In the 1990s, the Army began to jointly develop the Tactical High Energy laser pointer Weapon (THEL) with Israel. Similar to the Air Force, the Army chose a deuterium fluoride chemical laser with a target output power of 400,000 watts, which can intercept aircraft and rockets up to 10 kilometers away. In 1996, the laser shot down two Soviet-made 122mm rockets at the Baisha Missile Range.
However, this kind of laser weapon is huge and cannot be loaded on ground vehicles, and the above two kinds of laser weapons actually use chemical energy as raw materials. Each shot requires a large amount of oxygen and iodine chemical agents, even for the huge Boeing 747 aircraft. , Can only load 24 shots of potions.
From 1987 to 1988, the Navy conducted a series of target tests at the Baisha Proving Ground and successfully destroyed a supersonic anti-ship missile. By 2000, the Navy had developed two types of ship-borne lasers, “Target-1” and “Target-2”, which were used to counter air targets and anti-ship missiles. The actual effects were unknown.
In 2010, the Naval Surface Warfare Research Center and Kotos signed a $11 million contract for the development of solid-state fiber green laser pointer weapon systems. The technical route proposed by Kotos is completely different from the previous research funded by the Navy.
Technically speaking, if you want to realize a laser weapon, you must first choose a laser. A laser is a device that can generate laser light. It is equivalent to a light source such as a civilian light bulb. Similar to a civilian light source, there are currently thousands of lasers that can emit lasers. Roughly divided into solid-state lasers, liquid lasers, gas lasers, free electron lasers and other categories. Rolls uses the simplest, cheapest and reliable fiber laser.