US Navy ready to deploy new laser gun
Navy says its futuristic new weapon will be able to shoot planes out of the sky
The Laser Weapon System (LWS) temporarily installed aboard the guided-missile destroyer USS Dewey (DG 105) in San Diego, Calif.US Navy, John F. Williams/AP
Some
of the Navy's futuristic weapons sound like something out of "Star
Wars," with lasers designed to shoot down aerial drones and electric
guns that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds.
The Navy plans
to deploy its first laser on a ship later this year, and it intends to
test an electromagnetic rail gun prototype aboard a vessel within two
years.
For
the Navy, it's not so much about the whiz-bang technology as it is
about the economics of such armaments. Both cost pennies on the dollar
compared with missiles and smart bombs, and the weapons can be fired
continuously, unlike missiles and bombs, which eventually run out.
"It
fundamentally changes the way we fight," said Capt. Mike Ziv, program
manager for directed energy and electric weapon systems for the Naval
Sea Systems Command.
The Navy's laser
technology has evolved to the point that a prototype to be deployed
aboard the USS Ponce this summer can be operated by a single sailor, he
said.
The
solid-state Laser Weapon System is designed to target what the Navy
describes as "asymmetrical threats." Those include aerial drones, speed
boats and swarm boats, all potential threats to warships in the Persian
Gulf, where the Ponce, a floating staging base, is set to be deployed.
Rail
guns, which have been tested on land in Virginia, fire a projectile at
six or seven times the speed of sound — enough velocity to cause severe
damage. The Navy sees them as replacing or supplementing old-school
guns, firing lethal projectiles from long distances.
But both systems have shortcomings.
Lasers
tend to lose their effectiveness if it's raining, if it's dusty or if
there's turbulence in the atmosphere, and the rail gun requires vast
amounts of electricity to launch the projectile, said Loren Thompson,
defense analyst at the Lexington Institute.
"The
Navy says it's found ways to deal with use of lasers in bad weather,
but there's little doubt that the range of the weapon would be reduced
by clouds, dust or precipitation," he said.
Producing enough energy for a rail gun is another problem.
The
Navy's new destroyer, the Zumwalt, under construction at Bath Iron
Works in Maine, is the only ship with enough electric power to run a
rail gun. The stealthy ship's gas turbine-powered generators can produce
up to 78 megawatts of power. That's enough electricity for a
medium-size city — and more than enough for a rail gun.
The Associated Press
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