Navy To Add Laser Weapons To At Least Seven More Ships In The Next Three Years
The laser dazzlers will help protect ships from certain kinds of attacks and shield them from surveillance from other ships, aircraft, and drones.
By Joseph TrevithickJuly 8, 2020
The War Zone
The U.S. Navy expects to have eight warships, in total, equipped with the Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy, or ODIN, a laser directed energy weapon system, within the next three years. One Arleigh Burke class destroyer, the USS Dewey, is already equipped with ODIN, which The War Zone was first to report on last year.
Frank Peterkin, the Senior Technologist for Directed Energy at the Office of Naval Research (ONR), disclosed this general schedule for deploying the next seven ODINs across the Navy's fleets during an online discussion on July 7, 2020. Booz Allen Hamilton hosted the panel discussion as part of a slate of virtual programming in lieu of its annual Directed Energy Summit, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/34663/navy-to-add-laser-weapons-to-at-least-seven-more-ships-in-the-next-three-years
