US Navy tender reveals intent to produce submarine laser technology • Analyst: "Submarine Can Eliminate Aircraft and Missiles"

• Submarine (illustration) // Photo: Kfir Ziv

The US Navy launched a first-of-its-kind center to create laser cannons that could eliminate the enemy from a distance, including aircraft.

A tender for an engineering project recently published by the U.S. Navy seeks to produce a method of transmitting a particularly large amount of electricity, of hundreds of kilowatts, inside the submarine - from one side to the other. But the publication of the center contains an interesting line that shows that this is not an innocent tender but something much more serious and offensive. "The Navy is looking for a large amount of power transfer for a targeted offensive system capable of relying on this electrical energy that will be generated from the submarine and operated outward."

The sentence means that the US Navy is looking for a way to turn its submarines into giant batteries that will allow laser beam firing. Laser rays require a great deal of electrical power, so the connection between turning the submarine into a kind of manufacturer and transmitting such power towards an accurate energy tool conjures out one meaning: turning the submarines into laser beam firing capabilities.

The tender also states that the plan is to place the laser cannon outside the submarine itself, perhaps at its command bridge, so that the cables will transfer the energy needed to the cannon in a way that they are not deployed in the submarine's interior, which would interfere with the crew but be part of its structure. According to former US Navy and Navy officer Brian Clark, who is currently an analyst for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Thinking, "it is a weapon that will be placed outside the submarine itself and can be dazzled and hit by aircraft or missiles by shooting from outside."

Already there are technologies available to assist diving vessels, if they have the appropriate amount of energy, to aim the beam and shoot it from the command bridge or other facility so that the vessel itself will hardly need to be discovered and sailed under the sea when only the cannon stands out.

Meanwhile, according to the tender description, "planners should allow a 12-inch-thick beam submarine that can track the target and also correct various distortions." According to Brian Clark, "A laser beam of between 100 and 300 kW will allow the submarine to hit unmanned aircraft, airplanes and slow-ship anti-ship missiles. Underwater, such a beam will allow communication with only close vessels." So, in the near future, we will begin to see not only aircraft firing laser beams but also marine submarines? According to the intentions of the US Navy, the answer to this is positive.