{"id":1553931,"date":"2022-07-14T07:52:15","date_gmt":"2022-07-14T11:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1553931"},"modified":"2022-07-14T09:19:29","modified_gmt":"2022-07-14T13:19:29","slug":"lance-the-air-forces-new-laser-weapon-that-could-break-all-the-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/lance-the-air-forces-new-laser-weapon-that-could-break-all-the-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"LANCE: The Air Force&#039;s New Laser Weapon That Could Break All the Rules?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Flance-the-air-forces-new-laser-weapon-that-could-break-all-the-rules%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1553931&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p><span>Lockheed Martin <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wearethemighty.com\/articles\/the-air-force-received-its-first-laser-weapons-for-fighter-planes\/\"><span>delivered<\/span><\/a><span> a<a href=\"https:\/\/www.19fortyfive.com\/2022\/07\/lance-would-an-f-35-or-f-16-armed-with-a-laser-change-everything\/\"> high-energy laser weapon<\/a>, named LANCE, to the Air Force Research Lab last February. Lockheed announced the delivery on Monday, July 11, revealing what had previously been a secret transaction. The delivery represents a significant landmark in Air Force efforts to arm their fighter jets with lasers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The Pentagon has been researching and <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/news.lockheedmartin.com\/2017-11-06-Lockheed-Martin-Receives-Contract-to-Develop-Compact-Airborne-High-Energy-Laser-Capabilities\"><span>funding<\/span><\/a><span> laser weapon development for years. What makes LANCE special is the system\u2019s small size paired with high power. \u201cIt is the smallest, lightest, high energy laser of its power class that Lockheed Martin has built to date,\u201d Tyler Griffin, a Lockheed executive, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/07\/lockheed-delivers-airborne-laser-lance-to-air-force-research-lab\/\"><span>told<\/span><\/a><span> reporters. \u201cIt is a critical benchmark in developing an operational laser weapon system in the airborne domain.\u201d<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Latching Onto the Laser<\/b>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Lockheed has been <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lockheedmartin.com\/content\/dam\/lockheed-martin\/rms\/documents\/directed-energy\/Lockheed-Martin-Laser%20Weapon-Systems-Milestones.pdf\"><span>working<\/span><\/a><span> on laser weapons for years, too. In the last decade, Lockheed has engineered several major milestones in laser weapon development; Lockheed programs including ALADIN, HEFL, ATHENA, and ADAM have helped make laser weaponry a feasible platform. \u201cAt sea, in the air and on the ground, Lockheed Martin is developing laser weapon systems to protect warfighters on the battlefield. Combined with expert platform integration, these systems are designed to defeat a growing range of threats to military forces and infrastructure,\u201d the Lockheed Martin <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lockheedmartin.com\/en-us\/capabilities\/directed-energy\/laser-weapon-systems.html\"><span>website<\/span><\/a><span> explains. \u201cOur technology today is ready to defend against small rockets, artillery shells and mortars, small unmanned aerial vehicles, small attack boats and lightweight ground vehicles that are approximately a mile away.\u201d All indications are that Lockheed will continue to develop laser weapons. \u201cAs fiber laser power levels increase, our systems will be able to disable larger threats and do so across greater distances. When operated in conjunction with kinetic energy systems, these systems can serve as a force multiplier.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>While laser weaponry still has much potential to improve, the LANCE system is a marked improvement over previous systems. \u201cIt\u2019s one-sixth the size of what we produced for the Army going back to just 2017,\u201d Griffin <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2022\/07\/lockheed-delivers-airborne-laser-lance-to-air-force-research-lab\/\"><span>said<\/span><\/a><span>, in reference to the Robust Electric Laser Initiative (RELI). RELI was a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.defensedaily.com\/lockheed-martin-to-build-electric-laser-for-army-demonstrator\/army\/\"><span>program<\/span><\/a><span> to improve high-power electric lasers, making them viable military weapons. LANCE improves upon the work of RELI. The RELI laser had an output in the 60-kilowatt class. \u201cWe don\u2019t yet know what kind of power LANCE can produce although there have been suggestions it will likely be below 100 kilowatts,\u201d Thomas Newdick <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/first-laser-weapon-for-a-fighter-delivered-to-the-air-force\"><span>wrote<\/span><\/a><span> for The War Zone.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><b>Next-Generation Lasers Are a Step Toward Adoption<\/b><\/p>\n<p><span>LANCE, which stands for \u201cLaser Advancements for Next-generation Compact Environments,\u201d comes from a contract Lockheed received in 2017, as part of the USAF\u2019s Self-protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator (SHiELD) program. SHiELD has three components. One is Lockheed\u2019s LANCE laser. Two is Northrop Grumman\u2019s beam control system, which paints LANCE on its target. Three is Boeing\u2019s pod subsystem, which mounts LANCE \u2013 and the beam control system \u2013 to the underside of an aircraft.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>Kent Wood, the director of the Air Force Research Lab\u2019s directed energy directorate, told Breaking Defense that the components of SHiELD \u201crepresent the most compact and capable laser weapon technologies delivered to date. Mission utility analyses and wargaming studies are ongoing, and will help determine how these subsystems and\/or an integrated laser weapon system might potentially be used. Specific targets for future tests and demonstrations will be determined by the results of these studies as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>The USAF has not yet fired LANCE. The next step, actually, will not be firing the weapon but pairing LANCE with a thermal system, which regulates LANCE\u2019s heating and cooling. When the weapon will be fired remains unclear. Though clearly LANCE \u2013 and lasers on airplanes \u2013 is a longer-term project. Lockheed hopes that in the short-term, the SHiELD <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedefensepost.com\/2021\/02\/26\/usaf-shield-laser-system-critical-component\/\"><span>product<\/span><\/a><span> can be used as a defensive measure, allowing fighters to shoot down incoming anti-aircraft missiles. An offensive laser, however, \u201cwould have to hit harder and at longer distances, so it\u2019s a more distant goal: Such weapons are envisioned for a future \u201csixth-generation\u201d fighter \u2013 like the NGAD prototype,\u201d Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/breakingdefense.com\/2020\/09\/lockheed-aims-for-laser-on-fighter-by-2025\/\"><span>wrote<\/span><\/a><span> for Breaking Defense.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_62466\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-62466\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lockheed Martin demo video of the laser system. Image Credit: Lockheed Martin video screenshot.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span>At present, we don\u2019t know which airframes LANCE will be mounted to. Lockheed concept art depicted the system attached to an <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lockheedmartin.com\/en-us\/products\/f-16.html\"><span>F-16<\/span><\/a><span>, but <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/first-laser-weapon-for-a-fighter-delivered-to-the-air-force\"><span>speculation<\/span><\/a><span> holds that LANCE will be adapted for use with a variety of aircraft, including <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedrive.com\/the-war-zone\/32401\/general-atomics-wants-to-give-aerial-tankers-their-own-missile-laden-loyal-wingmen-drones\"><span>combat support aircraft<\/span><\/a><span>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\n<\/p>\n<p><span>What seems clear is that the Pentagon \u2013 and weapons developers \u2013 view laser weapons on airplanes as an entirely feasible, perhaps inevitable, system. Stay tuned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span>Harrison Kass is the Senior Defense Editor at 19FortyFive. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, he joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. He lives in Oregon and listens to Dokken. Follow him on Twitter @harrison_kass.<\/span><\/i>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lockheed Martin delivered a high-energy laser weapon, named LANCE, to the Air Force Research Lab last February. Lockheed announced the delivery on Monday, July 11, revealing what had previously been<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1554117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1553931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553931"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553931\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1554117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}