Powerful laser aboard US Navy warship destroys drones in sea trial

The US Navy has made significant progress in deploying ship-based laser weapons, demonstrated by a 2025 sea trial where the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Preble used Lockheed Martin’s High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system to successfully shoot down four drones. This marked a major advancement from earlier tests that targeted only single drones. The demonstration highlights the Navy’s focus on laser weapons as a cost-effective, sustainable defense against increasingly sophisticated drone threats, preserving expensive missile stockpiles for more advanced attacks. HELIOS, a 60-kilowatt-class laser equipped with an optical dazzler, has been operational on USS Preble since 2022, with other destroyers carrying lower-powered lasers primarily for sensor disruption. Laser weapons offer critical advantages over traditional missile and gun systems, including virtually unlimited firing capacity constrained only by power and cooling availability, and significantly lower per-shot costs compared to missiles like the $1 million RIM-116. These benefits