The advent of drone technology is transforming warfare, similar to what happened after the spread and development of gunpowder technology in the 14th and 15th centuries. We must adapt. Reliance on missiles that cost a million dollars each to defend against thousand-dollar drones doesn’t make sense economically. We need something less costly, hence the interest in directed energy weapons. Captain Mark McDonagh, USN/Ret., shared his extensive knowledge of the subject during the panel “Directed Energy Weapons, Fact vs Fiction, History & Potential—NSDM Lecture” on Thursday at 7PM in Westin Augusta C-D.
McDonagh has some serious creds. He’s a physicist who spent 12 years at the Naval War College, and he has been running the National Security Decision Making Game since 1990. He started with an overview of the weapons currently being researched. There is, of course, an inevitable acronym for each one.
First on the list was LaWS, the USN Laser Weapons System. To be used realistically, this system requires about 100 kilowatts of power. It’s currently at about 60 kW. More power is difficult to produce onboard a ship.
The second system he discussed was HELIOS, the High Energy Laser with Optical-dazzler and Surveillance. The dazzler can interfere or disable a drone’s optical system. It uses 60 kW of power with the ability to scale up to 120–150 kW. Unfortunately, it can be overwhelmed by a drone swarm. It takes several seconds to destroy drones, and there’s still the problem of generating enough power to supply it.
The third system McDonagh listed was ODIN, the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, officially known as AN/SEQ-4. Its function is to blind and disable optical sensors. It has the advantage of using low-powered infrared lasers, but it cannot destroy its target.
Last on the list was the Laser Dome, aka Iron Beam, which is part of Israel’s Iron Dome system. It uses 100 kW, so it is ground-based and not easily mobile. Its big advantage is its cost per shot—a steal at a mere three dollars or so.
Some brain-melting technical details followed, beginning with a comparison of continuous wave lasers versus pulsed lasers, the latter of which can produce a machine-gun-like effect. Other types of lasers—solid-state, gas, free electron, liquid, and chemical—were also briefly explained. Chemical lasers were the type researched at a cost of five billion dollars under President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Unfortunately, this system was decommissioned as non-viable. Liquid lasers, like the one in McDonagh’s pointer, are compact and low power but not useful as weapons.
Russia is also working on laser weapons and has developed a commercial variety that is supposedly intended for “security” purposes. China must be developing high energy weapons as well, but if so, the details aren’t publicly available.
Lasers are limited not only by the power required but also by the weather. Clouds, aerosols, refraction, and line-of-sight all have an effect. The power issue seems to be the biggest problem for now. As an interesting aside, McDonagh said it would take the amount of power you’d get from a star to blow up a planet. At least we don’t have to worry about someone developing a Death Star any time soon.
