U.S. Navy Shoots Down Target Drones with Laser “Death-Ray�

[Guest FroggyOne2]

U.S. Navy Shoots Down Target Drones with Laser “Death-Ray” « Daily Bulletin

U.S. Navy Shoots Down Target Drones with Laser “Death-Rayâ€

With modern benchrest guns capable of shooting “zero†groups in competition, one wonders what is next in the accuracy game. Perhaps laser rifles? Well, the U.S. Navy believes high-tech lasers may replace projectile weapons in the future — the very near future. In fact, the Navy has already successfully tested a deadly laser cannon.

U.S. Navy Blasts Drones Out of Sky with 32 Kilowatt Laser Cannon

The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), with support from Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC), successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed mock-threat Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) flying over the ocean. The Navy’s new “Death Rayâ€, actually a high-intensity (32 Kw) laser, was aimed using a beam director on a KINETO Tracking Mount, controlled by a MK 15 Close In Weapon System (CIWS).

According to Scientific American: “During the test, the Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) … engaged and destroyed four UAV targets flying over water near the Navy’s weapons and training facility on San Nicolas Island in California’s Santa Barbara Channel, about 120 kilometers west of Los Angeles. The Phalanx — a rapid-fire, computer-controlled, radar-guided gun system — used electro-optical tracking and radio frequency sensors to provide range data to the LaWS, which is made up of six solid-state lasers with an output of 32 kilowatts that simultaneously focus on a target.â€

According to Navy sources: “This marks the first detect-thru-engage laser shoot-down of a threat representative target in an over-the-water, combat representative scenario. Multiple UAV targets were engaged and destroyed in a maritime environment during the testing, the second series of successes for the U.S. Navy’s Laser Weapon System (LaWS) Program. This brings to a total of seven UAVs destroyed by the Surface Navy’s first tactical development for fielding a Directed Energy weapon system.â€

Watch the video below to see delta-winged UAV “splashed†by the Navy’s new “Death Rayâ€.

According to 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.†As lasers and other directed-energy systems are perfected, the Navy expects to improve the speed of its responses to aerial threats, while reducing weapons costs: “Laser weapons that provide for speed-of-light engagements at tactically significant ranges [can achieve] cost savings by minimizing the use of defensive missiles and projectiles.â€

CLICK HERE for Related Scientific American Story.

[kb4ns]

That's awesome!

[Garufa]

[Smith]

From the video it looks like you'd never see it coming.

[Retired Navy GMC]

TOO COOL!!! A CIWS with a high power laser. If that could be put on the Phalanx CIWS Block 1B (version that can be controlled with a joystick from inside the ship), that would be AWESOME!!!

Any high speed surface craft could be fried from just about any distance as long as there is line of sight on it and the camera could track it.

[Guest FroggyOne2]

Hey Gunners Mate, your thinking like I am!

[strickj]

Ok, they forked out how many millions of tax dollars for that laser canon....and they're too damn cheap to fork out 600 bucks for a new video camera?!

Someone should send that footage to the History Channel so they can digitally remaster it like they did with the WW2 films!

[Guest mustangdave]

BOO-YAH! Laser Naval Rifles...bring back the Iowa Class war wagons.

[Chief07]

WOW! R2D2 with a laser.

I got to see it in person.

[StPatrick]

In spite of this success, this program will be cancelled in 3...2...1...

RIP Airborne Laser. You were awesome while you lasted. THAAD, sleep with one eye open.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

It is a great accomplishment.

The black scope to the left in the picture is a Celestron C11, made in China unless it is an old one they had laying around.

If it goes into production, will the solid state laser modules be outsourced to Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, or China?

[McAllyn]

You know, that has an eeire resemblance to the original RoboCop. Switch out the cameras on the outside for miniguns, and we could have a problem.

Mac