A screenshot of a Lockheed Martin video showing the Layered Laser Defense system at White Sands Missile Range in February 2022. (Lockheed Martin)
SNA 2023 — Lockheed Martin is developing a version of its Layered Laser Defense weapon system designed to be installed onboard a Littoral Combat Ship, and floating the capability as potentially part of a future upgrade program still being developed by the US Navy.
The company worked with the Office of Naval Research last year to modify and package the laser so it could be installed onboard a ship and conducted test shots against targets at White Sands Missile Range, Chris Minster, program director for combatant ships, integration and test, told Breaking Defense last week during the Surface Navy Association’s annual symposium.
Breaking Defense reported in April that during the February test the weapon shot down “a target representing a subsonic cruise missile in flight.”
“Innovative laser systems like the LLD have the potential to redefine the future of naval combat operations,” Rear Adm. Lorin Selby, the chief of ONR, said in statement at the time. “They present transformational capabilities to the fleet, address diverse threats, and provide precision engagements with a deep magazine to complement existing defensive systems and enhance sustained lethality in high-intensity conflict.”
Every branch of the Pentagon has shown some interest in directed energy, but the Navy, which has maintained a handful of prototype lasers of varying power levels, has sought out shipboard lasers to defend against cruise missiles, incapacitate aerial drones as well as utilize the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities that any laser’s powerful optics possess.
Minster said LLD is one capability being floated for the second phase of the Navy’s “LCS Lethality and Survivability” upgrade, although he stressed that no final decisions have been made about what capabilities will be part of that program of record.
“We marinized the laser, if you will, so that we could put it into our modular weapon spaces on the Freedom class,” he said. The testing at White Sands was “very successful… so we’re really excited about proving at the range the capability of the weapon.”
By “marinize,” Minster is largely referring to modifying the weapon’s space, weight and power requirements to make it viable to install onboard a ship.
The first phase of the “Lethality and Survivability” program, which Lockheed will execute, already has a handful of established capabilities slated to be installed onboard both the Freedom- and Independence-class Littoral Combat Ships.
Those upgrades include integrating the Naval Strike Missile, a version of the Navy’s electronic warfare program dubbed SEWIP Lite and the decoy launching system known as Nulka. The program will also switch the combat management system onboard the Independence-class to Lockheed’s COMBATSS-21 system, which is already being used onboard the Freedom class.
Minster said the Navy’s proposals in the fiscal 2023 budget to decommission certain Littoral Combat Ships had slowed down the planning process of implementing the phase one upgrades, but that he anticipates detailed planning to begin “in the next year.”
