US Laser and Rail Gun Development News

Jeff Head said:

If you want to know the types of things the US Navy is doing with the Laser Weapons System (LAWS) which has been mounted on the USS Ponce for the last 2-3 years, watch this video, and realize that soon, this sort of system will be in use on other ships for close in defenses, and on aircraft as well.:

@bd popeye @FORBIN @tphuang @Jura @kwaigonegin @Obi Wan Russell @Blackstone @Air Force Brat @vesicles @dtulsa @Bernard @Asif Ijaz

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1. what's going to happen to the LAWS after 2018: "Ponce is planned to be decommissioned in 2018." (quoting
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   )?
2. since the LAWS is portrayed as such a gigantic success, why there's just a single installation of it?

Jura said:

two questions:

1. what's going to happen to the LAWS after 2018: "Ponce is planned to be decommissioned in 2018." (quoting
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   )?
2. ...

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The US Navy’s afloat forward staging base-interim USS Ponce (AFSB(I) 15) returned to Naval Station Norfolk September 27 after spending over five years overseas.

The navy’s first laser-weapon system fitted ship returned from the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations and is set to be decommissioned and dismantled later this year.

Nicknamed “Proud Lion,” Ponce was reclassified from an amphibious transport dock ship to an interim afloat forward staging base with a hybrid crew of Navy and Military Sealift Command personnel.

They deployed to the Navy’s U.S. 5th Fleet and had been forward-deployed there since July 2012. The reclassification was experimental and based on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk’s (CV 63) role as an afloat special operations staging base during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001.

Following a mandate from the Chief of Naval Operations, U.S. Fleet Forces Command, in cooperation with the Military Sealift Command, coordinated efforts to provide Ponce as a response to a U.S. Central Command request for an afloat forward staging base to conduct a variety of in-theater sea operations. After successful implementation, Ponce remained in the U.S. 5th Fleet area of operations providing a platform capable of completing a variety of missions including humanitarian relief, special operations, mine countermeasure operations and serving as a command and control asset.

“The U.S. Navy’s ‘Proud Lion’ is America’s proof of concept of innovative warfighting operations and a testament to unmatched professionalism,” said Brig. Gen. Francis L. Donovan, commander, Naval Amphibious Forces, Task Force 51, 5th Marine Expeditionary Brigade.

The ship was commissioned July 10, 1971, in Norfolk, as an Austin-class amphibious transport dock ship (LPD). She became a workhorse of the Atlantic Fleet, completing 27 North Atlantic, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf deployments over the next 42 years. In 2011, the ship was selected for decommissioning after her final deployment and began deactivation in November 2011 for a March 30 decommissioning. Refitted as an afloat forward staging base (interim), the ship gained new life and a hybrid crew.

In 2014, Ponce tested the laser weapons system, the first of its kind to be employed aboard a deployed U.S. Navy warship. Ponce’s participation in the development of this system was essential to defining a generation of directed energy weapons currently in development.

During her time in the 5th Fleet, Ponce deployed throughout the Gulf of Aden, Horn of Africa, South Red Sea and Arabian Gulf to conduct expeditionary operations in support of diverse missions that included crisis response, airborne mine countermeasures, counter-piracy operations, maritime security operations and humanitarian aid/disaster relief missions.

Ponce was relieved in U.S 5th Fleet by the expeditionary sea base USS Lewis B. Puller (ESB 3), the first U.S. ship commissioned outside the United States and the first ship built specifically for the purpose of serving as an afloat, forward-staging base.

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Jura said:

in the post right above

and here's a related article which doesn't answer my question though:
US Navy’s first laser-equipped ship returns to US ahead of retiring
Posted on September 28, 2017

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Jura said:

two questions:

1. what's going to happen to the LAWS after 2018: "Ponce is planned to be decommissioned in 2018." (quoting
   Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!
   )?
2. since the LAWS is portrayed as such a gigantic success, why there's just a single installation of it?

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Laser skeptics sometimes note that laser proponents over the years have made numerous predictions about when lasers might enter service with DOD, and that these predictions repeatedly have not come to pass. Viewing this record of unfulfilled predictions, skeptics might argue that “lasers are X years in the future—and always will be.”

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Lockheed Martin has received a $26.3 million contract to develop and produce a laser than can be tested on a fighter jet by 2021.

The initiative will see Lockheed develop a high power fiber laser as part of US Air Force's Research Lab's Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) programme, says Lockheed in a statement.

