The promise of lasers has loomed just out of reach for decades as the next big technological breakthrough for warfare. While there have been recent successes in the laboratory and in tests of prototype systems, it remains to be seen whether speed-of-light weapons will progress onto the battlefield.
Analysts argue that in order for the nation to stay ahead of adversaries, it is imperative for directed energy proponents to help the technology clear political and institutional barriers now to allow laser systems to become available to war fighters in the next decade.
But clearing the hurdles will be a challenge, given the tough economic climate and the uncertainty of future warfare needs in the Defense Department. Lacking guidance from the military, industry may lag in developing the technology for operational use.
“If you don’t get by those institutional barriers, you will not be able to field these systems within a decade, and we think there will be potential serious consequences,” says Tom Ehrhard, a senior fellow with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington.
During the research institute’s briefing on laser weapons on Capitol Hill, he warns that guided mortars are potentially the next IED, referring to the improvised explosive devices which are employed by insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan that have killed hundreds of U.S. troops. They and potential adversaries increasingly are turning to smarter weapons to strike at U.S. interests and allies.
Lasers are one way to counter that threat. With deep magazines capable of taking multiple shots relatively inexpensively, lasers can help rebalance the equation in a way that can fundamentally change the nature of future contests, says Mark Bucknam, director for plans in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s policy branch.
“This is a way to turn the tide,” agrees Adam Siegel, a senior analyst specializing in directed energy at Northrop Grumman Analysis Center. “Others are investing in this arena and if we don’t pursue this, we have the real risk of not changing the game, but having the game directly changed on us,” he says.
The arms race for smart munitions ought to spur the development of tactical lasers.
“We believe the proliferation of these systems provides the near-term stimulus for a rapid transition to laser weapon systems,” says Ehrhard, who co-authored a recent CSBA study on solid-state lasers.
He and other directed energy proponents believe that such systems would have high utility against the so-called “G-RAMM,” or guided rockets, artillery, mortars and missiles, threat.
“The threat is of such a character that you really can’t afford to ignore it, and you can’t afford to pursue a rich man’s strategy to deal with it,” says Andrew Krepinevich, president of CSBA and co-author of the solid-state lasers report.
A myriad of directed energy weapon systems are being developed, from the massive megawatt-class airborne laser that is designed to shoot down ballistic missiles from a modified 747 aircraft to the non-lethal systems that create burning sensations on the skin. But today, there are fewer laser programs in existence than there were 20 years ago.
“We haven’t been keeping up the pace with research in this area in trying to field systems with capabilities that export directed energy,” says Bucknam.
The program grabbing headlines is the airborne laser, which in June completed a round of successful in-flight tests of the system using a surrogate solid-state laser to hit a missile in its boost phase. The high-power chemical laser is expected to shoot down an enemy missile during tests in the fall.
“I think we will get a lot of attention from that first shoot-down,” says Mike Rinn, airborne laser program manager at Boeing Co., the lead integrator on the contract. “But I’m not naïve enough to think that that will sway all of our critics who are out there, especially in the military utility area,” he says. There are a lot of people who need to see the laser demonstrated at more significant ranges and in other scenarios, he adds.
“Despite being on the verge of a great technological achievement, support for this program appears to be tenuous, at best. Nowhere is that more evident than in the fiscal 2010 budget request,” says Rep. Michael Turner, R-Ohio, the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee. His congressional colleagues have questioned how the airborne laser will become operational, how many aircraft would be required to sustain a continuous orbit and how many shots the chemical laser can take before it has to land and refuel.
“The Defense Department has had difficulty answering these questions. This is an example of how the best technology may not move past the laboratory unless it also addresses its application in a real-world operational environment,” says Turner.
The CSBA report says that shooting down a ballistic missile with chemical lasers is one challenge and shooting down an onslaught of dozens of incoming mortars and rockets with lasers is quite another.
“We think that you could proceed with a G-RAMM defense system given the technology that exists right now,” says Ehrhard. “It’s a matter of making a company build it, engineer it, and make it actually deployable.”
But that is easier said than done. There are technical pitfalls with laser systems, and throughout the years empty promises of these technologies have come and gone. Scientists now say there is new reason for excitement as the power levels in developing laser technology in recent years has improved and even grown exponentially. A demonstration of a 105-kilowatt solid-state laser occurred earlier this year, marking the first achievement of that power level in solid-state lasers.
“We believe this is cause for accelerated interest in getting these solid-state systems out into the field,” says Ehrhard. “I can do a lot with 105 kilowatts right now against a threat that we’re talking about.”
Solid-state lasers have their fair share of technical challenges. Though the lasers are powered by electricity, volatile chemicals must be used in a giant air conditioner to cool the systems. There is also a question of automation and how such lasers would operate against incoming mortars, rockets and missiles.
