The Marines Want To Build A Laser Weapon To Shoot Down Enemy Aircraft

Business insider

The Marine Corps has begun field testing a laser weapon that can be mounted on a Humvee to shoot down low-flying aircraft such as enemy drones, Raytheon announced Wednesday.
"Raytheon is paving the way for fielded directed energy weapon systems in the very near future with the demonstration of a Marine Humvee-based high energy laser," Bill Hart, vice president of Raytheon Space Systems said in the statement.

The weapon is known as the Ground-Based Air Defense Directed Energy On-the-Move Program, or GBAD--- I for one think they should call it the 'ZAP-O-MATIC'

William Zamagni, acting head of the Office of Naval Research's Expeditionary Maneuver Warfare and Combating Terrorism Department, said in a statement. “GBAD gives the Marine Corps a capability to counter the UAV threat efficiently, sustainably and organically with austere expeditionary forces

ONR hopes to research, develop, design, and deliver the laser weapon in five years.

Development of this should be easy since if follows the Navy's current system the LaWS... Will post a vid below of how that system works...
While I'm no expert it seems this is the future of battlefield tactics... Not just a matter of which side can launch the most armed drones in the air, but who can keep the most loitering over the target... only someone should let Raytheon know the USMC is planning to phase out the Hummer...

My first thought is that they better keep these type of weapons very mobile. Yeah, you can hit one drone. What if the enemy has multiple drones flying as a fleet. When that laser fires it will be a beacon that can be triangulated on and coordinates can be assigned to a guided missile.

If it's anything like the navy's laser then I'd worry about the humvee as a platform to carry the system

Anyway.. Isn't there already several different laser programs similar ?

a reply to: skunkape23

They say five years for development... lot of things can change in five years... I mean 5 years ago the BlackBerry was the only smart phone on the market...

Everything I've seen or read about lately is making these drones smaller and smaller... Forward fire control does have spotter drones the size of a large model airplane but the big Predators, armed drones fly high and shoot back...Granted doing something is better than doing nothing... I just don't know how it'll play out... after all a lot can change in 5 years

originally posted by: skunkape23
My first thought is that they better keep these type of weapons very mobile. Yeah, you can hit one drone. What if the enemy has multiple drones flying as a fleet. When that laser fires it will be a beacon that can be triangulated on and coordinates can be assigned to a guided missile.

But ultimately light travels faster than rockets and as you said these platforms are pretty mobile

It's a great idea, bit whether the humvee is the platform to carry it I don't know,

DARPA is currently developing a fast moving highly manoeuvrable tank, they're stripping or doing away with armour and concert acting on low observability and speed

I'm wondering if this is the future platform to take on the laser technology further



www.foxnews.com...

So essentially what I'm getting from this is that the tech is there and they're just working on the delivery platform? Five years in development seems long to me.

They all ready have Tesla's death ray plans.Why not just use them?

What's next? the navy fielding sharks with friggin laser beams on their heads?
why dont they hold onto the funding and make a decent soldier carried laser beam platform, that would be way more awesome

If it's the Marine core, they will probably duck tape a million laser pointers around a spotlight.

They are wanting to PERFECT the ones your showing us....already in place on vehicles. Not build them. Theyve already got them.....you showed us that.

You mean disclose and deploy right?

a reply to: HardCorps

Stands to reason considering the Navy already have such weapons mounted on some of the vessels. Any kind of man or men portable version better sport one hell of a power source.

The obvious flaw with using this system to shoot down low flying drones is that drones don`t have to fly low and they normally don`t fly low.If the only thing it will be good for is shooting down low flying drones then it`s a pretty expensive fly swatter that won`t get much use.
I suppose while they are waiting for a drone to fly low enough to be shot down they could use the laser against ground targets ,like people?

I seen this before some years ago on a TV show called Future Weapons, I think they'd use it on planes as well to shoot down enemy rockets coming toward them. For all we know its probably in the final stages of development.

They will make that. In about 20 years time it'll be man portable and capable of taking down attack helo's at the least.
Kind of a very expensive one shot device, for the manpad version.
Probably first used in Oceania/South East Asia, for the manpad version.
China will make knockoffs too.

The Marines be going Star Wars



From the Halls of Montezuma to the Sea of tranquility and beyond.

Semper Fi