Tag: directed energy weapons

RAYTHEON IS BUILDING TWO ULTRA-HIGH POWER DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS FOR THE U.S. NAVY AND AIR FORCE

Defense contractor Raytheon has been tasked with designing, building, and testing a pair of directed energy weapons for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Air Force. Unlike cutting-edge laser systems that use the power of light to down airborne threats, the new weapons will use ultra-powerful microwave emitters to fry the electronics of attacking drones, missiles, and other electronically guided ordinance.

According to RTX Corporation, which owns Raytheon, the two prototypes are expected to be delivered in 2024 and 2026, respectively.

DIRECTED ENERGY WEAPONS INCREASINGLY VALUABLE IN ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE

Traditional munitions like bullets use kinetic force to damage or destroy attacking vehicles and personnel. Unfortunately, the cost of more accurate systems like guided missiles is often prohibitively disproportionate when compared to the cost of the attacking vehicle.

For example, the Israeli Iron Dome system that uses missiles can cost as much as $100,000 per shot to bring down a drone or mortar that costs a mere fraction of that amount. Further complicating the issue is the fact that adversaries are increasingly using drones to mount attacks, including the October 7th, 2023, attack on Israel.

To counter what officials have termed asymmetrical threats, the Israeli government has installed a battery of laser cannons known as Iron Beam. According to an April 2022 tweet by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, Iron Beam can down incoming mortar and drones at the cost of only $3.50 per shot.

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New British laser weapon in successful high power firing

During a trial at the MOD’s Hebrides Range, the DragonFire laser directed energy weapon (LDEW) system achieved the UK’s first high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets.

The range of DragonFire is classified, but it is a line-of-sight weapon and can engage with any visible target.

  • First high-power firing of a laser weapon against aerial targets
  • Laser boasts pinpoint accuracy and low long-term costs

“DragonFire exploits UK technology to be able to deliver a high power laser over long ranges. The precision required is equivalent to hitting a £1 coin from a kilometre away. Laser-directed energy weapons can engage targets at the speed of light, and use an intense beam of light to cut through the target, leading to structural failure or more impactful results if the warhead is targeted.

Firing it for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for just an hour. Therefore, it has the potential to be a long-term low-cost alternative to certain tasks missiles currently carry out. The cost of operating the laser is typically less than £10 per shot.”

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Pentagon Seeks EMP Weapon To Eliminate Drone Swarms

Faced with the reality that drones are reshaping the modern battlefields in Ukraine and Gaza, the Pentagon has been tasked with finding a budget-friendly solution to eliminate these “flying IEDs.” While missiles are too expensive, and laser beams are a distant dream, the next best cost-effective weapon US military officials are eyeing up could be electromagnetic pulse weapons to counter drone swarms.

According to the System for Award Management (SAM.gov) website, the US Air Force has published a contract opportunity for private industry titled “Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Defense Against Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).” 

The service outlined the drone-killing features of the new EMP weapon it is seeking:

“The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL/RI) is conducting market research to seek information from industry on the landscape of research and development (R&D) for available Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) solutions towards countering multiple Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). EMP solutions could be ground and/or aerial based that provide effective mitigation against Department of Defense (DoD) UAS groups 1, 2, and smaller group 3 aircraft.” 

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Israeli ‘Iron Beam’ Lasers Are ‘Future Of Warfare’

Last year we reported on Israel’s development of a ground-based laser defense system dubbed ‘Iron Beam,’ which then-Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called “a game-changer” that could “bankrupt” the enemy.

Now, it’s being reported that the system – which has been in development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems for 15 years, and was originally set for a 2025 rollout, will be deployed more quickly than that due to the Israel-Hamas war, and it may be placed in service as early as 2024.

More than a hundred Rafael engineers have reportedly been working on this project, considered one of the most significant technological challenges ever faced by the Israeli defense industries, in order to create a fast and effective interception system, with inexhaustible and near cost-free ammunition.

Recent tests of Iron Beam in the Negev have shown promising results, with the system successfully intercepting various airborne threats. The heart of the system is an electric laser pointer, capable of targeting and sending out a powerful laser beam, invisible to the naked eye.

Since the war erupted on October 7, more than 10,000 projectiles have been fired at Israel, including 3,000 in the first hours of the conflict. Rafael and the Israeli Defense Ministry have considered the current operations as an opportunity to test the Iron Beam under real combat conditions. –i24news

Speaking with Calcalist, one of Rafael’s iron beam program managers expressed high hopes for the system, saying “Our aim is to reach a state where the enemy feels totally powerless. He has to understand that our laser pointers, deployed where needed, intercept and destroy all his attacks, almost instantly after they are launched, long before they reach Israeli territory or threaten anyone else. In such a scenario, the activation of warning sirens might even become unnecessary.”

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AC-130 Laser Weapon Test Slip Raises Questions About Its Future

Planned flight testing of a high-energy laser directed energy weapon on a U.S. Air Force AC-130J Ghostrider gunship has been pushed back again to next year. This once looked set to be the service’s first operational airborne laser weapon. However, the future of this project is ever more uncertain and there is now a broader review of the Ghostrider’s armament suite that could see the aircraft lose their 105mm howitzers in the future.

Air Force Special Operations Command (AFSOC) has confirmed to The War Zone that flight tests of the Airborne High Energy Laser (AHEL) on the AC-130J are now set to start in January 2024 and wrap up in June of that year. The goal had originally been for the AHEL to take to the sky on a Ghostrider sometime in the 2022 Fiscal Year. Most recently, the hope had been that this would occur before the end of this year.

