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Study Highlights Importance Of Directed-Energy Weapons
April 20 , 2012
It’s time for the U.S. to start funding and fielding directed-energy weapons such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwave, a new study argues, and not just because they are cheaper than one-shot kinetic weapons.
The cost per shot for interceptor missiles is not only expensive—at least $9 million each—it puts U.S. forces on the bad side of what is called the “cost-imposition curve,†says Mark Gunzinger, author of “Changing the Game: The Promise of Directed-Energy Weapons,†the latest report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis.
Presenting the report April 19, Gunzinger described scenarios where an enemy could keep launching cheap missiles at U.S. forces. Without directed-energy (DE) weapons to counter them, U.S. commanders could be forced to answer each with an expensive SM-3 or SM-6. In cost-imposition terms, an enemy need only spend a little to make the U.S. spend a lot.
Besides overcoming serious operational disadvantages, DE weapons offer many advantages. A DE-equipped cruise missile or UAV could fly over two dozen targets and fire on all of them. And the UAV could fly back, get a battery recharge and return to the attack. And a DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer could power and support a high-energy solid-state laser, Gunzinger says.
Overall, DE weapons offer the U.S. military the opportunity to “buy back its freedom of action and shift the cost-imposition calculus in its favor,†he says.
There are challenges to bringing DE weapons to field, but the technology is essentially mature, according to the report. Meager funding and institutional resistance are the biggest obstacles.
“We can’t pour enough concrete in the Pacific [area] to harden our bases,†Gunzinger says, or buy enough kinetics to meet the threats posed by precision-guided missiles and state and non-state actors with guided rockets, artillery, missiles and mortars.
There are advantages in the defensive use of DE weapons for logistics, Gunzinger says. A tanker so-equipped could penetrate further into the conflict arena, which in turn would give tactical fighters more range.
Directed-energy weapons are complementary, the study emphasizes. They will not replace kinetic weapons. Even when you can toast a rocket’s sensors or fry a communications link or maybe melt a mortar round, there are still going to be times when commanders will need kinetic weapons to blow some things to pieces.
April 20 , 2012
It’s time for the U.S. to start funding and fielding directed-energy weapons such as high-energy lasers and high-power microwave, a new study argues, and not just because they are cheaper than one-shot kinetic weapons.
The cost per shot for interceptor missiles is not only expensive—at least $9 million each—it puts U.S. forces on the bad side of what is called the “cost-imposition curve,†says Mark Gunzinger, author of “Changing the Game: The Promise of Directed-Energy Weapons,†the latest report from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis.
Presenting the report April 19, Gunzinger described scenarios where an enemy could keep launching cheap missiles at U.S. forces. Without directed-energy (DE) weapons to counter them, U.S. commanders could be forced to answer each with an expensive SM-3 or SM-6. In cost-imposition terms, an enemy need only spend a little to make the U.S. spend a lot.
Besides overcoming serious operational disadvantages, DE weapons offer many advantages. A DE-equipped cruise missile or UAV could fly over two dozen targets and fire on all of them. And the UAV could fly back, get a battery recharge and return to the attack. And a DDG-51 Arleigh Burke destroyer could power and support a high-energy solid-state laser, Gunzinger says.
Overall, DE weapons offer the U.S. military the opportunity to “buy back its freedom of action and shift the cost-imposition calculus in its favor,†he says.
There are challenges to bringing DE weapons to field, but the technology is essentially mature, according to the report. Meager funding and institutional resistance are the biggest obstacles.
“We can’t pour enough concrete in the Pacific [area] to harden our bases,†Gunzinger says, or buy enough kinetics to meet the threats posed by precision-guided missiles and state and non-state actors with guided rockets, artillery, missiles and mortars.
There are advantages in the defensive use of DE weapons for logistics, Gunzinger says. A tanker so-equipped could penetrate further into the conflict arena, which in turn would give tactical fighters more range.
Directed-energy weapons are complementary, the study emphasizes. They will not replace kinetic weapons. Even when you can toast a rocket’s sensors or fry a communications link or maybe melt a mortar round, there are still going to be times when commanders will need kinetic weapons to blow some things to pieces.