A New Year, a "New" Weapon, & an Old Tale

...like I said, the future is not swarms of small drones...

What is one of the fundamentals that we keep returning to here? If you want to know what will be important in and needed for the next large war, look closely at the most advanced small and medium sized wars happening now.

There is no better judge, test, or simulation to help you see the utility of a weapon system than actually having it perform in sustained combat conditions against a non-cooperative target.

As we approach the 4th anniversary of the Russo-Ukrainian War of 2022, untold pages of text have been written about FPV and other drones. Yes, these are important and are a new tool for war—but they are not the answer to all.

Gunpowder, machine guns, airplanes, submarines, etc…all these things were new tools in the conduct of war and changed the way wars were fought, but they did not change the nature of war. They unquestionably did not dominate the battlefield to the extent that they were the only thing you needed. They simply joined existing legacy systems that still worked and had their niche.

For each new idea or weapon, with experience, counters are developed to them. Before the counter is developed, let’s say the weapon system had a 2.0 impact on the conflict. Before counters are brought in, pushing it down to a 0.7. In the hyper-Darwinian nature of war, a response to the counter is found, and it moves up to 1.5. Another counter brings it down to 1.4…and the cycle continues.

So it is with drones of all types. Just look at the path from dropping grenades to fiber optic bespoke attack drones. Drones are not even new; they have been with us since fireships.

When it comes to trying to figure out the response to drones, the accountants and industrialists have been ringing the bell for a few problems.

• Using a $2,000,000 missile to bring down a $200,000 drone is unsustainable.

• Having 35 AAW missiles to counter a mix of 125 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles is not a sustainable way to hold open a sea lane or defend an airfield.

What can you do? Well, you can find a way to use cheaper anti-air guns at sea and ashore. You can find a way to repurpose old or cheaper weapons to do the job. You can indirectly attack them with electronic warfare…or you can look for something “new.”

That brings us to lasers. Ah, yes, lasers. It is easy to be cynical and state, “Lasers: the past, present, and future’s weapon of the future. Always around the corner on the developmental Möbius strip.”

Without diving too deep, the tactical utility of lasers has always been an engineering problem: chemical, mechanical, computer, and electrical. How do you generate enough power in a small enough package and keep the laser on target for a long enough time to destroy/divert it from its target? Then, how long can it be until it is ready for the next target, and how many targets can it service in X length of time? What is the opportunity cost of having this capability compared to other systems?

As sea, there is the extra challenge of atmospherics.

If there is one military in the world that does not have the luxury of relying on vaporware or systems that only work on PPT and the range, it is Israel. Indeed, many of the failures on October 7th were because they bought into comforting ideas and technological shortcuts that Hamas took advantage of. They are extra careful today that they don’t make that same mistake.

So, that is why their laser program is getting my interest.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems delivered the first Iron Beam system to the Israeli Air Force on Dec. 29, just getting in under the wire on a promise to deliver Iron Beam before the end of the year, according to a joint press release.

The ministry noted that the system, known as “Or Eitan” in Hebrew, was run through “an extensive series of tests against various threats and successfully intercepted rockets, mortars, and UAVs, will be integrated into the IAF and incorporated into Israel’s multi-layered aerial defense array as a complementary capability to the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and Arrow systems.”

The potential for laser-based interception of drones, missiles and rockets is one long-desired by militaries, given the cost discrepancy between an expensive kinetic interceptor and incoming small drones or rockets. The Iron Beam can burn or fry objects at a range of around ten kilometers, according to previous statements.

Note the end of the next quote:

Amir Baram, the ministry’s director general, said that the delivery marks the completion of an initial phase, from development to serial manufacturing. There are “numerous additional systems already in production,” he said. “Even as production continues, we are already advancing the development of next-generation defense systems for land and air deployment.”

Airborne lasers? OK…this will be interesting to see.

What I don’t see is these being ship-based like we see proposed for USS Defiant (BBG-1). However, I have heard that there are two ground system variants and a naval one in the works.

Notice what you see in this picture.

It appears that these are designed to be containerized. So incredibly smart. If they used standard containers, they can be transported by almost anything commercially designed to be the same. Can be placed in untold numbers of locations designed to secure and carry them.

Plug and play…but it does beg the question: how much power does it demand, and can our LCS provide it? I have ideas…