Northrop wins U.S. Navy ray gun contract

Published 8 July 2009

Northrop Grumman is the maker of the first electric solid-state battle-strength ray gun module; the company is awarded $98 million to provide a demonstrator Maritime Laser system capable of being fitted to U.S. warships of frigate size and up

Good news for Northrop Grumman: the U.S. Navy has selected the company to develop swiveling robotic laser blaster gun turrets for U.S. warships. Northrop Grumman is the maker of the first electric solid-state battle-strength ray gun module. The deal, worth $98 million, was awarded by the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The contract calls for Northrop to provide a demonstrator Maritime Laser system capable of being fitted to U.S. warships of frigate size and up. In no more than eighteen months, according to the deal, there will be “a real-time, ‘at sea’ dynamic demonstration showing a counter-material capability against small boats”.

The ONR has previously said that ray gun makers seeking to supply the Maritime Laser are highly encouraged to use existing gun mounts suitable for the task, such as that of the Phalanx radar-controlled Gatling autocannon — nicknamed “R2-D2” among U.S. sailors.

Lewis Page writes that the Phalanx is sufficiently quick and accurate that it can blast incoming missiles and aircraft from the sky, let alone comparatively slow-moving small boats from the water. Such boats, attacking in swarms, are considered a likelier naval threat than ship-killer missiles, but even so it is not clear what advantages a laser turret offers.

Page notes that Phalanxes are also used ashore on occasion, blasting rockets and mortars lobbed over the perimeter fences of U.S. and allied bases by local insurgents. Special ammo with a time delay self-destruct fuse is used so as to avoid peppering the entire neighborhood with 20 mm cannon shells, but even so dangerous shrapnel and duds get scattered about fairly freely.

A laser would have no such problem, so a ray gun Phalanx might be useful if Northrop and the ONR can develop one. There would be some lesser advantages at sea, too: a laser Phalanx would not run out of ammunition, and would not use up space in the ship’s magazines.

Current warships would seem well able to provide enough electricity for laser Phalanxes. FFG 7 Oliver Hazard Perry (OHP) class frigates, the smallest ships specified by the ONR, carry a single Phalanx. Northrop say their electric war-lasers are about 20 percent efficient, so a 100 kilowatt battle-strength beam would tie up half a megawatt of generating capability. OHPs carry four 1-megawatt generators, so they should normally be able to supply enough juice.