The U.S. military is using high-powered infrared lasers to destroy Iranian drones and cruise missiles in the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Department of War, marking one of the most visible combat applications yet of a technology decades in development.
The Department of War confirmed the lasers are being used to knock out regime hardware, describing the approach as a way of taking out “drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles.”
The directed-energy program has been roughly 50 years in the making, and defense officials say it currently outpaces the capabilities of any other military in the world.
Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, a firm that works with the military, told The Post that the systems allow operators precise control over where a laser strikes a target. “We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [i.e. explode] the drone itself,” Neice said.
In a detail that has drawn attention, the laser systems are operated using modified Xbox game console controllers rather than custom-built military hardware. Neice explained the reasoning behind the choice: “The video games industry figured out what the best controller was and now the US military is saying, ‘Well, why reinvent the wheel with a specialized control system where you can just use an Xbox controller or something really similar to do the job?'”
According to reporting cited from Fox, the Secretary of War has also received training on the laser systems.
A Different Logistics Problem
Unlike conventional weapons, which depend on manufacturing, packing and shipping munitions to the field, laser weapons require primarily a power source. The Navy has the electrical generating capacity aboard its vessels to sustain that demand. Laser strikes also travel at the speed of light and are presumed to produce a lower firing signature than a missile or gun launch.
The Department of War has so far stated the lasers are being used effectively against drones and cruise missiles specifically. The technology itself is not new — the Pentagon and defense contractors have tested directed-energy weapons for years — but this marks a shift toward sustained operational use against live targets in an active conflict zone.
Other major militaries, including Russia and China, are widely understood to be pursuing their own directed-energy programs, though the current conflict is confined to Iran, whose damaged infrastructure limits its near-term ability to field a countermeasure.
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