Laser Guns And Alternatives To Them

Ukraine claims to be one of the first countries to have successfully developed a laser anti-aircraft weapon, according to a high-ranking military official.

The secretive device has reportedly been employed on the battlefield against low-flying targets, likely unmanned aerial vehicles like the Iranian-made Shahed drones. . . . The device is known as “Tryzub,” or trident in English, referencing the Ukrainian national symbol . . . . It is unclear to what extent the Ukrainian laser weapon may still be in an experimental phase. Although the military has claimed that it succeeded in shooting down enemy “aircraft,” it is entirely possible that there may be just a single system and its mobility may be limited.

Laser weapons can be rather bulky due to their need for power generation and cooling infrastructure. This is a big part of why many of the systems developed around the world are ship-based. However, experts said that a laser weapon system with the specifications that Ukraine reportedly has may be made to fit onto a truck bed.

Comparable weapons, such as the South Korean Skylight, which entered regular production last year and has a similar range of two to three kilometers, is housed in a container with a volume of 81 cubic meters and generates approximately 700°C heat during ten- to twenty-second impulses. It entered service in December 2024. . . . A month before South Korea’s laser weapon entered service, Japan revealed its own truck-based 10-kilowatt laser, which had been in development for more than four years.

Ukraine’s opponent, Russia, has also invested in laser technologies. In 2019, its Peresvet system was officially announced as having been deployed with five strategic missile divisions around the country. This weapon, however, is primarily meant to blind satellites in space rather than destroy drones much closer to Earth. Russia’s deputy prime minister in 2022 claimed that a new laser weapon, named Zadira, was deployed in Ukraine capable of destroying targets up to five kilometers away within five seconds, much more akin to the Tryzub that Ukraine now claims to have developed. The U.S. and Ukraine at the time said there was no indication such a system was actually in use by Russian forces.

Germany, Israel and the United States all also have near-operational, land-based laser weapons systems, while other countries like Turkey and Australia are also indigenously working on them.

There has been some speculation whether the Ukrainian laser might be a derivative of the British DragonFire system. Significant amounts of the British “lethal aid” for Ukraine remain classified “for both operational and commercial reasons,” as the defense ministry has stated. The U.K. government had teased its intention of sending its laser system to Ukraine in April 2024, before backtracking a month later and stating that it would not be included in the government’s 2024 aid package, UK Defence Journal reported. Leo Docherty, the British armed forces minister at the time, noted that the system was not yet ready, with the expected date for completion being 2027, a deadline that had been moved forward from 2033. Docherty’s statement left the door open for potentially sending the weapon to Ukraine once the development phase was complete. . . . 

“Laser directed-energy systems, in a military context, are predominantly at the proof of concept stage,” an industry insider, who asked to remain unnamed to discuss sensitive technologies, said. “These could, in theory, be fielded as an initial operating capability.” . . . Ukraine’s February defense expo showcasing domestic military developments, Defense Tech 2025, promised a special focus on lasers and anti-Shahed weapons in its promotional materials – descriptions that fit the Tryzub – alongside other cutting-edge technologies like swarming drones, lethal autonomous weapons and sea drones.

From Defense News. 

One of the biggest unknowns in the future of military technology and warfare is whether directed energy weapons like laser guns will become technological viable to use in actual military conflicts.

Laser weapons have lots of recommend them. 

The electricity necessary to take down one target with a laser is one to ten U.S. dollars. This is a tiny fraction of the cost of the ammunition that a Phalanx close in weapons system uses to destroy a single incoming missile or drone, which is, in turn, a fraction of the cost of a missile that can destroy an incoming missile or drone or low flying aircraft at short range. And, the batteries that provide that electricity can be recharged with generators in the field, reducing the logistics supply chain.

Rays of light travel a consistently straight path, unlike slug firing anti-air guns, and don't require expensive and complicated navigation systems like anti-air missiles.

A ray of light travels at the speed of light, 186,000 miles per second, which far exceeds the speed of any projectile or missile (the fastest hypersonic missiles in existence, in contrast, travel at up to about Mach 15 which is about 3 miles per second). 

