The US “National Interest” website recently published an article entitled “The “Iron Beam” System: How Israel Use green laser pointer to Destroy Enemy Missiles in War.” The article pointed out that the “4-layer missile shield” currently in service with missiles and anti-missiles of the Israel Defense Forces, although advanced in technology, is expensive and difficult to operate, and has shortcomings in performance, especially in combat and logistics. Therefore, the Israeli military has shown great interest in the use of laser technology, especially fiber laser beam combining technology.
Make up for the lack of missile anti-missile technology. In the early 1990s, Israel and the United States cooperated to develop the “Nautilus” deuterium fluoride chemical laser weapon test system. In 2006, the two parties also cooperated to develop the “Guardian of the Sky” oxygen-iodine chemical laser weapon test system. In 2008, Israel launched the world’s first solid-state laser-the anti-artillery ammunition laser weapon system, but whether it is a chemical laser weapon or a solid laser weapon, there are problems such as large size, difficult heat dissipation, and difficult security.
Therefore, Israel has begun to develop new laser weapon technology. In 2009, Israel Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Co., Ltd. developed a new anti-artillery ammunition laser weapon system based on fiber laser technology, and launched the “Iron Beam” laser weapon prototype at the 2014 Singapore Air Show. This high-energy laser weapon system uses a 2 kilowatt-class fiber laser with a maximum effective range of 7 kilometers and is installed on two vehicles for launch.
The emergence of the “Iron Beam” laser weapon system has effectively solved the two major problems faced by the “Iron Dome” system, one is its low cost efficiency, and the other is its inability to deal with intensive attacks. The cost of each interception of the “Iron Dome” missile system is about 100,000 to 150,000 US dollars; and the cost of each launch of the “Iron Beam” laser weapon system is only 2,000 US dollars, which solves the above two major problems in one fell swoop.
The two technologies achieve accumulation and enhancement of laser energy. Most traditional laser pointer weapon test systems use a large laser to emit laser light, while the “iron beam” laser weapon system uses a three-stage stacking method of beams to achieve cumulative enhancement of laser energy. That is, a stack of multiple tiny lasers is combined first, and then multiple beams from multiple stacks are combined, and finally the laser beams are superimposed on the target aiming point. In the meantime, there are mainly two key technologies.