{"id":71565,"date":"2025-08-06T20:51:52","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T20:51:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2025\/08\/06\/army-readies-to-launch-2026-competition-for-counter-drone-laser-weapon\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T01:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T01:13:24","slug":"army-readies-to-launch-2026-competition-for-counter-drone-laser-weapon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2025\/08\/06\/army-readies-to-launch-2026-competition-for-counter-drone-laser-weapon\/","title":{"rendered":"Army readies to launch 2026 competition for counter-drone laser weapon"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">HUNTSVILLE, Ala. \u2212 The U.S. Army is counting on funding in fiscal 2026 to hold a competition to pursue a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/digital-show-dailies\/smd\/2024\/08\/12\/armys-high-energy-laser-competition-to-kick-off-early-next-year\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/digital-show-dailies\/smd\/2024\/08\/12\/armys-high-energy-laser-competition-to-kick-off-early-next-year\/\">high-energy laser weapon system <\/a>focused first on countering drones, according to service officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Over the course of the last five-plus years, the Army\u2019s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office, or RCCTO, has built <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/industry\/techwatch\/2024\/03\/29\/us-army-refreshes-competition-for-short-range-laser\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/industry\/techwatch\/2024\/03\/29\/us-army-refreshes-competition-for-short-range-laser\/\">a wide variety of directed energy prototypes<\/a>, from 10-kilowatt palletized systems for fixed sites to 20- to 30-kilowatt lasers mounted on small tactical vehicles, to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2023\/04\/13\/army-short-range-air-defense-laser-prototypes-take-down-drones-at-yuma\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2023\/04\/13\/army-short-range-air-defense-laser-prototypes-take-down-drones-at-yuma\/\">50-kilowatt systems on the Army\u2019s Maneuver-Short-Range Air Defense Stryker-based vehicles<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The office also continues to develop a 300-kilowatt laser, as well as high-power microwave capabilities, to counter a variety of threats like drones, artillery and cruise missiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Out of the 17 prototypes developed through the office, the Army has deployed 11 of them, including four <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2022\/01\/13\/army-readies-to-deliver-first-set-of-strykers-with-50-kilowatt-laser-weapons\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2022\/01\/13\/army-readies-to-deliver-first-set-of-strykers-with-50-kilowatt-laser-weapons\/\">Directed Energy M-SHORAD systems to the U.S. Central Command<\/a> area of operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Through operational experimentation, the Army has concluded there is great potential for directed-energy weapons, particularly because of their extraordinarily low cost per shot and naturally high magazine depth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But currently, the ability <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2023\/08\/11\/us-army-working-through-challenges-with-laser-weapons\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2023\/08\/11\/us-army-working-through-challenges-with-laser-weapons\/\">to sustain the systems in the rough and dirty environments<\/a> of the battlefield needs work \u2014 and industry is not yet poised to manufacture them at scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army decided to pursue what it is calling its Enduring High Energy Laser program to tackle those specific challenges and steer the capability from prototypes to systems that can be fielded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have to continue to work harder, we have to continue to work with the soldiers. We have to continue to work with industry to develop our directed-energy platforms and focus on the areas of reliability,\u201d Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, the RCCTO director, said Wednesday at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019ve got to work on maintainability because \u2026 we can\u2019t get by with the thought of having clean rooms out in combat,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After years of prototyping, the Army\u2019s Enduring High Energy Laser effort will also be designed to be delivered at scale \u201cat more than onesies or twosies,\u201d Rasch said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Army plans to release initial capability documents to industry within the next 60 days and is also planning to update its broad agency announcement, which was first released in the summer of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The service is looking at a modular approach for components and is asking industry to design the system with line-replaceable units, meaning components that can be swapped in and out by soldiers in the field in a non-sterile environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The experimentation in operational scenarios has led to a deep understanding of what components and parts of the laser systems have high failure rates, Col. Adam Miller, who is in charge of directed-energy programs within RCCTO, said at the symposium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe optics on these systems are one of the high failure rate items and one of the challenges that we have,\u201d he said. \u201cSo as we look to design the beam director \u2026 we wanted to insert a touch point opportunity, an integration and a learning event for those soldiers to actually repair that optic and to demonstrate that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The system should also be interoperable in the sense that laser providers will not be asked to be vehicle integrators, like many were tasked to do in prototyping. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe have decoupled the vehicle from our lasers,\u201d Miller said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cSo, if the Army wants to put it on a robot or a Stryker or a [Joint Light Tactical Vehicle],\u201d it can be done with some modifications and size, weight and power adjustments, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The service is also looking to ensure the user interface is common and open, Miller added. The program will also challenge industry to design the systems to be ready to be manufactured at scale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBoth industry, and on the government side, fully expect directed energy to go up like a hockey stick from the demand perspective, as well as the need to build these systems rapidly,\u201d John Garrity, vice president at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2024\/10\/14\/leonardo-bluehalo-demo-counter-drone-system-on-army-stryker\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"\" title=\"https:\/\/www.defensenews.com\/land\/2024\/10\/14\/leonardo-bluehalo-demo-counter-drone-system-on-army-stryker\/\">BlueHalo,<\/a> now an AeroVironment company, said at the symposium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cNot a single component of material suppliers is probably situated to meet that demand today, so our focus has been on building that coalition and team \u2026 to make sure that we are ready to actually produce those systems at scale and at volume.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Army wants laser weapons that can defeat drone threats, but it wants the ability to maintain them in battlefield environments and build them at scale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":113240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":14,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[160,29,14,36,99],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3330],"class_list":["post-71565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-digital-show-dailies","category-land","category-newsletters","category-smd"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EOOWPZQXF5DPFMLZMYKVYDCNPM","arc_canonical_url":"\/land\/2025\/08\/06\/army-readies-to-launch-2026-competition-for-counter-drone-laser-weapon\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.0 (Yoast SEO v28.1) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Army readies to launch 2026 competition for counter-drone laser weapon - Defense News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Army wants laser weapons that can defeat drone threats, but it wants the ability to maintain them in battlefield environments and build them at scale.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/land\/2025\/08\/06\/army-readies-to-launch-2026-competition-for-counter-drone-laser-weapon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Army readies to launch 2026 competition for counter-drone laser weapon\" \/>\n<meta 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