Energy weapons: the next gunpowder?

• Author: Parsons, Dan
• Position: Inside Science + Technology

* Lasers powerful enough for use in war were once a fantastical weapons technology reserved for the sinister and unrealistically complex plots of James Bond villains.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

In reality, the U.S. military has been investigating and investing in solid-state lasers and other directed energy weapons for half a century. All that work has finally paid off, as the Navy is set to deploy the first laser small enough to fit on a ship and powerful enough to destroy an aircraft.

Navy officials see lasers and other directed energy weapons, like the forthcoming magnetic rail gun, as the next in a long line of technologies that have fundamentally changed the way wars are fought.

In the span of an hour-long panel at the Navy League's Sea-Air-Space exposition at National Harbor, Md., the introduction of energy weapons was compared to that of guided missiles, aircraft carriers and GPS. In a statement from the Navy, one official took the comparisons a step further, suggesting energy weapons will have the same impact "as gunpowder did in the era of knives and swords."

"I think that directed energy weapons are going to change the way we think about projecting naval power," said Rear Adm. William E. Leigher, director of warfare integration for information dominance.

Maj. Gen. Robert Walsh, deputy commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command, said he was excited about the implications of technologies like the rail gun for the future of expeditionary warfare.

"Look back at the tank, the aircraft carrier, precision munitions or GPS-guided weapons. Is this the next capability out there?" he asked.

The Navy's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget requests $40.4 million for research and development of directed energy technologies.

Navy leaders announced plans in April to deploy a solid-state laser aboard the USS Ponce in 2014, two years ahead of schedule.

The Ponce is the Navy's first afloat forward staging base, anchored in the Persian Gulf to support special operations, mine sweeping and humanitarian relief missions in the region.

The Office of Naval Research and Naval Sea Systems Command recently demonstrated that the laser weapons system, or LaWS, could target, shoot and destroy an unmanned aerial vehicle from the deck of a moving ship.

"Our directed energy initiatives, and specifically the solid-state laser, are among our highest priority science and technology programs. The solid-state laser program is central to our commitment to...