So, without wishing to seem off in any way, you think DEW will get a place aboard ship as CIWS/AAW but then list all the, perfectly accurate, reasons why it wont!.:diablo:

To be honest Adrian I dont see lasers or HPM’s making the leap from land-based to sea-based technology for a very long time. Stabilisation of the beam emitter is no issue, but, directed-energy and atmosphere attenuation, with the heavy saline-saturated environment you need to shoot through, dont go together.

EM railguns with extremely high projectile velocities and cyclic rates would seem to be a different story though and, with the current work on EMALS offering some potential for technology crossover, I’d imagine thats the near(ish) future for naval CIWS/SHORADS.