US seeks to fund Israeli laser as Army considers Iron Beam’s potential

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration’s budget package of roughly $106 billion in emergency supplemental funding includes a $1.2 billion investment in Israel’s directed-energy weapon system Iron Beam , which the U.S. Army could consider as an alternative laser weapon for its own needs, according to the service’s acquisition chief.

The Iron Beam technology is “intriguing,” Doug Bush told reporters last week. “If [the Israelis] are successful, that certainly could be something the Army could think about leveraging.”

Congress has yet to pass the supplemental funding aimed to support U.S. and allies’ defense needs, including Ukraine and Israel. A growing number of House Republicans oppose additional Ukraine aid and have instead pushed for a stand-alone $14 billion Israel supplemental.

Bush said he’d seen the first prototype of the directed-energy technology meant to augment the Iron Dome air defense system capability in Israel on his last trip to the country, adding that he was “pleased” to see the supplemental include the U.S. investment in developing Iron Beam.

The Army is working on its own high-energy laser as part of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability, or IFPC, to defend against rockets, artillery, mortars, cruise missiles and drones. Despite supply chain issues causing delays, the Army is in the process of receiving the first prototypes from its Leidos subsidiary Dynetics.

Army’s laser weapon pursuit

The laser weapon portion of the IFPC system is under development by the American firm Lockheed Martin . The Army awarded a contract to Lockheed in October to deliver two 300-kilowatt-class laser weapon systems for the IFPC prototypes program, with an option for two additional units.

“The Israeli system is a slightly different approach technologically,” Bush said, “so it’s actually a nice complement because we’re kind of going down one path; they’ve gone down a slightly different one. [I]f theirs works well, it could be something we could think about leveraging for our needs in that space. So that’s really a benefit of that funding is ... we can explore multiple paths here and see what works.”

While Bush said he could not go into specifics about the technology, the differences have to do with “how the laser beam is formed and aimed,” and each uses different power levels.

“They have a very specific problem they’re trying to solve with rockets and things like that, where the Army system goes a little broader — cruise missiles perhaps, things like that,” he added.

Israel’s laser development

Mark Montgomery, a defense analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, said he hopes that if Congress passes the supplemental funding then the U.S. can make a deal with the Israeli government in which intellectual property is owned by both American and Israeli companies involved. That would presumably be U.S.-based RTX and Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, which worked together to co-develop Iron Dome.

Those companies should be able to “immediately turn it around and build stuff for us because this is a serious investment in laser and non-kinetic directed-energy weapons,” Montgomery told Defense News in a recent interview.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett announced in early 2022 the country’s plan to create a “laser wall” to shift from spending money a large quantity of interceptors to using less costly lasers. He had said the system would be operational by next year. But later that year, the Israeli government said it could likely deploy the system in two years.

While the system is not yet operational, Israel announced in April 2022 it had successfully intercepted mortars, rockets and anti-tank missiles in recent tests in the Negev Desert the month prior. And Iron Beam was on display in February 2023 at the IDEX defense exhibition in the United Arab Emirates .

Experts have highlighted the technological challenge lasers have in handling large salvos of rockets because lasers take time to heat up a target to destroy it. A laser might need to hit a target steadily for two to three seconds to destroy a rocket, for instance.

The Israel-Hamas war has shown, according to reports from both sides, that the militant group potentially doubled its rocket rate of fire compared to the war they fought in May 2021.

In 2021, Hamas could fire roughly 125 rockets in salvos over several minutes. In Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the group reportedly fired 3,000 to 5,000 rockets into the country over a 20-minute time period.

Jen Judson is an award-winning journalist covering land warfare for Defense News. She has also worked for Politico and Inside Defense. She holds a Master of Science degree in journalism from Boston University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Kenyon College.

