The U.S. military has been using drones to shoot down enemy drones in the Middle East, according to a new report from Forbes, which cites the U.S. Army. And while it’s been public knowledge that lasers have been deployed on U.S. ships and used in tests overseas during the past decade, this appears to be the first official acknowledgment of their use against an adversary by the Pentagon.
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Forbes spoke with Doug Bush, the U.S. Army’s head of acquisitions, who reportedly told the magazine that lasers have worked “in some cases.”
“In the right conditions they’re highly effective against certain threats,” Bush told Forbes Monday in just about the most generalized way you could discuss futuristic death lasers.
Unfortunately, Bush didn’t elaborate on details like which specific laser weapons have been used, though Forbes believes it’s likely the P-HEL. Bush also didn’t explain which enemies have been targeted, though the most logical guess would be the Houthis, who have been launching drones in Yemen to disrupt maritime traffic in the Red Sea since the start of Israel’s war against Gaza. As early as 2021, the Associated Press was noting that U.S. lasers might soon be used against unmanned boats launched by the Houthis.
As Forbes notes, the U.S. military has commonly been shooting down the Houthis’ $2,000 drones with American missiles that can cost $2 million each. And lasers present a more cost-effective solution.
From Forbes:
Their cost per shot ranges between $1 to $10 for the diesel fuel needed to generate the electricity that powers them, according to a 2023 GAO report.
Those costs obviously don’t account for the incredible sums of money that have been spent to develop these weapons. But it’s not like developing new kinds of missiles is free either.
The U.S. military has been interested in directed energy weapons ever since the first practical lasers were developed in the early 1960s. By 1973, DARPA even shot down a drone using a laser for the very first time in tests at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.
Click through the slideshow to see photos and videos of the military laser weapons, both recent and in history.
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