An article in The Register describes a new invention for protecting tanks and other armoured vehicles. It uses electrically charged plating to vaporise anti-tank missiles before they can penetrate the rest of the armour.
“It sounds bizarre, but the paper reports that in a recent demonstration an armoured personnel carrier protected by the system withstood repeated attacks by rocket grenades that would normally have destroyed it many times over.”
As I read the article, Star Trek sprung to mind. Not the new-fangled force fields, but the special kind of hull plating they seem to have in Enterprise. When they seem about to enter battle, Captain Archer often requests that they “polarise the hull plating”.
And with scientists already having teleported beams of light, can warp drive really be that far behind?