Direct energy weapons such as lasers and high powered microwaves may soon be used to defend against drones and rockets on the battlefield. These futuristic sounding weapons are part of a new wave of devices produced from billions of dollars in research and development from the Defense Department. But how close is the U.S. military to using these weapons in the field?

The Israel-Hamas conflict has shed new light on the need to defend against threats that range from small rockets to ballistic missiles. Israel has invested in the Iron Beam system, which produces a high-energy laser, to complement the Iron Dome batteries used to launch interceptors to take out incoming rockets.

"Interceptors are just surface-to-air missiles that shoot down incoming weapons. And there's obviously a limited number of them in the launcher at any given time, and they cost money and they're expendable," said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. "A laser, on the other hand, gives you essentially an infinite magazine of interception opportunities, because the laser — as long as you've got electricity — will continue to recharge, continue to shoot down incoming weapons.

"Many of these direct energy systems are now starting to be used more extensively in the field. The DE M-SHORAD, or Direct Energy Maneuver Short Range Air Defense system, was tested by the U.S. Army in 2023 at the Yuma proving grounds. The Navy has the HELIOS, or High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance, installed on the U.S.S. Preble, a Arleigh Burke-class destroyer."

We're at an inflection point right now, when it comes to the use of these directed-energy, laser weapons," said Masao Dahlgren, a fellow with the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Various services in the U.S. military are prototyping these systems, bending metal, putting things out there and experimenting with them."

Watch the video to find out what the future of laser weapons holds.

Chapters:
1:52 - How lasers work
4:09 - The Iron Beam
6:00 - Military lasers
7:30 - What’s next?

Producer Brad Howard
Supervising Producer Jeff Morganteen
Animations: Jason Reginato, Christina Locopo
Additional footage, U.S. Department of Defense, Getty Images, Reuters

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Why The Pentagon Is Spending Billions To Bring Laser Weapons To The Battlefield

The Defense Department has spent over a billion dollars annually to develop direct energy weapons, lasers and microwave weapons, in other words.

We're focusing on missions that can't really be handled very well with traditional weapons systems.

In July 2023, the US Army awarded a contract worth $221 million to Lockheed Martin to develop a high-energy laser system designed to defend against aerial threats.

Lasers have been used by the military since the Cold War.

Most lasers have been used for targeting or illumination.

Illumination can be used with some sensors such as night vision to point out enemy locations.

Laser designation creates a laser reflection on a point that a bomb or missile can hone in on.

But now lasers can take out rockets and drones.

By focusing kilowatts of power on a precise point, lasers can overheat, redirect, destroy and damage targets causing them to be ineffective.

Recent advances in drone and cruise missile technology have made the ability to cheaply intercept these small targets more important.

The people I talk to, they say, you know, we're in a good place right now for directed energy.

Air Force is testing it with with Thor, for example.

In fiscal 2023, they requested 670 ish million for unclassified research and testing, and then about $345 million for unclassified procurement.

Fiber lasers, which are kind of the state of the art for air defense lasers right now, which is essentially the same kind of laser you might use for a welding system or a cutting system that's used industrially.

Russia and China are working on their own laser weapons and Russia claims to have used theirs against Ukrainian drones.

With missiles rockets and drones taking over modern warfare the military laser may leave the pages of science fiction and play a big role on the battlefield of the future.

There are many different kinds of lasers.

Laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation.

In the past, the US military has experimented with chemical lasers.

These require large volumes of dangerous chemicals to create the reactions needed to output a powerful laser.

The US Air Force tested the airborne laser in the 90s and early 2000s, which was a modified 747 to shoot down missiles as they launched.

The program cost around $5 billion over 16 years before it was canceled.

Solid state lasers, although complex, have fewer moving parts and do not need large quantities of chemicals to generate power.

Directed energy weapons like Iron Beam come in 2 forms typically.

That's high power microwave, HPM, and high energy laser, HEL.

HEL basically just focuses a beam or beams of energy to cut, melt, inflict heat damage on whatever target you want.

But because it takes time to inflict that damage, it does have some issues with, you know, you have to stay on target, you have to maintain that.

But it doesn't need a manual reload like a rifle or a tank.

And that's referred to as unlimited magazine death.

They also have legal hurdles to contend with.

You know, under current interpretations of international law, laser weapons are generally not considered usable against people.

But using them as an anti-personnel weapon is considered to be illegal.

Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force are all testing, fielding or researching new ways to use lasers.

We're going to start with 100 kilowatt class lasers and then scale the powers, the beam powers up, and the beam directors and everything else you need to get those beams on target up over time to first handle these kinds of drone missions and then move into cruise missile threats and then finally into strategic missile threats.

