By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization
Incinerating a hole directly through the metal of an enemy drone at stand-off distances, disabling an incoming enemy cruise missile with “jamming” directed energy or intercepting a small swarm or incoming salvo of drone attacks at one time …. are all operations US Navy maritime warfare commanders expect lasers can perform in the future.
The threat of enemy drones at sea has of course long been on the radar as a growing concern for future threats on the ocean, yet the Red Sea further highlighted and accelerated concerns that the drone threat is quickly expanding to include “multiple-drones” at one time or “drone swarms” at sea.
The intent with a drone swarm attack, not entirely unlike some of the recent Houthi attacks in the Red Sea, is to overwhelm a ship’s layered defense system by blanketing a ship with incoming projectiles making too many targets for any countermeasure to track and intercept at one time.
Therefore, learning to counter many drones at once is a key focus or take-away lesson learned from recent maritime combat in the Red Sea, according to the Commanding Officer of Carrier Strike Group 2. Given this tactical scenario, an ability to succeed against drone swarms depends heavily upon “magazine size,” simply how many bullets or how much directed energy can be available instantly at one time to manage a swarm of drones.
“Obviously drones have been around for a while and we’ve been training to deal with drones. But I think what we have started to recognize, what the Red Sea really taught us was it’s not going to be just one or two drones, it’s going to be a lot more. So you got to be able to train to deal with a lot of those (drones),” Commanding Officer of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group 2, Rear Adm. Javon “Hak” Hakimsadeh told Warrior in an interview about his Carrier Strike Group’s Red Sea deployment
Surging into the future, optimal ship-based drone defense is described by Navy commanders in terms of a significant duality, meaning it would be important to identify, target and destroy the “launcher,” “archer” or point of origin and also use a non-kinetic, directed energy or “laser” weapon with a potentially very large magazine size to address an otherwise overwhelming threat. “Directed Energy” … is a key part of this equation,
“How do we expand the options that a sailor has to be able to take care of a drone? And I think in the near term, it’s probably going to be something along the lines of a gun system or a kinetic way to do it with guns and ordnance, but the long -term, I’d love to see things like directed energy, you know, something that can just recharge and give you that almost infinite magazine size, right? You don’t have to worry about your magazine size, because if you can keep generating the power to be able to launch your directed energy, if you will.,” “Hak” told Warrior.
“Hak” was clear that drones are nothing new to ship defense and maritime warfare more broadly, yet he did emphasize the pace of change and the rapid overall “expansion” of the drone threat at sea, something which continues to take on new characteristics.
“I think drones are probably the most kind of visible manifestation of the changing character of war. You know, people talk about, you know, looking at the Ukraine fight, looking at what’s going on now with Israel and Southern Lebanon and Israel and Gaza earlier. The character of war is changing, … and cheap drones that are kind of easy to replicate that are able to launch at scale for not a whole lot of cash is I think a reflection of what war, very much of what war is going to look like in the future,” “Hak” said.
Lasers not only travel at the speed of light but have a stealth-like ability to fire without making a sound, and perhaps most of all, with sufficient energy storage laser weapons can, as Hak explained, deliver a seemingly limitless magazine.
Hak’s assessment of laser-generated drone defense likely aligns with key reasons why the Navy is surging ahead with multiple ongoing efforts to arm warships with laser weapons. US Navy destroyers are currently being armed with a wide range of directed energy weapons, and the Navy is indeed quite familiar with the value of using lasers at sea for drone defense. More than 10-years ago, the Navy deployed the Laser Weapons System (LAWs) on the USS Ponce in the Middle East, a historic development placing operational counter drone weapons on an amphib in an operational capacity. LAWs showed great promise and its success helped inspire a number of more recent efforts
Helios: High-Energy Laser with Optical-dazzler and Surveillance
One laser system now being integrated on ships is called HELIOS, for High-Energy Laser with Optical-dazzler and Surveillance, a system now arming some DDG 51 destroyers with offensive and defensive weapons capability. Lasers such as HELIOS also bring a substantial optical component, meaning they can act as a sensor to track targets and help with necessary surveillance missions.
Instead of using expensive interceptor missiles fired from U.S. Navy destroyer Vertical Launch Systems, commanders will now have the option to merely stun, or disable a target without completely destroying or exploding it. Reducing explosive effects, such as those likely generated by SM-2 or SM-6 interceptor weapons, can lower the risk of causing civilian casualties with bomb debris or fragmentation should a scenario unfold in a highly-trafficked ocean environment.
Lasers such as HELIOS also bring a substantial optical component, meaning they can act as a sensor to track targets and help with necessary surveillance missions. Lasers could also in some instances enable surface warships to close in more fully upon enemy positions, given that deck-mounted guns could be supplemented by laser weapons attacking at the speed of light and engineered to pinpoint narrow target areas with precision-guidance technology.
