January 30, 2026: In 2024 China introduced Hurricane 3000, a truck-mounted high-power microwave weapon developed by Norinco to disable individual drone or drone swarms. The drones have their electronics literally fried and rendered useless. The system is carried on a 4x4 military truck similar to the American hummer. The truck carries a generator and additional fuel that enables several thousand pulses of microwave energy in a few minutes. The operator uses an electro-optical sight to designate targets for the weapon. When several Hurricane 3000 vehicles are used to protect a large area, a truck equipped with radar is used to detect approaching droves at ranges of over fifty kilometers. The Chinese military only recently adopted the Hurricane 3000. The United States has a similar system called Leonidas, with a range of two kilometers.

China and other countries have developed and used a large number of similar systems. Some are used unofficially. For example, China denies complaints about foreign helicopter pilots, operating from warships in the South China Sea, being hit with blinding laser beams sent from Chinese ships and island bases. The Chinese laser blinding efforts have been brought up before, about Chinese warships operating off the Somali coast and in nearby Djibouti.

Israel claims a breakthrough in the development of lasers that can be used to intercept mortar shells, UAVs and rockets. While testing under combat conditions hasn’t’ taken place yet, the government thought that the new technology was innovative and effective enough in preliminary tests to put the system into service.

Laser systems like this have been in development elsewhere for a long time, but so far no one has been able to develop a laser with the range and destructive power to perform like the new Israeli system. This new weapon is already being called Laser Dome because it would complement the existing Iron Dome system that uses missiles and an innovative radar/software system that ignores ballistic, rockets or mortar shells whose trajectory would mean hitting unoccupied land where there will be no injuries or serious damage. Most objects fired at Israel end up landing in unoccupied areas and the few objects that are dangerous are intercepted by missiles. This has proved very effective.

Laser Dome is described as using a solid-state electric laser at an effective range of 5 kilometers. This costs several dollars’ worth of electricity per shot. A diesel generator capacitor system could fire once every few seconds for as long as power was available. Laser Dome combines multiple laser beams to obtain a useful amount of laser power at longer ranges. Fire control systems for quickly, accurately and repeatedly aiming a laser have already been developed. The main problem is effectively burning laser beam-created heat at longer ranges to do enough damage to bring down or destroy the incoming warhead.

Israel believes Laser Dome has sufficient burn power but realistic tests are needed to prove it. Several individual systems could operate with each Iron Dome battery to take down targets the laser can reach rather than use the $60,000 missiles. Iron Dome takes care of longer-range targets. This would make Iron Dome a lot cheaper to operate and more effective against mass attacks when dozens of rockets are fired at the same target in a short time.

Some of the tech Laser Dome uses has already been used in other laser weapons. The best example of this is the U.S. Army CLWS Compact Laser Weapon System which is currently only capable of handling drones. CLWS is a laser weapon light enough 2.2 tons to mount on helicopters or hummers and can destroy small drones up to two kilometers distant, while it can disable or destroy the sensors and vidcams on a drone up to seven kilometers away. The CLWS fire control system will automatically track and keep the laser firing on a selected target. It can take up to 15 seconds of laser fire to bring down a drone or destroy its camera. This is the tech that Laser Dome claims to have improved enough to destroy drones with one shot and at longer ranges.

Another example is a U.S. Navy system already installed on one warship for several years and about to be installed on several more. In 2013 the navy announced that it had developed a laser technology capable of being useful in combat. This was not a sudden development but has been going on for most of the last decade. In 2010 the navy successfully tested this new laser weapon, which is actually six solid-state lasers acting in unison, to destroy a small drone. That was the seventh time the navy laser had destroyed a drone. But the LaWS Laser Weapon System was not yet powerful enough to do this at the range, and power level, required to cripple the most dangerous targets, missiles and small boats. The manufacturer convinced the navy that it was just a matter of tweaking the technology to get the needed effectiveness. In 2013 another test was run, under more realistic conditions. LaWS worked, knocking down a larger drone at a longer range. At that point, the navy said it planned to install the system in a warship within the year for even more realistic testing. Those tests took place in 2014 and were successful enough to install LaWS on at least one warship to be used to deliver warnings at low power while at full strength 30 kilowatts

The LaWS laser cannon was mounted on a KINETO Tracking Mount, which is similar, but larger and more accurate, than the mount used by the Phalanx CIWS Close-In Weapons System. The navy laser weapon tests used the radar and tracking system of the CIWS. Back in 2009 CIWS was upgraded so that its sensors could detect speedboats, small aircraft, and naval mines. This was crucial because knocking down drones is not something that the navy needs help with. But the ability to do enough damage to disable boats or missiles that are over two kilometers distant meant the LaWS was worth mounting on a warship.

LaWS may yet prove incapable of working under combat conditions. These included disabling a ScanEagle drone, destroying an RPG rocket and burning out the outboard engine of a speed boat. LaWAS also proved useful in detecting small boats or aerial objects at night and in bad weather. LaWAS worked despite mist and light sandstorms. But in heavier sandstorms performance was much reduced. In 2018 LaWAS was moved to a large amphibious ship for continued testing and two more LaWAS are being built, for delivery and installation on two more ships in 2020. The manufacturer continues to work on extending the range and increasing damage inflicted on targets. LaWAS uses less than a dollars’ worth of power use and is supplied by a diesel generator separate from the ship power supply. In other words, LaWAS is still a work in progress.

LaWS seems to be going in the same direction as Laser Dome with similar but less effective tech. The Israeli laser system is light enough to be mounted in warplanes or large drones. Hopes are once more high that Laser Dome will prove that the long-awaited future tech has finally arrived. Believe it when you see it.