CDR Salamander - The CNO Sees the Light

Remember when we raised the issue of lasers earlier this year?

Half decade ago, I wrote this,

Lasers are not “new” – they have been growing in power and efficiency incrementally for decades. Each year they are and will increase along the same path. As they do, they will carve out more and more of a utility wedge for defensive and naturally offensive operations.

Will they be a wonder weapon that will solve our problems? No. The torpedo wasn’t either … but it did change behavior, tactics, and design of warships.

There is another warning from the history of torpedo development; you cannot classify technology or math. Smart nations with resources will see something that works and will then buy or produce something similar … or even better than what you have.

As we prepare to send more lasers downrange, we also need to start thinking about what we need to do to build resiliency in the face of receiving fire as well.

The enemy – whoever that might become – gets to shoot back.

Lasers are not new, it is just that only in the last decade have they moved past the pivot point to being operationally useful. As a byproduct of how systems get installed, in rapidly improving systems, those we have deployed and exercised with are not “the best”, they were just what was ready years prior when installation was authorized.

We are “there” now from a technology point of view, and the events of the last few years of combat from the CENTCOM AOR to Eastern Europe tells us we need to quicken our schedule.

I think as an institution, our Navy is there as well.

The image at the top? That is the same one I used in 2021, and it caught my eye when I saw it again yesterday.

We already have some preliminary designs that have gotten some good use forward, but what can help give it the push it needs to get installed on a greater number of ships?

Well, the Chief of Naval Operations on Wednesday had an op-ed at WaPo on…lasers...and he used the same image.

Admiral Caudle, over to you.

Naval warfare is entering an era when the central question may no longer be who possesses the most exquisite weapon, but who can sustain combat power longest under repeated attack.

Pure, unadulterated Salamanderesque thinking right off the top—of course I think he is thinking right.

A defender who fires multimillion-dollar interceptors against inexpensive drones may win the immediate engagement while losing the larger campaign of endurance. Missile inventories, the number of weapons a ship can carry and how quickly U.S. industry can produce replacements all matter in a prolonged maritime fight.

A clear message this decade: you have to plan for sustained combat at sea against the enemy. The time of one-off engagements/incidents is gone…well, they never really left, we just managed to avoid them.

Lasers offer the possibility of shifting part of naval defense away from finite stored munitions toward shipboard electrical power. Properly integrated, this shift could allow warships to defeat certain lower-cost threats at the speed of light and at a marginal cost measured more in fuel, power generation and maintenance than in defensive missile expenditures.

A diversity of weapons systems. You need the exquisite, but you don’t need ONLY that.

There is no single answer. No magic beans…but a diverse toolbox? Essential. It worked for our grandfathers’ warships…it will work for ours.

Lasers are not magic weapons. They are line-of-sight systems whose effectiveness depends on atmospheric conditions, beam stability, target composition and dwell time, or how long a beam must remain focused on a target to damage or destroy it.

A missile carries its destructive energy with it after launch. A laser, by contrast, depends on the performance of the entire ship: power generation, the ability to deliver steady electrical power, cooling systems, equipment that keeps the beam accurately focused, the condition of lenses and mirrors, the connection to the ship’s sensors and defensive systems, and crew proficiency.

Engineering, personnel, training.

Part of the argument domestically this year has to be about the changing of technology and the essential need for compute that data centers require, and the energy to produce it. Just like in the early industrial revolution, you needed coal.

If you cannot generate enough compute, you lose the economic fight.

At sea, it appears that if you cannot generate enough energy, you will lose the war at sea.

A ship’s electrical power will increasingly become a measure of its combat power. Future ships with greater electrical capacity will be better able to integrate advanced sensors, directed energy weapons, electronic warfare systems and tactical computing. Ships without sufficient reserve electrical power and cooling capacity will struggle to accommodate future combat systems as power and cooling become as consequential to combat effectiveness as ammunition, speed, range and payload.

Cooling may ultimately prove decisive. Even highly efficient lasers generate enormous waste heat. A system converting 30 percent of the electrical energy it consumes into a usable beam must dissipate the remaining 70 percent as heat. The question is whether it can fire repeatedly against multiple incoming threats without overheating, degrading the laser’s effectiveness or affecting other critical ship systems.

How much change is needed to our ships? Can you make the changes you need at their next maintenance availability? Can old hulls hold new tech to a sufficient degree?

Maybe, but what I do know is that we need to do what we can with what we have now, and it appears the CNO sees it the same way.

Directed energy requires a resilient industrial base capable of producing advanced optics, power electronics, semiconductors, cooling systems and shipboard equipment that can be maintained and repaired by sailors at scale. It also requires a fleet able to employ these systems under combat conditions.

…

The fastest path forward is not to wait for perfect megawatt-class systems. The Navy should proceed incrementally, starting with containerized laser systems — modular, self-contained units that can be added to existing ships with fewer major modifications and manageable power and cooling demands.

That containerized system is what we discussed earlier this year, as linked above. It is the “good now,” as opposed to the “ideal sometime”.

The end of the article is simply superb. I couldn’t ask for a better mindset. Very well grounded.

…the Navy must resist overselling what lasers can achieve. Atmospheric effects will remain an issue. So will competition among ship systems for electrical power and the demands of maintaining complex laser equipment. Commanders will trust these systems only after they repeatedly demonstrate reliability under realistic conditions at sea and as part of an integrated combat system.

Directed energy will not independently redefine naval warfare. But fleets that master it technically, tactically and industrially will gain a major advantage when confronting large numbers of simultaneous incoming threats — a challenge increasingly likely to define modern combat at sea.

The future advantage may belong not simply to the fleet with the most advanced weapons, but to the fleet that can absorb attacks, preserve its firepower and keep fighting. Directed energy can help give our sailors that advantage. And in a prolonged fight at sea, endurance is combat power.

Let’s get to it.

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