So you might think ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons and the like.

The Air Force has considered lasers for fighters.

The Army, as part of short range air defense.

The Navy has a way to take on drones and small boats, among other Defense Department needs.

And as these high powered lasers move from testing to operations, the Defense Department will likely find more uses for these high-tech tools.

During the last 2 decades, Israel has developed a system to intercept small and mid-range rockets launched by armed groups such as Hamas.

Designed really to focus on relatively short range missiles, mortars and unmanned vehicles at ranges up to about 20 or 30 kilometers.

The Iron Dome system designed and built by Rafale Advanced Defense systems and Israel Aerospace Industries and working with the help of Raytheon in the U.S.

In the case of some missile production launches a missile that intercepts rockets in midair.

It's also effective because it's able to use initially just algorithms and now AI enabled algorithms to figure out and predict where the incoming threats are likely to land and determine whether they are constitute something that needs to shoot down or not.

So if an incoming missile, for example, or a rocket is gonna hit an uninhabited area, Iron Dome will ignore it and focus its attention on those threats that are likely to hit a populated area or a target it's trying to protect.

The system must detect and launch in a matter of seconds to successfully intercept a target.

The cost of each interceptor is enormous compared to the cost of the rocket it intercepts, which is 1 reason Israel has pushed for the Iron Beam system.

Each shot by the iron beam cost only dollars, but the system is still in development.

The iron beam also uses a novel method in which multiple laser beams are used in unison to increase power on target.

However, the laser can be hindered by weather, and it has a relatively short range, which means that it works better alongside the Iron Dome as a complete system rather than by itself.

The cost of the system is only 2 dollars per interception compared with the Iron Dome which costs around 50000 dollars per interceptor.

Now the iron beam system is not operational yet so it's expected to be operational later this year or early next year.

So it's not yet being used in the Israel-Hamas conflict right now.

But it's expected to be or planned to be 100 kilowatt laser, which is about the minimum size you need in order to be able to shoot down a rocket or a missile.

The US military has fielded close in weapon systems to target rockets and mortar rounds for years.

C-RAM, or Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar, which is a land-based version of a sea-oriented system used by the Navy, was utilized in Iraq and Afghanistan to take down small threats to U.S.

But the cost of thousands of rounds of 20 millimeter ammunition can add up quickly, which is 1 reason the U.S.

Army has looked into lasers for short range air defense.

The Navy has started fielding a system called Helios, which stands for high energy laser with integrated optical dazzler and surveillance.

And it costs around 100 million for the initial production and testing and integration of the first devices.

Navy destroyers will carry Helios, and that's probably about the most they can power on a continuous basis and cool on a continuous basis.

The Flight 3 destroyers that are being built now have more spare power capacity.

And so the idea would be they're going to be supporting up 150 to 300 kilowatt laser within their own power capacity and cooling capacity.

The Air Force is looking at a mobile laser called H-4.

The early prototypes cost around $13 million each, but the big savings, like with Iron Beam, is in the cost per intercept, which is quite low compared to bullets or missiles.

And the Army is using lasers for its short-range air defense mission.

The DEM SHORAD, or Direct Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense Vehicle, can use a laser system to take out drones.

And these weapons performed a live fire exercise earlier this year at the Yuma testing grounds.

Which is to say that laser weapons aren't around the corner, they're already here.

Like any new system, the more you use it, the more you learn about what it can and can't do on the battlefield.

And getting high energy lasers into the real world of military operations is the first step towards figuring out how best to use them.

You know, when we're talking about these ground applications, I could speculate all day about, you know, what they could be useful for, what they might not be useful for.

But the thing that's missing is campaigning.

Getting them in, you know, getting them onto an aircraft and testing them out in these missions.

And then once you're testing them out and you're figuring out whether they work, whether you can do maintenance on this laser beam director window in the field, when you can figure those things out, then you can transition them into a full-on program.

High-powered microwaves are another type of direct energy weapon that could be useful in future fights.

And a lot of the counter drone systems you see use a high power microwave.

To disrupt or damage the electronics on a drone.

So high power microwave can be very effective.

So you can do that in milliseconds, you can disrupt the electronics and force a drone, for example, to reboot and it causes it to lose its mission and has to turn off or something.

So you're seeing, you know, high power microwaves making its way into air defense missions, but there's this concern about fratricide and the beam width.

And that's something that they'll have to engineer out.

But I think it's worth noting that that's another that's an alternative form of directive energy.

