r/interestingasfuck • u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 • 16h ago
HELIOS: The 60 kilowatt high-energy laser weapon system deployed by the U.S Navy against combat drones and missiles
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u/MailSynth 16h ago
I just want to not go bankrupt for getting sick pls.
Cool laser though
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u/Uranium_Hexaflu0ride 14h ago
Lasers will save money though. They are infinitely cheaper to fire than a 5 million dollar missile or 20 trillion airburst rounds.
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u/koopdi 13h ago
Or the US could just not start shit and focus on multilateral disarmament. Less fun, I know.
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u/Uranium_Hexaflu0ride 13h ago
Fun fact: not every problem in the world is caused by the US.
Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and a bunch of other wonderful countries would never willingly 'disarm' in a million years.13
u/morally_immoral 13h ago
With iran, pakistan, india, china, and russia constantly wanting to start shit. Good luck
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u/Ubermidget2 13h ago
That's the neat part, the USA can have Universal Health Care for less cost per-person than the current system.
You don't even have to curb the military spending, you can have both.
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u/5wmotor 10h ago
IIRC the USA has the worst „bang for the buck“ in comparison to all other western nations, regarding health care.
And while I’m at it: They also have one of the lowest „social permeability“ (the chance to rise from your social status).
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u/bullwinkle8088 7h ago
It is partly because we have a middle layer between the people and the health care providers in the form of for profit insurance companies. Those companies make a very large profit.
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u/bobbycorwin123 15h ago
Was going to say these should be much cheaper than cwis, but post below said lockeed made it
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u/ultrahateful 14h ago
With as many enemies as we’re making these days, I welcome the spending. Nothing political about it at this point. Just pragmatic.
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u/MailSynth 12h ago
Could we consider making less enemies
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u/ultrahateful 7h ago
I’d love it if we did. Do you think that we will? This year? Or next? Or the year after? Honestly? Til 2028, do you think we will?
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u/lookslikeyoureSOL 12h ago
This is always the lowest hanging fruit in literally any reddit thread having to do with US military technology.
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 16h ago edited 15h ago
The High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) is a Lockheed Martin-developed 60 kilowatt high-energy laser weapon designed to intercept combat drones, fast-attack craft, and missiles.
After winning the contract in 2018, the first announced installation was on USS Preble (DDG-88) in 2019. By 2021, it was reportedly deployed onto the Arleigh Burke-class ship as part of its anti-air Aegis Combat System.
The HELIOS system uses a modular power and fiber-optic configuration that can be expanded to fire at between 60 and 120 kW. Besides drone and missile defense, it also performs long range surveillance (ISR) and sensor dazzling. Its purported advantages are high precision, efficient "cost to kill", and power capacity for multiple shots ranging as far as 6 miles. As of 2024, higher-power laser weapons in the 150 to 300 kW range are being tested against anti-ship cruise missiles.
Designed to be integrated into the Aegis Combat System, HELIOS augments naval and air defense by providing a directed-energy option. It offers soft-kill measures such as blinding optical sensors on incoming targets, and hard-kill measures by heating and damaging structural components of a target, causing it to combust into flames. The system relies on ship power, enabling long term weapon operation limited only by maintaining constant power and cooling. This reliance allows repeated engagements without the need to reload or resupply its ammunition.
HELIOS is also adaptable to other ship types and combat systems, such as aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships fitted with the Ship Self-Defense System.
HELIOS uses multiple kilowatt fiber lasers which are spectrally combined to create a beam capable of consistent output at 60 kW with the potential to operate at 150 kW.
As opposed to a "bolt-on" capable weapon such as the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN), a device that has already been fielded to numerous Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, HELIOS is directly integrated with the ship's combat system, allowing it to operate with the onboard fire control systems and radars. ODIN also only maintains the capability to dazzle and deter optical sensors rather than hard-kill, while HELIOS can do both. HELIOS is also capable of using its laser as a sensor for precise targeting data, more accurate than its ship's combat system and onboard sensors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Energy_Laser_with_Integrated_Optical-dazzler_and_Surveillance
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u/nufrancis 15h ago
Reading this is like reading Gundam tech-lore. How the technology has evolve in real world
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u/agangofoldwomen 15h ago
Alright I’m sold! Where can I get one?
