"Since we have laser cannons..." Topic

Should we also have laser howitzers and laser mortars for indirect fire?

That shall be interesting. I'm sure the new Star Wars movie will do it just because it doesn't make a bit of sense.

Of course it makes sense. You fill a metalic shell with laser light, lob it out of a mortar and over the terrain features into the midst of your enemies. When the shell smashes into something, the laser light is released in a glorious prismatic spray. QED

You make an excellent argument

They have created "solid" light in labs no, essentially creating molecules made of photons. Indirect lasers are now theoretically possible, at least.

Is that not what a Photon torpedo was from star trek???

Those were anti-matter warheads, I think

There were also no-matter warheads, but they didn't do much of anything enough to concern people…. ;-)

@Stryderg: That works, though I'm remembering the xray lasers or grasers that use a nuclear explosion to generate the laser beams…

It isn't a mortar, but it sure is indirect fire:

link

You could build a semi-plausible "laser mortar" by having a ground-mounted zap gun and throwaway airborne "reflector" drones (maybe even lobbed by relatively conventional mortars) that could redirect a pulse to take over-the-visual-horizon shots. Reusable ones could exist too, but if so it begs the question of why targets aren't just carrying mirrored armor and being immune to laser fire in the first place.

Yeah, photon torpedoes were anti-matter warheads, not lasers.

An antimatter (or contained plasma shell?) mortar might work (actual shell projectile is lobbed (casing serves to generate the field to contain the handwavium) and it brakes apart on impact or proximity.