Long relegated to the realm of science fiction, lasers have quietly moved to the brink of becoming a reality at the front-line level where they could conceivably offer troops unprecedented protection at a relatively low cost that Congress might find hard to resist.

"These systems will shoot down rockets, mortars and short-range missiles and will become critical elements of land, sea and airborne platforms," Mike McVey, president of Northrop's Directed Energy Systems division, said on a recent conference call with reporters.

"Laser weapons are really now moving from the laboratory to the battlefield," he added. "And this facility is part of our long-term commitment to brining high-powered lasers to the warfighter."

Just this week, Raytheon reported it had successfully integrated a solid-state laser with the Phalanx system that locks on to anti-ship missiles and blows them apart with a rapid-fire Gatling gun. In a recent static test, the Phalanx-based Laser Area Defense System (LADS) detonated 60-millimeter mortar rounds placed some 550 yards downrange.

"Our solid-state LADS proves you don't have to wait another three-to-five years for solid-state lasers to have military utility on the battlefield," cheered Raytheon Missile Systems Vice-President Mike Booen. "They are ready now."

It has been the rise of the tactical missile that has pushed lasers into a promising role in the real-life military. Weapons ranging from the lowly SCUD to sophisticated cruise and anti-ship present a potent threat to ground forces and surface warships that are nearly impossible to shoot down.

A high-powered laser beam that can lock on to and burn through the metal casing of an incoming threat could not only knock out missiles, but smaller mortar and artillery rounds in flight and even rocket-propelled grenades fired at close range. They are also a potential counterpunch to the tactical rockets, such as the Katyusha, which has vexed Israel for years and have become a disturbingly more-common occurrence in Iraq of late.

Such capability would no doubt make lasers an instant hit with the troops that are both in Iraq now and will find themselves in harms way during the brushfire wars and peacekeeping operations the U.S. military expects to find itself involved in during the next several decades.

The obvious benefits to life and limb are not the only advantage tactical lasers offer. Northrop figures a relatively compact tactical laser has a cost and logistical advantage that current missiles cannot match primarily because lasers don't need ammunition, just a mobile electric generator that will allow the laser to fire virtually indefinitely.

"You don't need a depot full of missiles that you have to store and maintain," McVey said. "The laser doesn't wear out very quickly and all of the supply-chain operations and maintenance you have in fielding any kind of missile system just go away."

Research has been underway to develop tactical anti-ordnance lasers for several years; however cutting the ribbon on the new Northrop facility in Redondo Beach is touted as more than another laboratory. It is the first facility that can begin turning out the devices in quantity and get them into the field sometime in the foreseeable future.

"We will use this facility to begin producing those lasers," McVey said. "We think that the government is moving in that direction. We have seen interest from the Navy, the Air Force and the Army, so we are positioning ourselves to be ready when they want more quantity."

The primary breakthrough has been the development of solid-state laser technology, which in a nutshell allows smaller and more-mobile lasers that produce beams of power and duration previously possible only with larger chemical lasers. Northrop says its new facility produces the gain modules that are the heart of solid-state lasers and are combined in multiple-module packages that will increase the power of the weapon to the 100-kilowatt (kw) threshold.

McVey said 100kw was considered to be the power required for a single laser to handle the multiple missions envisioned by military planners.

"At 100kw, that's enough power to provide good tactical defense to shoot down artillery, rockets and mortars; also, pretty good long-range air-to-air, air-to-ground, and good ship-based defense," McVey ticked off. "Basically, power gives you range, and 100kw is considered the level when you can do enough broad-spread applications."

Like many futuristic weapons, lasers offer the kind of rosy scenario that makes them sound like a "must-have" system for the Pentagon. And current needs in Iraq, plus anticipated missions in the future, could convince Congress as well that a relatively low-cost tactical laser is a good investment as well.

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