On September 8, the U.S. Navy's first guided-missile destroyer, the USS Dewey equipped with a laser weapon system, was deployed to the U.S. Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan.
Laser weapons are divided according to the mode of action, there are two kinds of soft kill and hard kill. Soft killing mainly refers to interference and blindness; hard killing mainly refers to thermal destruction, mechanical destruction and radiation destruction. According to the operational use, there are two types of strategic laser weapons and tactical laser weapons. The strategic category is mainly used to attack strategic missiles and satellites, and laser weapons with a range of several hundred kilometers to several thousand kilometers. The tactical category mainly includes low-energy laser jamming and blinding weapons and anti-aircraft and anti-missile high-energy lasers used on ships, vehicles, aircraft and other platforms. The average power of laser jamming and blinding weapons generally does not exceed 10,000 watts, and the range is within 10 kilometers, and the tactical laser weapons used to destroy aircraft and missile housings have an average power of more than 100,000 watts. To burn targets of 10 km to hundreds of km or more, the average power would need to be in the range of hundreds of thousands of watts to several million watts.
Some analysts believe that the Dewey is equipped with a "naval optical glare system", which is a low-energy non-lethal laser weapon, which is mainly used for visual observation of interfering pilots and has little effect. Not really.
The U.S. Navy is conducting trials of 3 laser weapons programs. In addition to the "Navy Optical Glare System", there is also the "High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical Glare Surveillance" system, which is a 60,000-watt laser weapon, which is much more powerful than the "Naval Optical Glare System", and in high-power working mode, it can burn the devices on drones and low-altitude flying aircraft. Last April, the United States tested the Portland amphibious dock transport ship platform, and used this "high-energy laser weapon system" to successfully destroy a drone. In addition, the U.S. military is also experimenting with the more powerful "solid-state laser technology maturity" system, with the goal of installing 150,000 watts of laser weapons on amphibious ships and destroyers in the future.
The DESTROYER Dewey was often used as a test ship by the U.S. military. In April 2013, the Dewey was equipped with the "Naval Optical Glare System." In 2020, during the dry dock upgrade, it eliminated the "dense array" close defense system on the bow and installed the "high-energy laser and integrated optical dazzling surveillance" system in situ. That is to say, the laser weapons on the Dewey have a certain attack capability against small ships and drones.
After the Destroyer Dewey was equipped with new laser weapons, it was first deployed to the Seventh Fleet of the US Military stationed in Japan, aiming at China and using China as a new weapons testing ground.
Just last month, China conducted aerial reconnaissance of joint U.S.-U.S.-U.S.-Japan exercises using long-haul UAV-001 and other long-haul drones. In the future, China's use of drones to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the United States and Japan may become the norm. Perhaps, the first target of laser weapons on the Destroyer Dewey is the Chinese drone.
If the US military laser weapon is aimed at Chinese military targets, whether it is soft or hard kill, it is an offensive act, and the US military needs to bear the consequences of this. The US military once hyped up the use of laser glare devices on Chinese warships to illuminate the pilots on the US military aircraft, and if the US military dared to do the first day, China would do fifteen.