--- title: "The Navy wants to mount a powerful new laser on a destroyer to ‘burn the boats’" description: "The Navy intends to mount a laser weapons system aboard a guided-missile destroyer for user against small enemy watercraft in the next two years, the head of the service's surface warfare directorate announced" date: "2019-03-24" modified: "2019-03-24" authors: - name: "Jared Keller" job_title: "Former Managing Editor" link: "https://taskandpurpose.com/authors/jaredkeller/" url: "https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-laser-weapons-system-helios/" categories: - "Destroyers" - "Military Branches" - "Navy" - "News" - "Ships" - "Tech & Tactics" - "Weapons" --- # The Navy wants to mount a powerful new laser on a destroyer to ‘burn the boats’ ![]() The Navy intends to mount a laser weapons system aboard a guided-missile destroyer for user against small enemy watercraft in the next two years, the head of the service's surface warfare directorate [announced]() on Wednesday. "We are going to burn the boats if you will and move forward with this technology," Rear Adm. Ron Boxall said during an industry summit in Washington, D.C., [according]() to USNI News. According to Boxall, the Navy wants to install a High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler with Surveillance (or the aptly-named HELIOS) aboard an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer by some time in 2021. Developed by Lockheed Martin under a $150 million [contract](), the 60 kilowatt HELIOS system offers triple the power of the 20 kw Office of Naval Research (ONR)-sponsored AN/SEQ-3 Laser Weapon System that the Navy [unveiled]() on the USS Ponce was back in 2014. The LaWS, primarily deployed to deal with the [growing threat of unmanned aerial systems]() in the Persian Gulf, has since been repurposed as a "land-based test asset" for the HELIOS system after the Ponce was decommissioned in October 2017, according to a Congressional Research Service [report]() published in October 2018. The HELIOS, by contrast, is a primarily offensive system, Boxall said, one that poses its own challenges in terms of sensor and targeting capabilities on the Navy surface fleet's [Aegis combat system](). "The problem I have today is the integration of that system into my existing combat system," Boxall said, [per]() USNI News. "If I have this system that can kill and I have a system that can actually sense, then I have to make sure it integrates with the other things I have on my ship that can sense and kill, namely the Aegis weapon system." In the long-term, though, "burning the boats" may prove a cost-effective addition to surface combatants' weapons systems if only to free up systems like the Phalanx close-in weapon system and the Rolling Airframe Missile (RAM) that [pose a relatively high cost per shot](). 'High-energy currently under development that have enough beam power to counter small boats and UAVs, but not enough to counter missiles, could nevertheless indirectly improve a ship's ability to counter missiles by permitting the ship to use fewer of its SAMs for countering UAVs, and more of them for countering missiles," according to the October 2018 CRS [report](). We now go live to a future HELIOS-capable Aegis combat system in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_sY2rjxq6M ### SEE ALSO: The Marine Corps Wants To Put Freakin' Lasers On Vehicles For Crowd Control ### WATCH NEXT: An Army Apache Tests A High Energy Laser ## Author Jared Keller is the former managing editor of Task & Purpose. His writing has appeared in Aeon, the Los Angeles Review of Books, the New Republic, Pacific Standard, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post, among other publications. ### Author social links [Twitter]() [Facebook]() [LinkedIn]() [Instagram]()