The US Army has used lasers to take down hostile drones in the Middle East, Doug Bush, the Army’s head of acquisitions. It’s the first time the Defense Department has acknowledged that such weapons have been used in combat.
The US is not the first country to use lasers in actual combat. Starting in 2020, Israel has used a light blade laser systems to stop hundreds of Hamas arson balloons that are used to set fire to Israeli farms.
“They've worked in some cases,” Bush said. “In the right conditions they're highly effective against certain threats.”
P-HEL laser is based on the defense contractor BlueHalo’s Locust laser. It is a boxy pallet-mounted device for fixed-site defense that’s commanded with an Xbox gaming controller. It uses a 20-kilowatt laser beam that melts a critical point on a drone in seconds, knocking it from the sky.
In November 2022, the Army began using the first P-HEL overseas but this is the first confirmation of a live combat situation.
Moneymaker said Locust has had a significant number of successful engagements in which it has burned drones out of the sky.
In the Red Sea, U.S. warships defending cargo vessels from attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants over the past six months have used $2 million missiles to shoot down $2,000 drones. The lasers use $1 to $10 for the diesel fuel needed to generate the electricity that powers them, according to a 2023 GAO report.
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