads a bit oddly even by ordinary Register<\/em> standards, it’s because the word “ponce<\/a>” in British usage is a bit, um, odd<\/a>. It’s taken as read that the primary purpose of an Argentine-flagged Ponce<\/em> would sooner or later be intended for use in “liberating” the Falkland Islands:<\/p>\n

The Ponce<\/em> would be far from the first former US warship acquired by Argentina. In 1951 the Second World War cruiser USS Phoenix<\/em>, a veteran of the Pearl Harbour attack by Japan, was bought by Argentina. She was renamed ARA General Belgrano<\/em> \u2013 and sunk by British nuclear submarine HMS Conqueror<\/em> during the 1982 Falklands War. Doubtless the same fate would befall the Ponce<\/em> if Argentina tried the same trick again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Those sneaky Argentines, trying to grab some surplus seagoing laser switchblade technology: Argentina reportedly wants to buy the US Navy\u2019s laser death ray testbed warship, the fearsomely named USS Ponce. According to the Mail on Sunday, the Argentinians are interested in buying the 46-year-old former landing platform (dock) from the American Navy when she is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[465,5,15,13],"tags":[492,30],"class_list":["post-40060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-americas","category-military","category-technology","category-usa","tag-argentina","tag-navy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-aq8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40062,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40060\/revisions\/40062"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}