Directed Energy Weapons; pew, pew, pew!

By TLS

I recently read an article on Wired by Jared Keller talking about lasers finally, officially, entering combat theaters.

The official weapon system? The Palletized High Energy Laser or P-HEL, and this is a 20-something kilowatt class laser. Apparently, officially, it’s been doing fairly well, against certain targets. Fingers crossed it’s actually effective.

My first exposure to an actual laser weapon was back in the mid-1990’s with the Air Forces airborne laser weapon system. This was a megawatt-class chemical laser mounted on a Boeing 747 with a great big eyeball turret up front.

This flying laser weapon system was intended to act as a defense against theater and smaller ballistic missiles. Ideally it was intended to shoot down incoming threats while the missile was still over “enemy” territory. It seemed like a pretty good idea to me. But like many other promising systems, it couldn’t quite live up to the hope. And I’m sure the program was colossally expensive.

Eventually the airborne program was scrapped. Then I read a few years later the Navy had picked up a lot of the research and was trying to incorporate lasers into ship defense systems. Another good idea I thought, if they can actually make it work. A few years after that, news of laser weapon systems sort of drifted away. Occasionally there’d be a peep here or there but nothing really solid.

Now, the Army seems to have palletized the thing for base and area defense. Ironically, shooting down drones and other small and fast targets.

The original weapon system “Star Wars” proposed by President Reagan in the 80’s and the 747 airborne laser in the 90’s, were intended as defense against nuclear missiles.

Now however, the lasers are being used for defense against technologies that didn’t really even exist at those times and which also basically started out as children’s toys. The capability of drones has come a long way remarkably fast. What started out as novelty toys is now a serious threat. A threat that has gained the attention of a decades-long directed energy research program.

How long will it be before the drones are fitted with mirrors or shields or some other stealth/cloaking device? It looks like some aspects of Reagans Star Wars may actually be coming true. Drones and lasers? Sounds like an episode right out of Star Wars or Star Trek.

The future of war is arriving faster than most of us imagined. Lasers are no longer the stuff of sci-fi movies or scrapped Pentagon projects. They’re here, In real combat zones, frying real targets. The question is whether they’ll truly live up to the decades of promises. What do you think? Are we watching the dawn of a new era in warfare, or just another expensive experiment? Join the discussion, your perspective matters.

Clip art

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