U.S. Special Forces Test Laser Gunship For Covert Strikes

The laser is 60kw. Not powerful enough to destroy vehicles, but useful for other things- like covert strikes.

So why the laser? At the conference, the developers talked about the laser’s ability to deliver what they call ‘scalable effects,’ which means selectively damaging a vehicle’s tires rather than blowing it up, for example, something aided by the laser’s accuracy. However, perhaps more importantly the new laser will give AFSOC something they have always highly valued: covert strike capability.

Unlike the zap-guns in the movie, real-life laser weapons do not produce a visible beam. Even if the light catches dust or other particles, it is infrared and invisible to the human eye. There is no smoke trail, impact, or explosion, just a silent, deadly beam. Which is exactly what you want for covert operations.


As far back as 2008 John Corley, Director of the USAF’s Air Armament Center gave a presentation on emerging capabilities including an airborne tactical laser weapon in a C-130. He estimated that a 100-kw laser would have an effective range of “10 Km+” and listed as an advantage “Covert – plausible deniability.”

Striking at night and from long range, a laser-armed Ghostrider would be neither seen nor heard. The laser might not be able to knock out tanks but it could, for example, damage radio or radar equipment, start fires, set fuel or ammunition stores ablaze, and destroy vulnerable gear like rockets on their launchers. And there would be no forensic traces left at the target site: no shell fragments or tell-tale missile parts to indicate where the strike had come from.
On the C-130J Ghostrider

The AC-130J Ghostrider is a fearsome flying arsenal. Like its Vietnam-era gunship predecessors, it carries a radar-guided 105mm howitzer and 30mm rapid fire cannon. The modern version also has precision strike capability, dropping 250-pound GPS-guided GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs and 34-pound laser-guided AGM-176 Griffin missiles.