The U.S. Navy, in the face of unprecedentedly fast missile and increasingly sophisticated air threats from China and Russia, is embarking on a major upgrade of its Burke-class destroyer fleet. This will take the U.S. Navy’s attack strategy and tactics for large-scale naval warfare on the high seas to a new level.
According to Naval News, U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin has delivered the Helios laser weapon system to the U.S. Navy and will equip it on the U.S. Burke class SHIELD destroyer later this year after additional land and sea testing and evaluation. “The USS Preble DDG 88, which will not only shoot down Drones but also “burn” enemy ships, is a laser weapon capable of destroying enemy ships, as well as having long-range intelligence gathering, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.
“The USS Preble, which is part of the Seventh Fleet under the Pacific Fleet, has entered the waters adjacent to the islands in the South China Sea several times to carry out the U.S. Navy’s Operation Freedom of Navigation, and crossed the Taiwan Strait in May 2019.
HELIOS, whose full name is “High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance,” has a power of 60 kilowatts ( KW), which is much more powerful than the 20-kW laser weapon the Navy tested on the dock landing ship USS Ponce in 2014.
As these new technologies enter the realm of naval warfare, they will dramatically change U.S. Navy tactics, and such weapons with light-speed firing are becoming increasingly important. In the future, when faced with a hostile flying target, a warship commander may choose to disrupt the target and disable it without having to use the destroyer’s vertical launch system to launch expensive interceptor missiles to destroy the target. This would reduce or avoid the after-effects of aerial explosions.
“The Helios laser weapon also has a large number of optical sensors, which means it can use them to track targets and help perform necessary surveillance missions. In some cases, the laser weapon can also bring surface warships closer to hostile targets, as the laser weapon can be used as a supplement to the firepower of the guns on deck, as it attacks at the speed of light and targets narrow targets with precision.
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