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Military

Stryker-combat-vehicle-mounted laser weapon fends off mortar rounds

By David Szondy
May 24, 2022
Stryker-combat-vehicle-mounted laser weapon fends off mortar rounds
The Stryker combat vehicle with the Raytheon laser weapon installed
The Stryker combat vehicle with the Raytheon laser weapon installed
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The Stryker combat vehicle with the Raytheon laser weapon installed
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The Stryker combat vehicle with the Raytheon laser weapon installed
The laser weapon is designed for short-range defense
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The laser weapon is designed for short-range defense

Using a 50-kW high-energy laser weapon, a US Army Stryker combat vehicle acquired, tracked, targeted, and defeated multiple 60-mm mortar rounds and other threats during four weeks of live-fire exercises at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.

One of the enduring trends of military technology since the first club was invented is the arms race between offensive weapons and the armor to defend against them. With the development of dynamic defenses like anti-missile systems, things have become increasingly complex as military assets sit behind complicated defensive webs designed to counter many weapons at a distance.

A potential major component of these defenses is the laser weapon, which has a practically unlimited supply of rounds costing about a dollar a round outside of equipment price and can engage targets at long range at literally the speed of light.

The recent tests were carried out by a private industry team led by Raytheon Intelligence & Space, which supplied the laser weapon module, and Kord Technologies, which handled the integration with the Stryker combat vehicle. Part of the US Army's Directed Energy Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense (DE M-SHORAD), the high-energy laser is combined with a beam director, an EO/IR target acquisition and tracking system, and a Ku720 multi-mission radar for 360-degree coverage of an area.

The laser weapon is designed for short-range defense
The laser weapon is designed for short-range defense

During the exercises, the solid-state laser took on mortar rounds as well as a mixture of small, medium, and large drones. The team is scheduled to deliver four of the DE M-SHORAD units to Army Brigade Combat Teams later this year.

"Soldiers in the field face increasingly complex threats, and our combat-proven sensors, software, and lasers are ready to give them a new level of protection," said Annabel Flores, president of Electronic Warfare Systems for Raytheon Intelligence & Space. "The Army gave us our toughest challenge yet – countering rockets, artillery and mortars – and we took an essential step on the path to providing the maneuverable, short range air defense Soldiers need."

Raytheon says its Texas-built high energy laser weapon systems can be used as standalone systems or installed a variety of platforms to provide 360-degree coverage for not only military assets, but also high-value civilian assets, such as airports or stadiums.

Source: Raytheon

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10 comments
David Szondy
David Szondy
David Szondy is a playwright, author and journalist based in Seattle, Washington. A retired field archaeologist and university lecturer, he has a background in the history of science, technology, and medicine with a particular emphasis on aerospace, military, and cybernetic subjects. In addition, he is the author of four award-winning plays, a novel, reviews, and a plethora of scholarly works ranging from industrial archaeology to law. David has worked as a feature writer for many international magazines and has been a feature writer for New Atlas since 2011.

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Smokey_Bear
Nice to finally see this tech moving forward into soldiers toolbox.
TedTheJackal
This could also be used against other targets like airliners, oil tankers, refineries, police, politicians, crowds, presidents, etc. etc., and of course there could be no warning of an incoming light beam so you would just have to stay out of the line of sight. Underground would probably be best. We could build subterranean cities. And live in them while we worked on more weapons.
michael_dowling
50 Kw is not all that powerful. It would take too much time to deal with artillery shells,which could hit the target before being detonated by the laser. When you read about these systems,the power is at least 100 Kw. MTHEL laser systems put out hundreds of Kw,and even they take 3 or 4 seconds to detonate the target. 50 Kw would be enough to deal with drones,but artillery/mortar/rocket rounds? I would like confirmation of that.
michael_z
If it works out on a Stryker test bed, are they going to install it on a real combat vehicle for use?
TedTheJackal
I expect the more important metric is kW/cm2, and maybe they've sharpened the focus down so the system can defeat an artillery shell. Then of course the next step would be to laser harden the artillery shells, maybe with some kind of high reflectivity surface or terminal phase maneuvering. Maybe at some point war will simply become too expensive to wage.
Jinpa
Ukraine could use this.
Nelson Hyde Chick
It is so encouraging to know we are always working diligently on new and innovative ways to kill one another.
Marco McClean
So now everyone will have to make mortar rounds out of those new laser-reflecting diamond mirrors I've been reading about. Or-- what happens when the enemy points /their/ $40,000,000 laser tank at ours? I mean, like, right down each other's barrel. A fusion catastrophe? Or a doorway through time and space to the Pleistocene era? Or what? Also, it will occur to someone that they can permanently blind everyone for miles with that thing, and when it occurs to them they'll be sitting there in control of it, and they might have been having a bad day, or their wife may have just left them, or something.
TedTheJackal
@Marco McClean- Yeah, the blinding thing doesn't get a lot of press. One of the more ghastly aspects of directed energy weapons. And the zero time of flight makes for an inherently Mexican standoff dynamic. But probably they'll eventually be replaced by quantum weapons or tachyon beams that kill you before you're born.
fen
For people saying these would benefit Ukraine, etc, well they wouldn't. For every one shell ukraine fires, russia can respond with 20-50. This weapon isn't a "super power" beater. It's a small umbrella for protection from very very real but small threats, lasting minutes. For example this wouldn't save a city, but it would save your howitzer while you pack it up to move to another location. It would save mi6 building from a lone isis attack, but not from 600 tanks. This thing is not designed to save you from a full scale attack from Russia, Uk, France, Italy, Norway, Finland etc. Fantastic bit of kit for a lot of scenarios. This bit of kit would be better for Russia, they operate under "Umbrellas" and they move forward out of them to promote a ukraine attack, this gives up the ukraine positions, they retreat and bombard the ukraine position. This bit of kit could protect the soldiers from the 3-4 shells they might face before pulling back to their bigger, better umbrella.