The US Army will neither confirm nor deny that its lasers have shot down a drone for the first time, but carefully worded statements from officials suggest as much.
The US Army successfully used laser weapons in combat for the first time, something no one had ever succeeded in doing before.
This is stated in the Forbes article.
Lasers were tested successfully in laboratories and at training events at training grounds. They've been destroying targets since the 1970s.
In early May 2024, US Army acquisition chief Doug Bush told Forbes that the US military managed to shoot down a drone using a laser in combat conditions. However, Pentagon officials have not publicly commented on this.
The author of the publication spoke with Jonathan Moneymaker, CEO of BlueHalo, manufacturer of the LOCUST military laser, which was used in November 2022. He admitted that military personnel who used the laser “expressed personal gratitude for the protection it provides.”
“The Pentagon wanted to turn the laser into a weapon as soon as the technology was invented. The laser seemed to be exactly what the military needed. In 1962, only two years after the first laboratory demonstration of the laser, the Pentagon project Defender already had the goal of shooting down Soviet missiles,” the material says.
The Defender's successor later shot down a target drone at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico, but the technology was never turned into a practical weapon. After that, the successful operation of combat lasers was demonstrated more than once within the framework of various projects, but the device was never able to be used in real conditions.
The US military has approximately 31 different combat laser programs. Some are now actually on combat duty to protect American troops and ships from small drones used by Yemen's Houthis and insurgents in Iraq. Some of them are already known to have received bad reviews.
For use in combat conditions, the rated power of a laser is not as important as the ability to correctly focus its beams on the target.
“What sets LOCUST apart from other lasers is that we have first-class focusing, aiming and beam control,” explained Moneymaker.
According to him, high power is only an attempt to compensate for poor focusing accuracy.
Experts consider lasers, with their endless ammunition capacity and low cost per shot, to be the ideal countermeasures to cheap but deadly UAVs.
“With drones swarming on the horizon—Ukraine alone plans to build two million drones this year—tactical lasers are likely to become increasingly important to the survival of ground forces. It's good to know they're finally here work,” the material says.
Recall that the Pentagon stated that thanks to US assistance, the Armed Forces of Ukraine can continue to hold the line of defense. It also became known about a new American aid package worth $225 million.
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