The U.S. Navy warships have been shooting down Houthi drones and rockets using guns and missiles, though directed-energy weapons have not been used in recent incidents. The Navy is concerned about the cost of using $11 million interceptor missiles to take out drones that can cost as little as a few thousand dollars. The military has been seeking lasers and other directed-energy weapons as a cheaper alternative to intercept drones in large numbers.
The U.S. has already deployed lasers aboard ships effectively and now deploys eight 30-kw Optical Dazzler Interdictor Navy (ODIN) systems on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Navy has been facing technical challenges in scaling up lasers to hit fast targets, but proponents say fiber lasers can help overcome those limitations.
The Navy is also facing bureaucratic obstacles to wide deployment of lasers, as there are no previous programs of record for shipboard laser weapon systems in the Department of Defense to draw historical comparisons from, particularly in the area of logistics and life-cycle cost. As a result, the Navy is unable to acquire ship lasers because it has never acquired large numbers of them before and does not know the cost.
The cost estimates for procurement of future laser weapon systems in limited quantities range from $100 million to $200 million per unit, indicating that the United States will wind up paying much more in the short term to save more on missiles.
