From Wired as so often, this came out the week of SAS(SeaAirSpace) in DC, a conference/exhibition by the Navy League (the premier Naval support/booster society.)

Lasers are used every day for cutting sheet metal, the main issue in weaponizing has become compactness, cooling, and beam forming over miles not inches. The line of sight, zero time of flight nature of its sting, along with some ability to vary your effect and to choose what sort of damage you do (shown in the video), low chance of collateral damage AND the low cost per shot make even a modestly powerful laser weapon a very interesting for ships deployed in zones where the threat can be very low tech but hard to discriminate from non threat till very late, or where you would rather disable than destroy.