USS Portland Takes Out Drone With A Laser – IOTW Report

USS Portland Takes Out Drone With A Laser

USNI News

Amphibious ship USS Portland (LPD-27) shot down a drone with a laser weapon during a first-of-its-kind at-sea test of the Navy’s high-energy laser weapon system.

The Navy is currently developing and testing a portfolio of laser weapons, some of which are more powerful but only suited for ships with greater power-generation capabilities, like the San Antonio-class amphibious transport docks (LPD-17), while others are less powerful but could be fielded on a greater variety of ships, including the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.

In this test, Portland fired its high-power laser weapon at an unmanned aerial vehicle while operating off Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on May 16, U.S. Pacific Fleet announced in a news release today. More

20 Comments on USS Portland Takes Out Drone With A Laser

  1. There several problems with laser weapons.

    They take a huge amount of power to pack the energy needed to destroy a target at a distance before it can take counter measures, and that power takes time to recharge them after they’ve taken a shot which means a lower rate of fire than conventional weapons.

    If surface mounted, they are limited in range to the horizon line and can’t shoot over it to hit anything not in line of sight the wan artillery and missiles can. (a mortar or howitzer can shoot over a hill and hit targets on the other side, a laser cannot).

    They don’t actually actually generate the neat sound effects they do in the moves which makes it much less fun to shoot them than regular guns. This is probably the biggest drawback, maybe they could work on that.

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  2. This is cool technology. We’ve shot down drones with lasers before, but the parked a special forces quad on they bow or stern and used the lasers on those.

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  3. The last I heard they were at around 44,000
    watts of energy.The guy was saying that they are
    about at the limit of how many photons they
    can concentrate in a narrow beam.

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  4. You don’t need to vaporize it. Just shoot a highly focused electromagnetic pulse with a frequency range designed to disrupt the on-board electonics. Then it just falls from the sky.

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