Marines test portable vehicle-mounted laser weapon to destroy enemy UAVs and protect deployed warfighters
QUANTICO MARINE BASE, Va. – The U.S. Marines announced Wednesday that they are testing a portable ground-based laser weapon for shooting down enemy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UPI reports. Continue reading original article
The Military & Aerospace Electronics take:
20 June 2019 -- The Compact Laser Weapons System, or CLaWS, will be evaluated for several months, with the aim of upgrading it to be included in fixed-site and other mobile situations.
The Boeing Co. first announced the weapon in 2015. It is a portable device that uses an invisible laser to take down targets several hundred meters away. It was designed to focus energy on a small enough spot to heat and destroy targets, including moving ones -- such as drones.
In 2018, Boeing expressed an interest in mounting the CLaWS on tactical vehicles, including the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle under development to replace the Humvee, to destroy UAVs. The CLaWS comes in 2-, 5- and 10-kilowatt variants and can be carried by two or more Marines.
Related: Laser weapons show their stuff in real-world conditions
John Keller, chief editor
Military & Aerospace Electronics
