Israel’s Ministry of Defense has announced the successful test of Iron Beam, an anti-aircraft interceptor laser. Effectively, this system would also be the most economical ever created.
Money is still the sinew of war, and sometimes entry-level civilian drones purchased on e-commerce sites undermine the largest militaries in the world, who have to use expensive anti-aircraft batteries to take them down. The Israelis have developed Iron Beam, a 100 kW laser beam that can destroy drones, missiles and mortars. Importantly, each shot would cost just $3.50, according to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
“This is the world’s first energy-based weapons system that uses a laser to shoot down incoming UAVs, missiles and mortars at a cost of $3.50 per shot. It may sound like science fiction, but it’s real,” Naftali tweeted. Bennett.
Tests have been successfully carried out in the Negev. The video produced by the IDF and released by the Prime Minister shows the destruction of a missile, a grenade and an unmanned vehicle resembling the Turkish drone Bayraktar. Within seconds, they were blasted into the air by this laser beam.
This anti-aircraft defense system was developed by the industrialist Rafael. Of course, no ammunition is needed. It takes a simple power supply to execute a shot that only takes seconds to activate. Installed on a vehicle, it can even move to organize a mobile anti-aircraft defense.
Benny Gantz, Israel’s defense minister, announced that “everything is being done to make the system operational as soon as possible and to enable an effective, low-cost and innovative protection umbrella”. Once operational, it could complement Iron Dome, the powerful Israeli anti-aircraft device.
A laser against drones tested in France
In the Middle East, the US military is increasingly facing attacks from civilian drones nicknamed Costco, referring to the chain of low-cost stores. The Pentagon is trying to counter these new weapons bought from major retailers. At present, the US military uses the C-RAM defense batteries, radar-guided rapid-fire guns. When effective, they are expensive, several tens of thousands of dollars per shot, and require a sufficient number of ammunition to transport and store them.
The Pentagon is also working on anti-aircraft lasers. In an interview with i24News, Uzi Rubin, founder of Israel’s Missile Defense Organization, revealed that the United States is working on a laser with a power output of 300 kW, three times that of Israel’s Iron Beam. Last summer, the US military unveiled testing a laser only 50 kW.
In 2021 France announced Helma-P successful trials, a 2 kW anti-drone laser developed by Cilas, a subsidiary of ArianeGroup. This device, still in the experimental phase, should be operational from the 2024 Olympics to protect the event from overflights by civilian drones, whose sales have exploded in recent years.
This portable system was presented to the Defense Innovation Forum held in Paris last year. It comes in the form of a case mounted on a tripod. It can detect, target and track drones and eventually neutralize them in flight. Can it destroy a missile or a grenade? The war in Ukraine could prompt Cilas and the DGA to go to court.
