US Deploys Laser Weapons In Hormuz That Can Be Operated With Xbox Controllers: Report

The US military has been deploying high-energy lasers in the Strait of Hormuz, using them against drones in the Middle East as soldiers use reconfigured Xbox game console controllers to operate them.

According to a report by The New York Post, Donald Trump's Department of War confirmed it was destroying "drones and incoming cruise missiles at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles."

The technology, which the US has been developing for about 50 years, outpaces the capabilities of any other military in the world and is now being tested along the southern border of the country.

Unlike traditional anti-drone or anti-missile systems, laser weapons do not need a physical interceptor for every engagement, making the cost lower than their peers in certain cases. Still, the US military is reportedy spending $500 million on the project

The technology draws energy from generators or battery packs, which is then converted to photons. The photons, or light particles, are then concentrated into a single beam that heats the surface of the target until it explodes.

"We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [explode] the drone itself," Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, was quoted as saying by The New York Post.

XBox Consoles To Control Weapons

Surprisingly, soldiers of the US military operate these laser weapons using reconfigured Xbox game console controllers.

According to the report, the US military is of the opinion that when the gaming industry has figured out the best controller, "why reinvent the wheel with a specialised control system where you can just use an Xbox controller or something really similar to do the job?"

According to Jared Keller, who is behind the newsletter Laser Wars, it "makes sense" now to take out the laser weapons in an outside environment rather than caging them in a laboratory.

Talking about the Xbox controllers used to control the weapons, Keller claimed, "If you've shot a Spartan laser in 'Halo', you can probably fire [one of the weapons] in real life."

Mexico To Middle East

While the lasers have been used against Mexican cartels and by many battleships in the Middle East, experts say they have not yet been used on human targets yet.

Brent Ziarnick, a senior fellow in defence studies at the American Foreign Policy Council, told The New York Post, "Put enough energy through them and it's possible to have a very good defensive system. You can, conceivably, not have to worry about ammunition stockpiles. It can change military logistics quite a bit."

But soldiers with laser backpacks in the Middle East might not be spotted soon. The ones deployed in the Middle East are large and heavy, leading them to be affixed to just battleships.

Boeing's Compact Laser Weapon System (CLWS)
Photo Credit: Boeing Website

Those systems, known as High-Energy Laser with Integrated Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) systems, can focus a 60-kilowatt high-energy laser to destroy objects, as per the report. More recently, Boeing has unveiled CLWS (Compact Laser Weapon System) which can take out Group 3 drones.

However, aside from being heavy in weight, the laser systems require a clear sky to perform effectively and are not much effective against multiple drones launched together.