WThe Advanced Tactical Laser (ATL) program was a US military program to mount a high energy laser weapon on an aircraft, initially the AC-130 gunship, for use against ground targets in urban or other areas where minimizing collateral damage is important. The laser was a 100 kilowatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL). It was expected to have a tactical range of approximately twenty kilometers and weigh about 5,000–7,000 kg. This program is distinct from the Airborne Laser, which was a much larger system designed to destroy enemy missiles in the boost phase.
WThe Boeing YAL-1 Airborne Laser Testbed weapons system was a megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL) mounted inside a modified military Boeing 747-400F. It was primarily designed as a missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles (TBMs) while in boost phase. The aircraft was designated YAL-1A in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Defense.
WMIRACL, or Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser, is a directed energy weapon developed by the US Navy. It is a deuterium fluoride laser, a type of chemical laser.
WShiva Star, originally just SHIVA, is a high-powered pulsed-power research device located at the Air Force Research Laboratory on the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The device was originally built in the 1970s for high-power X-ray research, was later re-directed to studies for the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), and is now being used for magnetized target fusion research. Shiva Star was named after the Hindu god Shiva, partly because its prototype originally had four "arms"; it later got six "arms".
WThe Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed the "Star Wars program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. The concept was announced on March 23, 1983 by President Ronald Reagan, a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact". Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete.
WThe Tactical High-Energy Laser, or THEL, was a laser developed for military use, also known as the Nautilus laser system. The mobile version is the Mobile Tactical High-Energy Laser, or MTHEL. In 1996, the United States and Israel entered into an agreement to produce a cooperative THEL called the Demonstrator, which would utilize deuterium fluoride chemical laser technologies. In 2000 and 2001 THEL shot down 28 Katyusha artillery rockets and five artillery shells. On November 4, 2002, THEL shot down an incoming artillery shell. The prototype weapon was roughly the size of six city buses, made up of modules that held a command center, radar and a telescope for tracking targets, the chemical laser itself, fuel and reagent tanks, and a rotating mirror to reflect its beam toward speeding targets. It was discontinued in 2005.
WThe HLONS , commonly known as ZEUS, is a solid-state laser weapon which is used by the U.S. military in order to neutralize surface land mines and unexploded ordnance. The ZEUS-HLONS system was a co-operative effort between Sparta Inc and NAVEODTECHDIV to demonstrate that a moderate-power commercial solid state laser (SSL) and beam control system could be integrated onto a Humvee (HMMWV) and used to clear surface mines, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), or unexploded ordnance from supply routes and minefields.