According to an Oct. 25 Boeing announcement, the U.S. Army has awarded a Boeing and General
Atomics Electromagnetic Systems team a contract to develop a 300-kilowatt solid-state laser weapon.
This will be the most powerful laser to date.
As per the statement, the program will eventually see the system being demonstrated
to the US Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office or RCCTO.
Viewers may note that the weapon is formally called the “Distributed Gain
High Energy Laser Weapon System” or DGHELWS.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how the new 300-kilowatt solid-state laser weapon
of the US Army is a technological leap?
Let's get started
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The contract is to deliver a powerful but also compact prototype of the laser weapon.
General Atomics will build the laser while Boeing will incorporate targeting and tracking tools
and software, which allow the laser to detect and focus on a moving target.
By focusing a beam of light on an object, the laser can potentially burn through it,
provided that it has enough power and has enough time to focus its energy
Michael Perry, vice president for lasers and advanced sensors at General Atomics stated,
“A 300 kW HELWS [High Energy Laser Weapon System]
allows for successful engagement of a wide variety of [air and missile defense] threats
ranging from cruise missiles, manned aircraft, unmanned aircraft and rockets/artillery,”
The US has already made some significant progress in this field.
The Laser Weapon System, which the US Navy deployed in the Persian Gulf in 2014
had a beam strength of 30 kW.
In several demonstrations, it was able to burn through the metal exterior of rockets,
the wings of small flying drones, and the engine casing on a little boat.
Another system named HELIOS or
High Energy Laser With Integrated Optical Dazzler And Surveillance has been developed.
HELIOS is a prototype developed by Lockheed Martin Corp with a reported range of about
5 nautical miles. That system has a power of 60kW, but could eventually increase to 150kW.
With 300 kW power, the new laser will be powerful enough to destroy a range
of threats - from small drones to cruise missiles.
This has the potential to change the dynamics of a modern day battlefield engagement.
Scott Forney, president of General Atomics-EMS, said in a statement.
“The high power, compact laser weapon subsystem prototype
that General Atomics-EMS will deliver under this contract
will produce a lethal output greater than anything fielded to date. This technology represents a
leap-ahead capability for air and missile defense that is necessary to support the Army’s
modernization efforts and defeat next-generation threats in a multi-domain battlespace.”
Dr. Michael Perry, General Atomic's vice president for lasers and advanced sensors,
said the laser is a "packaged version" of the seventh generation design, already demonstrated.
He added, "The laser system employs two Gen 7 laser heads in a very compact and lightweight
package. Recent architectural improvements have enabled our single-beam DG Lasers
to achieve comparable beam quality to fiber lasers in a very simple design
without the need for beam combination."
He stated, “The higher power is enabling for some targets. Specifically, it enables lethal
fluence to be accumulated at the required range. For softer targets that can be destroyed with a
lower power laser, the extra power can be used to increase the engagement range and/or dwell time.”
Lasers are silent and invisible which makes them very much suitable for use in certain scenarios.
As evident, lasers have the advantage of being obscure.
But there are other positives too.
The speed of light enables them to hit their targets almost instantaneously. Laser weapons also
don’t need to carry ammunition like traditional systems and hence they will be able to take
out a much larger number of threats constrained only by the power supply limit of the platform.
This is pretty significant as traditional weapons can run out of ammunition when
encountering a large number of incoming threats and need to be reloaded amidst a raging battle.
The cost is also expected to be much lesser compared to traditional weapons.
For this program, the US Army has teamed up with the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
The first demonstration of the high-energy laser capability is expected in August 2022, Lt. Gen.
L. Neil Thurgood, the Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office’s director,
told Defense News in an interview at the AUSA event.
The has stated that the funded effort will include a preliminary design review
and a critical design review phase.
The U.S has been working with Lasers for some time now
and even experimentally deployed them on warships. These systems as of now are only capable of
taking out relatively easy targets like small boats and that too at short ranges.
The new system will be a significant advancement
and being compact could potentially be installed in land, sea, and air platforms in the future.
It remains to be seen how things pan out in the future.