华盛顿——据美国陆军采购主管称，拜登政府约 1060 亿美元的紧急补充资金预算方案中，包括向以色列的定向能武器系统“铁束”（Iron Beam）投资 12 亿美元，美国陆军可能会考虑将其作为自身需求的替代激光武器。

道格·布什上周告诉记者，“铁束”技术“很有意思”。“如果（以色列人）成功了，这当然是美军可以考虑利用的技术。”

国会尚未通过旨在支持美国及其盟友（包括乌克兰和以色列）国防需求的补充拨款。越来越多的众议院共和党人反对向乌克兰提供额外援助，而是力推一项单独的140亿美元以色列补充拨款。

布什表示，他在上次访问以色列期间看到了旨在增强以色列“铁穹”防空系统能力的定向能技术的第一个原型，并补充说，他“很高兴”看到补充预算包括美国对开发“铁束”技术的投资。

作为间接火力防护能力（IFPC）的一部分，美国陆军正在研发其自主研发的高能激光器，用于防御火箭弹、火炮、迫击炮弹、巡航导弹和无人机。尽管供应链问题导致延误，但陆军正在接收其子公司Leidos Dynetics提供的首批原型机。

陆军的激光武器追击

IFPC系统的激光武器部分由美国洛克希德·马丁公司开发。陆军于10月份授予洛克希德公司一份合同，为其IFPC原型项目提供两套300千瓦级激光武器系统，并可选择增购两套。

布什说：“以色列的系统在技术上采用了一种略有不同的方法，所以它实际上是一个很好的补充，因为我们走的是一条路，而他们走的是一条略有不同的路。如果他们的系统运行良好，我们可以考虑借鉴它来满足我们在该领域的需求。所以，这笔资金的真正好处在于……我们可以探索多种路径，看看哪种有效。”

布什表示他无法详细说明这项技术，但区别在于“激光束的形成和瞄准方式”，而且两者使用的功率水平也不同。

“他们试图用火箭之类的东西解决一个非常具体的问题，而陆军的系统则涉及范围更广一些——比如巡航导弹之类的东西，”他补充道。

以色列的激光发展

华盛顿智库“保卫民主基金会”的国防分析师马克·蒙哥马利表示，他希望如果国会通过补充拨款，美国就能与以色列政府达成协议，使相关知识产权由参与其中的美国和以色列公司共同拥有。这很可能指的是总部位于美国的RTX公司和以色列的拉斐尔先进防御系统公司，这两家公司曾合作开发了“铁穹”系统。

蒙哥马利在最近接受《防务新闻》采访时表示，这些公司应该能够“立即扭转局面，为我们制造产品，因为这是激光和非动能定向能武器的一项重大投资”。

时任以色列总理纳夫塔利·贝内特于2022年初宣布了该国建造“激光墙”的计划，旨在将大量拦截导弹的开支转移到成本更低的激光武器上。他曾表示该系统将于次年投入使用。但同年晚些时候，以色列政府表示，该系统的部署时间可能要两年后才能确定。

虽然该系统尚未投入使用，但以色列在2022年4月宣布，在此前一个月于内盖夫沙漠进行的测试中，成功拦截了迫击炮弹、火箭弹和反坦克导弹。“铁束”系统于2023年2月在阿联酋举行的IDEX防务展上展出。

专家指出，激光在应对大规模火箭齐射方面面临技术挑战，因为激光需要时间加热目标才能将其摧毁。例如，激光可能需要持续照射目标两到三秒才能摧毁一枚火箭。

据双方报告，以色列与哈马斯之间的战争表明，与 2021 年 5 月的战争相比，该武装组织的火箭发射速度可能增加了一倍。

2021年，哈马斯可以在几分钟内齐射约125枚火箭弹。据报道，在2023年10月7日哈马斯对以色列的袭击中，该组织在20分钟内向以色列发射了3000至5000枚火箭弹。

珍·贾德森是一位屡获殊荣的记者，为《防务新闻》报道陆地战争。她也曾为《政治报》和《内幕防务》工作。她拥有波士顿大学新闻学硕士学位和凯尼恩学院文学学士学位。