Air Force Special Operations Command Wants 120 kw Laser for AC-130s by 2020

The head of Air Force Special Operations Command said he wants to to put a laser weapon on an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship by the end of the decade.

Lt. Gen. Bradley Heithold talked about the effort Tuesday during an interview with Military​.com at the Air and Space Conference near Washington, D.C. The event was organized by the Air Force Association.

“I’ve got the space and the weight and the power” to install a potentially 120-kilowatt laser weapon on the next-generation gunship, he said. “I can carve out the weight” required, which is about 5,000 pounds, he said. “I’ve got enough fuel. Now we got to put in a beam director and I think the industry — if we get the right teammates together — can put that capability on an AC-130.”

The Pentagon has long been interested in developing directed-energy weapons. The Navy last year tested a 20-kilowatt laser aboard the amphibious transport ship USS Ponce.

The Air Force and the Pentagon’s research arm this summer began ground testing a 150-kilowatt-class electric laser built by General Atomics against rockets, mortars, vehicles and surrogate surface-to-air missiles at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The project, known as the Demonstrator Laser Weapon System, or DLWS, is based on Darpa’s High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System, or Hellads.

[...]

AFSOC wants to first use a laser to defend the AC-130 from surface-to-air missiles, then for offensive roles, the general said.

“So first concept is defending the aircraft using high-energy laser capability against missiles,” he said. “The second is now to be able to use that high-energy laser in an offensive role against hardened targets. So the challenge is to have that capability by the close of the decade, by 2020, and I think we can do that.”

link.