US Army Uses Lasers in Actual Combat

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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.

7 thoughts on “US Army Uses Lasers in Actual Combat”

  1. Laser weapons, if powerful enough would not “burn” their targets, but hit them w/a concussive/kinetic impact effect. AKA; blow them up. A few years ago, I read an article (I can’t recall which journal) that said we’ve developed lasers that could hit a target w/a trillion watts of imparted energy. (Holy lightsaber, that’s a lot of power) The laser pulse would only last a fraction of a nano-second. That makes sense IMO, because a laser pulse even very brief, at that power, would not need to “stick around” to blow up, if not vaporize whatever it hit.
    I know our navy has installed laser weapons on some of our surface ships for several years. I’m delighted these weapons are making inroads elsewhere. I’d love to know the “order of battle” people follow to take out this or that target. (But I guess if I knew that, I would not talk about it)

    • A laser “rifle” just does not make sense to me. 2KW? That would blind someone if you hit them in the eye, but if you hit anyone anywhere else on their body, I doubt most people would even notice. Currently some of our Navy surface ships have lasers that info. in the open press says operate at 200-to 800 MW. That’s 200 to 800 million watts. (Holy lightsaber boys and girls, that’s a hell of a lot of juice…)

      I hope we have the diplomatic and other ability to not need to use our military power. But if at the end of the day, if push comes to shove, do I want us to have the most powerful military the world has ever seen? You bet your ass I do.

      • Bro. You can painfully burn yourself with a 5W laser. 2KW is enough to cut down trees.

        Also it’s important to differentiate between the continuous power of the 2KW “rifle” and the peak rating of 800MW for the pulsed military laser, which would have a much lower continuous power rating. ~1MW pulsed lasers can be purchased quite easily and affordably online.

  3. Now that their development costs have been paid for, are there any compelling civilian uses?

    Precision manufacturing, tree trimming, commercial fusion, frying birds in airplane flight paths? Someone surely will come up with something.

    • Does protecting innocents from incoming hostile missiles count as compelling civilian use? Pretty good use case there alone, even with nothing else.

      • Of course it does. Laser weapons have the potential to make ideal anti-missel weapons. But if we can apply that technology in other areas, why not?

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