But, the problem is that current state of the art military lasers need to continually hit the same point on a target for 10-20 seconds, and are only effective against targets whose explosive or fuel can be heated to the point of exploding, or can have their guidance systems or structure melted at 700º C. In theory, this could be greatly reduced simply by increasing the power of the laser, say, from 10 kW to 1000 kW, for example. But so far, for some reason, this hasn't been done.

Laser weapons are ineffective against purely kinetic energy weapons that take too much heat to melt quickly, such as a hypothetical tungsten metal rail gun needle.

Lasers weapons might ultimately be able to have a range of more than the 2000-3000 meters of the recently introduced South Korean laser weapon, but even with optimal engineering (to focus the beam to extreme levels) and power, no surface based laser weapon can strike beyond the line of sight, which is at most about 50 km on a clear day on flat terrain (like an ocean surface or plain), and much less to the extent that it is obstructed by mountains, hills, and forests. But line of sight for aircraft at normal cruising altitudes, can be considerably longer, because it isn't burdened to the same extent by the curvature of the Earth.

A variety of counter measures, like water vapor, smoke, or even highly reflective materials, would undermine the effectiveness of laser weapons.

With existing technology, laser guns are basically short range, primarily anti-air, active defense weapons that are useful, if they can get enough time on target to work, against income artillery rounds, small to medium drones, missiles, unguided rockets, and maybe even low flying helicopters and fixed wing aircraft, on a very cost effective basis.

If they work well, they are, essentially, a point defense system for a ship, a small military base, a small complex of buildings, or a small unit of ground forces, perhaps the size of a platoon or a company, in the field.

They might also be possible to use against lightly armored ground vehicles (tanker trucks are a particularly attractive target) and boats, or against critical components like radars or missile batteries on ships, multiple rocket launchers, or anti-aircraft weapons systems.

Realistically, laser guns wouldn't be able to get enough time on target in the near to medium term, even with major power improvements and realistic improvements in range, if used against tank rounds, bullets, or hypersonic missiles, against which some sort of Phalanx (a.k.a. C-RAM)/metal storm/Trophy kinetic interceptors, or anti-air missiles against hypersonic missiles, would be required.

But laser guns as active defenses could revolutionize active defenses for aircraft, potentially making it possible for them to shoot down income anti-aircraft missiles, rather than trying to dodge them with extreme maneuvers, or to thwart their guidance systems with electromagnetic jamming, decoys, or flares.

Laser guns on aircraft could also be used as one layer of active defenses for targets behind them, intercepting income drones and missiles, just as fighter aircraft from a variety of nations did when Iran launched a missile and drone attack on Israel not so long ago, using mostly air to air missiles (which are immensely expensive).

In that case, one of the key issues involved in deciding whether to use lasers or something else as an active defense system would be the weight of the laser gun and its power supply relative to the weight of some sort active defense interceptor like an anti-air to air missile missile, or just a Phalanx style anti-air slug thrower and its supply of ammunition. This in turn, would hinge largely on the energy density of the laser system's batteries or super-capacitors, something that research primarily driven by the race to develop better electric vehicle batteries has been improving rapidly.

Ship based active defense lasers, which have already entered service in the U.S. Navy on an experimental basis, might not change the number of incoming threats that are destroyed. The conflict between the U.S. Navy and the Houthis, Israel's Iron Dome, and the Ukraine War have all showed that active defenses against suicide drones, cruise missiles, and short to intermediate range ballistic missiles are remarkably effective already without lasers. 

But if lasers could be equally effective, this could matter a lot in the war of attrition. Now, each income target can cost the defender $5,000 to $4,000,000 (or more) to destroy, when some of the incoming drones cost $100-$1,000 each to make, incoming artillery rounds cost $500-$2000 each, and even advanced missiles that require the most expensive anti-air missiles to intercept cost $10,000 to $200,000 each. If those income threats can be destroyed for $1-1000 each, the cost of defending against large waves of these threats for sustained engagements can become sustainable in the long run.

