Israel’s Iron Beam and the laser future of missile defense

A laser is far cheaper as a weapon than a kinetic kill interceptor. Moreover, there are no supply issues to replace interceptors. Iron Beam can work for a thousand hours before any components need to be replaced.

Israel is using its Iron Beam laser defense system in the country’s northern region. While Israel still has only a small number of Iron Beam units, the system has been effective against suicide drones and mortar rounds. It has taken some pressure off of kinetic air defenses like Iron Dome and David’s Sling.

Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy in Lebanon, basically controls the state. While Lebanon has an army, financed in part by the United States, it is doing next to nothing to stop Hezbollah’s operations.

Hezbollah has a large arsenal of short-range missiles and suicide drones, all supplied from Iran. They have unleashed large-scale attacks hitting northern and central Israel. On the plus side, the main Iron Beam units, 100 KW lasers, have been effective working in concert with Israel’s kinetic air defenses, where they are fully integrated.

Israel has deployed shorter range units including Iron Beam-M, which is a mobile unit, and Lite Beam, which is mainly used as a drone “dazzler” designed to mess up drone cameras. Separately, Israel has deployed some Iron Beam units on its Sa’ar class corvettes, although these do not appear to be playing any role in the current conflict, at least so far.

Israel also is working on an airborne version of Iron Beam. More about that further on.

Iron Beam’s range is around 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). However, the range can be reduced, even nearly to zero, on cloudy or rainy days.

That is because lasers are light beams, and bad weather generates lots of dust and water in the atmosphere, which can block the laser from reaching its target. Reports are that bad weather in northern Israel has limited some laser counter-drone operations.

Iron Beam works well against relatively slow moving threats such as drones and mortars. It is too hard using it against missiles because for Iron Beam to work, the laser has to be held on the incoming object between 6 and 8 seconds in order to burn through the threat.

In the future, with fully automated beam management technology, a ground-based laser for missile defense may be useful, but not now. This means that Iron Beam must be integrated into kinetic air defense networks, as Iron Beam seems to be.

Using a laser system requires operator training and specialized smart software to decide when to use the laser and when to rely on kinetic defenses, such as Iron Dome and David’s Sling, to name two systems playing a role in current air defense efforts in Israel’s north.

Any laser system has to confront real-world atmospheric conditions. A serious problem with all lasers is known as laser “bloom.” Laser bloom occurs as the beam widens over distance. To reduce bloom, weapons need adequate power and some sophisticated technology.

Iron Beam is designed to cope with the bloom problem. The system uses a massive 450mm aperture lens. Larger apertures allow for a more stable beam. The system uses deformable mirrors that change shape thousands of times per second to “pre-distort” the laser, canceling out atmospheric distortion in real time.

Israel Elbit Systems Ltd., a privately held defense company, has a much more ambitious project for an airborne laser. In 2025 an early version was tested on a Cessna Grand Caravan (Cessna 208B).

The next step is an improved version planned either for a Beechcraft King Air 350 or a Gulfstream G550/G650. The goal is to have a small, but sufficiently lethal laser to put on a fighter aircraft, either the F-15 or F-35.

An airborne laser operates above the weather so that the laser beam can travel farther. The intent, so far as it is understood, is very ambitious. The idea is to destroy enemy ballistic missiles in the boost phase.

A missile in the boost phase is climbing very slowly, although it is gaining speed. If a laser hit a missile in this early launch stage, it would most likely be destroyed.

There are serious challenges including detecting a launch soon enough to counter it, having a powerful enough laser to cover long distances, and being able to operate a platform on or near hostile territory.

The technical challenge is miniaturization and power requirements. The US has its own airborne program called SHiELD (Self Protect High Energy Laser Demonstrator), but it has much more limited goals. SHiELD is intended to protect an aircraft from enemy air to air missiles and, maybe, from ground based interceptors (at least the smaller ones).

Three major contractors are involved — Lockheed, Northrop Grumman and Boeing, all of which are under the direction of the Air Force Research Laboratory. Reports say the project has stalled due to a number of issues related to miniaturization.

In a sense, SHiELD is a version of Northrop Grumman’s Guardian system, used on commercial jets to protect against shoulder-fired MANPADS. The US military uses the Directed Infrared Countermeasures (DIRCM) system in different versions.

DIRCM employs a laser to “blind” ground-based weapons that use infrared seekers. Versions of DIRCM are on US military transport aircraft and on combat and transport helicopters, as well as on Air Force One, the President’s aircraft.

DIRCM does not work against missiles with radar sensors, such as China’s PL-15 BVR (Beyond Visual Range) air-to-air missile.

The US Navy has an operational laser weapon on the USS Preble. Called High Energy Laser Interceptor Optical Dazzler and Surveillance (Helios), the system has been tried out in the current Iran war.

It features a 60KW laser and is being used to neutralize Iranian-made Shahed drones. Official “combat kill” counts remain largely classified or unconfirmed, but reports say that it has helped fend off drone attacks on US aircraft carriers. The key drawback is that it is a bulky system that eats up space for other weapons and uses a lot of the ship’s power.

Israel’s airborne goal, if proven successful, could be important for US antimissile projects, including Golden Dome. It is too early to look in that direction, but, as the man on the radio says, stay tuned.

Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense and special correspondent at Asia Times. This article was first published on his newsletter Weapons and Strategy and is republished with permission.