Laser weapon

Rafael has successfully tested its Iron Beam laser weapon in various scenarios against steep-track threats, including UAVs, mortars, rockets, and anti-tank missiles. The weapon is set to complement Israel's famous Iron Dome aerial defense system

The US Navy has shot down its first drone representing a subsonic cruise missile using an all-electric high-energy laser. At White Sands, the Lockheed Martin Layered Laser Defense (LLD) weapon disabled the engine on a drone, which parachuted to earth.

Rheinmetall has unveiled its portable Skyranger 30 HEL air defense system that boasts a combination of a 30 mm automatic cannon, Short Range Air Defense missiles, and a high-energy laser to protect mobile units.

General Atomics and Boeing have won a US Army contract to prototype their most powerful distributed-gain laser weapon to date: a groundbreaking 300-kW, solid-state, target-tracking beast that could fry enemy missiles and aircraft out of the air.

The British Ministry of Defence has given three four-year contracts worth £72.5 million to consortia led by Thales and Raytheon UK to develop laser and radio frequency demonstrator weapons to be mounted on Royal Navy ships and British Army vehicles.

The US Army has fielded its first combat-capable laser weapon prototype. Developed in only 24 months, the solid-state DE M-SHORAD laser was mounted on a Stryker combat vehicle and participated as an Army maneuver element for the first time.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense has successfully field tested an airborne High-Power Laser Weapon System. The solid-state laser weapon intercepted a number of drones at different altitudes and ranges at a testing field in the center of Israel.

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing have entered into a partnership to develop a scalable 100 kW to 250 kW-class High Energy Laser (HEL) weapon system for air and missile defenses.

The US Navy has successfully carried out a demonstration of a high-energy laser weapon installed in a warship. On May 16, the USS Portland disabled a UAV with its Solid-State Laser - Technology Maturation Laser Weapon System Demonstrator MK 2 MOD 0.

In the past couple of years, both bomb-carrying balloons and brush fire-causing flaming kites have been launched from Gaza into neighboring Israel. A new system uses lasers to shoot them down, and it could even be used to neutralize drones.

The US Navy has successfully installed its first Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) laser weapon aboard one of its warships. During dry-dock operations, the destroyer USS Dewey received the stand-alone laser system designed to blind drone sensors.

Lockheed Martin's Advanced Test High Energy Asset (ATHENA) laser weapon, which is being developed for the US Air Force, engaged and destroyed multiple drone threats in a recent field test at a US government test range at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.