In a demonstration taken straight from science fiction the US Navy successfully shot down multiple drones off the coast of California in a demonstration of a new directed energy weapon called LaWS. While at first glance this may not seem that impressive compared to other projects in the field of directed energy weapons such as ABL which rides in a 747 and is designed to take out ballistic missiles or THEL the joint United States Israeli anti artillery platform the details of the test let this system truly shine.

For one the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) uses a solid state laser. What does this mean? Well there are actually multiple types of lasers and they are differentiated by how the laser energy is created. The more common gas laser for example uses a high voltage passing through a gas to create light. Gas lasers are simple and reliable but inefficient and low power. The more advanced Chemical lasers use chemical reactions to create laser light. These lasers can be immensely powerful (Megawatts!) but are complicated and create some seriously dangerous byproducts during use. The byproducts are so bad that the airborne versions of these lasers do not eject the byproducts over the enemy but actually store them for disposal back at base! Then there are the newer Solid State lasers which use electricity and a glass or crystal to create light. They are simple, efficient, more powerful than gas lasers, and no harmful byproducts. A good weapon.

Secondly the test was performed on a naval ship. This is impressive because of tracking on a rocking ship and lasers do not mix well with water vapor. Water vapor scatters the beam of a laser and sucks energy out of the beam almost acting as a shield for the target. All other laser weapons stay away from wet environments but the LaWS succeeded there. So even though this laser will probably not be able to engage fast missile threats it is an impressive step towards a functioning directed energy weapon. We are one step closer to be able to yell “Full Energy to Lasers!” and have it mean something.