November 19, 2024:
The U.S. Army has developed and deployed four Locust Laser Weapon Systems at undisclosed locations overseas. The 2.1 by 2.1 meter system weighs 1,540 kg and the system can be carried on an 8x8 Stryker wheeled vehicle. The laser has a range of about 800 meters and is used against large drones in places like Syria and now Ukraine.
While weapons like the GMLRS missiles fired by the HIMARS vehicle are high tech, the Russians already have similar systems and could, if they wanted to, develop a GMLRS clone. The Locust Laser technology is a little more exotic and some may have been sent to Ukraine for more intense combat testing despite the risk of capture. The Ukrainians will take extreme measures to avoid that because the longer they have a monopoly on this technology the more damage they will do to Russian drones while avoiding similar damage to their own.
Similar weapons have been developed. The Israeli Iron Beam laser comes in two versions. The larger one has a range of ten kilometers. The smaller, portable one has a range of two kilometers and can be truck mounted. Iron Beam is not expected to be ready for combat use until late 2025. If that schedule is met, Israel will have a low cost laser weapon to complement Iron Dome and its expensive Tamir missiles. The laser system has an inexhaustible ammunition supply and can rapidly fire at incoming targets using a proven fire control system developed for autocannon systems that have been in use for years.
In early 2024 Britain announced that it had developed a laser-based weapon called DragonFire that can destroy or disable a UAV several kilometers away. Each shot costs about $13 for the electricity generated in the vehicle or ship carrying the DragonFire system. Britain is installing DragonFire in a 6x6 twelve-ton Wolfhound armored truck. DragonFire is also going to be installed on warships and replace conventional anti-aircraft or anti-missile systems.
The U.S. Navy has long sought to install more laser weapons on its ships. In 2010 the navy successfully tested a laser weapon, using it to destroy a UAV and then repeat that several times. The laser cannon was mounted on a KINETO Tracking Mount, which is similar, but larger and more accurate than the mount used by the Phalanx CIWS/Close In Weapons System. The navy laser weapon test used the radar and tracking system of the CIWS. In 2009 CIWS was upgraded so that its sensors could detect speedboats, small aircraft, and naval mines. Knocking down UAVs is not something that the navy currently needs help with, and the current laser gun technology has to be improved quite a bit before it's worth mounting on a ship.
This is a similar situation with laser weapons in the other services. In 2010 the U.S. Air Force fired its ALT/Airborne Laser Testbed laser while in flight and hit a ballistic missile that had just been launched and was moving at 1,800 meters a second. The laser beam took several seconds to weaken the missile structure and cause it to come apart. This test came only eight months after an ALT was fired in flight for the first time. The target was some lumber on the ground, which was hit. The ALT weapon was carried in a C-130H four engine transport.
In 2005 manufacturers of combat lasers believed these weapons were only a few years away from battlefield use. To that end, Northrop-Grumman set up a new division to develop and build battle lasers. This optimism was caused by two successful tests in 2004. In one, a solid state laser shot down a mortar round. In another, a much more powerful chemical laser hit a missile type target. Neither of these tests led to any usable weapons, and the combat laser remained a weapon of the future. The basic problems are reliability and sufficient electrical power to generate the laser.
Solid state lasers have been around since the 1950s, and chemical lasers first appeared in the 1970s. The chemical laser has the advantage of using a chemical reaction to create the megawatt level of energy for a laser that can penetrate the body of a ballistic missile that is still rising in the air hundreds of kilometers away. The chemical reaction uses atomized liquid hydrogen peroxide and potassium hydroxide and chlorine gas to form an ionized form of oxygen known as singlet delta oxygen or SDO. This, in turn, is rapidly mixed with molecular iodine gas to form ionized iodine gas. At that point, the ionized iodine gas rapidly returns to its resting state, and while doing so releases photons pulsing at the right frequency to create the laser light. These photons are channeled by mirrors and sent on their way to the target which was being tracked and pinpointed by other lasers. The airborne laser weighed about six tons. It can be carried in a C-130H, producing a laser powerful enough to hit airborne or ground targets fifteen kilometers away. The laser exits via a targeting turret under the nose of the aircraft, and its beam is invisible to the human eye. The chemicals are mixed at high speeds, and the byproducts are harmless heat, potassium salt, water, and oxygen. A similar laser, flying in a larger aircraft like a B-747 freighter, would have enough range to knock down ballistic missiles as they take off. This is what was used in the recent test.
Nearly half a century of engineering work has produced thousands of improvements, and a few breakthroughs, in making lasers more powerful, accurate and lethal. More efficient energy storage has made it possible to use lighter, shorter range ground based lasers effective against smaller targets like mortar shells and short-range rockets. Northrop's move was an indication that the company felt confident enough to gamble its own money, instead of what they get for government research contracts, to produce useful laser weapons. A larger high energy airborne laser would not only be useful against ballistic missiles. Enemy aircraft and space satellites would also be at risk. But companies like Northrop and Boeing are still trying to produce ground and airborne lasers that can successfully operate under combat conditions. The big problem with anti-missile airborne lasers is the power supply. Lots of chemicals are needed to generate sufficient power for a laser that can reach out for hundreds of kilometers and do sufficient damage to a ballistic missile. To be effective, the airborne laser needs sufficient power to get off several shots. So far, no one has been able to produce such a weapon. That's why these lasers remain the weapon of the future until these fundamental problems are solved. DragonFire is a partial solution and now there will be more.
Since the 1990s the U.S. Department of Defense has spent over five billion dollars on laser weapons that could shoot down guided missiles, unguided rockets, artillery and mortar shells. These efforts have been slow to reach the battlefield. Some systems worked reliably but the laser equipment was not rugged enough for sustained combat use, Worse, available power supplies were not sufficient to fire the laser often enough to be useful.
The billions have not been wasted, but they did buy a lot of disappointment. At the same time, the money and development effort has, slowly, moved the technology towards the point where lasers will be robust enough, and sufficiently supplied with energy, to make themselves effective for the troops. Close now, but not there yet. The Department of Defense fears that a sharp reduction of the defense budget will halt the development money. That would stop work, except for what the manufacturers might continue on their own nickel, and battlefield lasers would remain suspended just short of being useful.
It's not the first time this has happened. At the end of World War II, smart bombs were just coming into use. While primitive, they worked. Same with wire-guided missiles, ballistic missiles, nuclear weapons and many other bits of military technology we still consider high tech. Development stopped on most of these systems after the war. Work continued on ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Over the next few decades, work resumed on all these, and most are now in service. The end of the development money is never the end of the line.