Military

Navy ray gun shoots down robotic targets

This US Navy Laser Weapon System shot down two UAVs on May 24th
This US Navy Laser Weapon System shot down two UAVs on May 24th

If you own an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), here's piece of advice: don't fly it near San Nicholas Island, California, or it could be blasted out of the sky – by a laser. Two such vehicles were successfully shot down there on May 24th by a US Navy laser weapon. According to the official press release, this marks "the first detect-thru-engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario."

Members of the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) utilized a laser shot through a beam director on a KINETO tracking mount, controlled by a MK 15 Phalanx Close In Weapon System (CIWS). The Navy's Laser Weapon System (LaWS) has already shot down UAVs in other scenarios, bringing the total number of downed flying robots to seven.

"The success of this effort validates the military utility of DE&EWS (Directed Energy and Electric Weapon Systems) in a maritime environment," said program manager Capt. David Kiel. "Further development and integration of increasingly more powerful lasers into Surface Navy LaWS will increase both the engagement range and target sets that can be successfully engaged and destroyed."

The US Navy is interested in laser weapons because of their speed-of-light engagement time, and the cost savings realized by minimizing the use of missiles.

Laser weapons are also becoming a reality in the air. In testing earlier this year, a modified Boeing 747 equipped with an airborne laser (ABL) shot down a ballistic missile off the central California coast.

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10 comments
Matt Burton
What happens if it miss\'s ?
Paulo Ribeiro
Flying robots being blown up by giant lasers... It\'s so beautiful, I think I may cry!
Smokey_Bear
one word: Awesome.
alcalde
Thanks for the warning. Now I know to make my UAV prototypes mirror-coated. Of course, if they\'re stealthy enough and equipped with optical camoflage, I don\'t have to worry about them being targeted... plus this won\'t protect the navy from UUVs, so my plans for world domination are still on track....
Craig Jennings
World domination Alcalde? Not sure if a mirror coating is going to go well with your stealth UAV\'s... big lasers tend to burn up mirrors, it\'s actually how some are \"pumped\". And reflecting things is how radar works ;) But good luck, we could do with a good dictator, democracy doesn\'t work.
Chris7527
The laser uses mirrors for amplification so you can use the same thing on the surfave of a UAV and it will just reflect the laser. or some shiny polished metal might do also.
Will, the tink
Craig Jennings... you said \"democracy doesn\'t work\"? I and our forefathers agree with you! Thats why they set up the United States of America as a Republic!!! Now, if we can just keep all those stupid politicians from continually tweaking it!!!
aviatrix
I remember seeing this technology 15 years ago. The photo even looks like the one I saw back then.
PeetEngineer
Sadly the airborne laser was cancelled, but these weapons are the future - zero intercept time, zero collatoral damage and pintpoint accuracy. Wonder what happens when they\'re used in the rain though?
Roni Eskola
To the people commenting about mirrors, it\'s not really that easy :) The mirrors used in labs to reflect mirrors are very carefully designed to be able to reflect as much as possible of the single frequency the laser operates on. Polished metal as well as common household mirror would have too many imperfections, and not reflect enough that it would very soon vaporize.
And let\'s say you design it with a specific \"supermirror\" against a single frequency from a laser. What happens if they are actually decided to use another laser with another frequency?
In short and simple. Mirrors don\'t work against lasers that well :)