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First Laser Weapon For A Fighter Delivered To The Air Force

The U.S. Air Force has received a high-energy laser weapon that can be carried by aircraft in podded form. The news came today when Lockheed Martin disclosed that at least one of the weapons, which it developed, has been delivered to the Air Force for test work. This effort falls within the wider framework of still-evolving plans to have laser-armed fighter jets that can engage enemy missiles, and possibly other targets too.

A report today from Breaking Defense confirmed that Lockheed Martin delivered its LANCE high-energy laser weapon to the Air Force in February this year. In this context, LANCE stands for “Laser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments.” The recipient for the new weapon is the Air Force Research Laboratory, or AFRL, which is charged with developing and integrating new technologies in the air, space, and cyberspace realms.

Tyler Griffin, a Lockheed executive, had previously told reporters that LANCE “is the smallest, lightest, high-energy laser of its power class that Lockheed Martin has built to date.”

Indeed, Griffin added that LANCE is “one-sixth the size” of a previous directed-energy weapon that Lockheed produced for the Army. That earlier laser was part of the Robust Electric Laser Initiative program and had an output in the 60-kilowatt class. We don’t yet know what kind of power LANCE can produce although there have been suggestions it will likely be below 100 kilowatts.

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Maui wildfires spark conspiracy theories about space lasers, Oprah land grabs and suspicious trees

The Maui wildfires have drawn bizarre conspiracy theories that elites — such as President Biden and Oprah — may have used lasers to intentionally set the deadly blaze for their own nefarious ends.

Photos claiming to show space lasers raining destruction down on the Hawaiian city have gained millions of views across social media, while images of trees still standing amid the inferno’s aftermath have been cited as evidence that the fires were not natural.

“Everything is burnt but the trees, but don’t point that out or ur a conspiracy theorist,” wrote one user on X, the platform formerly called Twitter, alongside footage of people driving through the cindered remains of a neighborhood.

But the unlikely internet sleuths’ hypotheses were easily debunked.

That post, along with others like it, was flagged by readers who linked to a Britannica article concisely explaining why the trees were still standing.

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PENTAGON REQUESTS $36 MILLION FOR HAVANA SYNDROME

HOUSE SPEAKER KEVIN McCarthy’s debt limit bill unveiled Wednesday would slash $130 billion from a broad range of domestic programs, including clean-energy subsidies and student loan forgiveness. But one thing the bill would not cut is the military, which last month requested an $842 billion budget.

Buried in the Pentagon’s sprawling budget request is an ask for at least $36 million to respond to Havana syndrome, the mysterious symptoms alleged by U.S. spies and diplomats. Initially blamed on microwave weapons wielded by foreign powers like Russia, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded there is “no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or collection device that is causing” the symptoms — opening the possibility that they may be psychogenic in nature.

The amount represents an increase of $2.1 million over the previous fiscal year and “ensures that individuals affected by anomalous health incidents receive timely and comprehensive health care and treatment,” according to the Defense Health Program’s proposed operation and maintenance budget, released on March 13. “Anomalous health incidents,” or AHIs, is the U.S. government’s term for Havana syndrome, named after the CIA officers and diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba who, in 2016, reported symptoms like headaches, nausea, and hearing loud noises. Since then, U.S. Embassy personnel who served in other countries have reportedly been affected, including China, Colombia, France, Georgia, India, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

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The Pentagon is funding experiments on animals to recreate ‘Havana Syndrome’

The Defense Department is funding experiments on animals to determine if radio frequency waves could be the source of the mysterious ailment referred to as “Havana Syndrome” that has afflicted hundreds of U.S. government personnel in recent years, according to public documents and three people familiar with the effort.

This news of the ongoing animal testing, which has not previously been reported, comes after the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined last week that there is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary wielding a weapon caused the health incidents. Despite the assessment, the Pentagon is continuing to examine that possibility, as POLITICO reported.

The Army in September awarded Wayne State University in Michigan a $750,000 grant to study the effects of radio frequency waves on ferrets, which have brains similar to humans, according to information on the grant posted on USASpending.gov. The aim is to determine whether this exposure induces similar symptoms to those experienced by U.S. government personnel in Havana, Cuba, and China, the documents show.

Symptoms have been described as severe headaches, temporary loss of hearing, vertigo and other problems similar to traumatic brain injury.

DoD has also recently tested pulsed radio frequency sources on primates to try to determine whether their effects can be linked to what the government calls “anomalous health incidents,” according to one former intelligence official and a current U.S. official who were briefed on the effort. Both were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive work. It is not clear whether these studies, which were done internally, are ongoing.

DoD spokesperson Lt. Cmdr. Tim Gorman confirmed that the grant to Wayne State University, with collaborators from the University of Michigan, “will develop and test a novel laboratory animal model to mimic mild concussive head injury.”

“Behavioral, imaging, and histological studies will determine if the model is comparable to the abnormalities seen in humans following concussive head injury,” Gorman said, adding that: “The model may subsequently be used to test potential treatments to alleviate the deficits associated with traumatic brain injury.”

Gorman declined to comment on whether DoD has recently conducted these experiments on primates.

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US intelligence: No evidence foreign adversaries behind ‘Havana syndrome’

The U.S. intelligence community has determined it was unlikely that a foreign adversary is responsible for a series of anomalous health incidents (AHI) plaguing intelligence and diplomatic staffers across the globe.

A review conducted by intelligence agencies for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and released Wednesday probed a series of health incidents initially dubbed “Havana syndrome” after government employees first reported experiencing mysterious neurological ailments there in 2016.

But the review attributed those conditions to other factors and noted that intelligence agencies — with varying degrees of confidence — deemed it was unlikely that a U.S. adversary had such capabilities.

“Available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of U.S. adversaries in causing the reported incidents,” the report states. 

“There is no credible evidence that a foreign adversary has a weapon or device that is causing AHIs.”

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