Navy Secretary Ray Mabus promised to unveil a new “roadmap” this fall for how the military will acquire and employ electric lasers, microwave and other directed energy weapons.
Touting the recent deployment of a laser weapon aboard a ship at sea and successful tests of an electromagnetic railgun, Mabus said the Navy is poised to “support rapid and efficient acquisition of directed energy weapons.”
That was welcome news to the standing-room-only crowd that filled a huge ballroom in Tysons Corner, Virginia, to hear Mabus and other officials talk about the future of a technology that the military has toyed with for decades and has perennially been “on the cusp” of a major breakthrough.
Champions of directed energy weapons have been galvanized by a string of technical successes in recent years, but recognize they suffer from a credibility deficit. The Navy will keep pushing to get programs funded and to turn lab projects into military-useful systems, Mabus said at the July 28 “Directed Energy Summit” organized by the consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton and the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.