The Army Has Officially Deployed Laser Weapons Overseas to Combat Enemy Drones

In this April 24th, 2024 article,  Jared Keller discusses the U.S. Army’s deployment of their Palletized High Energy Laser, or P-HEL for use in combating enemy drones.

“news of the P-HEL’s operational employment marks the U.S. military’s first publicly acknowledged deployment of a working laser weapon for air defense outside of experimental testing.” 

The Coming Age of Directed Energy and the Red Sea Crisis

In this March 20th, 2024 article,  QinetiQ publishes a press release outlining their successful test of 2 Rattler MkI Missiles in coordination with High Energy Laser System Test Facility (HELSTF) at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR). This flight test is a critical milestone as the first ever flights of this supersonic platform at WSMR.

SemQuest applauds this successful test of the flight platform planned for future integration efforts of a SemQuest HEL target.

US Testing Stryker-mounted lasers in Iraq amid Middle East drone boom

In this March 22nd, 2024 article, Colin Demarest of www.c4isrnet.com discusses the active use of the US Army’s 50 kW HEL-equipped Stryker vehicles in Iraq as part of an effort to test High Energy Lasers as a countermeasure to hostile drones.

Army HEL Request for Proposal Update

In this February 14th, 2024 article, John Keller of Military Aerospace.com discusses the US Army’s effort to reach out to industry to find companies interested in developing prototype laser weapons able to embed with maneuver elements for protection against hostile unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 

UK Directed Energy Update

In this January 19th, 2024 article, Tim Martin of Breaking Defense reports on the UK’s successful employment of HEL weapon systems.

Navy Directed Energy Update

In this January 10th, 2024 article, John Harper of DefenseScoop reports SECNAV’s intent to boost funding for directed energy.

MLD supplies coating for SemQuest HEL beam measurement system

In this August 20th, 2013 article,  Gail Overton of Laser Focus World reports. Optical coatings manufacturer MLD Technologies has supplied a low-loss “leaky mirror” coating for use in a new fieldable sensor used as a High Energy Laser (HEL) beam diagnostic.