US military testing powerful new lethal laser weapon
The United States government has awarded a contract to General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing to develop a powerful laser weapon for the US military.
The Distributed Gain High Energy Laser Weapon System will deliver a 300kW-class distributed gain laser with an integrated Boeing beam director.
GA-EMS president Scott Forney said the high-power, compact laser weapon prototype will produce a lethal output “greater than anything fielded to date”.
“This technology represents a leap-ahead capability for air and missile defence that is necessary to support the Army’s modernisation efforts and defeat next-generation threats in a multi-domain battlespace,” Forney said.
The US Army plans to demonstrate the weapon’s capabilities sometime in 2022.
According to The New Scientist, the new system would be a significant improvement over the lasers the military previously used.
The experimental Laser Weapon System (LaWS) the US Navy deployed on the USS Ponce in 2014 reportedly outputs a 30kW beam, powerful enough to shoot down drones and small aircraft.
The New Scientist said that current laser weapons typically combined output from multiple industrial fibre lasers into one beam.
The new weapon will use large slabs of glass connected in series instead of fibre lasers.
Justin Bronk from the UK security think tank Royal United Services said this configuration would be able to shoot down bigger targets and take down multiple targets more quickly.
That means it could defend against ballistic and cruise missiles, in addition to helicopters, aircraft, and drones.
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