US Army will test most powerful laser weapon ever built next year

The US Army is planning to demonstrate a 300-kilowatt laser weapon, the most powerful ever built, next year. General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) and Boeing are building the device, which is the size of a shipping container and mounted on a heavy truck. "The high power, compact laser weapon… will produce a lethal output greater than anything fielded to date," Scott Forney, president of GA-EMS, said in a statement. The US Navy deployed the first high-energy laser weapon, known as LaWS, on the USS Ponce in 2014, with a reported 30 kilowatt output. Most military lasers tend to be in the 30 to 100 kilowatt range, which is mainly useful for shooting down small drones, so the new weapon is a significant increase.