Somewhere on the perimeter of Fort Bliss, Texas, a truck-mounted laser sits on a rotating turret, tracking the sky in silence. There is no muzzle flash, no bang, no smoke trail. When a small drone crosses into its engagement zone, a focused beam of light locks on and burns through the airframe in seconds. The target drops. The cost of that shot: a few cents of electricity.
As of spring 2026, the U.S. Army has begun fielding directed-energy weapons at five domestic military installations, marking the Pentagon’s most ambitious real-world test of whether lasers and high-powered microwaves can reliably defend fixed sites against the fast-growing threat of small unmanned aircraft. The pilot program places systems at Fort Huachuca and Fort Bliss in the desert Southwest, Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state’s rainy Pacific Northwest, Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, and Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, according to Department of Defense announcements and Government Accountability Office reporting on directed-energy transition planning.
The outcome will determine whether the technology scales to dozens of additional bases or stalls as another promising prototype that never made it past the testing phase.
Why lasers, and why now
The math is simple and brutal. A single Stinger missile costs roughly $400,000. A burst of 30mm cannon fire runs into the thousands. The drones these weapons are meant to stop can be bought online for a few hundred dollars. Adversaries from Ukraine to the Middle East have already demonstrated that cheap drone swarms can overwhelm traditional air defenses by sheer volume, exhausting expensive interceptor stockpiles faster than they can be replaced.
Directed-energy weapons flip that equation. A GAO science and technology assessment found that high-energy lasers can engage targets for pennies per shot, drawing power from a vehicle’s generator or a base electrical grid rather than consuming a finite munition. As long as the system has fuel or electricity, it effectively has an unlimited magazine.
The Army’s primary truck-mounted system in this class is the Directed Energy Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense platform, known as DE M-SHORAD. Built around a 50-kilowatt-class laser integrated onto a Stryker armored vehicle, it was developed by Raytheon (now RTX) and has already seen overseas testing, including deployments to U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility. The service has not publicly confirmed which specific system variant is stationed at each of the five pilot bases, but DE M-SHORAD is the most mature truck-mounted Army laser designed for exactly this mission.
Five bases, five climates, one question
The site selection was deliberate. Lasers perform best in clear, dry air. Moisture, dust, fog, and rain scatter the beam and reduce effective range. By spreading the pilot across five radically different environments, the Pentagon created a natural experiment.
Fort Huachuca and Fort Bliss offer arid conditions with minimal cloud cover and low humidity, essentially ideal laser weather for most of the year. Fort Huachuca also has a long history as an Army intelligence and testing hub with controlled airspace, making it a natural fit for experimental weapons. Fort Bliss provides vast desert training ranges where engagements can be observed at distance.
Naval Base Kitsap, tucked into Puget Sound, brings persistent rain and overcast skies that could degrade laser performance significantly. Grand Forks endures brutal North Dakota winters with blowing snow and sub-zero temperatures. Whiteman sits in Missouri’s humid continental belt, where summer thunderstorms and seasonal fog add further atmospheric challenges.
Each base also carries a different mission profile. Kitsap hosts nuclear-capable submarines and sensitive naval infrastructure, making it a high-value target for surveillance drones. Whiteman is home to the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber fleet. Grand Forks supports air operations that even a small unmanned aircraft could disrupt. If directed-energy systems can protect assets that varied, the case for broader fielding becomes much stronger.
What the systems actually do
The pilot fields two distinct technologies. High-energy lasers concentrate a beam of light on a target, heating it until the airframe melts, the battery ignites, or a control surface fails. The engagement is silent and invisible to the naked eye in most conditions. High-powered microwave systems take a different approach, emitting a broad pulse of electromagnetic energy that overloads and fries a drone’s electronics, potentially disabling multiple aircraft in a single burst.
Both types mount on wheeled vehicles, making them relocatable within a base perimeter. Operators typically receive cueing from radar and electro-optical sensors that detect and classify incoming drones before handing off a track to the weapon system. The entire sequence, from detection to engagement, can unfold in seconds.
GAO reporting confirmed that prototype directed-energy systems successfully shot down drones in controlled demonstrations, establishing baseline technical feasibility. What remains unproven in the public record is how those results translate to sustained, day-after-day operations in rain, dust storms, or freezing fog, conditions that no demonstration range can fully replicate.
What the Pentagon has not said yet
For all the promise, significant gaps remain in the public record. The Defense Department has not released per-shot cost data from actual field engagements at any of the five sites. No success-rate figures, weather-related downtime logs, or maintenance burden statistics have been made public. The GAO has noted that directed-energy weapons face acquisition and transition hurdles, including gaps in sustainment planning and unclear pathways for moving prototypes into full-rate production.
The current effort is classified as an operational pilot, not a program of record. That distinction matters: it means the systems could be pulled back, redesigned, or shelved entirely if performance disappoints. A program of record would signal long-term funding commitments and industrial-base planning. The pilot has not yet crossed that threshold.
Range is another open question. Directed-energy weapons currently have shorter effective reach than many kinetic interceptors. For base defense, where the perimeter is fixed and approach corridors are known, that limitation is manageable. But any drone flying high enough or fast enough to stay outside the laser’s effective envelope would still require a conventional response. The Pentagon has not described how directed-energy fits into a layered defense architecture alongside existing systems like the C-RAM (Counter-Rocket, Artillery, and Mortar) or Coyote interceptor drones already deployed at some installations.
Safety protocols also remain undisclosed. A high-energy laser beam that misses or passes through a target could pose risks to personnel, manned aircraft, or civilian infrastructure beyond the defended zone. How operators are trained to manage those risks while responding quickly to fast-moving drone threats has not been detailed in any public material tied to the pilot.
What to watch as the pilot unfolds
The most telling data point will be comparative performance across the five sites. If Fort Huachuca and Fort Bliss log dramatically higher laser availability and kill rates than Naval Base Kitsap or Grand Forks, it would suggest directed energy works best as a regional solution for arid climates rather than a universal replacement for kinetic air defense. If the systems hold up reasonably well even in rain and cold, the case for scaling to dozens of additional bases becomes far more compelling.
Watch also for any shift from “pilot” to “program of record” language in Pentagon budget documents or congressional testimony. That transition would signal that senior leaders believe the technology has cleared its operational hurdles and is ready for industrial-scale production and long-term sustainment funding.
For now, the evidence is credible but incomplete. Government sources confirm that truck-mounted lasers can destroy small drones at negligible marginal cost. They confirm that the Pentagon is serious enough to place these weapons at real bases guarding real assets. What they do not yet confirm is whether directed energy can handle the full spectrum of weather, threats, and operational wear that base defense demands every day of the year. The five-site pilot exists to answer exactly that question, and the answer will shape American air defense for a generation.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