Specifically, how much do interceptor missiles cost?

Large powerful laser guns mounted on ships or on land if powerful enough could also, in theory, intercept ICBMs and in the process greatly undermine the threat from nuclear missile attacks.

A handful of state of the art laser weapons are operational and have been deployed in small numbers, after achieving success in test runs against less than maximal threats. They may have even destroyed a small number of targets in real world military conflicts.

But so far, there isn't enough of a track record of success for military lasers in real world military conflict conditions or maximal threat tests to determine if these are really viable as active defenses, and if their overall effectiveness, cost, and size are competitive with other active defense systems.

Other Models For Military Laser Weapons

Far less ambitiously, and more realistically, less powerful lasers, and directed energy weapons that operate outside the visible light range, can be used to jam or fry guidance systems on drones and cruise missiles, and to dazzle and disrupt visual sensors on income threats and the eyes of manned aircraft pilots.

Finally, much lower powered lasers have been used for decades to guide missiles to their targets and improve the aim of soldiers with small arms, in each case, basically putting a little red dot (or infrared dot) on the intended point of impact.

A Moving Target

Needless to say, it isn't sufficient for military active defense lasers to merely reach parity with existing active defense technologies like anti-air missiles, because the alternative technologies are also being developed and improved rapidly.

For example, according to The War Zone:

BlueHalo has, for the first time, launched its Freedom Eagle-1 (FE-1) missile, being developed for the U.S. Army’s Next-Gen Counter-Uncrewed Aerial System (C-UAS) program. The new missile, intended to be relatively cheap to procure and able to be built rapidly in volume, is part of a new multi-pronged Army effort to better meet the proliferating drone threat head-on.

The successful live-fire demonstration of the FE-1 Controlled Test Vehicle (CTV) was only recently announced but took place from Jan. 16-18 this year, at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. It was conducted as part of the Next-Generation C-UAS Missile (NGCM) program, which aims to ramp up America’s munitions industrial base to meet rapidly evolving aerial threats, specifically drones. . . . 

The FE-1 launcher used for the Yuma tests was mounted on a flatbed trailer and was a simple cage-like construction, for a single missile, apparently intended only as a test rig. In the past, BlueHalo presented at least one concept for a four-round box-type launcher mounted on a pedestal atop a Stryker 8×8 wheeled armored fighting vehicle. . . .

Overall, it took BlueHalo 107 days to go from “paper design to first flight,” the company says. . . .

The FE-1 is specifically designed to counter larger drones, in Group 3 and above. The U.S. military defines Group 3 drones as weighing between 55 and 1,320 pounds, being able to fly at altitudes between 3,500 and 18,000 feet, and having top speeds of between 100 and 250 knots. 

To defeat threats such as these, the FE-1 is intended to have improved maneuverability, range, and rapid launch capabilities compared with current systems.

As well as drones, the FE-1 is intended to defeat various other “larger air threats,” and to be integrated with existing infrastructure and command and control (C2) systems.

NGCM is one of at least four U.S. Army counter-drone-related competitions that are now underway, and which also include efforts to field a handheld C-UAS system for soldiers in combat, as well as a counter-drone radar.

The idea, basically, is to build an anti-aircraft missile that is less powerful and have less range than one design to take out military helicopters and fighter jets, at a fraction of the cost, in order to deal with the war of attrition problem of being able to defeat inexpensive income threats only with very expensive missiles.

The cost of the FE-1, despite being marketed almost entirely based upon its claimed affordability, has apparently not yet been disclosed publicly. At $100,000 per missile, it is a big improvement over the 1981 vintage Stringer anti-aircraft missile, each of which costs almost $500,000, but it is hardly revolutionary. At $15,000 per missile, in contrast, it would be less expensive than any other air defense interceptor missile in existence, and even competitive with the Phalanx/C-RAM system which uses ammunition that costs half as much per target, but requires a heavy and expensive launching system and might be somewhat less effective at longer ranges.

