OK, I’m a few years late on this one, but here is a British 5 kilowatt laser used for cutting metal… in hand-held form. And it really, really does look like some craptacular ray gun from Moonraker or one of those Gerry Anderson shows:
[youtube E3YCACZQ72Q]
Note that the laser has both power and compressed air lines, and that the video doesn’t seem to show what they’re connected to. I get the feeling that the rest of the unit is probably the size of an Econoline van (probably with a wizard, barbarian and dragon airbrushed on the side). Now, if they could compress it down to something that could be carried in a backpack, maybe even a two-man system, they’d have themselves something truly entertaining.
Also not given is what sort of range the system has. It *might* be a laser that comes to a sharp focus at a range of a few cm, and then quickly diverges again. But if it’s a truly parallel laser… watch out.