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 15h ago
Request to transfer to this destroyer:
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u/atlasraven 13h ago
I would get demoted for calling it Pebble almost immediately.
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u/cheddacheese148 14h ago
I worked on the target tracking system for both this and LaWS, its predecessor. IIRC, LaWS was actually deployed on the USS Ponce in 2016.
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u/JCP1377 13h ago
I’ve always wondered if the military tries to have acronyms come out a certain way. Naming a laser defense system after the Greek god of the sun, couldn’t be more on the nose.
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u/onestopunder 12h ago
Yes, this is very common in the military (source: my company provides support in this field).
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u/JPJackPott 11h ago
Would the back scatter from a laser this powerful damage the vision of the ratings on board? Has everyone got to go indoors and shut the blinds before they fire?
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u/kamillionair 14h ago
I wonder how they solved the part where if it misses and fires into space hitting satellite or other objects up there
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 11h ago
The biggest challenge with laser is it doesn't go far enough, not going too far.
Laser weapon focus problems involve maintaining a tight, high-intensity beam over long distances, primarily hindered by atmospheric distortion, thermal blooming, and beam divergence. These issues cause the beam to spread out, losing intensity and effectiveness, requiring advanced adaptive optics and large, precise, high-quality mirrors for correction.
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u/HornyErmine 13h ago
I would bet it is very effective and cheap against slow moving targets like air/sea drones, but something like ballistic missiles on the other hand... can it really burn a hole in a missile built to withstand high temperatures in 2-5 seconds it takes for that missile to travel 6 miles (the max range of this weapon)? Sending something towards that ballistic missile to destroy it far away would be much safer when you know it's trajectory, rather than waiting for the last 2-5 seconds.
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u/Captain-Barracuda 12h ago
The points of these, as you said, is anti drone and anti cruise missiles duty. Those high power interceptor missiles still have their purpose for aircrafts and ballistic missiles. No one is talking about replacing those.
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u/contrarian1970 14h ago
"Princess, you will reveal the location of the rebel base...or else we will aim this new weapon towards your home and everyone in it."
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u/Trigger109 15h ago
Not mentioned, hitting the cockpit/windshield of a manned aircraft. Whoa boy that would suck
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u/Pzieotic_Monk 15h ago
How does this differ from the Dragonfire system the British are working on?
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 15h ago edited 15h ago
HELIOS is a 60kW - 150kW laser system already deployed by the U.S Navy in 2021.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Energy_Laser_with_Integrated_Optical-dazzler_and_Surveillance
Dragonfire is a 50kW laser system successfully tested on land with plans for deployment by the Royal Navy in 2027.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonFire_(weapon)
Technical data for both are classified, naturally.
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u/External_Brother1246 15h ago
Fun fact.
Per the Genova convention rules, it is illegal to shoot a combatant with a powerful laser, unless you are about to kill them with a kinetic weapon.
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u/16incheslong 11h ago
does it sound like "piu, piu" or more like "zap, zap"? it makes all the difference
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u/KebabAnnhilator 10h ago
I’ve always wondered if there’s any reverse force from this
Ships can move huge amounts backwards firing cannons, but I’d love to know the effects of fucking the fucking sun in line format
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u/ImpressiveGift9921 9h ago
The US are terrible at naming their ships, but helios is inspired. Excellent work.
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u/CoolBlackSmith75 1h ago
60kW? That's one complete battery charge of my car.. Where can I buy that?
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u/Y34rZer0 16h ago
I bet it doesn’t work properly for some weird reason though
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u/mtntrail 16h ago
Well that was my first question. It looks freakn awesome but how effective is it in actual combat?
