The us military has fitted armoured vehicles with laser-armed drones to guide laser cannons

According to foreign media reports, the us army is installing lasaer pointer weapons and hunter-killer unmanned aerial vehicle system from the stryker wheeled armored vehicle to give the platform new attack capability.

General dynamics land systems, the U.S. manufacturer of stryker armored vehicles, has been testing the installation of an onboard integrated sensor-uav system. A small vertical take-off and landing surveillance drone called the mockingbird 2 takes off from the stryker turret to sense, detect and track enemy targets. The mockingbird 2 can work with attack missiles to destroy targets the drone finds. The technology is designed to speed up the sensor to the firing link and serve as its own “hunter-killer” weapon system.

The army is also developing a mobile high-energy laser weapon system and is trying to install it on stryker armored vehicles. In previous tests, a stryker armoured vehicle fired a five-kilowatt laser beam to destroy enemy drone targets, and combat vehicles could be firing laser weapons in the next few years.

When the vehicle’s other sensors are unavailable in combat, the laser weapon system can use its own ku-band tracking radar to track targets. It also has an electronic warfare jamming system designed to pick up signals from enemy drones. The onboard laser weapon can also be used for “silent defense and attack,” giving the U.S. military a huge tactical advantage because it allows stryker armored vehicles to “fire first” without exposing their positions.