November 15, 2014 - The U.S. Navy has deployed on a command ship in the Persian Gulf its first laser weapon capable of destroying a target. The amphibious transport ship USS Ponce has been patrolling with a prototype 30-kilowatt-class Laser Weapon System since late August, according to officials. The laser is mounted facing the bow, and can be fired in several modes, from a dazzling warning flash to a destructive beam, and can set a drone or small boat on fire.
The Ponce “provides a unique platform” to deploy the new capability “in an operationally relevant region,” Vice Admiral John Miller, the 5th Fleet commander, said in a statement. The ship is the 5th Fleet’s primary command and control afloat staging base for operations.
Since 2011, the Navy has boosted its presence in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s traded oil flows. Equipped with naval mines and small vessels that practice swarming tactics to attack larger warships, Iranian officials have periodically threatened to close the waterway.
Naval Sea Systems Command technicians developed the prototype over seven years at a cost of about $40 million. The Ponce crew was authorized to deploy the weapon after it passed a series of at-sea tests, including lasing static surface targets, the 5th Fleet spokesman Commander Kevin Stephens said in a statement.
The prototype focuses the light from six solid-state commercial welding lasers on a single spot, according to a July 31 Congressional Research Service report. It “can effectively counter surface and airborne threats, to include small boats” and drones, Miller said, and firing it costs about a dollar a shot, according to the Navy.
The device can emit progressively stronger beams, first to warn an adversary, and then destroy it if necessary, Chief of Naval Research Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder said at a Government session earlier this year.
The laser can be adjusted to fire a non-lethal dazzling flash at an incoming vessel so they know it’s there “all the way to lethal,” Klunder said. The laser’s range is classified.