But, a laser interceptor, like the Israel Iron Beam, which is scheduled to enter service late this year, to the extent that it is comparably effective to something like the FE-1 interceptor missile proposal, would cost just $3.50 per target, which would be vastly less expensive than any other way to respond to these threats, even if the laser itself and its power supply equipment is very expensive indeed. According to the link:

The system is designed to destroy short-range rockets, artillery, and mortar bombs, and is expected to be deployed in October 2025. It has a range of up to 10 km (6.2 mi), complementing the Iron Dome system which was designed to intercept missiles launched from a greater distance. In addition, the system could also intercept unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs; drones) at a cost of US$2-5 per interception. Iron Beam will constitute the fifth element of Israel's integrated missile defense system, in addition to Arrow 2, Arrow 3, David's Sling and Iron Dome. . . . 

Iron Beam uses a fiber laser to generate a laser beam to destroy an airborne target. Whether acting as a stand-alone system or with external cueing as part of an air-defense system, a threat is detected by a surveillance system and tracked by vehicle platforms in order to engage.

The problem for laser weapons is that air density disperses laser energy, with larger beams facing more atmospheric interference. Iron Beam's solution is to shoot hundreds of small, coin-sized beams at a target, which individually face less dispersion. When a beam is detected through a telescopic reflection to have hit the target, more beams are redirected to the spot to concentrate energy until it is destroyed.

In 2016, laser power levels were reported to be "tens of kilowatts". While official information is not available, a 2020 report said that Iron Beam was thought to have a maximum effective range of up to 7 km, and could destroy missiles, UAVs (drones), and mortar shells around four seconds after the twin high-energy fiber-optic lasers make contact with their target. In 2023, energy levels could reach 100 kW or more and the system could focus a beam to the diameter of a coin at a distance of 10 km (6.2 mi).

The main benefits of using a directed energy weapon over conventional missile interceptors are lower costs per shot, unlimited number of firings, lower operational costs, and less manpower. There is also no interceptor debris to fall on the area protected. . . . .

Disadvantages of energy weapons include the requirement for the beam to penetrate the atmosphere; clouds may prevent use. The beam must be held on the target, which may be spinning, for several seconds (the "dwell time") before enough energy is delivered to destroy it. This makes it difficult to stop a barrage of several missiles even if the system is effective, so that volley fire of interceptors continues to be required. There is also the possibility of rockets being sheathed in heat-resistant material to withstand an energy beam for longer. Energy weapons may be more effective against slower-flying drones, with relatively delicate rotors, control flaps, and guidance systems vulnerable to shorter laser attack, than fast rockets. This technology may also prove effective against paratroopers.

The cost of each interception is negligible, unlike expensive missile interceptors—a few dollars direct cost per shot, and around US $2,000 to cover all costs, against $100,000 to $150,000 per interceptor firing. However, setting up and deploying an energy weapon such as Iron Beam is costly; despite the low cost per firing, it may not be the most cost-efficient defense.

BlueHalo itself is hedging its bets (from the story about the FE-1 quoted above):

While Raytheon is well established in the field, BlueHalo is a relative upstart, but it is currently carving a niche as a specialist in innovative C-UAS solutions.

These also include directed-energy weapons, like the company’s LOCUST laser weapon system — which you can read more about here. Meanwhile, the BlueHalo SkyView system provides for autonomous detection and precision tracking of small drones, using radio-frequency (RF) technology. Titan, another RF-based C-UAS solution from the same company, can detect, track, and force drones to safely land without disrupting nearby communications or electronics.

However, its CEO's name, Jonathan Moneymaker, almost makes you wonder if this is all some big joke or counter-intelligence operation designed to bluff about U.S. military capabilities.

Simply put, some very diverse technological approaches to the emerging military problem of defending against massive waves of incoming cruise missiles and drones, are all racing forward and it is anybody's guess which of these will prove that it is the best solution (or which niches each approach will fill, if more than one approach proves viable) over the next two to ten years or so.

This outcome of this race will dramatically impact the character and large scale experience of warfare, possibly for decades or more.