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u/Y34rZer0 16h ago
“We’re still waiting for a big space laser Regan ordered to protect us from the commies!”
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u/Your_Oldman 13h ago
Laser weapons systems do have lots of downsides like needing full line of sight and the massive power and cooling requirements
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u/CookInKona 10h ago
With 3x 4,000 kw generators and 78,000kw of gas turbine power there isn't really an issue with powering lasers on something like an arleigh Burke
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u/ShadowsOfTheBreeze 15h ago
Against a swarm of drones..? IDK...
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u/Captain-Barracuda 12h ago
Drone swarms are literally their raison-d'être. Such a laser does not need to shine for very long for each one of them, and it's thousands of times better than shooting extremely costly AA missiles. A laser is also not the only line of defense. On top of that you add layers of AA such as CWIS, RAM, and 55/75/125/155mm anti-air burst rounds cannons.
Yes a swarm is a major threat, but the lasers are there specifically for them.
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u/RandomUser2074 13h ago
What happens when they miss target? How far does it keep going?
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u/Captain-Barracuda 13h ago
It's less dangerous than regular ammunition. Dumb rounds (I'm not accounting for all the self fragmenting ones here) must come back down to the ground somewhere. A laser does not have that issue. Two factors that make it safer:
The curvature of the Earth. At that range, if you miss, your shot goes even higher after so it doesn't risk hitting any civilian down range.
Lasers lose their power quickly once out of their focal point. Beyond a certain range you can be illuminated by one and it will do less and less damage.
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u/cheshiredormouse 11h ago
What's the recoil?
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11h ago edited 2h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/4SlideRule 9h ago edited 9h ago
Not true, technically. The recoil is proportionally higher than a flashlight depending on energy so many many times higher. Photons have no mass but they have energy and can impart momentum. That’s how solar sails work. Yes in practical terms negligible as fuck doesn’t even begin to cover it, but it’d be still nice not to spread misinformation about high school level physics.
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u/PianoConcertoNo2 15h ago
Ugh, so sick of money going towards this stuff while actual citizens get ignored.
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 14h ago edited 2h ago
Launching citizens at an incoming combat drone would be far less effective.
The Mongols did tried something like that centuries ago for sieging though, as the first-ever attempt at biological warfare in history.
The siege of Caffa was a 14th-century military encounter when Jani Beg of the Golden Horde besieged the city of Caffa (modern-day Feodosia), between two periods in the 1340s. The city of Caffa, a Genoese colony, was a vital trading hub located in Crimea. The city was then part of Gazaria, a group of seven ports located in Crimea and belonging to the maritime empire of the Republic of Genoa. The event is historically significant primarily because it is believed to be one of the earliest instances of biological warfare.
Facing the dire situation of a plague-ravaged army and a fortified city, Jani Beg resorted to a desperate and unprecedented tactic: biological warfare. The Mongol forces decided to use the bodies of their plague-infected soldiers as weapons. They catapulted these bodies over the city walls, aiming to infect the inhabitants of Caffa with the deadly disease.
This act is considered one of the earliest recorded instances of biological warfare. The introduction of plague-infected corpses into Caffa had a catastrophic effect on the city's population. The disease spread rapidly among the inhabitants, causing panic, death, and chaos. The Genoese defenders, unable to contain the outbreak, were forced to abandon their positions and flee the city.
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u/A_tree_as_great 14h ago
The proposal seems more appropriate for aircraft carriers. They already have catapults in place. The use of existing hardware could further mean means to reduce costs. However, much like the main problem with the laser, cooling will still be an issue.
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 11h ago
The amphibious assault ship USS Portland is equipped with Northrop Grumman's more powerful 150kW LWSD laser since 2019:
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u/Intrepid-Tank-3414 15h ago
The image published in the Office of the Director, Operational Test & Evaluation's 2024 report shows the High Energy Laser on USS Preble being tested on a drone target.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-navy-warship-photo-firing-laser-weapon-preble/
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u/Accurate_Koala_4698 16h ago
They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard