Navy Helios Laser onboard USS Prele Zaps Drone in the latest test

The fleet has revealed that Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer USS Preble Test fired its high-energy laser with integrated optical dazzler and monitoring (Helios) System to take an air target drone out in the financial year 2024. It was the latest major demonstration of the Surface Fleet’s ship’s laser ambitions, even as other US military laser efforts have been subjected to a reality check in recent years.

Preble’s Drone Zapping was “to verify and validate the functionality, performance and capacity” of Helios, and this latest step towards moving ship lasers in a fully operational state was revealed in the Pentagon’s annual Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (DODE) Report It was released Friday night.

SOMETHING Other was revealed in the DODE report on where and when PrebleA flight IIA Arleigh Burke Subvariant fired his laser. The warship changed home ports From San Diego to Japan in September, just days before the end of FY24. Twz has reached the marine for more information about the test and where Helios is currently standing and this report will be updated when this information comes in.

Either way, it’s a capacity that navy blue brass has been increasingly clumsy forEspecially in the past year, as navy warships shoot a daily block of drones and missiles fired by Iran-backed Houthi rebels across the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. These matches and other global flashpoints have raised continued concern that the Navy is draining its final missile stocks as the pace threat of China is witnessed on the horizon. Twz Has reported several aspects of the Navy’s fight against the Houthis, including a link with ordnance used under more than 400 engagements against Houthi Arsenal of Air Droning, Anti-Ship Cross Missiles and Ballistic Missiles.

“When I was in Bahrain who (The Destroyer Squadron 50 Commander) 10 years ago, the floating staging base USS Ponce Had a laser on it“Naval Surface Forces Commander Vice Adm. Brendan McLane told journalists in early 2024 before the Surface Navy Association conference. “We are 10 years by the road, and we still don’t have anything we can field?”

In fact, the 60 kilowatt Helios and others have long promised corrected energy weapons have long arrived at the surface fleet. Seam Twz Previously reported it was first seen on board Preble By 2022. The debut precedes the Houthi match, but is the type of system that seems to be founded to help, at least to a limited extent, light missile expenses during similar operations.

Twz‘s previous reporting on Helios points out why it would be so useful to take drone attacks and disable or destroy small boats. Both manned and unmanned with dishonest intention.

It can also serve as a “dazzler” to blind or confuse optical searching on incoming missiles and drones. Dazzler can limit an opponent’s general situation consciousness by denying their sensors the ability to monitor the ship. Helios Sports also his own optical sensors that can earn a secondary intelligence, monitoring and reconnaissance (ISR) role.

On PrebleHelios sits on the warship’s most important tip Piedestal, which hosted the MK 15 Phalanx Close-in Weapons System (CIWS) on earlier Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer -Variants. Flight IIA Dealers currently have only one CIWS installed over Hangar Bay. Outside the handful of destroyers changed to the ‘Rota configuration’ containing Searam and Phalanx, Flight in Arleigh Burkes Function of two CIWs, front and back.

Lockheed Martin received his first contract from the Navy on work at Helios in 2018, but the system is based on a much longer history of directed energy research and development at the company.

The system is especially powerful when paired with the AEGIS fighting system. Rich Calabrese, director of Surface Navy Mission Systems for Lockheed Martin, was elaborated on Helios and Aegis during a wider interview with The war zone In 2021:

“We continuously upgrade the multi-source integration infusion in the Aegis weapons system and want to get new weapons and sensors in and coordinate hard kill and soft kill. Corrected energy weapons … We really already integrate Helios Laser Weapon System with Aegis Weapon System CSL (Common Source Library) into our laboratory here in New Jersey. In fact, we have … The guy who now manages the laser program … He let me know the other day that we recently fired a laser here under the control of Aegis Weapon System Computer Program. So we build in the ability to do this arms coordination and to make the hard -killed, soft killing coordination in an automated way working with the Helios weapon system. “

Lockheed Martin is contracted with Living at least one more Helios system to a Arleigh Burke. The company’s officials said they also designed the system with future capacity growth in mind, including increasing the system’s maximum power up to 150 kilowatts.

Such a level of effect would allow Helios to faster to down smaller drones at longer intervals and take on larger and more complex threats, such as anti-ship cross missiles and even enemy aircraft, albeit still at relatively shorter distances.

Navy and Lockheed Martin demonstrated the ability of a fixed-state laser corrected energy weapon to successfully shoot a target drone that acts as a surrogate for a subsonic cruiser missile in 2022, using a weapon called The Laser layer defense (LLD) System during a test on the US Army’s white sand missile area in New Mexico.

Helios forms a facet of the navy’s directed energy ambitions, which are now also ready to include microwave -based systems with high power as well. Fellow -Dealers, Including USS Dewey and USS Stockdaleis now equipped with the less powerful optical dazzling Interdictor, Navy (Odin). Unlike Helios, Odin’s laser can only be used as a dazzling, but it also has secondary monitoring ability.

At the end of 2021, the year before Helios debuted aboard PrebleThe San Antonio Class amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland Engaged a static surface target with its laser directed energy weapon in the bay of aden. That system, known as Laser Weapon System Demonstrator Mk 2 toward 0, was placed on board Portland At the end of 2019, which The war zone Was first to report and then used to strike a small drone in a demonstration in the Pacific in 2020.

All in all, Pentagon spends an average Navy Times reported Last year.

But finding out how to develop, acquire and field such technology has proven to be challenging, according to a 2023 government’s accountability office (GAO) Report.

The Department of Defense has struggled to get “these technologies out of the laboratory and into the field” for several reasons, including difficulties in determining how the strength would use them during missions, according to Federal Watchdog.

“Without early transition planning and preparation of transitional agreements, the Navy risks developing technology that is incorrectly adjusted with operational needs,” the report warned.

The realities of actually implementing and maintaining advanced laser weapons in the field and how effective they can be at this time also becomes clearer. These revelations have led Dod to resign from a key, long -lasting, laser weapons programs recently.

In general, laser weapon systems are chronically overyped, especially in the mainstream media, compared to what they can realistically achieve. Laser weapons can only engage one measure at a time, and they have to dwell on this target steadily for a long -lasting period to have an effect, especially examples of lower power class that are field today. They also have power and thermal limitations that affect how many shots they can shoot back-to-back.

Their range is limited and influenced by atmospheric conditions and their components are delicate and hardening them to hash military use is an ongoing process. So even in a fleet of fleet, while still a very attractive capacity, they are for low-volume cases against very limited target sets in the foreseeable future.

These realities are not prevented navy brass from continuing to hammer the need for ship staff lasers. US Fleet Forces Command Head Adm. Daryl CaUdle complained about the glacial pace of laser development last month’s Surface Navy Association Annual Symposium, Breaking Defense’s Justin Katz reported.

“There have been many dissertation and dissertation written about building lasers on ships, but we have not transferred it to a place where it is an acceptable way to actually take missile systems,” Katz Caudle quoted.

“These things are based on renewable energy so I can charge the system … I don’t have to worry about payload (OR) volume with corrected energy. All of these things appeal to a fleet, (but) We just haven’t really matriculated it to a place … It’s ready for prime time, ”Caudle continued.

Even when the marine continues with the shipping period -laser programs like Helios, the timing of when they actually become a widespread and robust capacity, unclear. Still, the recent events are likely to only increase the pressure to make the ship’s laser weapon a common reality in the US Navy.

Contact the authors: [email protected]At Tyler@twz.com