

Energy weapons

Zap, crackle and pop

Military technology: Energy weapons are finally moving from the laboratory to the real world. But they are hardly the super-weapons of science fiction

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The Opportunist

Whatsoever their limitations, lasers are going to revolutionize conventional and unconventional war.

In conventional warfare, ships will no longer be "wasting assets" in naval-land engagements. ["The Pentagon's Wasting Assets." Foreign Affairs. 1 July 2009. Web. 30 Aug. 2012. .] China, and many other countries, have manufactured large anti-ship missile arsenals. Many in military have claimed that this exposes aircraft carriers and other naval ships to such a risk as to make, say, the straight of Taiwan and other areas around China, a no-go zone - viz. to risky to enter or deploy to. For this reason, the projection of power by naval force is allegedly losing its relevance.

Point-defense laser systems obviate this outcome. China's arsenal, instead, becomes the wasting asset as laser defense systems are increasingly deployed to counteract missile barrages on warships. Cheap lasers mounted on destroyers will be able to intercept incoming missiles, enabling the creation of perimeter from which drones, fighter jets, bombers, helicopters, and special forces can be deployed. Sure enough, an advanced naval group will have some depreciating assets as well - cruise missiles will start to become obsolete as developing nations exploit the same laser systems. Inadvertently, this may spur the development of scram-jet propelled missiles capable of speeding past laser defense systems.

On the unconventional side, swarms of small missile boats will no longer pose the same threat. The virtue of a laser defense system is that it can disable not only moving vessels carrying weapon platforms but also the projectiles fired from the weapon platforms. RPGs or other missiles fired from a small vessel will become susceptible to the heat of the laser point-defense system. Furthermore, the accuracy of lasers defense systems allows ships armed with them to engage targets at a considerable distance, precluding some ships from even entering close enough range to launch its salvo. Iran's much vaunted missile-equipped swarm ships will no longer pose as much of a threat. Equally, in asymmetric land engagements, mortar attacks and rpg attacks can be shot down at a distance before reaching their target.

Having heaped praise on the development of laser defense systems, I must admit their shortcomings. Sure enough, torpedoes fired from submarines will still remain a spectre to all naval fleets. And swarm tactics may overwhelm the capabilities of even the most advanced laser defense systems. Just as crucially, laser systems are still in early development and will take some time to be deployed.

Yet overall we are witnessing the development of a game changer, the strategic implications of which have largely gone unreported. Conservative general better start getting prepared.


But when are they going to get around to making sharks with laser beams attached to their heads!?


@ whippersnapper

'fricking sharks with fricking laser beams on their heads!'

although I have heard that the US has ordered a lot of sea bass recently...

and secondly:


Ok the US is screwed. China's cities are so well protected by pollution that lasers will be completely useless if invading a Chinese city.


Why no mention of the Active Denial System?

The Army actually deployed one to Iraq but decided not to use it lest the Iraqis believe the US was trying to kill them with a death ray. That was unfortunate, since the system effectively used microwaves at a non-lethal level to disburse crowds, perhaps had it been used, some of those who were likely subsequently shot at instead may have lived.


Continuing development of these conventional weapon platforms is all well and good, but in any serious armed conflict with another major power nuclear weapons will always remain the trump card.

The Chinese in particular with their anti-ship missiles need only to deliver a very small-yield nuclear device (10 kt would do) to right outside the very short range these lasers have (and will have) in order to disable any ship(s) we have in the area.

These weapons have far more value in protecting ships (and other things) in asymmetrical warfare, piracy, and against foes without nuclear weapons, which will necessarily limit both their deployment and ultimate power needs, regardless of the advancement of the technology.

I disagree that these platforms will ever become 'strategic' game-changers, just tactical and only then against enemies which we can already completely overwhelm with existing platforms.

shaun39 in reply to The Opportunist

Bang on the mark: laser weapons are indeed a game changer (or will become one in the next decade or so).

Your allusion to swarm threats is salient too. While China's anti-ship missiles might be somewhat less effective, twenty such missiles approaching together at a high mach speed would probably obliterate any aircraft carrier, with inadequate time to shoot down all threats.

Laser technology will shift the balance in naval warfare, but the weapon and strategy race will continue. It isn't at all clear that ships would regain a position of dominance.

The Opportunist in reply to terrestri

Nuclear weapons will always be a trump card.

Yet possession of nuclear weapons is seldom consistent with use of nuclear weapons in war. And tactical nuclear warheads are no exception - the use of which signifies readiness to enter full-scale nuclear warfare - a prospect that no nation has committed to entering.

Even if tactical nuclear weapons were deployed without a guarantee of mutually assured destruction, laser defense systems could still hold their own in many situations. Tactics will have to change, but fleet formations can spread out to mitigate the damage caused by nuclear weapons. Smaller frigates could anchor at the distant outskirts of a fleet, shooting down anti-ship missiles as they approach with laser point defense systems (some of the newer littoral combat ships would perform this task very well as many of their type give off a very small signature in radar return). As lasers become more efficient and powerful, there is scope for the deployment of laser defense systems on mid-sized bombers, further increasing their effectiveness (conceding that certain atmospheric conditions may interfere with their use).

Anti-ship missiles tend to move in a predictable fashion, skimming the sea en route to their target. By careful placement of laser defense systems, fleet defense can be maintained much better than it presently is.

The not quite crazy American

Aircraft are what lasers are going to make obsolete. Sooner or later someones going to create a vastly more efficient beam generation system of one kind or another. The day it deploys anything that shows above the horizon has a problem.


Can I haz gigawatt-class FEL please?

Paying for it? Dun worry. With that thing I can get the money.


Military spending is very generous and opaque in every country.
But THIS can only happen in the USA:
After spending US$ 5 billion in 15 years "the programme was ignominiously zapped in 2011 by the Pentagon, which couldn’t quite work out how it would be able to keep a big, slow-moving jumbo jet airborne around the clock, deep within enemy territory, while waiting for a missile to blast off nearby"
So obviously it was not the laser, but the logical error which ruined a project. But this must have been obvious 15years ago, too. So why did they spend 15years and 5billions to develop the laser?


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