Directed energy weapons

 Colin Demarest:

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The U.S. Department of Defense is spending an average $1 billion a year on developing directed-energy weapons with the goal of using them to defeat threats including drones and missiles. It requested at least $669 million in fiscal 2023 for unclassified research, testing and evaluation and another $345 million for unclassified procurement, the Congressional Research Service reported.

Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu included directed energy on a list of 14 critical and emerging defense technologies released in February 2022.

Potential applications abound. High-energy lasers, HEL, and high-power microwave, HPM, systems can be used for short-range air defense, SHORAD, and to counter unmanned aerial systems, C-UAS, as well as rockets, artillery and mortars, C-RAM.

“What does a laser do to impart damage on the set target, utilizing directed energy? It just basically heats up and melts, right? Just a ton of energy. There’s no, really, wave interaction,” Lowery said. “With HPM, you’re actually trying to use the electro-magnetics in the air to cease the ability for anything that uses voltage and current to work, and you’re trying to do that as efficiently as possible, because it’s not easy.”
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The weapons now in development come mainly in two forms: high-energy lasers, like Rafael’s Iron Beam, and Epirus’ HPMs. The former focuses a beam or beams of energy to blind, cut or inflict heat damage on a target. The latter unleashes waves of energy that overwhelm or fry electronic components.

Each has its respective strengths and weaknesses.

While HPMs can have a near-instant effect on electronic guts, its efficacy is stunted at greater ranges. And while high-energy lasers can punch holes through all sorts of material, certain atmospheric conditions including fog or wind can impede or distort the shot. Neither needs to be mechanically reloaded, like a rifle or tank, but they are reliant on power production and output, which can be disrupted.

“In very controlled conditions, they seem to perform as they should,” Thomas Withington, an analyst and author specializing in electronic warfare and military communications, said in an interview. The issue, though, is “how do you translate that to the front line in Ukraine?”
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It looks like the Star Wars weapon systems are about to become a reality.