The Conservative Cave
Current Events => General Discussion => Topic started by: SVPete on September 24, 2026, 09:51:46 AM
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US military spending $500M on ‘war-ready’ laser weapons — and zapping drones in Iran, along US border: experts
https://nypost.com/2026/09/24/us-news/us-military-spending-500m-on-war-ready-laser-weapons-experts/ (https://nypost.com/2026/09/24/us-news/us-military-spending-500m-on-war-ready-laser-weapons-experts/)
Iranian citizens have witnessed some dazzling laser shows recently — but they’re not the kind you’d see at a Metallica concert.
The US military has been deploying lasers in the Strait of Hormuz to knock out regime hardware, taking out “drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles,” the Department of War recently confirmed.
The US project to harness laser power has been 50 years in the making and outstrips the capabilities of any other military on Earth.
“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,” Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, which works with the military, told The Post.
Having a laser with sufficient power to disable/destroy drones and missiles is only part of a system that accomplishes that. Detection, identification, and tracking precede a drone-shattering kaboom. The army and marines, IIRC, also have vehicle-based mobile laser systems.
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The Air Force is also looking to thicken the Thin Blue Line with a batch of new, upgraded F-16s (https://youtu.be/sLmXRAhyvEk?si=hsl4hBCIKn1HhJDG).
Good, IMHO... :popcorn:
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The Air Force is also looking to thicken the Thin Blue Line with a batch of new, upgraded F-16s (https://youtu.be/sLmXRAhyvEk?si=hsl4hBCIKn1HhJDG).
Good, IMHO... :popcorn:
Congress, with cooperation from, especially, Presidents OhBummer! and Otto Penn, let the USAF's F-15 and F-16 fleet go without being fully upgraded with newer technologies. The F-15EX and the upcoming upgraded F-16 will catch up that capability gap.
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WRT the laser story, I'm so old that - oh wait, it was just a year or two ago - when mil-bashers were saying that the US military was helpless from and clue-free about drones. Now "suddenly" the US armed forces are deploying ship-, aircraft-, and vehicle-based and man-portable anti-drone weapons (not just lasers, BTW). It's almost as if these weapons were in development when or before the threat from drones appeared.