How industry responds to the current geopolitical climate could shape how the military allocates future budgetary resources.

And making lasers a priority means that they will have more support from users and producers.

I was at a defense conference here in D.C.

And Admiral Pacalino, the Indo-Pacon boss, was on stage and was asked about, you know, directed energy and its future applications.

He wants to see how he can test them, apply them to the Indo-Pacific, which is obviously the Biden administration's big overarching goal, you know, current events aside.

And I think industry has taken that and is listening.

I think it'll be interesting to watch how directed energy is applied in The Indo-Pacific, especially because you come across issues of distance and weather when


Speaker 0: The U.S. Is in an almost invisible arms race. The Defense Department has spent over a billion dollars annually to develop direct energy weapons, lasers and microwave weapons, in other words.

Speaker 1: We're focusing on missions that can't really be handled very well with traditional weapons systems.

Speaker 0: In July 2023, the US Army awarded a contract worth $221 million to Lockheed Martin to develop a high-energy laser system designed to defend against aerial threats. Lasers have been used by the military since the Cold War. Most lasers have been used for targeting or illumination. Illumination can be used with some sensors such as night vision to point out enemy locations. Laser designation creates a laser reflection on a point that a bomb or missile can hone in on.

But now lasers can take out rockets and drones. By focusing kilowatts of power on a precise point, lasers can overheat, redirect, destroy and damage targets causing them to be ineffective. Recent advances in drone and cruise missile technology have made the ability to cheaply intercept these small targets more important.

Speaker 2: The people I talk to, they say, you know, we're in a good place right now for directed energy. It's out there on ships. The Army's testing it. Air Force is testing it with with Thor, for example. But there's still a ways to go.

In fiscal 2023, they requested 670 ish million for unclassified research and testing, and then about $345 million for unclassified procurement.

Speaker 3: Fiber lasers, which are kind of the state of the art for air defense lasers right now, which is essentially the same kind of laser you might use for a welding system or a cutting system that's used industrially.

Speaker 0: Russia and China are working on their own laser weapons and Russia claims to have used theirs against Ukrainian drones. With missiles rockets and drones taking over modern warfare the military laser may leave the pages of science fiction and play a big role on the battlefield of the future. There are many different kinds of lasers. Laser is an acronym for light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation. In the past, the US military has experimented with chemical lasers.

These require large volumes of dangerous chemicals to create the reactions needed to output a powerful laser. The US Air Force tested the airborne laser in the 90s and early 2000s, which was a modified 747 to shoot down missiles as they launched. The program cost around $5 billion over 16 years before it was canceled. Solid state lasers, although complex, have fewer moving parts and do not need large quantities of chemicals to generate power.

Speaker 2: Directed energy weapons like Iron Beam come in 2 forms typically. That's high power microwave, HPM, and high energy laser, HEL. HEL basically just focuses a beam or beams of energy to cut, melt, inflict heat damage on whatever target you want. But because it takes time to inflict that damage, it does have some issues with, you know, you have to stay on target, you have to maintain that. But it doesn't need a manual reload like a rifle or a tank.

You can just rely on power. And that's referred to as unlimited magazine death.

Speaker 0: They also have legal hurdles to contend with.

Speaker 3: You know, under current interpretations of international law, laser weapons are generally not considered usable against people. So directly against people. So you can use them against a platform. You can use them against weapons. But using them as an anti-personnel weapon is considered to be illegal.

Speaker 0: The U.S. Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force are all testing, fielding or researching new ways to use lasers.

Speaker 1: We're going to start with 100 kilowatt class lasers and then scale the powers, the beam powers up, and the beam directors and everything else you need to get those beams on target up over time to first handle these kinds of drone missions and then move into cruise missile threats and then finally into strategic missile threats. So you might think ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons and the like.

Speaker 0: The Air Force has considered lasers for fighters. The Army, as part of short range air defense. The Navy has a way to take on drones and small boats, among other Defense Department needs. And as these high powered lasers move from testing to operations, the Defense Department will likely find more uses for these high-tech tools. During the last 2 decades, Israel has developed a system to intercept small and mid-range rockets launched by armed groups such as Hamas.

Speaker 3: Designed really to focus on relatively short range missiles, mortars and unmanned vehicles at ranges up to about 20 or 30 kilometers.

Speaker 0: The Iron Dome system designed and built by Rafale Advanced Defense systems and Israel Aerospace Industries and working with the help of Raytheon in the U.S. In the case of some missile production launches a missile that intercepts rockets in midair.

