The laser era has arrived: the Pentagon introduces advanced energy weapons to the battlefield
The war on drones enters a new era, high-energy lasers enter the battlefield - and the Pentagon is already using them to intercept drones and cruise missiles in the Strait of Hormuz.
The main advantage is dramatic:
Instead of firing an interceptor missile that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars or more - the laser uses energy to destroy the target.
The cost of interception - amounts to a few dollars.
And this changes the entire equation,
The US Army recently awarded a production contract worth almost $500 million for the highest-energy laser system.
This is a historic milestone for directed energy weapons in the US - from research - to significant scale operational production.
After about 50 years of development,
The technology is finally getting a real test against the threat the defense world is increasingly facing: swarms of cheap drones.
The story doesn't end in the Strait of Hormuz!
The AMP-HEL system - the high-energy military laser, has already been deployed along the southern border of the US.
During 10 days of operation in August - the system shot down 11 drones linked to drug cartels.
The operational result was significant: cartel drone flights dropped by 75%.
Even the mode of operation illustrates how practical the technology has become:
Operators use adapted Xbox controllers to aim and fire the laser system.
Here lies the real change,
A cheap drone can create a huge economic problem when it needs to be intercepted by an expensive missile.
This is essentially a war of attrition where the defending side can lose money even when it wins tactically,
The laser reverses the equation.
The magazine is almost unlimited as long as there is a power supply and cooling and operational capability - there is no need to reload a missile after each shot, and the cost of each operation can be negligible compared to traditional interception systems.
In simple words:
If the enemy sends hundreds of cheap targets - you want your defense to be at least as cheap.
The strategic significance is much broader than the interception of a single drone.
The system can deal with any drone, and in suitable configurations - also with cruise missiles and other threats -
As systems improve in terms of beam power, range, accuracy, cooling, and continuous operation time, the laser can become a new layer of defense around bases, ships, borders, and critical infrastructure.
And this is exactly where the world of defense begins to look more like the world of technology.
More electricity, more computing, more sensors, more software - and less kinetic ammunition for every target.
And the money is already starting to move,
A contract of almost $500 million is not just an investment in one system - it's a signal to the defense market that the US military is ready to move to the next stage.
If the technology proves itself on a large scale, demand may trickle down to a variety of areas:
Power systems, batteries, cooling, optics, sensors, radar, software, chips, and more.
Just as the artificial intelligence revolution is not just a story of processors - the military laser revolution is not just a story of a laser beam.
This is an entire infrastructure.
After half a century of experiments - the laser is finally getting what every military technology needs to become truly interesting: real targets, operational use, and a budget.
The market has already learned that a cheap drone can be a very expensive weapon for those trying to stop it - now the US military is trying to reverse the equation - with electricity instead of ammunition.
Companies in the field under observation:
AeroVironment - $AVAV
Lockheed Martin - $LMT
Northrop Grumman - $NOC
Raytheon Technologies - $RTX
Boeing - $BA