The Navy Is Testing Its Seaborne Death Lasers

The Laser Weapon System (LaWS) is undergoing tests in the Persian Gulf on board the USS Ponce.

The Navy just completed an operational demo of a new ship-based Laser Weapon System (LaWS) in the Persian Gulf. The 30-kilowatt prototype system, mounted on the USS Ponce transport ship back in August, is meant to take out enemy drones or attack boats that might swarm a large vessel.

LaWS has already aced maritime tests in 2011 and 2012, but the Navy wanted to see how it would perform at sea under the kind of harsh conditions it could encounter in battle. Kevin Stephens, spokesman for the U.S. Fifth Fleet, says that LaWS lased static targets during the test and performed as expected, thought the Navy is still sifting through all the data.

In the past, the U.S. military has experimented with powerful, megawatt-class chemical lasers like the Air Force's cancelled Airborne Laser, which was mounted on a Boeing 747. These systems proved to be too expensive, too unwieldy, or simply impractical. The Airborne Laser, for example, depended on six SUV-sized magazines filled with noxious chemicals and could fire only a limited number of shots.

By contrast, the new solid-state lasers are smaller, run on electricity, and cost only about $1 per shot. The problem to this point has been getting them to generate enough power to destroy a target. The LaWS system combines six commercial welding lasers whose beams converge on a single enemy drone or boat. The Navy hopes its testing on the Ponce will guide the development of more advanced solid-state weapons, with combat-ready laser prototypes being placed on Navy ships in 2016.

That's not the Navy's only laser weapon, by the way. It is also developing the Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move (GBAD) system. In contrast to LaWS, which sits atop a 570-foot-long ship, GBAD will small enough to be mounted on a Marine Humvee or Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. That requires "some significant advances in a number of areas to address the size and weight limitations," says Lee Mastroianni, program manager for GBAD at the Office of Naval Research.

Currently, the Navy is working with defense contractors led by Raytheon to ensure that GBAD's laser, beam director, batteries, and radar—not to mention its advanced cooling, communications, and command and control systems—all fit in the small package. The Office of Naval Research is testing a 10-kilowatt demonstrator model that will act as a stepping stone for 30-kilowatt laser, slated for field testing in 2016. The intended targets of the system are enemy tactical drones. However, Mastroianni says, don't rule out that one day GBAD might be downing mortar shells or homemade rockets