Any potential counter G-RAMM system must be mobile so that it is not vulnerable to saturation attacks that would take them out right at the beginning of a campaign, points out Krepinevich. Solid-state lasers are much more likely to be made mobile than chemical systems, he adds.
Because they are powered by electricity, their magazines would be easier to resupply with batteries, unlike chemical lasers that would require the movement of toxic substances around the battlefield.
But some experts still have doubts about employing the technology for war.
Solid-state lasers are “laboratory devices, complex devices that have made great strides in pushing the state of the art in power. But they are not ruggedized and ready for battlefield employment,” says David C. Stoudt, senior technologist for directed energy weapons at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
Engineering work has to be done to make the lasers deployable, to actually work on ships, on mobile ground systems and in true battlefield conditions, says Ehrhard. Such efforts have proceeded mostly self-funded by companies with internal research and development dollars.
Speeding up the development is possible, but that would require funding from the government, he says.
Besides budget challenges, some of the biggest obstacles for lasers are legal and political in nature. Safety concerns for operators as well as bystanders and how such weapons would be employed are only some of them.
“The technical issues pale in comparison to some of these barriers,” Ehrhard points out.
There also is the perception that the military has only lukewarm interest in these weapons.
“Who’s making sure these systems hit the field? There aren’t any natural advocates for these systems in the military,” he adds.
But others beg to differ.
“I’m a retired Marine, and I can’t imagine that if industry, or [Office of Naval Research] or the Army came up with the system and said, ‘Here, plop this thing down anywhere, say in an airfield, turn it on and it’s going to shoot down incoming G-RAMMS,’ I can’t imagine we wouldn’t say, ’Okay, we’ll take it,’” says James Haig of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory’s office of science and technology integration.
The Navy is interested in fielding a solid-state-based directed energy system to counter the guided — and unguided — rocket, artillery, mortar and missile problem, says Stoudt, the service’s senior technologist for directed energy weapons at the Naval Surface Warfare Center.
The Navy’s top officials are in the process of evaluating requirements, he says. They are taking a close look at fiber lasers, which are primarily used in the commercial realm for industrial purposes, such as welding and cutting. In the near term, the Navy is prototyping and demonstrating fiber laser systems. In the mid-term, the service intends to look at more complex laser systems, such as the joint high power solid-state laser and other Defense Department lasers that have better beam quality than currently available fiber lasers. In the far term, the service is exploring megawatt-class electric lasers, such as the free electron laser — a ship defense weapon system that is being designed by Boeing. The Office of Naval Research in April awarded the company a $163 million contract to develop a prototype, which would pass a beam of high-energy electrons through magnetic fields to produce a high-power laser capable of taking out anti-ship missiles.
Stoudt says that his team is studying the possibility of using solid-state lasers in the near future.
“We view this as an important technology area in the Navy,” he says. “It is our objective to field these things sooner rather than later.”
The Army, too, recognizes the potential of directed energy weapons, says Rodney L. Robertson, director of the technical center at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command.
The key laser weapon system that has been developed for the Army is the tactical high-energy laser, a 100-kilowatt chemical laser. It sits on a truck and has shot down about 70 total rockets, artillery and mortar threats.
The Army in 2004, however, decided to move away from chemical lasers in favor of solid-state lasers, because of the size and logistics of supporting chemical lasers on the battlefield.
The service is establishing a lethality test bed at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico to conduct static and dynamic tests on various laser systems. “It lets us demonstrate that lasers are real,” Robertson says.
The hope is that the demonstrations will incur interest from program managers and other organizations that might stand up a program of record in the counter rockets, artillery, mortar and missiles area or the counter unmanned systems arena.
In the long term, the Army wants to improve the efficiency of lasers so that a 100-kilowatt class system could be put on a future combat vehicle, he says. But first, it wants proof that the systems will work and that such technologies won’t break the bank.
“To deploy within the next decade, the Army wants two things: successful demonstrations and affordability,” says Robertson. “If you talk to program managers who aren’t familiar with lasers, their impressions are that we’ve been working lasers for more than 20 years, that it’s still view graphs, and it doesn’t work. It’s going to take a successful demonstration, much like we did with the [tactical high-energy laser], to show them that these things really work, and they’re lethal against targets.”
The Quadrennial Defense Review currently under way is taking a look at the deterrent aspect of directed energy systems. “These systems offer credible defenses and are easy and inexpensive to use. They do create a deterrent effect,” says Bucknam. “Maybe we’re moving toward a time when directed energy weapons are the systems of the future,” he adds.
But unless the systems receive the fiscal and institutional commitment necessary to move out into the battlefield, then they will continue to languish in the laboratory, Ehrhard contends. “Great breakthroughs will be happening in the labs, and it will always be in the labs,” he says.