The Army is tripling the power of one of its vehicle-mounted laser systems

Task and Purpose ^ | 8 May 2020 | JARED KELLER

[BeauBo]

The Army is working overtime to ramp up to output of one of its next-generation vehicle-mounted laser weapon systems.

Defense contractor Dynetics is currently working to increase the power of the 100 kilowatt High Energy Laser Tactical Vehicle Demonstrator (HEL-TVD) to roughly 300 kw, roughly the output needed to defeat an incoming cruise missile, the company announced on Friday.

Initiated in 2017, the HEL-TVD program sought to develop and mount a 100 kw laser on an existing Family of Medium Tactical Vehicles (FMTV) truck to provide a counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (C-RAM) capability...

In its announcement, Dynetics noted it had formally transitioned from the HEL-TVD program to what's called the Indirect Fires Protection Capability – High Energy Laser (IFPC-HEL) effort, which is designed to deliver four prototype laser weapons to a platoon by fiscal year 2024...

The ramp-up is big news not just for the Army, but other laser weapons across the U.S. armed forces which are looking to the HEL-TVD prototyping efforts to inform their own directed energy capabilities.

"Under the new directed energy strategy, the Army is leveraging progress made in that effort in order to merge the HEL-TVD with similar technologies in development by the Navy and the Office of the Secretary of Defense," the service said in August 2019, adding that this partnership "will allow the services to achieve a higher power system ... that can protect sites from RAM and [unmanned aerial systems] as well as more stressing threats."...

"Even if you take all the other elements of a laser weapon and have them be perfect" – the targeting, the cooling, the beam control — "we still don't have enough power," as Frank Peterkin, a senior scientist at the Office of Naval Research, put it in a recent CRS report.

[BeauBo]

Looks like lasers are on track to take a significant step up in capability, to become more strategic weapons, for missile defense. It will take a few more years though.

The article states: "These efforts could prove especially useful for the Navy, which faces not just the persistent threat of incoming RAM and UAS threats but power generation shortfalls when it comes to the requisite laser output needed to defeat them.

As Task & Purpose previously reported, the Navy's standard High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler And Surveillance (HELIOS) weapons system currently tops out at roughly 150 kw, far below the threshold for defeating a hardened cruise missile."

Perhaps a fleet of robot ships could accompany a Carrier group, to defeat missile wave attacks. CWIS could potentially be replaced with a "bottomless magazine" laser weapon, more resistant to being overwhelmed by sheer numbers of incoming missiles.

[Candor7]

A smart entrepreneur would now be designing and manufacturing
laser proof goggles which can protect the eyes of troops and air force pilots from these upgraded laser units.

[Spktyr]

Go look at the power consumption per shot numbers. Note that the Navy under Obama cancelled all their advanced power generation projects to save their precious LCS and DDG1000s.

We won’t be seeing a rapid-fire CIWS laser system any time soon.

[DugwayDuke]

Candor7 wrote: “A smart entrepreneur would now be designing and manufacturing laser proof goggles which can protect the eyes of troops and air force pilots from these upgraded laser units.”

It’s not clear that googles would protect eyeballs when the laser can defeat hardened cruise missiles.

[Bommer]

[Spktyr]

Um.... a direct hit from a 150 kilowatt laser will melt your skin and ash your clothing. Eye protection is the least of your problems.

[Candor7]

It’s not clear that googles would protect eyeballs when the laser can defeat hardened cruise missiles.>>>>>>>

I agree. That’s why better goggles are needed: laser diffusion lenses.

[PapaBear3625]

The goggles would be to protect troops from reflections, not a direct hit.

[Candor7]

Um.... a direct hit from a 150 kilowatt laser will melt your skin and ash your clothing. Eye protection is the least of your problems.

I agree.

A 5 inch shell will blow your head off but the Army couldn’t make proper ear/hearing protectors for those in the vicinity.

Better googles. Needed.

But maybe ou are right. We have soldiers stupid enough who will stand right in front of those units.( sarc.)

[Spktyr]

Put another way - a 10 kilowatt laser at close range will cut a hole clear through your hand in less than a second. This is the range used to cut steel on a table in industry. Something 15 times more powerful? Yeah, goggles not going to help.

[Spktyr]

Tell me again how you diffuse the entire spectrum of visible and invisible light without obscuring organic vision?

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Tylenol then?

[Leaning Right]

America’s enemies are already working on countermeasures.

[Candor7]

Electronic periscope googles with diffuser lenses mounted in an insulated face shield. Night vision capable.

[Karma_Sherab]

[dp0622]

Lol

I read somewhere that laser doesn’t emit a color. So that means everything is Star wars and Star trek was fake?

[BeauBo]

“Go look at the power consumption per shot numbers... We won’t be seeing a rapid-fire CIWS laser system any time soon.”

I guess that truck mounted versions contain their power supply as well, so roughly that weight and cubic volume might be bolted to the deck of Naval ships, container ships, barges and/or robotic follower ships. Perhaps if we can’t get a high enough rate of fire from one, we could get enough more firing as a team, to achieve the desired effect.

Of course, nuclear power sources would be the closest thing to real “bottomless magazine”.

[Leaning Right]

> I read somewhere that laser doesn’t emit a color. <

They don’t. Whenever I demonstrated a laser to a class, I would sprinkle chalk dust along the path of the laser to make it visible.

I have written many angry and complaining letters to the Star Trek people in that regard. So far, no response.

[lurk]

The navy seems like a good fit for lasers, if they can install a sufficient power source.

[Bob434]

pffft- more impressed with lazer sharks