Blink and You'll Miss It: How Laser Weapon Systems Work

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Laser weapons. are the futuristic weapons the military has been waiting for. Often seen in movies, today, the U.S. military’s laser weapons usually work like continuous-wave lasers and are most commonly used to blind personnel.

In fact, the U.S. Navy currently has several lasers in operation, most notably the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy, or ODIN, and the High Energy Laser and Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance, or HELIOS.

The ODIN is capable of remotely frying sensors and other electrical components on drones and missiles and is currently being used on several U.S. Navy destroyer-class ships. ODIN is most notably known for effectively stopping drones and missiles from reaching their targets and for thwarting enemy forces from gathering intelligence.

The HELIOS is even more powerful than the ODIN. It is intended to be used specifically for its anti-missile capabilities with the hopes that it will disable incoming subsonic anti-ship cruise missiles with greater precision than ever before.

Have we piqued your curiosity yet? Do you want to know more about how do the ODIN and HELIOS work? This video answers all these questions and more and brings you footage of the laser weapons in action.