"Lockheed Martin continues to rapidly advance laser weapon systems and the technologies that make them possible," says Rob Afzal, senior fellow of laser weapon systems at Lockheed Martin.

"We have demonstrated our ability to use directed energy to counter threats from the ground, and look forward to future tests from the air as part of the SHiELD system."

ShiED has three subsystems: the beam control system that directs the laser to the target, a pod that powers and cools the laser, and the laser itself.

"Earlier this year, we delivered a 60 kW-class laser to be installed on a U.S. Army ground vehicle. It's a completely new and different challenge to get a laser system into a smaller, airborne test platform. It's exciting to see this technology mature enough to embed in an aircraft," says Afzal.

"The development of high power laser systems like SHiELD show laser weapon system technologies are becoming real. The technologies are ready to be produced, tested and deployed on aircraft, ground vehicles and ships."

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Jura said:

I start with the funny quote
from inside of Sep 9, 2015
and now the news:
Lockheed to develop experimental laser for fighters
07 November, 2017

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Lockheed Martin will create a high-powered laser for the U.S. Air Force that will be demonstrated on a fighter jet in 2021.

The company was recently awarded a $26.3 million contract to design and build a fiber laser as part of an Air Force Research Laboratory program called Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator, or SHiELD. That laser will be integrated with two other main subsystems: a pod that will power and cool the laser and a beam-control system, which will direct the laser onto the target.

If successful, the technology could be a game-changer. The Air Force has long desired an airborne laser so that it can take out surface-to-air and air-to-air missile threats more cheaply than current intercept methods.

Industry has struggled for about a decade to make a laser small enough to be installed on a vehicle or aircraft that was also powerful enough to be relevant on a battlefield, Rob Afzal, Lockheed’s senior fellow of laser weapon systems, said during a Tuesday phone call with reporters. However, improvements in fiber laser technology are enabling the company to miniaturize more powerful systems.

“We’re able now to put a scalable system together that’s very efficient at converting electric power into a high-power laser beam while maintaining the beam quality. And by maintaining that beam quality, that means you get the most effectiveness from your system,” he said.

“Because the system is efficient, it demands fewer resources from the platform. It demands the lowest amount of electric power and generates the lowest amount of waste heat.”

So how powerful will Lockheed’s laser be? Afzal wouldn’t say, except that it would be in the “tens of kilowatts.” He also shied away from questions about which fighter jet will carry the laser, the range of the weapon and how the Air Force will test SHiELD during the demonstration, directing those queries to the service.

After Lockheed finishes developing and testing its laser in a series of ground tests, it will deliver it to the Air Force lab, where it will be integrated with the other SHiELD subsystems before another round of testing and integration aboard an unspecified jet, Afzal said.

Northrop Grumman is manufacturing the beam-control system, which goes by the acronym STRAFE, which stands for SHiELD Turret Research in Aero Effects. Boeing is responsible for integrating the SHiELD systems into a single pod, called Laser Pod Research and Development.

Afzal declined to comment on when Lockheed will deliver the laser or when its preliminary design review would be complete.

Lockheed has experience developing high-powered tactical lasers. Earlier this year, the company delivered a 60-kilowatt laser to the U.S. Army to be integrated on the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck, the service’s largest ground vehicle. It has also built a 30-kilowatt laser system that has been in the field for four years, Afzal said.

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The Air Force has been talking about placing laser weapons on fighter jets for some time, but Air Mobility Command is also looking to the possibility of using lasers to counter surface-to-air and air-to-air missile threats.

Gen. Carlton Everhart, head of AMC, told Air Force Times he wants to begin exploring this capability on a KC-135 refueling tanker starting next year.

The four-star has talked about the idea of employing lasers before, but now he’s taking steps to get a KC-135 to the Air Force Research Laboratory by the summer of 2018 to start testing the concept.

The researchers at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio would get six months to a year to experiment with the aircraft to see what is possible and what questions would need to be answered, said AMC spokesman Col. Chris Karns.

“The expectation is to have this capability available to our war fighters within two years,” Everhart said. “It’s time to move out and show we’re serious about this to our airmen.”

As the United States faces more advanced adversaries that can fire anti-aircraft missiles, refueling tankers are a prime target because of their size and mission.

Everhart has also discussed a type of “cloaking device” that could make it harder for an enemy to detect these large planes on their radars.

The commander said he wants to take advantage of the bright, innovative minds within the Air Force to help future war fighters.

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