The future of warfare is coming, and it's bringing lasers

This week, both the British Ministry of Defense and the US Navy have made strides towards directed energy weapons that could change the face of warfare as we know it.

The British, for their part, are eyeing a laser system that could compliment the Phalanx close in anti-missile system, which detects, tracks, and can destroy approaching threats at closer ranges than other missile defense platforms.

Currently, the Phalanx is a computer-guided system that relies on a 20 mm Gatling gun. The British are looking to do away with the gun and substitute a laser.

"It's better to spend money on the laser than on the mount," Andy Rhodes, a business development executive at Raytheon UK told Defensenews.com.

Lasers offer a number of advantages over traditional guns. As they rely only on electricity, lasers can be fired for less than $1 a shot. Also, no round will ever travel anywhere near as fast as a laser, which obviously travels at the speed of light.

As military powers around the world race to create hypersonic weapons that can foil missile defenses through speed alone, the need for laser-aided missile defense becomes clear.

"The potential of laser based weapons systems has been identified as an opportunity and offers significant advantages in terms of running costs as well as providing a more appropriate response to the threats currently faced by UK armed forces," the British MoD stated.

Additionally, lasers on lower power settings can be used to overwhelm enemy sensors and instruments.

The US Navy for their part has also taken a step towards directed energy weapons. On Monday Raytheon delivered pulse power containers for the Navy to test out on a new railgun design.

Unlike lasers, railguns fire actual projectiles, however they use directed energy to do it.

Raytheon says the pulse power containers, when incorporated into a completed railgun design, will be able to launch projectiles at speeds in excess of Mach 6, or about 4,600 mph. At those speeds, there is little need for an explosive round with a chemical charge.

"Directed energy has the potential to redefine military technology beyond missiles and our pulse power modules and containers will provide the tremendous amount of energy required to power applications like the Navy Railgun," said Colin Whelan, vice president of Advanced Technology for Raytheon's Integrated Defense Systems business.

The Navy's railgun could find itself aboard the Futuristic USS Zumwalt as soon as 2018, Reuters reports.

"The Navy is determined to increase the offensive punch of the surface warships," said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute. "To do that with a limited budget, it needs to look at everything from smart munitions to railguns to lasers."