Speaker 3: It's also effective because it's able to use initially just algorithms and now AI enabled algorithms to figure out and predict where the incoming threats are likely to land and determine whether they are constitute something that needs to shoot down or not. So if an incoming missile, for example, or a rocket is gonna hit an uninhabited area, Iron Dome will ignore it and focus its attention on those threats that are likely to hit a populated area or a target it's trying to protect.

Speaker 0: The system must detect and launch in a matter of seconds to successfully intercept a target. The cost of each interceptor is enormous compared to the cost of the rocket it intercepts, which is 1 reason Israel has pushed for the Iron Beam system. Each shot by the iron beam cost only dollars, but the system is still in development. The iron beam also uses a novel method in which multiple laser beams are used in unison to increase power on target. However, the laser can be hindered by weather, and it has a relatively short range, which means that it works better alongside the Iron Dome as a complete system rather than by itself.

The cost of the system is only 2 dollars per interception compared with the Iron Dome which costs around 50000 dollars per interceptor.

Speaker 3: Now the iron beam system is not operational yet so it's expected to be operational later this year or early next year. So it's not yet being used in the Israel-Hamas conflict right now. But it's expected to be or planned to be 100 kilowatt laser, which is about the minimum size you need in order to be able to shoot down a rocket or a missile.

Speaker 0: The US military has fielded close in weapon systems to target rockets and mortar rounds for years. C-RAM, or Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar, which is a land-based version of a sea-oriented system used by the Navy, was utilized in Iraq and Afghanistan to take down small threats to U.S. Troops. But the cost of thousands of rounds of 20 millimeter ammunition can add up quickly, which is 1 reason the U.S. Army has looked into lasers for short range air defense.

The Navy has started fielding a system called Helios, which stands for high energy laser with integrated optical dazzler and surveillance. And it costs around 100 million for the initial production and testing and integration of the first devices.

Speaker 3: The current generation of U.S. Navy destroyers will carry Helios, and that's probably about the most they can power on a continuous basis and cool on a continuous basis. The Flight 3 destroyers that are being built now have more spare power capacity. And so the idea would be they're going to be supporting up 150 to 300 kilowatt laser within their own power capacity and cooling capacity.

Speaker 0: The Air Force is looking at a mobile laser called H-4. The early prototypes cost around $13 million each, but the big savings, like with Iron Beam, is in the cost per intercept, which is quite low compared to bullets or missiles. And the Army is using lasers for its short-range air defense mission. The DEM SHORAD, or Direct Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense Vehicle, can use a laser system to take out drones. And these weapons performed a live fire exercise earlier this year at the Yuma testing grounds.

Which is to say that laser weapons aren't around the corner, they're already here. Like any new system, the more you use it, the more you learn about what it can and can't do on the battlefield. And getting high energy lasers into the real world of military operations is the first step towards figuring out how best to use them.

Speaker 1: You know, when we're talking about these ground applications, I could speculate all day about, you know, what they could be useful for, what they might not be useful for. But the thing that's missing is campaigning. Getting them in, you know, getting them onto an aircraft and testing them out in these missions. And then once you're testing them out and you're figuring out whether they work, whether you can do maintenance on this laser beam director window in the field, when you can figure those things out, then you can transition them into a full-on program.

Speaker 0: High-powered microwaves are another type of direct energy weapon that could be useful in future fights.

Speaker 3: And a lot of the counter drone systems you see use a high power microwave. So drones, zappers, etc. To disrupt or damage the electronics on a drone. So high power microwave can be very effective. And it requires less time on target.

So you can do that in milliseconds, you can disrupt the electronics and force a drone, for example, to reboot and it causes it to lose its mission and has to turn off or something. So you're seeing, you know, high power microwaves making its way into air defense missions, but there's this concern about fratricide and the beam width. And that's something that they'll have to engineer out. But I think it's worth noting that that's another that's an alternative form of directive energy.

Speaker 0: How industry responds to the current geopolitical climate could shape how the military allocates future budgetary resources. And making lasers a priority means that they will have more support from users and producers.

Speaker 2: I was at a defense conference here in D.C. And Admiral Pacalino, the Indo-Pacon boss, was on stage and was asked about, you know, directed energy and its future applications. And he, word for word, said, bring it. He wants to see what's out there. He wants to see how he can test them, apply them to the Indo-Pacific, which is obviously the Biden administration's big overarching goal, you know, current events aside.

And I think industry has taken that and is listening. I think it'll be interesting to watch how directed energy is applied in The Indo-Pacific, especially because you come across issues of distance and weather when

Speaker 1: you

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Why The Pentagon Is Spending Billions To Bring Laser Weapons To The Battlefield