Welcome to the Laser Wars

The report describes the U.S. Army’s deployment of BlueHalo’s Palletized High Energy Laser (P-HEL), derived from the 20 kW LOCUST system, which began operational use overseas in November 2022 and has successfully neutralized drone threats in the Middle East, according to senior acquisition officials; it frames this as a milestone in directed-energy air defense amid rising regional drone and missile activity and situates it within the broader history of U.S. laser weapon development across the Air Force, Army, and Navy (e.g., YAL-1, Zeus-HMMWV, and LaWS on USS Ponce/USS Portland).